Member-only story
BRICS: The Ever Shifting Tectonic Plates and The New World Order
RIP Pax Americana
The king is dead, long live the king.
The end of the west is no longer conjecture.
It is here and fully upon us.
All week, the focus of the world has been the BRICS conference being held in South Africa. For those who don’t know, BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
These are the emerging economies, which have a collective GDP higher than the G-7, which comprises, America, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Japan.
In normal times, BRICS summits were never taken seriously by the mainstream press in Britain, given their preoccupation with all things western European and American.
But these aren’t normal times.
The American empire is on its last legs, having dined out on the strength and the rare privilege of having the dollar as the global reserve currency in 1945.
Players, who once would have baulked at the possibility of taking on the might of America, have shed their inhibitions, demonstrating the sort of boldness required to take the throne for themselves.
Hence the existence of BRICS.
With countries like Brazil, India and China, the possibilities of economic growth are quite limitless and what’s interesting here is that their governments are tapping into this new reality with extraordinary gusto.
And this is precisely why it hasn’t come as a surprise that lots of players on the outside want a piece of the action.
Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria, Argentina and a host of others had made serious overtures to the gatekeepers of BRICS for a while now.
And after having met the terms and conditions of membership, a few of them have been admitted to the coolest club in the world right now.
With the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates and not forgetting the economic basket case — Argentina, joining BRICS, a powerful message is being sent to the G7 and the rest of the world that the United States of America is no longer a force to be…
