NAM: Moral Conscience of the World?

"We must continue to be the conscience and the champion of the many voices of the weak and powerless in defiance of the dominant hegemony of the strong and powerful"--South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred NZO, at a preliminary meeting of officials of the 12th Non Aligned Movement Summit now taking place in Durban.Mr. Nzo has also called upon the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) to hold ' the moral edge of leadership' as against the affluent nations.

To students of NAM this is no startling exhortation but a repetition of what Non Aligned leaders have been saying for the 37 years since the movement commenced. NAM, can claim to be' the conscience and champion of the oppressed' the 'voice of the poor of the world' etc. but only to a certain extent. It certainly has been the sounding board of the poor nations to some degree, when confronting affluent western nations but this universal moral conscience should also be directed against the bloody conflicts that have been raging in the Non Aligned family of nations. NAM cannot be ostrich like burying its head in the sands.

The current conflict in the Congo which threatens to engulf neighbouring countries and the horrid massacres that have taken place in Rwanda which also destabilised its neighbours are the most recent examples which have resulted in the moral conscience of the west ,against whom the Non Aligned take high moral ground, being stirred. For the past 37 years Non Aligned nations have been wracked by internal conflicts and conflicts among themselves to a much greater extent than those countries against whom they want to sit on judgement. Rwanda, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq , Sri Lanka, and last but not least the Indo- Pakistan conflict are the many glaring examples which blunt that edge of the claim of moral superiority..

The Non Aligned bash the former colonial powers quite rightly for the present state of affairs. The manner in which the former colonial powers carved out many nation states from their vast colonial empires, undoubtedly is one of the foremost reasons for these conflicts. But over 50 years have elapsed since these nations took charge of the destinies and despite claims of being morally superior to the west, they have been unable to get over their primitive prejudices and fears of each other.

NAM came into being, as the name itself indicates, to be independent of the two power blocs that dominated the world and charter a course in international relations for themselves. Whether the Non Aligned followed genuine non alignment, or tilted non alignment is futile to debate after the end of the Cold War which came about in 1989. But what progress has NAM made during the decade after the Cold war ended?Is there a new agenda ?And are they any better off vis-a- vis the western powers ?

The end of the Cold War resulted in most of these nations being unable to play one superpower against the other to their advantage and today, whether they like it or not, have to accept the terms of the sole superpower. Their economic and political independence have been markedly reduced, sovereignty drastically limited and their ideological baggage thrown overboard. International lending institutions like the IMF and World Bank call the tune and every nation except Cuba has adopted the market economy. The IMF formula of an Open Economy, eliminating trade barriers, privatising state enterprises, no subsidies, reduced budget deficits etc. have been rigidly followed. Whether it will be to the benefit or the detriment of these nations only time will tell. The plight of economic Tigers of the movement-- Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia who followed the IMF way, long before when the rest of NAM were swearing by the historic inevitability prophesied by the Marxist prophets--has left many wondering whether the prescription will work.

It is clear that NAM is not going to produce an agenda at Durban which would be any different to the 11 Summit meetings held before it .It will be the same NAM record being played all over again. It will be so until NAM leaders change their ways of thinking and rise above racial, tribal, religious and ethnic differences and help themselves.At Durban there will be one man who has risen above all that: Nelson Mandela. But the rest, alas, are no Mandelas.