BRICS is not the answer.
We mustn’t always join things that are already started by others.
We can also start things.
Others and us don’t always have the same historical lived experiences or current situation and future priorities. Or overall perspectives on geopolitics. Or strengths. Or weaknesses.
Every time we join one of these we end up at the back of the class. Because the structure of the world, how it works, already puts Africa at the back of the class.
And none of these organizations, from BRICS to WTO, to UN and others, are invested in challenging or changing the world order.
They are themselves, the world order.
I’ve written more extensively, elsewhere, why Africa must consider the 3rd way, its own self led alternative to BRICS.
Yes, I know this is way over the heads of most current African leaders, not the least the Nigerian leadership. It is particularly shameful that Nigeria is banging on the door, from the back of the room where BRICS has relegated Africa’s most important economy.
That in itself is the lesson.
So many internal fundamentals to be corrected before something like BRICS can be useful for Africa.
AfCFTA for instance. Where’s that? How’s that going? Is that still a neocolonial project with European and Chinese puppet masters and African implementers? Or does Africa really have control of this massive idea and it’s unparalleled potential to disrupt the global architecture?
If AfCFTA remains a paper tiger, BRICS can never work for Africa. It can only work against us, like every other neocolonial palliative before.
The African Union for instance. How’s that going?
Or the African Development Bank - are these still institutions where former colonizers presently hold majority stakes, and even attend our meetings?
As long as our internal status quo is unbroken, no foreign idea, not even BRICS, can rescue Africa.
And the AES? How’s that going?
The Alliance of Sahel States was supposed to be a teachable moment for the rest of Africa. Instead, it exposed how deeply France is embedded, not only in “francophone” Africa, but all the way to Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.
As long as AES remain outsiders to ECOWAS, a million BRICS can never rescue Africa from global economic servitude.
As we speak, South Africa is unraveling deeper and deeper into the chasmic vortices of violent Afrophobic xenophobia.
The state itself won’t stop it, because the state and the afrophobes are on the same team.
Other African nations whose citizens are being killed, and forcefully exiled, won’t do anything because the African Union and its member states are a shadow of themselves.
As long as this internal contradiction persists, nothing BRICS can promise will overturn Africa’s own unwillingness to take charge of itself.
BRICS is against the colonizer class. But for you to be against anything, you first have to be for yourself.
Are we for ourselves? Is Africa for Africa?
Or are we still answering to just about any hunter’s whistle in the global forest?
Africa needs to confront its internal contradictions and lack of preparedness, then come to the negotiating table with BRICS, or any other organization, with a stronger position.
Until then, it’s a farce.
Pipe dream.
A naked dance in the public square at midnight.
Another talk shop that will end up irresponsibly transmitting the burden of economic underdevelopment and political inferiority to one more African generation.
For all its hype, BRICS will end up on the photo wall of history, an inert non-contributor, like every other talk shop before it.
Unless we ask root questions.
Unless we challenge structures, structures that have determined outcomes for 400 years.
The stakes are set.
We are not ready.
BRICS is not for us.
Move on.
1. BRICS-plus as you rightly discussed is not per se going to be a significant help for Africans because we are still Neocolonised. If however, Africans were to restore our Sovereignties, then yes, BRICS-plus would become useful.
In Nigeria indigenous Ethnic Sovereignty is hijacked by the imposed Fraud called 1999 Constitution. In other countries the Tool that hijacks Sovereignty would include the Colonial Pact. There is one or more such a Tool in Africa to make sure that Independence from the West was just another fraudulent act.
2. BRICS-plus has a powerful effect in that it chips off a chunk of the oppressor’s power. Let’s not forget that Africa has been pillaged by the West for 7 or more centuries. A tree that old would have to be brought down bit by bit. BRICS-plus is a sign, it is the writing on the wall for the oppressor that his global structures have an expiry date.
We are in an era where Indigenous peoples are becoming more hopeful. Native Americans are moving for Land Back. There are also Indigenous peoples of Australia seeking their God-given rights. Although we can't link these to BRICS-plus, I think it helps oppressed peoples sense a good change is in the air.
To conclude, many agree with your write-up that Africa needs another type of Association but not AU. We need an Association that is only for Black nations so without Arabs (they have their own), and that could include the Caribbean and Black America Nation, Afro-Canada Nation plus Afro-Hispanic Nation if they want to be in it.
But first things first: restoration in Core Africa (aka Sub-saharan Africa) of our God-given Sovereignty and Self-Determination.
Multilateral discussions and negotiations are best in this polarized world of today. Nigeria can lead for peace, justice, solidarity and progress.