The Promise of BRICS By Kelson Maynard

The 21^st century so far is being characterized by imperial wars, denials of people’s sovereignty through occupations by military might, mass displacement of peoples, labor diasporas, the criminalization of refugees and migrants, and imminent environmental catastrophe.  These are all consequences of global capitalism.  Global capitalism’s hegemony made possible through western European and Euro-American militarism.  This system is legitimized through its knowledge system, international laws, and its ideology based on the sanctity of property.  This ideology legitimizes extreme violence against non-European peoples.

To mask their nefarious designs and behavior around the world, Europeans and Euro-American imperialism established a discourse of human rights, which justifies their interventions in the sovereign domains of non-European governments and economies.  Their behaviors reaffirm the global status quo of existing global inequalities.

In the 20^th century, the European-American dominant development ideology which has produced such catastrophic consequences was embraced by many non-European sovereign states as their path to development.  Their vision for development was to catch up to the United States of America and Western Europe economically through accelerated industrialization.  The futility of this approach is evident in most non-European domains.  It has led to further exploitation of people and resources, mass poverty, environmental degradations, mass migrations.  This mimetic impulse on the part of non-European leaders has not only led to psycho-social violence and misery in their sovereign domains, but it has also led to the reaffirmation of the system of domination, exploitative international division of labor and the global inequality of non-European peoples.

A new vision is imperative.  The victims of development based on neoliberal capitalism cannot continue to view development as accelerated industrialism.  Since capitalism is a global system, the new vision must be global in scope.  In the 20^th century border sovereignty was the dominant focus of ex-colonial territories. In the 21^st century border sovereignty must take a back seat to borderless internationalism.  A delinking from the United States of America and western European hegemonic system of global capitalism is necessary.  This political and economic delinking from the United States of America and western European hegemonic system of global capitalism might enable Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, Caribbeans, and others to fashion a new international order and a new vision for development.  A development for all the people.  This could be the promise of BRICS+.