As we closed our timely conversation at the World Village Festival 2026 — this year themed ‘Freedom’ — Walden Bello helped us see that the collapse of the neoliberal order is a crisis of systemic proportions. The issues covered included the ruptured world order under Trump 2.0, multilateralism and multipolarity, deglobalization, geopolitics from the US-Israel war on Iran and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the rise of China as a counter-hegemon, and visions for a positive role for the Global South and Middle Powers in Europe. These themes are highly relevant to the immediately preceding keynote talk by Teivo Teivainen on “Liberalism, Imperialism, and Freedom.”
As a Global South scholar living and working in Finland, I believe we must be radically honest about what the old ‘liberal freedom’ actually was: an individualistic, capitalist freedom built on Eurocentric arrogance, systemic racism, and a violent extractivism that maintains colonial hierarchies. Today, Trumpism offers an even more savage alternative: wars of conquest, hyper-masculine sexism, and a toxic, nationalist insularity.
And crucially, we must reject the trap of inter-imperialist rivalry altogether. The struggle for freedom means standing against all forms of imperialism — whether it is the aggressive unilateralism of the United States, the rising hegemonic ambitions of China, the armed imperial nostalgia of Europe, or the revanchist expansionism of Russia. The Global South, our planet’s natural resources, and the future of humanity cannot simply be a chessboard for competing empires.
True liberation is a collective emancipation, not a private possession. You cannot be truly free if your security relies on the oppression of your neighbors, or if your lifestyle depends on the killing of fellow human beings and the plundering of ecosystems across the globe.
Because the core truth remains: my freedom as an individual is an illusion if it relies on your subjugation. The freedom of each is the condition for the freedom of all.
Thank you, Walden Bello, for helping us imagine that shared horizon. Indeed, freedom is not free.
As his former student, I attributed to him what I remember — or have since made memorable — as his line:
“Empires never last, but resistance and solidarity are forever!”
Author’s Note: This reflection is a written reconstruction and elaboration of remarks made in two parts during the session “The World After Neoliberalism: An Interview with Walden Bello,” co-produced by the Finnish-Philippine Society and the Finnish Society for Development Research, in partnership with Fingo – Finnish Development NGOs, at the Speaker’s Stage of Bio Rex, World Village Festival (Maailma kylässä), Helsinki, 17 May 2026. The closing statement — from “True liberation is a collective emancipation…” to the final line — draws from remarks spoken on stage. The broader reflections on inter-imperialist rivalry and the refusal of false choices between liberal globalization and nationalist protectionism draw from responses to audience questions as the conversation continued in the lobby. Both are presented here as a single, integrated reflection.