| | Solidarity is an awareness of a common humanity and global citizenship and the voluntary acceptance of the responsibilities that go with it. It is the conscious commitment to redress inequalities both within and between countries. It is based on recognition that in an interdependent world, poverty or oppression anywhere is a threat to prosperity and stability everywhere. The second half of the 20th century witnessed the most sustained upsurge in the process of national liberation and independence in the developing or 'Third' world. This upsurge reached a climax in the attainment of national liberation in such diverse countries as Vietnam in 1975, the Lusophone states also in the 1970s, in Africa, and in Zimbabwe in 1980. The transition to independence and democracy in Namibia and South Africa in the 1990s represented a fitting climax of this liberation and de-colonisation process. The last quarter of the century was similarly momentous in that it witnessed the flowering of the international solidarity movement. The struggles against United States imperialism in Vietnam and elsewhere in the world, and against apartheid in Southern Africa and Portuguese fascism took on a special resonance during this period. |
