By Sandeep Chachra*
With 30 more countries expressing interest in joining the group, the current conjecture holds great promise for the Global South and BRICS, arguably the most pivotal since the Bretton Woods Conference in 1945.
Representing nearly half of the world’s population and accounting for 35 percent of the global GDP—larger than that of the G7 combined—BRICS also contributes 40 percent of oil production and 42 percent of the world’s food production, while encompassing the majority of the global workforce. In its pursuit of equality and justice, the power of the group and the pathways it offers for economic, social, and political autonomy to its members and their populations are immense. The addition of 13 new partner members reflects the alliance’s growing influence, bringing in a diverse array of countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including Algeria, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba, all of which hold strategic importance in global trade, energy, and geopolitics. Indonesia, which has formally sought membership and sent its Foreign Minister, just days after the newly elected President, Probowo Subianto took office, holds the promise of bringing to this group the legacy of Bandung. And with at least four, if not five, continuous civilizations – India, China, Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia as its members, the grouping today embodies the power, hopes and dreams of the majorities of the global south, young and growing.
Never extinguished by the rampage of colonial subjugation, or subdued by continued neocolonial conquests, peoples of the global south carry in their hearts a spirit of liberation. And this with an endless spring of resistance against subjugation, expulsion and genocide, as Fidel Castro once said, “to settle their (our) own debt with humanity”.
For such people don’t see humanity’s future from the rotten paralytic present, where children, women and men are butchered and where mothers in Gaza feel guilt for bringing a child into this world of war and suffering. Be it the Genocide of Gaza, or the blockades and sanctions imposed on nations of the south the idea has been to erase defiant dreams and their dreamers. The wide appeal of BRICS symbolizes the collective rise of the Global South in a growing frustration with a Western-dominated hegemonic world order. Furthermore it also lies in the inclusive messaging of BRICS. The host of 16th BRICS Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that BRICS is a ‘non-West’ rather than ‘anti-West’ group.
In what appears promising, the Kazan Declaration clarifies BRICS consensus positioning on some of these challenges and its articulation for change.
A tool of western hegemony, several of the BRICS members and partners are amongst most sanctioned countries in the world. Russia with more than 20,000 sanctions, Iran with 5000, Belarus with 1500, Cuba with those continuing since its revolution. It is estimated that US Sanctions killed nearly half a million children in Iraq. Together with occupation, sanctions have a devastating impact. BRICS called for elimination of sanctions “unilateral coercive measures, inter-alia in the form of unilateral economic sanctions and secondary sanctions that are contrary to international law, have far-reaching implications for human rights, including the right to development, of the general population of targeted states, disproportionally affecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations”
At a time when there is increasing frustration over the United Nations’ inability to resolve ongoing conflicts in West Asia, Ukraine, and the Sahel region, social outrage at the state of the UN and international governance is both active and growing. With wars and conflicts persisting for decades, the collective decision of BRICS to commit to finding peaceful resolutions bodes well for world peace. Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the BRICS call to defend peace and achieve common security around the world.
While the Kazan declaration falls short of calling out genocide in Gaza, it does acknowledge the various United National Security Council Resolutions as well as the “provisional measures of the International Court of Justice in the legal proceedings instituted by South Africa against Israel” and backs the calls for Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the need for a two State solution.
To build a world without sanctions, wars, conquests and genocides is a task which awaits humanity and peoples expectation from BRICS.
The call and action BRICS has taken to reform the international financial architecture to make it “more inclusive and just” such that it better reflects the changes in the international economic balance of power is a step which offers to its members room for economic manoeuvrability and a degree of economic autonomy too.
While the BRICS have not yet agreed on de-dollarisation, and while a weaponised US Dollar still remains an important tool in global finance, the announcement of BRICS Pay system, is a welcome one too. As a digital payment system promoting a unified platform for financial transactions between the BRICS nations, it will enable smoother trade within the bloc, encourage the use of local currencies, and strengthen the financial sovereignty of the BRICS countries. The Venezuelan President, Nicholas Maduro, noted “BRICS have become the global political epicenter in the new world”, one which offers autonomy for countries of the global South.
Turning points for justice, inclusivity and progress carry in their womb the need for introspection and self-reflection.
In establishing the just and equal trajectories of the future, BRICS cannot merely embody a shift in who sits at the table and makes decisions. As the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi stated “We have to give the world the message that BRICS is not a divisive organization but one that works in the interest of humanity”. Even as it works to reform the United Nations, the BRICS grouping in its expansion will need to avoid the dangers of a Security Council like decision making hegemony, and base itself on democratic decision-making platform with its members and partners. And in doing so to strengthen democratic and collective decision making with a unity of purpose. Despite BRICS economic strength, internal differences and political challenges could prevent them from acting as a unified force for advance and a counterbalance to the clubs of the rich and powerful such as the G7.
BRICS grouping represents all the asymmetries of our diverse world too. China’s GDP at around 18 trillion US Dollars is higher than cumulative figure of all BRICS members. India and China’s population taken together is by far higher than all other members and partners, together making up over 35 percent of the world population, and affording them greater current, and future heft. In building the future, principled approaches which premise justice and equality based on common but differentiated responsibilities will be needed, else our peoples will ever be haunted by the shadows of the colonial past.
The “past world” represented the class interests of the privileged one percent – the interests of ruling classes, capital and its most privileged holders, including corporations and war machines. Its impacts are visible in all countries of the Global South, and among the members of the BRICS, manifesting as rising inequalities, deprivation, precarity and dispossession of the working classes, regressions on human rights and gender justice, ecological disasters and conflicts. To effectually challenge this hegemony, it is crucial to foreground the role of civic movements within BRICS countries and their working class allies in the Global North. These movements must come together to cooperate, collaborate, and find common ground in building pathways toward a just, sustainable, and peaceful world. While academics and the business sectors within BRICS are organized, labour and social movements remain fragmented. By shifting focus from differences to consensus-building through dialogue, learning, and research, working class groups can create a stronger collective voice. This collaboration is essential; otherwise, war alliances like NATO will continue to prevail, siphoning resources away from meeting basic human needs, as Mia Mottley, the Prime Minster of Barbados, pointed out when she noted that wars drain money from the system that could be better utilized for societal welfare.
A global South promise, is one of liberation from the interests of and super accumulation by the rich and powerful. It is one of ensuring views and agency of all the working peoples, and those who suffer hunger, discrimination and exploitation, those who suffer patriarchy, caste, and the oppressions of privilege are represented first and foremost in and by the BRICS and in all its actions to build world peace, justice and solidarity.
As BRICS travels to Brazil later this year, its Presidency will need to shoulder these social expectations. Farce of the past cannot have space in any pact of future.
*The writer who is a leading member of ActionAid acknoledges his article gained from insights of Malhotra, Policy Researcher at ActionAid Association, India, and Amalia Pulungan, a Global South researcher from Indonesia. mh
