The position that South Africa adopts within BRICS in relation to some of the complex and even contradictory challenges by virtue of its expansion, is going to be of fundamental importance to the country's own history, foreign relations and its future, writes Ebrahim Harvey.
Did the leaders at the 15th Summit of BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in South Africa last week bask in the glory of its quantitative expansion - which now includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabi and the United Arab Emirates as new members - at the expense of more serious qualitative issues which will now confront it more starkly?
While the vast expansion of BRICS will certainly enhance trade and other economic relations between all those countries, which will probably have favourable results for South Africa, there are many serious challenges and risks that the now 11-member BRICS will face. That situation will serve to compound the difficulties that existed before, especially within a massive global economic crisis that has had wide-ranging adverse effects on all those countries, especially following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
However, the position that South Africa adopts within BRICS in relation to some of the complex and even contradictory challenges, which by virtue of its expansion it will inevitably be confronted with, is going to be of fundamental importance to its own history, foreign relations and its future.
No condemnation
Already, South Africa's stance in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine left much to be desired, especially in the wake of the utter devastation it wreaked on millions of people whose homes and communities were destroyed, which drove them into exile in neighbouring countries, especially Poland. South Africa refused to condemn the invasion.
Then, there are gross and glaring human rights violations over a long period in several BRICS member countries, such as China and India. The hard truth is that such violations occurred regularly in those countries since BRICS was formed in 2009, with evident impunity. Nothing happened to those states, despite United Nations reports of various human rights violations and atrocities.
This has been a serious weakness of BRICS, in which trade relations, even flourishing ones, between countries often occurred alongside flagrant human rights violations and atrocities within them. This contradiction represents the heart of the problem confronting BRICS, which by virtue of the repressive horrors that have been perpetrated in the countries of some of the old and new members with impunity, becomes more glaringly threatening and offensive with its expansion.
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South Africa, too, has had various human rights violations, but of a different order and magnitude to what the world has seen, for example, in Iran and China. However, we also have a brutal history we began to emerge from since our watershed democratic and non-racial elections in 1994, which we must not only take cognisance of, but must also inform our approach and the decisions we take in international relations.
But there are perhaps even more serious concerns South Africa should have about the huge effort, energies and resources it puts into BRICS, especially if we look at the recent summit and how elated the government was with the new members won over to it. Surely, much praise is in order for the impressive organisation SA put into hosting the summit.
However, how does all that relate to the fact that South Africans, especially the poor working-class majority, are languishing daily at this moment, and while BRICS was having its fantastic summit, in the worst socioeconomic crisis in post-apartheid SA? What did the BRICS summit do for them? In fact, what did it do for them since SA joined it in 2010?
Growing social ills
We presently have the worst poverty, joblessness and social inequalities ever in our history. Over the 13 years we have been members of BRICS, what did that membership do for us?
Did it reduce our numerous, deep and tragic social ills? No. In fact, over the duration of our membership of BRICS since 2010, the problems of poverty, unemployment and social inequalities got much worse.
That is in itself a very serious problem because if being a member of BRICS has definite trade and other economic advantages, why have all our social ills got much worse since 2010, when we joined? If membership of BRICS cannot and does not help us deal with those social ills, what exactly is membership of it worth?
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If it is worth it, then belonging to BRICS or any other global trade body and economic network must have demonstrable benefits for those most in need of them. BRICS requires a detailed study of what exact benefits accrue to member states and the ways in which they contribute to providing jobs, alleviating poverty and the quest for social justice in the lives of people who need it most.
In fact, increased trading opportunities, which are supposed to be the structural and economic advantage of belonging to BRICS, must at all times translate into measurable benefits, especially in the key indicator of job creation and the decent livelihoods it ought to lead to. Can the government provide us with the details of these matters for the period that we have been a member of BRICS in 2010?
Likewise, these benefits must go beyond job creation. We need to know, for example, what type of jobs, if any, were created since 2010, where exactly, for how long, what were the wages, benefits and working conditions like, are those workers still in those jobs?
Then there is probably the biggest question of all: What are China's designs within BRICS? The answer to this crucial question takes us back to the criteria upon which membership rests.
In this regard, it must be incumbent upon fellow members to raise serious concerns with media reports of the very worrying developments in China, India and Russia, especially because they have the world's biggest populations and carry huge weight in trading terms.
Treat new members with caution
Many critiques have been done of the virtually neo-colonial and imperialist activities of China, in particular in Africa over the past two decades. There are similarly big questions about the outrageous repression in both India and Russia, the other two giants of BRICS. What will BRICS do about that?
The little that has been said so far is the main reason why the six new members of BRICS must be treated very cautiously. BRICS has to seriously and urgently address these internal problems, otherwise, there must be no doubt that in an era when the lack of democracy in many countries is becoming of growing concern, it will eventually erode even the strongest trade links between the member states of BRICS.
BRICS has two major tasks, which will become increasingly inseparably connected: increasing trade and economic opportunities for member states, with favourable spin-offs for job creation especially, and at the same time, seriously confront any tyranny and repression within all of them.
In fact, though its rationale lies with trade, BRICS must develop very clear criteria against all forms of tyranny and repression, which will tarnish even the best of trading of goods and services between member states.
- Dr Ebrahim Harvey is a political writer, analyst, commentator and author of 'The Great Pretenders: Race and Class under ANC Rule', published by Jacana in 2021, which won the 2022 South African Literary Awards for Non-Fiction.
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