BRICS IS A CATALYST FOR INEVITABLE CHANGES IN UNJUST WORLD AFFAIRS

Brazilian President Lula Da Silva’s blunt assessment of the current state of world politics would have been frightening were his views not so much of an open secret. During the recently-concluded BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, President Lula stated: “We are witnessing an unprecedented collapse of multilateralism.”

In more ways than one, the Brazilian leader’s remarks represented, in my view, the microcosm of the rapidly collapsing global governance system that had been premised on the principles of the beleaguered UN Charter.

“International law has become a dead letter, along with the peaceful settlement of controversies. We have faced an unprecedented number of conflicts since World War II,” President Lula lamented.

Here, it is perhaps important to note that “conflicts”, in this instance, is not restricted to military confrontation.

“The collapse of multilateralism,” as President Lula noted, continues to be characterized by the ferocious rise of unilateralism. Examples of a downward spiral to a dangerous unipolar world order are plenty to see in global affairs. But nothing illustrates the spectre of unilateralism more than Washington’s penchant for the imposition of unilateral sanctions on any country considered an adversary – real or perceived.

In the years following the attainment of independence by particularly many African nations from the yoke of Western colonialism from the 1960’s, the international order has become divided in hostile poles of power.

The historical divide between the West and the Soviet Union – marked by the Cold War that ended when the Soviet Union collapsed at the turn of the 1990’s, has become worse than before.

The status of the US as the so-called “only surviving superpower” as catapulted the world’s largest economy to the status of omnipotence in international relations, more impactful than the collective of the UN system itself.

Had member-states of the UN adhered to the letter of international law that President Lula argues is now “dead”, the US would have long been held accountable at the table of equality that ought to be the UN. But, alas!, aided by Europe in particular, the hegemony of the US-led entire West suited the smaller but wealthier and powerful ex-colonial powers.

Having stood by the US against the erstwhile Soviet Union, Europe continued – out of convenience and greed –to remain in tow of Washington’s escapades globally.

This blind loyalty that manifested itself at forums such as the G7, WTO, IMF and World Bank, among others, had kept the entire Global North on the pound seat of global affairs for way too long.

On the contrary, the Global South countries had been kept colonized through new modern forms that include IMF’s development loans, funding for imposed structural reforms aimed at removing indigenous governance systems and replacing them with Western forms, demand for doses of democracy and many other nefarious ways.

The terrible culture of aid also set in, positioning the West as caring nations concerned with under-development across the so-called Third World that they surreptitiously held back to this day. Inevitably, the ideological glue that has kept Western hegemony intact is disintegrating, and very fast – thanks to the US President Donald Trump.

Under the Trump administration, the notion of unilateralism refers strictly to the MAGA revolution – Make America Great Again, or America First policy.

For the first time, Europe and other Western states are feeling the wrath of being discriminated against, especially economically. The new wave of Trump’s tariffs has spared no one – neither friend nor foe.

President Trump’s noticeable reluctance to adhere to NATO’s Article 5 is also a source of panic across the West. Collectively, the foreign policy of the Western countries against adversaries – particularly Russia, had been premised on the guarantee of NATO’s Article 5, which refers to “an attack on one is an attack on all”.

Now, President Trump has caused almost the rest of the West to commit to increasing each country’s military expenditure to at least 5% of the GDP, regardless of competing needs such as health, education, welfare, etc. Spain has categorically declared it would not divert so much of the GDP to military. Others are keeping quiet.

One thing is clear, though – Western hegemony, as the Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BRICS Summit in Rio via a video conference, is at a crossroads. “We all see that the world is experiencing tectonic shifts,” President Putin said. “The unipolar system of international relations that once served the interests of the so-called golden billion, is losing its relevance, replaced by a more just multi-polar world,” the Russian President said.

His assertion is given credence by the sharp rise and impact of BRICS in global affairs. The strategic bloc is a catalyst for change – a much-needed change that gives the long-suppressed Global South countries a voice.

Never in history has there been such a deep sense of unity across the Global South.

Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa have led the way in the reconfiguration of the international world order through BRICS. The additional members in BRICS, added during the SA Summit BRICS in August 2023, included Ethiopia and Egypt, Iran, UAE and at least 40 countries of the Global South have applied to join BRICS. The bloc also has its own lending financial institution, the BRICS Development Bank. This will serve to lessen dependence on the US-led IMF and World Bank.

The impact of BRICS in world affairs is reverberating. It caused President Trump to threaten an imposition of a 10% tariff on all BRICS members-states.

“Anybody that’s in BRICS is getting a 10% charge pretty soon. If they’re a member of BRICS, they’re going to have to pay a 10% tariff, and they won’t be a member long,” announced President Trump.

He also revealed his economic fears about BRICS, claiming the bloc was set up to dislodge the global dominance of the dollar. He said: “BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar – take it off as the standard.”

President Trump’s deepest fears about the threat to the dollar were impossible to mask. He said losing the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency would be like “losing a war, a major world war. We would not be the same country any longer,” he said.

His remarks reveal what President Lula and the rest of the Global South believe, which is that as the empire crumbles, its kicks could be like those of a dying horse – very dangerous.

Washington’s culture of imposing unilateral sanctions that are internationally binding because individual countries are frightened to be on the wrong side of the US is also in danger. The case in point is Russia. After the US-led Western sanctions against Moscow in 2022, the bulk of the Global South refused to be forced in line, and instead, continued to do business with Russia and maintain diplomatic ties.

But even as the times change, it appears like Washington struggles to notice. The US has grown accustomed to unilateralism, and successfully. The habit will not die easily. Just this week, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against the UN Special Rapporteur Fransesca Albanese for outing Israel’s brutal reign of terror in Gaza, where South Africa has laid charges of genocide against Tel Aviv at the International Court of Justice.

In a media statement, Secretary Rubio accused Albanese of running a campaign against the US and Israel, “and this will no longer be tolerated”, he said.

The Trump administration classifies any criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza as anti-Semitic. Washington is the chief supplier of weapons to Israel that are used in Gaza. The US also provide diplomatic cover for Israel and uses its veto in the UN Security Council to block any resolution that criticizes Israel, or calls for an end to the grossly one-sided war that has claimed some 60,000 Palestinian lives and completely bombed Gaza into an uninhabitable place. President Trump and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, want Palestinians to emigrate en masse to neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt.

The Majority World is united in its opposition to the forced displacement of Palestinians. The UN, meanwhile, seems totally powerless to stop the extinction of the Palestinians. This explains the emerging reconfiguration of the international world order aimed to countering the scourge of unilateralism.