For Good News Look to BRICS
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 4 Nov 2024
David Adams | Transition to a Culture of Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service
1 Nov 2024 – We can look forward to bad news in the next few weeks. No matter who wins the election in the United States (if the election results are accepted), the results are likely to be disastrous for the US empire, including Europe. And no matter who gets attacked next in Israel’s war against the world, they are likely to get more death and destruction.
For good news we must look elsewhere.
It may be found in the annual summit meeting of the BRICS countries that was held October 22-24 in Kazan, Russian Tatarstan.
Before analysing the outcomes of the summit, it bears mention that the city of Kazan has a special historical significance. Not to mention that it was the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin. But more interesting was its political independence within Russia at the end of the 20th Century. I got to know about this when I went to Kazan on mission from UNESCO in the year 2000. Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan, a region inhabited primarily by the Tatars who are followers of Islam unlike most of the rest of Russia which is predominantly Orthodox Christian. The authorities in Kazan threatened to secede from the Russian Federation in 1990 and they established their language, Tatar, as the principle language used in their school systems. One may be surprised that the Russian authorities accepted this and reached a negotiated settlement, but it may be explained in part by the fact that Tatarstan is a mayor producer of oil which is key to the Russian economy. After all, when the region of Chechnya threatened to secede from the Russian Federation in 1994, the Russians sent in troops which put down the rebellion in bloody battles.
Heads of state came to Kazan from 27 countries representing almost half of the world’s economy. Chief among them were the heads of state from the five original BRICS countries, Brazil (by videoconference), Russia, India, China and South Africa, and from the BRICS members added last year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and United Arab Emirates.
The summit decided to invite an additional 13 countries as “partner states”. Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Vietnam sent their head of state to Kazan. Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were represented by their foreign minister, or in the case of Malaysia, the minister of the economy. Only Nigeria, and Uganda were not present.
Eleven other countries sent their heads of state: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mauritania, Mongolia, Palestine, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
To complete the list of 37 countries at Kazan, four were represented at the ministerial level: Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Serbia.
The final declaration was marked by its reasonable demands which were framed within the context of the United Nations system. In that regard, one of the forum’s participants was UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The declaration called for multilateralism and reform of the UN Security Council, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisations to better represent the interests of the Global South.
It was expected that the summit would announce measures to develop an alternative to the US dollar as a global currency, but the word “dollar” does not appear in the Declaration. Instead, it simply proposed more use of national currencies for international trade: “The organization agrees to explore the creation of an independent cross-border settlement and depository infrastructure known as BRICS Clear,” and “The declaration welcomes the expanded use of national currencies for transactions between BRICS members and their trade partners.”
The Declaration condemned the illegal use of discriminatory and politically motivated sanctions and highlighted their negative impact on the world economy. As a practical measure it said “BRICS intends to transform the New Development bank to serve the needs of the 21st century.” This bank provides a source of development finance as an alternative to development aid that is subject to sanctions by the United States.
In practice, the summit did not promote the equality of women. In the official photo of the summit, there are 39 men and only two women, the foreign minister of Sri Lanka, Aruni Wijewardane and the head of the New Development Bank, Dilma Rousseff.
With regard to the global crises in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine/Lebanon, Sudan and Haiti, the summit was very moderate, taking positions that did not depart from those of the UN General Assembly calling for peaceful settlements. It did not give any special support to the Russian war against the Ukraine, but for called for mediation to bring the conflict to a conclusion through negotiations. Surprisingly, despite the participation of the President of the Palestinian Authority, the Declaration did not mention the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Among the more than 13,000 words in the document, the word “war” appears only once, while the word “peace” and its variations appears 28 times, including the following:
“We reaffirm our commitment to the BRICS spirit of mutual respect and understanding, sovereign equality, solidarity, democracy, openness, inclusiveness, collaboration and consensus. . . . enhancing our strategic partnership for the benefit of our people through the promotion of peace, a more representative, fairer international order, a reinvigorated and reformed multilateral system, sustainable development and inclusive growth.”
“. . . we reaffirm our commitment to multilateralism and upholding the international law . . . in which sovereign states cooperate to maintain international peace and security . . .
“We reiterate our commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes through diplomacy, mediation, inclusive dialogue and consultations in a coordinated and cooperative manner and support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises.”
“We underscore the need for full, equal and meaningful participation of women in peace processes including in conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction and development, and sustaining peace.”
“We reaffirm our support for the State of Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations in the context of the unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-state solution based on international law including relevant UNSC and UNGA resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative that includes the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine in line with internationally recognised borders of June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital living side by side in peace and security with Israel.”
“We reaffirm our support for African peace efforts on the continent including those undertaken by the African Union and African sub-regional organizations in line with the principles of African ownership, complementarity and subsidiarity.”
“We call for the strengthening of non-proliferation and disarmament to safeguard and maintain global stability and international peace and security. We note the paramount importance of the efforts aiming at accelerating the implementation of the resolutions on the Establishment of a Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East”
“We encourage enhancing inter-agency dialogue to further explore cooperation possibilities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space.”
“We stress our commitment to enhancing international cooperation in education, science, culture, communication and information in view of the complexity of contemporary challenges and transformations and in this regard note the relevance of the principles set forth in the UNESCO Constitution and its mandate to foster cooperation and peace through international collaboration . . .”
In a world menaced by war and threats of war and continuing neo-colonial exploitation, it is a welcome development that the BRICS countries speak primarily of peace, multilateralism and development aid free from sanctions.
We may hope that this bodes well for the future, in view of the decline of the American Empire with its wars and neo-colonialism. However, as I wrote in this blog in February, it remains to be seen how it will play out in practice, since BRICS is dominated by Russia and China that remained committed to a culture of war. And while the gap continues to increase throughout the world between the super-rich and the poor, this gap, which may be considered as part of the culture of war, is the most extreme in Russia and China.
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Dr. David Adams is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the UN International Year for the Culture of Peace. Previously, at Yale and Wesleyan Universities, he was a specialist on the brain mechanisms of aggressive behavior, the history of the culture of war, and the psychology of peace activists, and he helped to develop and publicize the Seville Statement on Violence. Send him an email.
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Tags: Elections, Gaza, Genocide, Israel, Media, Palestine, Politics, US empire, USA, West Bank
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