When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Geopolitics

How Much Weight Do The BRICS Really Have?

Bricks for new walls?
Bricks for new walls?
Pierre Haski

-OpEd-

PARIS — The late 1990s anti-globalization movement that protested against summits like the World Trade Organization in Seattle and G8 in Genoa used the slogan: "Another world is possible." Is this "other world" now being constructed before our eyes by the BRICS, as the emerging countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have come to be known?

In early July, the leaders of these countries held a summit in Ufa, Russia. It was the seventh such gathering for the BRICS, which is looking more and more like a legitimate parallel world organisation and less like the simple acronymn first coined by a Goldman Sachs analyst.

The BRICS group, which represents 40% of the world's population and 20% of its GDP across three continents, is the first attempt at creating alternative authorities to the West since the fall of the Soviet bloc and the Berlin Wall.

It has its own annual summits, will have its own non-dollar-dependent development bank by early 2016, and is even linked militarily through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a "cousin" organziation launched in the mid 1990s by Moscow and Beijing. The SCO ties together all of central Asia and India. It also includes Iran, which has observer state status.

"The BRICS and the SCO work hand-in-hand to go further," reads a recent headline of the People's Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party. The SCO had its own summit in Ufa, held immediately after the BRICS gathering.

Even though they undeniably form a bloc meant to thwart Western, and especially U.S., influence over major instituions such as the IMF and World Bank, the BRICS nations are by no means a homogenous entity. While member states Brazil and India have bonafide democracies, Russia and China are under the thumb of different shades of authoritarian regimes.

Room to breathe

In economic terms, the BRICS all have market economies that are more or less controlled. As such, the countries can easily step on each other's toes and create conflict, espeically given the heavy protectionism in place in China and Brazil.

[rebelmouse-image 27089224 alt="""" original_size="1880x1160" expand=1]

Rousseff (Brazi), Modi (India), Putin (Russia), Xi (China) and Zuma. (S. Africa) Photo: Kremlin

Still, the emergence of the BRICS does serve as a counterbalance to the all-powerful United States. Russian leader Vladimir Putin, for example, has been able to lean on his "friend" Xi Jinping of China for relief from the asphyxating economing sanctions applied by the West since the Ukrainian crisis. The soon-to-be world power China, in turn, sees this group as a way to breach what is sees as a Cold War-like containment policy carried out by the U.S.

Military cooperation between BRICS states, furthermore, could be the only alternative to NATO, which has dramatically expanded its zone of action since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Despite their limitations, contradictions and weaknesses, the BRICS do affect international power relations — and in a way that does not favor the U.S. The group is not, however, following the same Cold War logic of bloc versus bloc. Nor is it creating "another world" in terms of models and values. If "another world is possible," as the Seattle protesters insisted, it won't be the BRICS that bring it about.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Ideas

The Colonial Spirit And "Soft Racism" Of White Savior Syndrome

Tracing back to Christian colonialism, which was supposed to somehow "civilize" and save the souls of native people, White Savior Syndrome lives on in modern times: from Mother Teresa to Princess Diana and the current First Lady of Colombia, Verónica Alcocer.

photo of a child patient holding hand of an adult

Good intentions are part of the formula

Ton Koene / Vwpics/ZUMA
Sher Herrera

-Analysis-

CARTAGENA — The White Savior Syndrome is a social practice that exploits or economically, politically, symbolically takes advantage of individuals or communities they've racialized, perceiving them as in need of being saved and thus forever indebted and grateful to the white savior.

Although this racist phenomenon has gained more visibility and sparked public debate with the rise of social media, it is actually as old as European colonization itself. It's important to remember that one of Europe's main justifications for subjugating, pillaging and enslaving African and American territories was to bring "civilization and save their souls" through "missions."

Even today, many white supremacists hold onto these ideas. In other words, they believe that we still owe them something.

This white savior phenomenon is a legacy of Christian colonialism, and among its notable figures, we can highlight Saint Peter Claver, known as "the slave of the slaves," Bartolomé de Las Casas, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Princess Diana herself, and even the First Lady of Colombia, Verónica Alcocer.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest