When six new countries join Brics in January, the bloc will finally be able to rename itself something much more honest, albeit grammatically wonky: “I ARE BECAUSE ASIA.”
Yes, the imminent arrival of Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE brings not only more letters to the acronym party but also a clearer reminder that this new geopolitical solar system is simply a cluster of tiny planets, some in very bad shape, orbiting the giant, cooling star of China and the smaller but hotter one of India. Why does Brics exist? Because Asia.
That, however, is not all that’s becoming clearer.
Perhaps the most extraordinary fact to emerge this week is that, when I ARE BECAUSE ASIA is formed on January 1, South Africa will be by far its freest and most democratic member. Argentina runs us a close second when it comes to press freedom, but if the new grouping is intended to be a rival to the G7, then we are very much a sort of Denmark, smiling and nodding nervously at the autocrats of Hungary.
Then again, perhaps this is unfair to Hungary, which, despite its kragdadige tendencies, hasn’t recently murdered hundreds of protesters, including women and children, or arbitrarily arrested and tortured thousands, as Iran did last year.
No, when it comes to democracy and human rights and the new BRICS, more definitely means less.
As it stands now, 60% of BRICS is made up of countries that encourage or tolerate democracy, and 80% have adequate or even robust labour unions protecting workers’ rights.
Admittedly, the grouping has a fairly horrible record when it comes to press freedom, with creeping state censorship in Brazil and India, heavy restrictions in Russia and no press freedom whatsoever in China.
Admittedly, the grouping has a fairly horrible record when it comes to press freedom, with creeping state censorship in Brazil and India, heavy restrictions in Russia and no press freedom whatsoever in China.
But still, if you closed one of your eyes, and squinted the open one, and looked at Brics from a very long way away, and ignored that its largest member is an anti-democratic, authoritarian giant allegedly committing genocide against the Uyghurs, then BRICs could look, in the right light, like a grouping that was on average, at least on paper, and mostly in economic terms, fractionally more progressive than oppressive.
The new arrivals, however, have tipped the scales firmly in the direction preferred by autocrats and unelected cabals of priests and aristocrats. On January 1, democracy will be illegal, or little more than a sham, in almost two thirds of member states, with Ethiopia still teetering on the threshold of giving up real democracy for strongman politics.
At this point critics of the West will accuse me of being a shill for Washington, the World Bank or any of those other notorious exploiters of the workers. But in a truly bizarre twist, the apparently left-leaning BRICs is about to become overwhelmingly hostile to the working class; more hostile, I would argue, than most of the neoliberal capitalist regimes in the West.
No doubt labour lawyers would quibble about how robust, exactly, unions in Brazil, India and South Africa really are. China restricts the number of unions that can operate in the country, but at least pays lip service to workers’ rights. As for Russia, well, there are definitely unions, or at least offices with a paper sign reading “UNION” stapled to the door, and if they do exactly nothing for workers, is that a fault of the system or because Ukraine has hit the head office with a drone?
Among the new members, Argentina jealously defends the remnants of South America’s revolutionary past by offering plenty of protection to workers, and Ethiopia and Egypt make the right noises. But if you’re a migrant worker being exploited by the oligarchs of Iran, Saudi Arabia or the UAE, good luck, buddy, because you’re on your own in systems of servitude that Wall Street can only dream of.
To be clear: I ARE BECAUSE ASIA will not be uniquely dodgy. Large international groupings are almost always a cesspool of hypocrisy. You could argue quite convincingly, for example, that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — China, France, Russia, the UK and the US — are largely responsible for most of the insecurity in the world in 78 years since the council was formed. Likewise, it is a sick joke that China and Russia are currently members of the UN’s Human Rights Council.
But the violence and predation of Western blocs doesn’t give the likes of Iran, Russia, China or Saudi Arabia a free pass, and it shouldn’t silence those who rightly point out that the expanded Brics will be powerful force against democracy and human rights.
If that’s what South African supporters of the new bloc want, then their current excitement is justified. But if they want I ARE BECAUSE ASIA to become a dominant global force, and they also want a world in which they can elect their own public representatives, or get a fair trial if they are wrongfully accused, or worship a god different to the one dictated by the families who run their countries, well, then I’m afraid the turkeys are voting for Christmas.
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