The Tribune

A relatively new international grouping has taken centre stage this past week. It is called BRICS. The world is bombarded by endless acronyms by which bodies and organizations are universally known, but it is probably a safe bet that BRICS will not yet be widely familiar even though its significance seems to be growing.

 This is a grouping of the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is estimated that these five could collectively dominate global growth by about the year 2050. It is an ambitious team or club that is still at an early stage of development. Reportedly, it is motivated by a compulsion to challenge and limit Western dominance in the world; with China, of course, at the forefront of targeting what it calls US hegemony. The BRICS view appears to be that new global leadership is needed in a world fractured by geopolitical tensions, inequality and insecurity.

BRICS is in the news now because it has just held a summit meeting, hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg, that has attracted considerable publicity, not least perhaps because President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi were in attendance and the meeting was addressed by President Putin by video link. However, the mainstream US media seems to have paid relatively little attention to it. The summit was preceded by a preparatory meeting of foreign ministers three months ago. This was also held in South Africa which, as I mentioned in an earlier column, aspires to be a crusading champion of a new alternative non-aligned multi-polar world.

The five nations of BRICS have a combined population of more than 3.2 billion or 40 per cent of the world’s roughly eight billion people, and they are seen by some as potentially an alternative to the G7 group of developed countries. It is said they believe that the influence and control exercised by the US and its Western allies should be reduced in a rapidly changing world. Their foreign ministers are reported to have sent out a strong message that the world is multi-polar and that it should be re-balanced. In the words of India’s foreign minister “we face an economic concentration that leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few”, while China’s minister of foreign affairs suggested the group could be expanded to provide assistance to developing countries and Brazil’s minister described BRICS as an indispensable mechanism for building a multi-polar world that reflects the needs of developing countries.

For those interested in how all this has come about, the acronym BRIC (South Africa was added later) was first coined in 2001 by the then chief economist at Goldman Sachs in recognition of the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which, he suggested, would become the dominant suppliers of manufactured goods and services -- as well as, partly, raw materials -- leading up to the year 2050.

These countries then ran with the idea of a grouping as an informal club or platform to challenge the dominance of the US and its Western allies and soon invited South Africa to join. BRICS is not a formal multilateral body.

It is in its infancy but is said to be generating interest and excitement. Reportedly, it is already recognized as one of the leading global voices for greater representation of developing countries in world affairs, and it operates by consensus. It is claiming a geopolitical role though its focus is on economic cooperation, new trading systems and development.

Last week’s historic three-day summit was doubtless carefully monitored by the US and other Western countries. It produced agreement that six new countries will join next year – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This will more than double the size of the group and increase its clout in terms of population and economic strength. Some 40 other countries have expressed interest in becoming members.

 Expansion of the group could have specific political implications insofar as it might bring, for example, greater scrutiny of China’s influence in the Persian Gulf and, probably, there will be renewed questions about the degree of influence being brought to bear on BRICS’s anti-Western stance by China and Russia, arising from China’s deteriorating relations with the US and Russia’s stand-off with the West over the war in Ukraine.

It is claimed that many other countries are attracted to the new BRICS model of trade since it could unlock new sources of investment and help their development. This includes BRICS’s support of “de-dollarization” and usage of local currencies among its members for cross-border transactions, thus ending reliance on the US dollar’s global reserve status.

South Africa was reportedly delighted to have hosted the Johannesburg summit. But, as someone who has had a diplomatic posting there and studied the country, I wonder how wise it is for the nation to allow itself to be led away from its existing important trade partners and sources of investment in the US, UK and EU. That might be undesirable given the country’s failing economy as it grapples with an energy crisis, problems of unemployment, failing infrastructure and a weak currency. Given the serious local economic uncertainty, people question whether South Africa really wants to jeopardize its relations with the West?

That said, it is clear that the ruling African National Congress still wants, in particular, to recognize Russia’s help during the anti-apartheid years.

As for the future, most observers consider that at this early stage there are too many imponderables to try to judge how BRICS will work and how effective it will be.

The group sees itself as a counterweight to the West -- and its existing membership already gives it considerable strength that could make it a formidable rival to the G7 democratic powers.

Lies and more damned lies

So extensive has the media coverage been of the presumed death in a plane crash in Russia last week of the mercenary Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that it is surely superfluous to add comment today. Nonetheless, doubts had remained about whether he was actually a passenger on the private plane that went down with no survivors. So, the latest official statement confirming that he was among the ten people who perished is significant because this incident could have major implications for Putin’s future and thus might affect the war in Ukraine. It might also be interesting to look briefly at the terrible reputation Russian authorities have for telling lies in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

Despite the Kremlin’s denial of any involvement in Prigozhin’s death, according to the reports I have read many Russians do not believe this. So, while they were shocked by the incident, they were probably surprised it had not happened sooner than two months after the Wagner leader had launched his brief mutiny in Russia. In late June, his mercenaries had seized a major Russian city and even marched on Moscow. He had also criticized Russia’s military leadership.

Such a mutiny was a massive humiliation for the Kremlin and Putin condemned the action as “treachery” and “a stab in the back” – and he promised that the perpetrators would be punished. But, apparently, any charges were dropped in some sort of plea bargain whereby Prigozhin would end the mutiny in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Nonetheless, during the last two months he had been described as a ‘dead man walking’ because it is said that Putin does not forgive and forget traitors and those who challenge him; and there was endless public speculation about what might happen. Commentators say that, rather than discovering the cause of the crash, what matters now is to show it was an act of deliberate, cold-blooded retaliation, revenge and retribution. Thus, it has also sent a significant message to other potential mutineers not to cross their leader.

Some observers now believe that Putin has become more ruthless as he realizes the scale of his folly in invading Ukraine – not least because of flawed planning and intelligence, lack of training and poor logistics -- and how vulnerable his own position now is in the face of internal Russian dissent. His original assumption of a quick victory through overwhelming military superiority had been proven fundamentally wrong.

With his deliberate and brutal targeting of civilians and structures like schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, power plants and bridges -- as well as committing acts of torture -- Ukrainians had become unified in their hatred of him and of Russia more widely and in their resolve to defend Ukrainian territory to the end.

 Against this background of pure evil, it is revealing to learn afresh of the extent to which the Russian leadership tells lies insistently and incessantly so that nothing that is said can be trusted.

This is, of course, nothing new, but a blatant disregard for the truth has become the norm. Officials often resort to transparent lies and do not care when they are caught out. They always seek to deflect blame for outrages after Russia’s role has been exposed. Examples include the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine in 2014, the poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury in 2018, and the attempted assassination of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020. Russian officials also lie to deflect blame from their allies; for example, calling the Syrian president’s use of chemical weapons on his own people ‘utter nonsense’. The list of instances of such lying is endless, including the latest absurdity of Russia blaming Ukraine for massacring its own people. These officials like to confuse, distort and obfuscate while indulging in double speak as spelt out in George Orwell’s novel ‘1984.’

Expert Russia-watchers suggest that Prigozhin’s colleagues and associates will now be sought out and eliminated. Putin will need to reassert his authority and show that people who go after him will do so at their peril. The general view seems to be that the more Ukraine succeeds in its current much-hyped counter offensive -- while also attempting generally to create greater strife and internal struggle in Russia itself -- the more the Russian leader’s power will be put at risk.

A sad day for America

Whatever view one may take of the personal and professional life of the 45th president of the United States – and he provokes strong opinions for and against him – what is happening to him now as a former president facing four separate indictments is seen by many as a wretched and humiliating time for America’s democracy.

 Having spent a year at a boarding school in New England on an exchange scholarship and been exposed to so many of the good things offered by America, including being able to travel far and wide, I am inevitably an admirer; not least because of the lasting personal relationships I was fortunate enough to have developed. But it has always seemed to me that there is a yawning gulf between what can loosely be described as the excellence of ‘private America’ and its public face as a nation that now seems to be so terribly divided politically and in so many other different ways.

Those who cannot stand Donald Trump believe that his behaviour while in office from 2017 until 2021 was in various ways deplorable and has demeaned the office of the presidency. But the extent of the continuing support he enjoys as the Republican front-runner for the 2024 election -- after winning some 74 million votes in the national popular ballot in 2000 -- seems sometimes to be underestimated and perhaps too easily discounted.

Be that as it may, many consider it an embarrassment for the world’s leading democracy -- even putting it on a par with ‘a banana republic’ -- when a former president’s home is raided by the FBI and he has to face four separate indictments on different issues.

From reports I have seen, people wonder whether all this is really justified and whether the whole process might be flawed. Was it his own fault and does he really deserve to be pilloried in the manner he has been? Or has there been political interference, as some allege, so that the Justice Department has been ‘weaponized’ against him? These seem to be the questions bothering more and more people.

So, doubts remain about all this and there are surely no ready answers. Today is not the time or place to try to examine the issue in any depth. But, for observers, admirers and lovers of the ‘great U S of A’, this is, indeed, a sad day for America.