Assumption of division
Drawing a conclusion is difficult, primarily because the countries united within the BRICS, or even the entirety of the “global South” – as the established term goes – do not constitute a coherent bloc.
They share the desire to escape from a world shaped and led by the West.
Within BRICS, China and Russia are pushing to turn the club into a “counter-G7,” with a pronounced anti-Western ideological dimension. Others, like India or African nations, primarily see it as an instrument for South-South cooperation. They share the desire to escape from a world shaped and led by the West, particularly by the “dollar deity,” but they fear being enrolled in a bloc dominated by Chinese ambitions; they don’t want the looming Cold War to gain momentum.
Thus there is more than a single nuance between these two “stances,” and Western countries would do well to notice this before an assumption of division between “the West and the rest of the world” takes hold.
Reorganising the world?
The first response is to listen to the legitimate demands for equality from those countries in the Global South. In June, during the Summit on New Global Financing Pact in Paris, Kenyan President William Ruto, who is anything but an adversary of the West, had a strong exchange with French President Emmanuel Macron.
We want institutions where we’ll be at the decision-making table.
“There is a problem with your project,” he told Macron. “You want to reform international institutions so that they continue to give us orders. We want institutions where we’ll be at the decision-making table.” These words articulate the current state of affairs.
This is an longstanding demand for equality, but one that has taken a more political, confrontational turn, especially in light of the Russian war in Ukraine and the refusal of some Southern countries to engage. Russia and China are riding this sense of injustice aimed at the West.
The reorganization of the world will happen, with the West if they accept it — or against them. From this standpoint, what is at play, within the BRICS or elsewhere, is more the end of Western hegemony than any kind of “de-Westernization” that is far from inevitable.
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