We should listen to the Global South’s outcry on the Gaza war
There is a rising chorus of voices, mostly from the Global South, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the urgent provision of aid to a population that is facing imminent famine. Is anybody listening? Singapore’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan is the latest to intervene, telling Israel that it had “gone too far" in its war against Hamas in Gaza. “I have communicated that both to the prime minister, to the foreign minister, and to the other Israelis whom we have met," he said last week on Wednesday.
The tiny island state has been grappling domestically about the sensitivities of dealing with this issue—just under a fifth of the population is Muslim. Like other leaders, Balakrishnan condemned the horrific events of 7 October, when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostage. Since then, Israel’s military has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says.
An urgent solution is necessary, although there seems to be little hope of one anytime soon, despite ongoing talks in Qatar aimed at freeing the hostages and pausing fighting for several weeks. A famine will escalate the scale of death exponentially. Which is why the Global South—a collection of post-colonial and developing countries that by some estimates represent 88% of the world’s population—has taken on the cause of Gaza so passionately: It feels like no one is listening.
Australia and Southeast Asian nations have also called for a lasting ceasefire, and the need to urgently upscale aid deliveries. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has advocated the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state before the United Nations. There are
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