{"id":74519,"date":"2016-06-06T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=74519"},"modified":"2016-06-04T14:22:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T13:22:26","slug":"imperialisms-junior-partners-brics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/imperialisms-junior-partners-brics\/","title":{"rendered":"Imperialism\u2019s Junior Partners: BRICS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The response to the Brazilian coup shows that the BRICS powers are not a real alternative to US imperialism.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Dilma<\/a>

Dilma Rousseff and Jacob Zuma at the 2014 BRICS summit in Brazil. GovernmentZA \/ Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

25 May 2016 – <\/em>On May 12, Brazil\u2019s democratic government, led by the Workers\u2019 Party (PT), was the victim of a coup<\/a>. What will the other BRICS countries (Russia, India, China, and South Africa) do?<\/p>\n

Will they stand by as the reactionaries who took power in Brasilia pivot<\/a> closer to Western powers, glad to warm Dilma Rousseff\u2019s seat at the BRICS summit in Goa, India in five months\u2019 time?<\/p>\n

Here in South Africa<\/a>, few expect Jacob Zuma\u2019s African National Congress (ANC) government to react constructively on the international stage. Making waves isn\u2019t likely at a time when Standard & Poors and Fitch are on a South Africa visit, deciding whether to downgrade the country\u2019s credit rating to \u201cjunk\u201d status, as happened in Brazil late last year.<\/p>\n

This is a shame because the last two weeks have offered excellent opportunities for diplomatic rebellion: revelations<\/a> have emerged implicating the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in assisting the apartheid state\u2019s 1962 arrest and twenty-seven-year imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. This isn\u2019t exactly surprising; the State Department did keep Mandela on its terrorist watch list until 2008.<\/p>\n

Following these revelations ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa charged<\/a> that the CIA \u201cnever stopped operating here. It is still happening now \u2014\u00a0the CIA is still collaborating with those who want regime change.\u201d<\/p>\n

BRICS and Empire<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s chief foreign policy spokesperson Clayson Monyela responded<\/a> to Kodwa\u2019s accusation with assurances that South Africa\u2019s relations with the United States \u201care strong, they\u2019re warm, and cordial.\u201d But Kodwa\u2019s cry of imperialism, in light of the Brazilian coup, has struck a nerve.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the argument that Rousseff\u2019s ouster demonstrates that the purportedly anti-imperialist BRICS are under sustained attack by US empire is being repeated in a number of corners. Commentators like Eric Draitser<\/a>, Pepe Escobar<\/a>, Paul Craig Roberts<\/a> and Hugo Turner<\/a>, along with officials from Venezuela<\/a> and Cuba<\/a>, all make this claim.<\/p>\n

A founder of Brazil\u2019s heroic Movement of Landless Workers (MST), Jo\u00e3o Pedro Stedile, was asked<\/a> by Il Manifesto <\/em>about why \u201ca group of deputies from right-wing organizations\u00a0went to Washington before the last elections.\u201d He replied, \u201cTemer will arrange his government in order to allow the US to control our economy through their companies .\u00a0.\u00a0. Brazil is part of the BRICS, and another goal\u00a0is that it can reject the South-South alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another version of this anti-imperialist framing was heard<\/a> at the South African Black Consciousness movement\u2019s Black First Land First launch conference on May 13:<\/p>\n

Brazil and South Africa are seen by the Western imperialist forces as the weak link in the BRICS chain. The strategy of imperialism is to get rid of presidents who support the BRICS process. Imperialism works with internal opposition parties to effect regime change.<\/em><\/p>\n

The eloquent South African commentator Siphamandla Zondi, who directs the Institute for Global Dialogue (one of South Africa\u2019s main foreign policy institutes), also shares this view.<\/p>\n

Zondi defends the BRICS project and disputes the argument put forth<\/a> by myself and others that the BRICS actually serve a \u201csub-imperialist<\/a>\u201d role in the global economy \u2014\u00a0that they are fully complicit in reproducing inequality both within their own countries and between others in the Global South.<\/p>\n

In a challenge posted on Facebook<\/a> he called for observers to recognize that \u201cimperialism has, in the modern age, taken on racism, crude capitalism and patriarchy as its forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

No to the Coup, No to Imperialism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rousseff is of course the victim of a coup. I hope the Brazilian people will rise up against the illegitimate interim government. But whether the coup was a product of imperialism, as Zondi and many others argue, requires a bit more circumspection.<\/p>\n

As WikiLeaks cables revealed<\/a>, <\/em>Temer was a mole for the US State Department a decade ago, playing what Washington considered to be an incompetent, ideology-free role as a political \u201copportunist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, we witnessed<\/a> a similar problem here in South Africa, with the country\u2019s then lead spy, Moe Shaik, offering the same sort of tell-all function \u2014\u00a0before becoming a key liaison<\/a> to the BRICS New Development Bank.<\/p>\n

But as concrete evidence of a US-led coup in Brazil this fact seems insufficient. Moreover, Rousseff herself denied<\/a> the role of imperialism a week after the impeachment, during a Russia Today<\/em> interview: \u201cI don\u2019t believe external interference is a primary or a secondary reason for what\u2019s happening now in Brazil. It\u2019s not. The grave situation we see now has developed without any such interference.\u201d<\/p>\n

She repeated this when pressed by the interviewer, so it was crystal clear that she blames the old oligarchs for her downfall. This point was reinforced by subsequent revelations<\/a> about the coup plotters\u2019 local motivations.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the interweaving of racism, patriarchy, and global capitalism is also not as straightforward as it once was. When Obama\u2019s allies hit the Honduran government in 2009, for example, it was a black man and a woman in Washington who gave international credence<\/a> to the local capitalist elite\u2019s coup against a progressive democrat.<\/p>\n

Similar concerns about Obama\u2019s role on the African continent have also been expressed \u2014\u00a0appropriate considering the Africa Command\u2019s agenda<\/a>. But the role of the BRICS countries shouldn\u2019t be downplayed in these geopolitical power plays.<\/p>\n

The United States is made more dangerous by the sub-imperialist geopolitical functions that Deputy Sheriff Zuma regularly accepts<\/a>, such as endorsing NATO\u2019s bombing of Libya which led to regime change in 2011, supporting Israel even during its periodic mass murder of Gaza civilians, happily hosting US-South African military exercises, and even bragging openly that the South Africa army will serve as Obama\u2019s \u201cboots on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say that crude imperialism has faded away. Looking just at the 2009\u20132012 years when Hillary Clinton<\/a> was secretary of state, Washington\u2019s Blog <\/em>writer Eric Zuesse summarizes<\/a> repeated US incursions in Honduras, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine (and one might add Paraguay too).<\/p>\n

Yet, despite this impressive list of imperialist interventions, US \u201cregime change maneuvers\u00a0in the rest of the black world,\u201d as Zondi phrases it, are not that common. They are not needed at the moment, especially in Africa, where the local leadership is already supine when it comes to Washington\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

Neoliberal Multilateralism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Simply put, \u201cracism, crude capitalism and patriarchy\u201d associated with twentieth-century US imperialism have been largely replaced by Obama\u2019s neoliberal multilateralism \u2014\u00a0a style of governance that the BRICS have bought into, not opposed. <\/em><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t something to celebrate. Multilateral neoliberalism leaves the BRICS countries far less able to pursue any positive South-South interventions.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Rousseff\u2019s ouster demonstrates this clearly and the incoming Temer regime is likely to pursue a desperate course to re-establish its global position. The westward drift announced<\/a> last week by Temer\u2019s foreign minister, Jos\u00e9 Serra, plus Brasilia\u2019s renewed neoliberal agenda on the home front, suggest this will be the case.<\/p>\n

But while it\u2019s obvious that Serra is going to become much more active as a sub-imperial ally of the United States than was Rousseff, Rousseff also did little of substance on the foreign policy front aside from occasional anti-Yankee rhetoric (such as when she learned from Edward Snowden that Obama had bugged her phone and email).<\/p>\n

As the thoughtful (and generally pro-BRICS) commentator Oliver Stuenkel recently lamented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Rousseff failed to articulate anything resembling a foreign policy doctrine, and Brazil\u2019s foreign policy since 2011 was shaped, above all, by the President\u2019s mind-boggling indifference to all things international and foreign policy makers\u2019 incapacity to convince Rousseff that foreign policy could be used to promote the government\u2019s domestic goals \u2014\u00a0as both [former Brazilian presidents] Lula and Fernando Henrique Cardoso so skillfully showed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Serra, on the other hand, has promised<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

Priority will be given to the relationship with new partners in Asia, particularly China, this great economic phenomenon of the twenty-first century, and India. We will be equally committed to modernizing the bilateral exchange with Africa, the big neighbour on the other side of the Atlantic .\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/em><\/p>\n

We will also take advantage of the opportunities offered by inter-regional fora with other developing countries, such as the BRICS, to accelerate commercial exchanges, investments and sharing of experiences.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sub-Imperialism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many who see Brazil as the victim of imperialism also hold the corresponding view that Brazil, along with the other BRICS countries, plays a progressive role on the global stage. Zondi articulated<\/a> this viewpoint concisely in a recent piece for the Cape Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The [BRICS] platform has become the most powerful platform for the pursuit of global reform .\u00a0.\u00a0. Brazil has been a crucial voice in global debates about the reform of global governance, including the IMF and World Bank, and about fair and just outcomes for the developing world in world trade negotiations .\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brazil has spoken out on the agenda of decent work, food sovereignty, a greater Western contribution to the global response on climate change, ecological justice and the end to ecological imperialism. Brazil has also been an advocate of the responsibility to protect.<\/em><\/p>\n

We may miss this now. Brazil is an important part of the effort today to shift global power from the former colonial powers and their diaspora in North America to all regions of the world. It is a key partner in South-South co-operation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many South Africans are impressed with the BRICS, but the reality of Brazil\u2019s global maneuvering is much less rosy. In the most important multilateral settings, BRICS elites have worked against the interests of the world\u2019s majority and against the environment.<\/p>\n

Consider Brazil\u2019s actions in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since 2010 it has been working to reconfigure voting power (\u201cvoice\u201d) in the institution. It has successfully increased its vote by 23 percent (with China also up 37 percent, India up 11 percent and Russia up 8 percent).<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a bad thing. But the restructuring deal<\/a> that made this possible was detrimental to African countries: Nigeria just lost 41 percent of its voting power, along with Libya (39 percent), Morocco (27 percent), Gabon (26 percent), Algeria (26 percent), Namibia (26 percent) and even South Africa (21 percent).<\/p>\n

From this perspective \u201cBRICs versus Africa\u201d seems a more apt way to describe Brazil\u2019s role in \u201creform of global governance\u201d at the IMF.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s maneuvers at other global governance institutions \u2014\u00a0including the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is currently headed up by Brazilian Roberto Azev\u00eado \u2014\u00a0are equally damaging. <\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the ordinarily pro-BRICS NGO Third World Network (TWN), Brazil conspired with the United States and the European Union at the WTO to \u201c<\/strong>[ensure] that India did not get the language it proposed\u201d to maintain vital food subsidies, which in coming years will lead tens of millions of Indian peasants to suffer.<\/p>\n

As TWN\u2019s Chakravarthi Raghavan put it<\/a>, \u201con the eve of Nairobi, Brazil unilaterally abandoned the G20 alliance to join the US and EU, in trying to act against China and India,\u201d not to mention against the world\u2019s poor.<\/p>\n

Of course, Brazil\u2019s behavior is not unique. China and Russia persistently block efforts by Brazil, India, and South Africa to permanently join the Security Council. The point is simply that intra-BRICS solidarity, let alone broader South-South solidarity, is hard to find in reality.<\/p>\n

The issue of Brazil\u2019s role in battling the global environmental crisis also deserves greater scrutiny. In 2009 Lula supported \u2014\u00a0alongside the United States, India, China, and South Africa \u2014\u00a0the Copenhagen Accord, which voided the Kyoto Protocol\u2019s binding emissions-cut premise, contained utterly unambitious emissions targets, and also wrecked the UN process that year.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Rousseff was a booster of the pro-corporate \u201cGreen Economy<\/a>\u201d gambit at the Rio Earth Summit in 2012 that was (semi-successfully) rejected by most of the Global South. She is also a proud signatory to the 2015 Paris UN climate deal<\/a>, a deal which assures catastrophic global warming and also now legally prevents climate victims in the Global South from suing the Global North for its climate debt.<\/p>\n

Brazil has also combined forces with the EU \u2014\u00a0against Bolivia \u2014\u00a0to \u201copen the same carbon trading loopholes that undermined the last global climate deal,\u201d <\/strong>according to<\/a> Oscar Reyes of the Institute for Policy Studies.<\/p>\n

He notes that \u201cthe Paris Agreement explicitly allows countries to count emissions reductions made in other countries as part of their own domestic targets, referring to these by the euphemism \u2018internationally transferred mitigation outcomes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, the claim that \u201cBrazil has also been an advocate of the responsibility to protect\u201d simply doesn\u2019t hold water. Consider Haiti and the \u201cright to protect\u201d role countries like Brazil are tasked with carrying out. As Mark Weisbrot (a PT sympathizer) explains<\/a>,<\/p>\n

The UN occupation of Haiti is really a US occupation \u2014\u00a0it is no more a multilateral force than George W Bush\u2019s \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d that invaded Iraq.<\/em><\/p>\n

And it is hardly more legitimate, either: it was sent there in 2004 after a US-led effort toppled Haiti\u2019s democratically elected government. Far from providing security for Haitians in the aftermath of the coup, [the UN mission in Haiti] stood by while thousands of Haitians<\/a> who had supported the elected government were killed, and officials of the constitutional government jailed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite Brazil\u2019s UN-designated \u201cright to protect\u201d responsibilities it has done nothing to expose or oppose these crimes of occupation which include the rape and sexual abuse of Haitian children by UN soldiers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile back in Johannesburg, lefty-sounding rhetoric from the ANC\u2019s Luthuli House is nothing more than politicians blowing dust into the air.<\/p>\n

When ANC leaders call<\/a> the courageous South African public protector Thuli Madonsela a \u201cCIA agent,\u201d or declare<\/a> that the Mandela Washington Fellowship program of the US Embassy is training kids for \u201cregime change,\u201d they show off anti-imperialist feathers. But in reality, Washington has no beef with Pretoria. The ANC has always excelled<\/a> at talking left while walking right.<\/p>\n

US empire is real and oppressive, but it shouldn\u2019t prevent a clear and critical appraisal of the BRICS countries\u2019 true role in the world.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

Patrick Bond is professor of political economy at the University of the Witwatersrand and co-editor of the 2015 book BRICS: An Anti-Capitalist Critique<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 jacobinmag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 May 2016 – On May 12, Brazil\u2019s democratic government, led by the Workers\u2019 Party (PT), was the victim of a coup. What will the other BRICS countries (Russia, India, China, and South Africa) do? Will they stand by as the reactionaries who took power in Brasilia pivot closer to Western powers, glad to warm Dilma Rousseff\u2019s seat at the BRICS summit in Goa, India in five months\u2019 time?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}