Goodbye G8, Hello BRICS. Out with the Old, In with the New
BRICS, 18 Nov 2014
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey - Pravda
The love affair between the Russian Federation and the G7 lasted for precisely sixteen years, from 1998 to 2014, when the arrogance and disrespect of the other G7 members came to the fore and Russia was excluded for reacting to the anti-Constitutional Putsch in Ukraine in which the elected President was ousted. This was a favor they did to Russia.
The reaction of the G7 members (USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan + the European Union) to Russia’s response to the illegal Putsch in the Ukraine earlier this year practically says it all and explains why the foreign policy of its leaders has failed. The global threat to British and American citizens walks hand-in-hand with a foreign policy based upon arrogance, belligerence and intrusion. The French, and these days the Canadians, are by no means immune from this natural reaction, being guilty by association. You sleep with a prostitute and have unprotected sex, and you get infected, period.
With the inclusion of Japan, the G7 member states are the imperialist states of yesteryear, plus their colonies and the reactions of outrage and sullen loathing on You Tube to (many) videos of American soldiers giggling and laughing and shouting “Mother F*cker” at dogs that get blown up by IEDs are a telling insight into how these countries are viewed around the world.
A Japanese citizen might get away with a visit to Algeria, Libya or perhaps even Syria. A Briton of American dare not step off an aircraft in a growing number of countries, something which affects the Canadians by default. A Russian, a Brazilian, a Chinese, an Indian and a South African can, however, move around the world freely and be welcomed by all. For some reason it must be. A Briton or an American is regarded with mistrust, a Brazilian is regarded as a friend.
Therefore it makes sense for Russia to move closer to like-minded countries interesting in fostering global cooperation and friendship, instead of those staging illegal Putsches just because a country’s government decides against a closer agreement with the European Union, or arming and aiding terrorists to destabilize governments they perceive as unfriendly, while at the same time they do illegal deals with others who occupy sovereign territories (Morocco, which steals resources belonging to Western Sahara).
It is the same as a few decades ago when these same Western powers were supporting murderous regimes and Fascist dictatorships across the globe, whose criminal policies and human rights atrocities they not only ignored, but colluded with, while in a demonstration of sheer hypocrisy, dared to accuse Cuba, for instance, of human rights abuses. Look at Cuba today – the focal point of human rights atrocities is centered on the torture and concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay.
In terms of GDP, the G7 registers some 34.2 trillion USD, with a total population of some 750 million. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China, South Africa) has a total GDP output of nearly 15 trillion USD, and a population of 3 billion. The trend is for the economies of the G7 to stagnate as they are beset by problems related with ageing populations, while the trend for the BRICS is a far higher growth rate and younger populations. Coupled with this, the foreign perception and foreign policies of the BRICS outstrip the G7 by far.
From one side, a tired, imperialist and arrogant top-down, holier-than-thou approach with political strings attached; on the other, genuine friendship, cooperation, development, the desire for sincere cultural and economic ties. From the former, deployment and military bases; from the latter, development and education.
Watch this space. While the G7 tries to perpetuate itself by intrinsically linking the motor at the core of its policies to NATO, and tries to perpetuate NATO by provoking conflicts and then blaming others (for example Georgia, for example Ukraine, for example Iraq, for example Afghanistan, for example Libya, for example Syria), the BRICS will grow in the forthcoming years, and will include countries such as Nigeria, Indonesia, IR Iran, Venezuela, possibly Angola, as the geopolitical block shifts towards where the hearts and minds of humankind are located. The collective will of the CPLP Community (Portuguese-speaking nations, namely Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe Isles, Timor, Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea plus observer States, including Australia) is far closer to the BRICS than to the G7.
And the hearts and minds of humankind are not with the European Union, the USA or the G7. Everyone knows this and the failure of Western policy in recent years is a symptom of the disease which its political class does not know how to cure.
So in conclusion, the exclusion of Russia from the G8 by the G7 this year, albeit an act of rudeness and arrogance (but frankly, what to expect from them?) was also a huge favor they did Russia, in recent years so intent on speaking about its friends in the West when it was obvious to all that the West offers a bunch of flowers in one hand and has a knife and six stones behind its back in the other.
If the internal market and the world marketplace are the engines which drive an economy, then the BRICS are admirably better placed than the G7 for the decades to come. My advice would be not to listen to the West when they come crawling round your feet and to answer them with a massive slap on the face if they overstep the mark, which they will.
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Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey – Editorial writer for Pravda, based in Washington D.C.
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