From the legacy of odious debt to climate reparations and tricontinental unity, a new era of resistance and people-led development rooted in the unfinished project of decolonisation
As the world commemorated the 70th anniversary of the landmark Bandung Conference, Colombo became the stage for a vital reckoning with history and a reimagining of futures for the Global South. Held under the theme “70 Years After Bandung: Challenges and Struggles on the Road to Self-Determination and South–South Solidarity,” this international gathering convened scholars, activists, and policymakers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America to reflect on Bandung’s enduring spirit and its radical relevance amid today’s escalating global crises.
Dr. Aziz Salmone Fall
Among the most compelling voices present was Dr. Aziz Salmone Fall, a distinguished Pan-Africanist political scientist and a steadfast internationalist. As Coordinator of the global Justice for Thomas Sankara campaign and President of the Internationalist RFA (Forum for African Resistance), Aziz’s decades-long commitment to liberation, decolonisation, and anti-imperialist solidarity has made him a central figure in rearticulating resistance from the South. He is also a founding member of the GRILA Centre (Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa) and has taught political science, anthropology, and development studies at McGill University in Canada.
In this interview with the Sunday Observer, Fall offered powerful reflections on the current multi-polar world order, the persistent legacies of colonialism and debt, the need for a renewed tri-continental solidarity, and the urgent call to revive the anti-imperialist spirit that animated Bandung in 1955. His insights cut across historical memory and political urgency, proposing a bold vision for an emancipated Global South in the 21st century.
Q: How do you interpret the current shift towards multipolarity, with the waning of Western hegemony and the rise of economic blocs in the Global South? Does this signal a new Cold War dynamic, and how should the Global South strategically respond?
A: The world system has always been polarised, mainly between its core and periphery. Since the fall of apartheid and the Berlin Wall, there has been a semblance of unipolarity imposed by the pre-eminence of the Western Bloc dominated by the Triad under the leadership of the United States, and a headlong rush into neo-liberalism. We have witnessed a dispersal of national itineraries, the economic disengagement of States, and the alignment of economies with globalisation. Globalisation has enabled the more dynamic economies of the global South to participate differently in the international division of labour.
The response of the countries at the centre of the world has been to focus on geopolitics at a time when they are losing their ascendancy in the world economy. However, there is a big difference between ‘multi-polar’, which is characterised by juxtaposition or coexistence, and ‘pluri-polar’, which is characterised by pro-activity where the different components interact and can both compete and complement each other to achieve a common goal.
We favour pluri-polarity, with a preferential emphasis on the global Southern tri-continent. All the people and nations that have suffered colonisation and continue to suffer its after-effects must learn to work together to emerge from their condition – whether through South-South cooperation at all levels, bilateral, multilateral, or simply as citizens.
Q: BRICS has expanded and is often viewed as an alternative pole of power. But is BRICS truly representative of Global South interests, or is it becoming another elite club?
A: The advent and progress of the BRICS is likely to revolutionise South-South Cooperation as well as our living conditions and perhaps revise the architecture of international regulation, if the South is united and its peoples ensure that the elites of the countries leading this grouping do not reinvigorate capitalism. The Non-Aligned Movement led to the advent of the Group of 77 in a truncated system of multilateralism and disappointing international cooperation, failing to honour its commitment to 0.7 percent ODA under the leadership of the OECD and the triad (United States, Europe, Japan).
The latter responded to pressure from the South with the G3, the G5, the G7, the G8 and, by co-opting a few so-called emerging countries, the G20. The G20 is attempting to regulate the international order without having the authority to do so. The advent of the BRICS should not reinvigorate imperialism, and even less should it constitute a sub-imperialism through the selfish interests of its members and its expansion to other countries.
Q: What structures or mechanisms are necessary for a genuine Global South alliance to function beyond trade, to include solidarity, people-to-people diplomacy, and justice?
A: The 22nd session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation convened from May 27-30, 2025 to review progress made in implementing the Buenos Aires Plan. It is mainly a slow process. As I have said, the G20 is attempting to regulate the international order without having the authority to do so. Many civil societies are protesting. It is up to us, at this exceptional moment in history when imperialism is being redeployed, to contribute to completing their efforts – building a collective internationalist network of resistance to imperialism, starting by strengthening its axis in the most promising parts of its periphery.
This is not a time for nostalgia and mere commemoration, but for understanding that the non-aligned must now have the courage to align themselves against imperialism and reinvent a trans-internationalism of peoples.
If the latter accepts the leadership of the industrial champions of the Global South, it rejects their sub-imperialist temptations and reaches out to the peoples of the Core countries to fight barbarism.
I propose trans-internationalism starting from the Global South first, so that once it has crystallised, and without sub-imperialism, it can irradiate the peoples of the North, whose interests are not so opposed to ours, confronted as they are with the rigours of their uniformising economic, cultural, educational and political standards and systems. Universality will only exist when other homeomorphic and endogenous equivalents have irrigated it, and when hegemony fades through fertile and reciprocal acculturation.
Q: You’ve spoken often of economic neocolonialism. How would you assess the current debt crisis in Africa and the Global South, particularly in light of the IMF and World Bank policies?
A: Over these past few decades, national sovereign spaces have been considerably destabilsed by arbitrary, unjust practices and the authority of big financial institutions, whether public or private. These policies have hampered States and the development of their people, even if they have encouraged the dynamism of certain private sectors. Their tragic consequences include increased poverty and environmental degradation. They have fuelled division and war, and their war mongers are even contemplating a global world war, or at least big regional wars.
This is the choice implemented by the senile troika to reproduce their world order that is globally rejected by the wide majority of the world population. The negative socio-political and ecological consequences of these measures will take decades to stamp out in our countries. These conditionalities and the regulatory mechanisms that exist globally, whether multilateral or otherwise, to protect the commons, have become archaic or inoperable.
Debt is, therefore, the continuation of blackmail and a trap that perpetuates our dependence, favours one mode of development, and prevents us from considering other possible horizons.
Q: Can you comment on the role of odious debt in maintaining colonial economic structures in Africa, and what ethical frameworks should guide debt cancellation or restructuring?
A: As our comrades at the CADTM have said, for a debt to be considered odious in the sense of its creator, Alexander Sack, it must meet these two conditions:
1) It must have been contracted against the interests of the Nation, or against the interests of the People, or against the interests of the State.
2) The creditors cannot show that they could not have known that the debt had been contracted against the interests of the Nation.
Our countries have often gone into debt under these conditions, and these amounts must be recognised as null and void and cancelled. We add to this that reparations for the exploitation of slavery and colonisation and their afflictions must also be calculated. At this point, you can see that in addition to the cancellation, there are impressive sums that could help development. Of course, imperialism refuses all this, and our countries should unite more in facing up to and obtaining these reparations together.
Q: What lessons can the broader Global South, including nations like Sri Lanka, learn from Africa’s resistance movements and its experience with colonialism, liberation, and now debt?
A: I believe that as victims, we both need to learn with humility from our resilience and our failures and victories against capitalist financialisation. It is important to build on the historical struggles that have been fought and to more boldly work with others to translate the genuine credentials of our people. More broadly, a global anti-imperialist front on the debt issue, with Latin America too. This new horizon involves a convergence of the diversity of efforts that are now under way against a global financial war and to save the common good of humanity, which can serve as our ground for unity.
Within this framework, ‘where the market has its place, but not all the place, the economy and finance must be put at the service of a project for society and not be subjected unilaterally to the demands of an uncontrolled deployment of the initiatives of dominant capital which favours the particular interests of a tiny minority’. So we need to build an anti-comprador coalition and the development of a concerted leadership that supports the content of a Universal Declaration for the Common Good of Humanity. The development of a tri-continental internationalist political platform of convergence against the debt trap is still possible.
A first goal should be to feed mankind and ensure basic needs, not to make sure that accumulation, or market profit, have to be number one. It is incredible to have a huge quantity of food waste in an era of abundance and plenty, where so many suffer from hunger:
Q: You’ve spoken about “sovereign development.” What would that look like for Africa today, and how can it serve as a model for others in the Global South?
A: Development thus appears as a matrix of Eurocentrism, as a Western belief, says Rist, the very symbol of modernity and coloniality, a paradoxical instrument of continuity and rupture. It is the imperative that transcends all existing traditions, reshaping the world to its requirements. Development ignores physical barriers and borders, and needs a framework in which to flourish.
We, the people who were not founded based on accumulation, profit, and the ownership of nature and people, and who have instead been the victims, should articulate a different conception of development. I call it dynamic balance. It does not master nature, but places human beings in symbiosis with it. It advocates equality between men and women and between human beings who are united and concerned about sustainable production and consumption.
Some countries, notably those of the ESA in the Sahel, have undertaken to cut their ties with the neo-colonial system that has fostered jihadist cells and comprador forces there, and are trying to nationalise their resources and practices. The initiative comes from military juntas, which find themselves at odds with regional regulatory bodies that are now obsolete. They need to become more democratic and avoid the populist temptation. Elsewhere, people are fighting against the perpetuation of neo-colonial practices. In Southern Africa, the persistence of economic apartheid is holding back social progress.
In Central Africa, the rapacity of junior multinationals and neighbouring ethical interests is provoking wars of occupation and illegal extraction. The African Union itself suffers from institutional problems and a lack of a continental development project, although the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) and Agenda 2063 fall short of our requirements. In short, I’m not sure we’re ahead of the game, but the struggle towards a free federal Africa continues.
Q: The Bandung Conference was a turning point in Global South solidarity. In today’s context of global crises and multi-polar tensions, how can the spirit of Bandung be revived meaningfully?
A: This year marks the 70th anniversary of Bandung, the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and the Panafrica in Manchester Conference, but also the centenary of Lumumba, Fanon, and Malcolm X. Humanity is still exposed to the perils they fought against, and it is important to highlight the scale of the geopolitical obstacles and how we can respond.
November 29 is the International day of solidarity with Palestine, obviously with the genocide of its people we need several days and effort for the international community to focus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine remains unresolved and that the Palestinian people have yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly, namely, the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property, from which they have been displaced.
Everywhere, the struggle to preserve equality or to increase inequality continues. The balance of power is political and, depending on the worldview and the period, gives rise to increasingly sophisticated superstructures to resolve issues of wealth, power, and meaning. The resulting institutions can be immutable for a long time, or they can be brutally overturned, creating new relationships of power and knowledge.
It is up to us, in this exceptional historic moment of redeployment of imperialism in the 21st century, to help complete the efforts of so many people who have fought for our freedoms and our development. The leaders and forces of resistance in these countries were fighting for decolonisation and against the persistence of neo-colonial rule. Despite their efforts and the fact that it was impossible to remain neutral in the East-West conflict, their position was quite clear in the face of imperialism. Of course, both the East and the West tried, with relative success, to co-opt the participating countries. But virtually all the countries of the South have had difficulty transcending the asymmetry imposed by global polarisation and have remained on the periphery of the world system, with China escaping to a lesser extent.
They are what is known as the periphery, the Global South, with exceptions such as the former Yugoslavia, which has relived balkanisation and remains in thrall to Western Europe. While the countries of the Global South were non-aligned in the face of bipolarisation, they were, nonetheless, for a lot of them, aligned against imperialism or victims of it. This is the soul of this movement, and it must reinvent an anti-imperialist trans-internationalism for the 21st century with bold connections between grassroots struggles.
Q: Is non-alignment still a viable or effective strategy today, or must we move towards a more active form of South-South cooperation and resistance?
A: The global South is inexorably becoming aware of its anti-systemic potential. A new era may start. Bandung II, the new era of the Aligned Movement against imperialism, will be a second decisive step towards affirming democratic and popular sovereignty.
Here, it will be important to firmly complete the gains of the preceding era and affirm an alignment with Nation-States, popular movements, social groups, political parties, associations, individuals, on the basis of internationalism in this specific condition that marks this transnational era.
Bandung II will provide a roadmap for a societal project in a polycentric world where popular forces of the South fed up with the North-South monologue are proposing to reorient globalisation towards a development that is truly about balance, social justice, protecting Mother Earth, well-being, proper conduct, and attitude.
It is important to revive the response and re-engage the Southern front by putting the historic pendulum in the radical sense towards the demands of the Tri-continental and working on the advent of the 5th International, or more broadly, a global anti-imperialist front.
Q: Sri Lanka’s economic collapse exposed the fragility of neoliberal dependency. What can Sri Lanka learn from African struggles for economic self-determination? How should countries such as Sri Lanka position themselves strategically in the Global South to avoid repeating cycles of crisis?
A: I don’t think we have anything to teach Asian countries or Sri Lanka. On the contrary, we should learn from them. Sri Lanka would also benefit from learning from Asian countries that have refused the yoke of the Bretton Woods institutions and whose resilience and initiative are remarkable. We must not have any complexes and use our youth and its enthusiasm to have the audacity to implement the promises that got this Government elected. Sri Lanka can do it, and we will support it.
Q: Climate justice is increasingly commodified in global policy arenas. How can the Global South reclaim climate narratives to center justice, responsibility, and reparations? How do you see the connection between ecological destruction and the capitalist extractive model in Africa and the Global South? What alternatives do you envision?
A: We have not been responsible for the way we produce and consume, but rather we have been its victims, even if we have also contributed to the Anthropocene; we are the victims of the Capitalocene. From now on, we need to escape the logic of technological domination and financial profit at all costs.
We need to rediscover a sense of balance, rediscover the meaning of life, promote biodiversity, promote responsible farming initiatives, encourage low-tech and community utopias, and in all that give more power to women. Building a world based on the recognition of the non-market status of nature, the planet’s resources, and agricultural land.
Q: You emphasize people-centered development and struggle. In an age of top-down global governance, how can grassroots movements reclaim political space?
A: As we said in Bamako, the world we want sees socialisation as the main product of unbridled democratisation. Within this framework, where the market has its place, but not all the place, the economy and finance must be put at the service of a project for society and not be subjected unilaterally to the demands of an uncontrolled deployment of the initiatives of dominant capital which favours the particular interests of a tiny minority.
With this in mind, the democratic re-politicisation of our masses and the struggle of our peoples for equality and the right to development are the only viable options.
Q: What role should popular education and decolonised knowledge play in empowering resistance movements today?
A: As Paolo Freire showed, we need to revolutionse education in line with the aspirations and needs of our masses. Culture is the vehicle for the change of praxis. The Global South must take back the epistemic initiative and restore the sense to participate in the uninhibited construction and non-Eurocentric reconstitution of knowledge.
We need to deconstruct the Eurocentrism embedded in our cognitive frames that are deeply enmeshed in our thoughts and practices of knowledge. The prejudices about race and racial myths, and alleged backwardness and incompatibility with civilisation, persist in a coloniality that even today demands a change in our paradigms and power relations. A progressive education will fix that.
Q: If we are to imagine a truly emancipated Global South in 2050, what would that look like politically, economically, and ecologically?
A: A project against the modernisation of pauperisation and technocratic depoliticisation, a free, egalitarian, democratic, feminist and solidarity-based project for the construction of a responsible universalist order without oppression for humans and nature alike. This must be done in a respectful, democratic, and united way, in the diversity of our obligations, with the prospect of rebuilding a world labour front conscious of the issue of the commons, the last non-commodified public spaces, and the importance of adopting a Universal Declaration for the common good of humanity.
The challenge of an anti-systemic response based on the spirit of Bandung should consider the feminist, ecological, and progressive challenge at the heart of any analysis aimed at democratically re-politicising peoples with a view to an upsurge in the defence of peace, of the commons, and an alternative to capitalism. It presupposes a critique of development as a Eurocentric belief and a non-culturalist emphasis on the validation of other functional epistemes to build a universalism of peoples.
