The historian’s opinion. Will the Global South Unite?

Why the online enthusiasm for an “Islamic NATO” in the Middle East is largely premature?

Commentators (first of all, one would like to address representatives of the Global South, but not only them), a moment please! Moderate your enthusiasm and simply think, Look a little further. Imagine the alternative: do you want the next new alliances in the world to be created on the basis of religion as well? Or rather, the question may be put this way: do you understand that many will be eager to pit one against the other and, in the process, to pursue the self-interested goal of ensuring their own security at others’ expense? Are you really prepared for that?

Look at the Middle East; a Shi’a bloc has already practically taken shape, where only a formal name is missing. In the same vein, the world may witness the emergence of international military organizations of radical Catholics and/or Protestants (plenty will be willing, as EU migration policy has driven many to the edge), an international union of radicals based on some marginal militant current in Buddhism mixed with martial arts, and international unions of pagans of every kind will follow. How is that for a thought?

And then what? In effect, every representative of the Global South adding to the enthusiasm for the “Islamic pact” is moving precisely in that direction, pulling after him those who until recently still retained a more or less rational view of life, where religion remains at home, within the family circle, or in the church/mosque/holy place, but not at the table of international negotiations and military agreements. What one believes in is a deeply personal matter; to raise it on the banners of international politics and, what’s more, of war has been fraught in every age. Does the Global South want to return to the era of religious wars? Religions can unite people inside a family or a........

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