The BRICS invite 70 heads of state, but no one from the West
North-South conflict?South Africa has invited 70 heads of state and government from the "global south" to the BRICS summit, but not a single one from the "collective West". The break of the West with the South is becoming increasingly clear.
24. July 2023
Anyone who consumes the Western media has the impression that the West is popular in the world, Russia is internationally isolated, the Ukraine conflict moves the whole world and events such as the G7 are the navel of the world. The facts show that the opposite is the case and the current BRICS summit is further proof of this. We want to take a closer look at this.
BRICS summit without the West
At the beginning of June, French President Macron asked the South African president, whose country is hosting the upcoming BRICS summit, for an invitation to the summit. The South African reaction was extremely cautious, while Russia openly declared that Macron's participation in the summit was "inappropriate". The Russian Foreign Ministry said in June:
"We have sent a signal that with all due respect for the privileges of the host country to invite certain guests, one should assume the fact that BRICS is an association of states that fundamentally reject unilateral sanctions as a method for solving foreign policy tasks. And it is obvious that the appearance of representatives of the collective West there is simply inappropriate."
This already shows one of the "distract lines" between the West and the rest of the world. The West wants to impose its policies, its "values" and system on all other countries and anyone who opposes this, the US-led West threatens him with sanctions or even war. But the rest of the world does not want to live as you want in Washington or Brussels, but to determine for itself its "values" and its policy.
The sanctions of the West, it must be noted again and again, are contrary to international law, because according to international law, only the UN Security Council may legally impose sanctions on countries. The unilateral sanctions of the West are hated worldwide and you can also see this when you look at the statements before the BRICS summit. Therefore, the Russian note said that no countries should be invited to the BRICS summit that impose unilateral sanctions, most countries of the global south from the soul and South Africa simply ignored Macron's request for an invitation.
On the 21st In July, South African media reported that South Africa invited 70 heads of state and government from the global south to the BRICS summit, but not a single representative of the states of the collective West. South African media reported on the statements of the responsible representative of South Africa in a press conference as follows:
He said that although the Western countries had not been invited, BRICS had never said that they would not talk to them. "We are committed to the community to address common global issues," said Sooklal.
What he meant by this, entirely diplomat, but meant, was that the "global issues" that are important to the BRICS are different issues than those that the West deals with.
Crowds at the BRICS
The popularity of the BRICS is overwhelming, as more and more countries are making formal applications to join the community. Sooklal told the press a few days ago that in addition to the 22 countries that formally asked to join the organization, "a comparable number of countries had informally expressed their interest in BRICS membership", "including all important countries of the global South"
In total, according to him, the BRICS could even grow to more than 50 countries.Sooklal said that Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Argentina, among others, want to join the BRICS.
The break with the West
The EU-CELAC summit has just shown the greatness of the break of the global South with the collective West, at which the CELAC states (the states of Latin and Central America) completely deleted the mention of the Ukraine crisis and the condemnation of Russia from the summit declaration proposed by the EU. They also enforced the invitation of Ukrainian President Selensky, whom the EU had invited.
The EU then published a summit declaration in which Ukraine was briefly mentioned, but this was not a "real" summit declaration because some South American countries protested against this text. The fact that international meetings end without a joint explanation of all participants is rare and shows how great the break between the West and the rest of the world is now.
In addition, the BRICS officially want to reduce the use of the dollar in international trade and even think about a common currency to handle trade within the BRICS. This does not necessarily mean a monetary union, it can also be a clearing currency for international trade, whereby the BRICS want to deposit this currency with a basket of real values (gold, mineral resources, food, etc.), which could pose a real danger for the Western currencies, which are deposited with nothing but the belief in these currencies. After all, the BRICS already have a larger GDP than the G7 and if another 50 countries are added in the next few years, which then successively renounce the dollar in trade among themselves, this would be a real problem for the Western financial system.
In addition, many countries of the global South openly declare that the blame for the Ukraine conflict sees the US-led West, which has left Russia with its policy of ruthless NATO expansion with no choice but to defend its security interests by force. In contrast to the Western public, which is considered stupid by their media, the global south knows that Germany and France tore up the Minsk Agreement in October 2021, that the USA and NATO rejected the mutual security guarantees demanded by Russia in December 2021 and that Selensky demanded nuclear weapons at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022 under the applause of the representatives of the West. Therefore, it is known in the global south that it was the West that left Russia no choice but to become military active in Ukraine.
The same applies to the grain agreement. The global south, which relies on Russia's wheat and fertilizers, knows that although it was part of the grain agreement, the West has not lifted the sanctions that hinder the export of Russian grain and fertilizers. Since Russia has agreed to give away its grain to the distressed countries if necessary and also wanted to give away fertilizers stuck in EU ports to the south, which prevents the EU from being almost a year, the global south knows who is responsible for a possible famine.
Therefore, the global south, for example, was shocked by Baerbock's appearance at the G20 meeting in India, when the countries of the global south wanted to discuss the problems of food security, but Baerbock had nothing better to do than ignore their problems and instead insult the Russian Foreign Minister about Ukraine.
The image of the West in the world
At the beginning of this article, I wrote that everyone who consumes the Western media has the impression that the West is popular in the world, Russia is internationally isolated, the Ukraine conflict moves the whole world and events like the G7 are the navel of the world.
The facts show something else. The West, with its urge to impose its "values" on all countries in the world, is anything but popular in the rest of the world. The West may find LGBT and its economic order and politics dominated by oligarch foundations great, in the rest of the world the enthusiasm for these issues is very limited and the Western urge to impose these and other elements of the Western system on all other states (also under the threat of sanctions) meets with great international rejection. In the global south, the behavior of the West is openly referred to as neocolonialism and is accordingly unpopular.
All the more popular, on the other hand, are Russia and China, which do not try to dictate to anyone what "values" they must have or which policies they have to follow.
This also answers the question of the international isolation of Russia, because only slightly less than 40 states (of course all from the US-dominated West) have joined the anti-Russian sanctions, 150 states, on the other hand, not only have normal relations with Russia, but many states are more or less openly on the Russian side and accuse the West of having caused the Ukraine crisis.
And this also answers the question of how important the Ukraine crisis is taken in the non-western part of the world. Everyone sees the tragedy and everyone is in favor of peace, but they are finally demanding from the West the willingness to negotiate. The consequences of the escalation in Ukraine, i.e. the consequences of Western sanctions, are hitting the global south (see, for example, food safety and grain agreements) hard.
But the logic of most countries of the global South is simple: First the West provoked the Ukraine conflict and then it took it as a pretext to enact illegal unilateral sanctions, from which the global South subsequently suffers greatly. It is therefore not surprising that the countries of the South are not enthusiastic about the West, but behave neutrally or even are more or less openly on the Russian side.
While Western events such as the G7 are largely self-talk within the US-led West, which are about topics that hardly interest the rest of the world (for example, LGBT rights, arms aid for Ukraine, the aggressive policy of the West towards China, etc.), the BRICS focus on the issues that really move the rest of the world. The fact that the BRICS now also surpass the G7 in terms of GDP is added.
So one should look at the BRICS summit in the West with some concern, especially because no one from the West was invited, although it was asked. The West is isolating itself in the world, but those who consume Western media still believe that the West is the world's global moral and economic pole.