The term Free World is a politically-charged term that was used during the Cold War to refer to the Western Bloc. Even more broadly, it was used to refer to all non-communist countries. It has traditionally primarily been used to refer to the countries allied and aligned with the United States and those affiliated with international organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.
Video Free World
Origins
During World War II, the Allied powers viewed themselves as opposing the oppression and fascism of the Axis powers, thus making them "free". Following the end of World War II, the Cold War conception of the "Free World" included only anti-communist states as being "free", particularly capitalist states which were said to have free speech, a free press, freedom of assembly and freedom of association.
In World War II, the term free world was used to refer to the nations fighting against the Axis Powers. During World War II the term free countries was used to identify the western allies. During the Cold War, the term referred to the allies of the United States. In both cases, the term was used for propaganda purposes.
During the Cold War, many neutral countries, namely those in what is considered the Third World, or those having no formal alliance with either the United States or the Soviet Union, viewed the claim of "Free World" leadership by the United States as grandiose and illegitimate. The phrase has also been used in an ironically negative manner, usually in an anti-US context, by those who do not approve of either United States foreign policy or despise the United States as a whole.
One of the earliest uses of the term Free World as a politically significant term occurs in Frank Capra's World War II propaganda film series Why We Fight. In Prelude to War, the first film of that series, the "free world" is portrayed as a white planet, directly contrasted with the black planet called the "slave world". The film depicts the free world as the Western Hemisphere, led by the United States and Western Europe, and the slave world as the Eastern Hemisphere, dominated by Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire.
Maps Free World
21st century usage
"Free World" had its origins in the Cold War, the phrase is still occasionally used after the end of the Cold War and during the Global War on Terrorism. Samuel P. Huntington says the term has been replaced by the concept of the international community, which, he argues, "has become the euphemistic collective noun (replacing "the Free World") to give global legitimacy to actions reflecting the interests of the United States and other Western powers."
Leadership of the Free World
United States
The "Leader of the Free World" is a colloquialism, first used during the Cold War, to describe either the United States or, more commonly, the President of the United States. The term when used in this context suggests that the United States is the principal democratic superpower, and the US President is by extension the leader of the world's democratic states, i.e. the "Free World".
The phrase has its origin in the 1940s during the Second World War, especially through the anti-fascist Free World magazine and the US propaganda film series Why We Fight. At this time, the term was criticized for including the Soviet Union (USSR), which critics saw as a totalitarian dictatorship. However, the term became more widely used against the USSR and its allies during the 1950s in the Cold War era, when the US depicted a foreign policy based on a struggle between "a democratic alliance and a communist realm set on world domination", according to The Atlantic. The term here was criticised again for including right-wing dictatorships such as Francoist Spain, and Nikita Khrushchev said in the 21st Congress of the Soviet Communist Party that "the so-called free world constitutes the kingdom of the dollar".
Although in decline after the mid-1970s, the term was heavily referenced in US foreign policy up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, and has since fallen out of use, in part due to its usage in rhetoric critical of US policy.
Terms implying a leadership role in the "free world" later came to be used for other persons, places, or nations.
European Union
In 2010, upon an address to the plenary chamber of the European Parliament, US Vice President Joe Biden, stated that Brussels had a "legitimate claim" to the title of "capital of the free world", normally a title reserved for Washington. He added that Brussels is a "great city which boasts 1,000 years of history and serves as capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO."
Germany
When Time declared the German Chancellor Angela Merkel Time Person of the Year for 2015, they referred to her as "Europe's most powerful leader", and the cover bore the title "Chancellor of the Free World". Following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in November 2016, The New York Times called Merkel "the Liberal West's Last Defender", and some called her "the next leader of the free world". Merkel herself rejected the idea as absurd. Increasingly, however, the term "leader of the free world" was used in connection with Angela Merkel by commentators in the Anglo-Saxon media. An article by James Rubin in Politico about a White House meeting between Merkel and Trump was, ironically titled "The Leader of the Free World Meets Donald Trump".
German commentators agreed with Merkel's assessment, and Friedrich Merz, a leading CDU politician said that a German chancellor could never be "leader of the free world". In April 2017, columnist James Kirchick stressed the importance of the German elections (on which "the future of the free world" depended) since America had "abdicated its traditional role as leader of the free world by electing Trump, the United Kingdom was turning inward after the referendum decision to leave the European Union and France was also traditionally unilateralist and now had an inexperienced president"; he called Merkel "something less than leader of the free world ... but something greater than the leader of just another random country". References to America's abdication of its role as leader of the free world continued or increased after Donald Trump questioned the unconditional defence of NATO partners and the Paris climate accord.
Other commentators - in the United States and Europe - rejected the appellation "Leader of the Free World": some argued that there is no single leader of the free world; others queried whether Merkel remained the "leader of the free world" and the champion of liberal values. Questioned about Merkel's standing following her performance in the German elections in September 2017, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opined that Merkel was "the most important leader in the free world". Particularly after Merkel's party suffered losses in the 2017 election and there were delays in forming a government, the claim that Merkel is the true leader of the free world was referred to as a "joke", described as a media phenomenon, and otherwise called into question.
See also
- New world order (politics)
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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