Commemorating the 39th anniversary of the foundation of Third World Solidarity.
Speech to the Commemoration Dinner, London .
25 April 2026.
Thank you for asking me to say a few words this evening.
Welcome to LPDR diplomats.
This is the 39th annual dinner of Third World Solidarity, demonstrating that the organisation definitely has a certain resilience and staying power.
On April 15, 1986, 40 years ago this month, US warplanes took off from bases in Britain to bomb Libya. Their intention was to murder the country’s leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. They succeeded – if that’s the appropriate word for such a heinous crime – in killing his adopted baby daughter.
I hardly need to point out the contemporary resonance of this. When we have a Prime Minister – a man who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it stood up and slapped him in the face – falsely claiming to have kept us out of the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran whilst simultaneously boasting that RAF planes are in the skies and in action, and, just as 40 years ago, US planes take off from bases here to inflict murder and mayhem far away.
It was in the context of those events 40 years ago that Third World Solidarity took shape in its present form. And it is events today, 40 years later, that demonstrate just how much it is still needed.
Forty years ago, the term Third World was in common usage. It reflected a world that had started to take shape with the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955, and which then led to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, in Belgrade, capital of socialist Yugoslavia.
It represented a rejection of the idea of a bipolar division between two superpowers and an affirmation that other countries and peoples should not be forced into this binary choice.
It was not, as some now imply, placing the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, of the Caribbean and the South Pacific, in a position of third ranking importance or status.
Quite the contrary. It was a positive affirmation that another force existed on the world stage. A self-confident rising force of the newly emerging countries and peoples, ancient civilisations, awakening from centuries of colonial oppression and imperialist exploitation and domination, and confidently engaging in the building of a new life and a new society.
Times change of course. And so too do language and terminology. Today the term Global South is in far more common usage than Third World. Perhaps in 10 years’ time it might be something else again.
So, perhaps it’s inevitable that there are occasional suggestions that we change our name. So far, that’s not a road we propose to go down. If I can put it like this, we have a recognized brand. More importantly, we are clear in what we stand for.
In the years following our founding members being brought together by the bombing of Libya, a key priority for us became campaigning against the misuse of sanctions to try to bring anti-imperialist independent countries to their knees. Work that was led by another of our founding members, Dr. Hugh Goodacre.
And this, of course, inevitably became campaigning against war.
When we first joined together, we didn’t anticipate that the Soviet Union and the socialist countries in eastern Europe would collapse in a few years.
At the time, political leaders in the West promised that an end to the bipolar division of the world would produce a peace dividend.
How ironic that sounds today. Such boasts lie buried in mass graves alongside the bodies of millions of the innocent. In Iraq and Afghanistan. In the former Yugoslavia and Somalia. In Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Ukraine and elsewhere.
All killed in wars instigated, waged and fuelled by the power that declared themselves the victors of the Cold War.
To stand against war is, of course, to stand for peace. And it is in that spirit that Third World Solidarity has consistently worked to bring people together. To foster dialogue and exchanges in a spirit and atmosphere of mutual respect and tolerance.
This approach accords with important trends in the world.
The biggest change in the international situation in the 40 years since we came together is not the war-mongering bellicosity of a handful of western powers. They have amply demonstrated their propensity for such behaviour for a little over the last 500 years.
Rather, the fundamental changes in the world are inter-related.
We have the rise of China as a great power in the historically unique way of not waging wars of aggression, not exploiting others, and not carrying out coups, imposing structural adjustment programs, or fomenting regime change.
And alongside this we see the emergence and growth of what we might describe as a constellation of mid-ranking powers, mostly in the Global South, but also to an extent elsewhere. Even Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had to reflect on this in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.
Viewed in the great sweep of history, therefore, the unipolar moment, if it ever actually existed, was but a momentary interlude in the long and inexorable march to a truly multipolar future and a community of shared future for humanity.
No resurgence of nineteenth century gangster imperialism, with twenty-first century technology, no illegal wars of aggression – deemed to be the supreme international crime at the Nuremburg trials that followed the defeat of Nazi Germany, no kidnapping or murder of heads of state, no attempts to suffocate and starve an entire population whether in Gaza or Cuba, for all the misery and barbarity all this inflicts, can disguise the facts that these all represent the desperate lashing out of a mortally wounded beast.
One such emerging middle power is, of course, Pakistan. A country that plays its own special role in international affairs. A country that is dear to many people present this evening, as a birthplace, through family ties and in other ways.
Like every country, Pakistan has its problems. Political, economic and social. Its politics can at times be brutal and tragic.
But on the world stage, despite living, shall we say, in a difficult neighbourhood, it plays its unique role.
It was from Islamabad that in 1971 Henry Kissinger flew in secret to Beijing, having feigned illness and, at least according to some reports, disguising himself as a woman.
Today, literally today, working in close coordination with China, and with other regional, mid-level, Muslim majority powers, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkiye, Pakistan is the one effective interlocutor between Iran and the United States, in which capacity it has worked, and is working, tirelessly to restore peace and to end the illegal, unprovoked US-Israeli war of aggression.
This is something that all people of Pakistani heritage – wherever in the world they might be and whatever their political point of view – should take pride in.
And there is something else to take pride in this week. Thanks to Pakistan’s friendship with China, on Wednesday it was announced that two Pakistani candidates have been selected for training as the first foreign astronauts to participate in China’s space program. Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud will leave for China soon and later this year one of them will be chosen to participate in a space mission as a payload specialist, becoming the first foreign astronaut onboard the Tiangong space station.
It is often said that China-Pakistan friendship is higher than the Himalayas. Well, now it is literally true. And just as the smiling face and engaging personality of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, won hearts around the world, I’m sure that Pakistan’s astronauts, or taikonauts as they are termed in China, will win hearts not just in Pakistan, but throughout the Ummah and beyond.
I want to close my remarks with a few thank yous.
To Mushtaq: For everything he does every day, and has done for many years, to advance the work of Third World Solidarity, and to put its ideals into practice.
To the members of Mushtaq’s family for allowing and enabling him to do so. A supportive family is something that is irreplaceable.
To the management and all the staff of the Royal Nawaab, who are always so accommodating, kind and efficient, and who look after us so well.
To every one of you present this evening – for your support, help and friendship, and for everything you do in so many and diverse ways to make your contribution to that better world that we all aspire to.
Thank you and enjoy the rest of the evening.
