President Cyril Ramaphosa will take centre stage on Tuesday as he chairs the 15th Summit of BRICS, the grouping of “major emerging economies” – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg until Thursday.
As host, he has opted for a beguiling Summit theme: “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.”
But amid the hype, hyperbole and outrageously raised expectations, the summit even before it starts has scored a spectacular own goal.
It is the first summit that the leader of a founding member has been prevented from attending in person because of the threat of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for alleged war crimes relating to the conflict in Ukraine.
South Africa as a signatory to the Rome Statute, the governing treaty of the ICC, which was ratified by Parliament and enshrined in the Constitution, is obliged to arrest President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who will instead attend via Zoom.
Power blocs come and go. Some persist longer than others; some simply wane because of the sheer failure to meet unrealistic expectations; and some linger on into obscurity on the ash heap of history. As far as efforts by the emerging and developing nations are concerned, the roll call is impressive – the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), South-South Cooperation Secretariat, Third World/South, and so on.
The latest incarnation is the Global South, a concept that like its mirror Global North, is as demographically and geopolitically inconsistent as it is efficacious.
The fact that the emerging countries of Brazil, India and South Africa are now coalescing around two nuclear superpowers, Russia and China, both with brutal imperial histories akin to those of the US, Europe and the UK, masquerading as equal partners in development and aiming to forge a so-called New World Order, makes a mockery of the stated and inherited ambitions of the precursor NAM and its ilk that developing countries must navigate their own destinies in a bipolar world in the aftermath of World War II and the resultant Cold War – pitting the club of democratic nations against the totalitarian communist bloc.
Herein lies the fundamental dichotomy and dilemma of the BRICS Bloc for developing nations, both existing and aspirants, which according to the hype now total more than 40 countries seemingly falling over each other to join the “mother of all power blocs”.
Instead of forging that holy grail of a home-grown value-based African, Asian or Latin American pathway to prosperity, societal pre-eminence and dignity, is history repeating itself when developing countries are blatantly siding with one or the other protagonists in superpower bipolarity?
There is nothing wrong with forming new power blocs and even models with the ambition of coming up with a New World Order. We wait with bated breath what BRICS 2023 will reveal or unleash, especially in its specific ambitions, not in the rhetoric of generalities; its funding model and financier and guarantor of last resort; its timeline of delivery; their effective monitoring, and the limitations of these ambitions.
It’s no use speculating about the expansion of BRICS, of which incidentally South Africa is not an original founder member; and the much-touted introduction of a new BRICS currency in an attempt to diminish the dominance of the US dollar as an international currency in trade, investment and infrastructure, presumably backed either by the Russian rouble or the Chinese renminbi. Only a few days ago, Jim O’Neill, the ex-Goldman Sachs economist accredited for coining the term BRIC in 2001 (South Africa then was not invited as a founder member), in an interview with Fortune magazine, dismissed the idea of a BRICS currency as “ridiculous”.
What BRICS is not about is the principle of “primus inter pares” – that all member states are first among equals, especially if you have two superpowers leading from the front; that Russia and China are arch supporters if not signed up members of the Global South – how curious that the Department of International Relations and Co-operation should call the BRICS Five “a grouping of major emerging economies”; that the holy grail of a New World Order that equalises the position of developing nations vis-à-vis that of the developed ones is eminently achievable; and that BRICS would bring the untold prosperity and justice in terms and conditions in international trade and investment that developing countries have rightly been advocating for years.
Developing countries are faced with three moral ambiguities in their geopolitical strategies. Firstly, the South African government, for instance, unequivocally condemned the military coup in Niger in July calling for “the restoration of constitutional rule” and “of the democratic order in Niger”.
And yet this same government has hitherto defied the country’s hallowed Constitution by refusing to call out the Russian invasion of Ukraine for what it is, and China’s independently documented human rights abuses against its Uighur population in Xinjiang.
How can this be the moral bedrock of a New World Order?
The very moral relativism of Pretoria’s stance contrasts sharply with the definitive ethos of the Constitution in promoting the values of democracy, freedom, justice and prosperity for all.
Will Team Ramaphosa revert to Madiba’s moral playbook by at least calling out these ambiguities at the summit?
No amount of summit speak about fostering international co-operation, energy security, boosting trade and inward investment and co-operation, can deflect from these realities, especially for a country and polity that has only recently emerged from centuries of imperialist, colonialist and white supremacist oppression.
South Africa can play an important role in BRICS as a moral force for good through a steadfast political conviction to uphold democratic values, press freedom and eradicating poverty and inequality, based on the principles of free and fair trade and investment in global agreements and treaties.
BRICS combined has around 42% of the world’s population, 27% of global GDP and 20% of international trade. BRICS accounted for 21% of South Africa’s global trade in 2022, of which China accounted for about 15% or R556 billion, and India for 6% or R225bn in 2022.
The challenge is how to balance economic benefits with moral certainties based on Ubuntu and democratic values!
Parker is an economist and writer based in London
Cape Times