That the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip may represent the beginning of the end of Western neocolonialism over the countries of the so-called "global south" is what several Arab sources — and others — published in recent days have argued, more or less explicitly.

These are days in which the Palestinian death toll has reached 25,000 (40 per cent of whom are children) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his refusal to recognise a Palestinian state — that is, to pursue a two-state solution even in exchange for the release of all hostages by the extremist organisation Hamas.

But above all, these are the days following South Africa's decision to bring the state of Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, on charges of genocide. And this fact gives rise to a series of reflections on the geopolitics of the near future.

South Africa's position: opportunism or altruism?

According to a taxonomy that is now outdated (yet still persists in certain cases), the world is divided into industrialised countries, developing (or emerging) countries, and third-world countries. This is a purely economic division, in which the wealthy impose their own worldview, made up of moral, ethical and political values (think of the expression "exporters of democracy"), on the poorer countries.

And yet it was South Africa, and not the United States or the European Union, that forced Israel to defend itself against the charge of genocide through an 84-page document in which, as well as identifying Tel Aviv as responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, it also reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, proposing the opening of corridors to allow humanitarian assistance to reach those in need, as well as the release of hostages and political prisoners. Finally, South Africa also called for a two-state solution respecting pre-1967 borders, under which the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem fall within Palestinian territories.

It escapes no one's notice that South Africa is a young democracy (an emerging economy, in current parlance) born from the ashes of a despicable, racist apartheid system, which activists of the African National Congress (ANC) led by statesman Nelson Mandela brought to an end in 1994. And this explains (in part) Pretoria's passionate support for the Palestinian cause. It is true that, as the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera explains, the now-deceased Mandela had at the time initiated a fruitful exchange with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Mandela maintained that South Africa's freedom was incomplete without the freedom of Palestine.

• The independent Egyptian website Mada Masr presents the list of evidence provided by South Africa in support of its charge.

That unequivocal position has now been taken up by the current ANC parliamentary group leader, Pemmy Majodina, who told parliament that South Africa must suspend diplomatic relations with Israel until a ceasefire has been agreed (so far rejected by the US and Europe) and Israel has committed to binding negotiations.

Some point out that South Africa's position is driven by opportunism rather than altruism, given that national elections are due in May and current president Cyril Ramaphosa has lost support among voters, particularly following a series of corruption scandals. But Ramaphosa aside, it is also true that the West has often viewed Africa as a "backward continent" without the capacity to contribute to or lead meaningful change. And this initiative could turn things on their head.

The gap between Palestinian reality and the way we in the West describe it

What played out at the court in The Hague may have amounted to just six hours of legal argument, but that was enough to focus attention on the broader need, as columnist Nesrine Malik writes in the British daily the Guardian, to "bridge the gap between Palestinian reality and the way in which the dominant political forces describe it". Anger over events in Gaza is spilling onto the streets across Europe. Yet this anger has been firmly ignored, dismissed and prohibited by Western political leaders. Public support for a ceasefire is not reflected in the positions of governments; no prominent Western politician has condemned Israeli violence: South Africa is filling this void.

In this sense, what matters is not so much the final ruling as the fact that the case was brought. Someone gathered that frustration from the streets and took it to court, and that someone is South Africa, which 30 years ago brought to an end a chapter of white, racist colonialism marked by the abhorrent practice of apartheid. And in today's conflict, colonialism returns to centre stage. First because, historically, we can say that Israel colonised Palestine, and not the other way around (on this point, see the works of modern Israeli historians, including Ilan Pappé), and then because the countries of the so-called global south are seizing the opportunity to rebel against northern dominance: it is within this framework that one should read, for example, Namibia's denunciation of Germany's support for Israel. The African country made explicit reference to the "first genocide of the twentieth century", carried out by Germany, for which the Germans "have yet to make full amends".

Power is inexorably slipping from the hands of the colonisers

Until now, the countries of the global north have self-appointed themselves as "custodians" of global morality and have become the arbiters of a foreign policy in which the weak are protected and aggressors are prosecuted: at least, this is what we were sold "on paper" when, for example, the United States invaded first Afghanistan and then Iraq in pursuit of terrorists. But this time the north has shown that it got it wrong and chose to defend the aggressors: a fact that has lifted the veil of credibility behind which wealthy countries have hidden for centuries. A veil woven partly from international law, since this — like the "rules of war" — should be understood as conventions created by the countries of the north as rules of their own, rules designed to resolve conflicts between northern countries. They were never intended to be invoked by states of the south (also because when international law was taking its first steps, the countries of the south were European colonies).

Now the south is demonstrating that it can dismantle an international system created to favour the global north. We hope that the International Court of Justice will give these hopes the support they deserve, but whatever the outcome, this case will be remembered for having put on trial not only Israel for genocide, but also the global north for its hypocrisy and its prejudices against the south.