VSEveryone sees it: the war in Gaza risks widening the gap between the North and the South even further. For many countries of the South, and not only in the Muslim world, the thousands of civilian deaths due to Israeli bombings in the Palestinian enclave, twenty years after the tens of thousands of deaths caused by the United States in Iraq, will embody no doubt for a long time the double standards of Westerners.
All this also occurs in a context where the main alliance of so-called emerging countries, the BRICS, has just been strengthened a few months ago at its Johannesburg summit. Initially created in 2009, the BRICS have included five countries since 2011: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Expressed in purchasing power parity, the combined GDP of these five countries exceeds 40,000 billion euros in 2022, compared to barely 30,000 billion for the G7 countries (United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France , United Kingdom, Italy), and 120,000 billion on a global scale (a little more than 1,000 euros per month on average for some eight billion humans). The differences in average national income per capita obviously remain considerable: nearly 3,000 euros per month in the G7, less than 1,000 euros per month within the BRICS (and less than 200 euros per month in sub-Saharan Africa according to the latest data from the World Inequality Lab).
Multiple inconsistencies
To summarize, the BRICS present themselves to the world as the planet’s middle class: those who have succeeded, through hard work, in improving their condition and who do not intend to stop there.
BRICS created their own development bank in 2014. Based in Shanghai, it remains modest in size, but could compete in the future with the institutions resulting from Bretton Woods (International Monetary Fund and World Bank) if they do not profoundly reform their voting rights systems to make a greater place in the countries of the South.
During the Johannesburg summit in August, the BRICS decided to host from 1er January 2024 six new members (Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran), apparently chosen from around forty candidate countries.
Let’s say it straight away: it’s time for Western countries to shake off their arrogance and take BRICS seriously. It is certainly easy to point out the multiple inconsistencies and contradictions within what remains a loosely structured and largely informal club. The Chinese political model increasingly resembles a perfect digital dictatorship and does not make anyone dream, any more than the Russian military kleptocracy. At least this guarantees other managers that the club will not stick its nose in their affairs.
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