In a conversation with a couple of friends last week, someone mentioned something of a 3rd world country and I immediately took offence. I did not take offence at the friend but at the classification of some countries as 1st worlds while others as 3rd. I started a new conversation about what makes some countries categorize themselves as 1st worlds and categorize the rest as 3rd worlds and what are the criteria for these categorizations. It was then that my education on what I now describe as a "caste" system, not un-similar to the globally condemned caste system of ancient India, begun.
I have used that caste system in the past to describe countries also, referring to 1st world countries as the advanced, more civilized, developed and mostly politically stable countries while the 3rd world fell under the developing countries of Africa and Asia without ever really knowing the definitions of these classes but spoke in context, the way I grew to understand them. It was during this conversation with friends that they educated me on the true meaning of the classification and if I thought it should be nullified before, now I think it Neanderthal and obsolete.
Using my previous understanding of the world caste system, all those things that made countries be classified as 3rd worlds had been overcome and some of them have even advanced beyond the so-called 1st world countries but were still being referred to as 3rd. An example is South Africa, the country has become an African format of what the world describes as a thriving nation. Financially viable, politically stable, technologically advanced and generally secure enough to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010, but it is still referred to as a 3rd world. How unfair is that. Malaysia once housed the tallest building in the world and is a major economic and thriving force of the Asia Pacific region, 3rd world and the list goes on.
Four Worlds
After World War II the world split into two large geopolitical blocs and spheres of influence with contrary views on government and the politically correct society:
1 - The bloc of democratic-industrial countries within the American influence sphere, the "First World".
2 - The Eastern bloc of the communist-socialist states, the "Second World".
3 - The remaining three-quarters of the world's population, states not aligned with either bloc were regarded as the "Third World."
4 - The term "Fourth World", coined in the early 1970s by Shuswap Chief George Manuel, refers to widely unknown nations (cultural entities) of indigenous peoples, "First Nations" living within or across national state boundaries. (www.nationsonline.org)
So here is the argument. Majority of the world is practicing democracy of some sort these days, capitalism is the order of the day (even though it is continuously being questioned after the 2008 economic meltdown), the technological advancements that put some countries ahead in the past have been caught up and in some cases surpassed and most of the world is in debt to China, why are we still referring to some countries as 1st, and 3rd worlds? Is it the rate of poverty in some? Poverty exists in vast numbers in a lot of "1st worlds". Is it crime? Modernized "1st world" cities have the highest crime rates. Is it the gross domestic product? Please we all know that the Middle East and China are running that market. So why? Why is my birth country still a 3rd world and Iceland and Greece still 1st?
It is the caste system. We have created and accepted a sort of racism among states and we implement it upon ourselves giving some countries superiority over others. In the Cold War era it might have been valid but now it should be void. It is an obsolete classification system and there should be no classification system at all in the first place. That is the way I see it anyway.
Please leave comments on your thoughts.
Related Articles: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/10-signs-us-is-becoming-third-world.html
