Hans Vogel argues that the rise of BRICS as a successor to the Non-Aligned Movement reflects a global shift away from Western dominance, fueled by the decline of US imperialism, the failures of neocolonialism, and a resurgence of nations striving for true sovereignty and indigenous values.
Now that BRICS is expanding and becoming increasingly powerful, once again its hidden history comes to mind. BRICS was founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa at a moment when the world was coping with the great financial swindle of 2008, when US power was clearly waning. After having decided the fate of much of the world for over half a century since the end of World War II, the US was finally faced with its inevitable decline, hastened by imperial overstretch, hubris, idiocy and a complete lack of historical awareness.
Not surprisingly, the beginning of the end for the US Empire as we know it was chiefly the result of the virtual coup d’état by the Neocons and their “Project for the New American Century” (PNAC). Actually, we should be thankful to them for accelerating the decline of the American Empire. Implicit in their project was the notion that the first “American Century” was coming to an end and with their characteristic conceitedness and rancor (inspired by their fathers and grandfathers who left the Ukraine around 1900) they brought that end nearer.
What they must still consider their master stroke, namely 9/11, seemed to round off their coup, but actually it must be considered the beginning of their own downfall. Needless to say, 9/11 was executed with the neocons’ associates in the Holy Land, but nevertheless it still constitutes the first stage of their undoing. In this respect, let us not forget that in French, the word “neocon” would mean something like “new idiot” which seems a very apt qualification. In all their stupidity and greed, the neocons have wrought us quite a bit of havoc: the big financial swindle of 2008, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, the Gazacaust and the War in the Ukraine being the most visible of those disasters. Moreover, they enabled and fomented the WHO and the WEF, as well as the Great Covid Show. Of course, they could always count on the full support of the New York banking establishment and the venal legacy media. Nevertheless, a greater display of hubris, stupidity and conceitedness has never before been seen in world history.
In other words, the neocons have done all they could to resuscitate the Non-Aligned Movement.
BRICS can be seen as the linear successor to the Non-Aligned Movement, which celebrated its foundational moment in 1955 at the Bandung Conference. Hosted by Indonesian President Soekarno, political leaders of twenty-nine Asian and African states discussed how to build a future without being victimized and threatened by colonial and neocolonial powers. Among the participants were Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his Chinese counterpart Zhou Enlai, as well as Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Much of the spirit and even content of their joint final declaration is coming back to life through BRICS.
Riding on a wave of anti-colonialism at a moment when most of Africa was still administered by a handful of colonial powers (England, France, Portugal, Belgium and Spain), the Bandung Conference was a culminating moment. General Juan Domingo Perón, then President of Argentina (until he was ousted by the 21 September coup), though not part of the group, was nevertheless ideologically associated on account of his political philosophy of the Tercera Posición (“third Position”). Perón refused to be part of both the US empire and the Communist bloc, led by the USSR.
Although most of Africa had become independent by the mid-1960s, colonialism did not just disappear. It morphed into neocolonialism, which for the neocolonial powers was actually a less costly arrangement. Colonial rule was replaced by sovereign governments, but the US and its European vassals did what they could to prolong the colonial status by controlling the local economies. When this was becoming a bit too obvious and caused friction and resistance, the concept of “development aid” was invented so as to pull “Third World” nations back into the imperialist system.
Interestingly, this paternalistic idea was most actively supported and promoted by what used to be called the “Left”: people who considered themselves morally elevated above their fellows and who believed this entitled them to tell all those colored people in the “Third World” how to develop their countries. A more sinister and racist attitude is hardly conceivable.
Today, now that “development aid” has disappeared from the public debate, we are witnessing the empowerment of states that were once scandalously exploited, such as Brazil, India, China, South Africa and other BRICS members and partners, including prospective ones. It would seem the dream of Soekarno, Nehru, Nasser, Perón, Kwame Nkrumah and others is finally becoming a reality.
At the same time, we can see another phenomenon: in and for the former colonial powers, the wheel of fortune has turned. England, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, once proud centers of colonial empires, the lower and middle classes have been subjected to a ruthless process of pauperization and dumbing down. This has been going on for at least three decades, but most of those affected have not been able to see and truly understand what was going on. Most are being kept in a zombie-like fake reality consisting of a powerful concoction of government-sponsored fake news and disinformation, addiction to self-pampering, numbing TV and music, spectator sports, gambling, alcohol, drugs, pornography and fear of global warming and pandemics.
It is just a small, yet influential and growing minority that has been pointing out what was actually happening, and how it could and should be resisted. These people may be qualified and qualify themselves as reactionary, far-right, alt-right, anti-globalist, racialist, nationalist, Eurasianist, nativist, Traditionalist, etcetera, denoting that they all resist the destructive policies by their respective governments. Collectively, they could perhaps best be defined as conservative dissidents.
Essentially, they can be said to hold the same views and often use the same arguments as the Bandung Conference attendants of 1955. Expressed in the most general terms, what they want is a truly national state enjoying real national independence defined in accordance with native values and traditions, freedom from outside interference (both by states and non-state actors such as banks and international organizations), preservation and protection of traditional indigenous values and cultures.
Whoever embraces those values today, at least in the West, is considered to be an incurable reactionary. Whatever is unique, typical and traditional is frowned upon by the governments of the US, the EU and the NGOs and international bodies that they support, such as the WHO and the WEF. Things, values and practices that are unique, typical and traditional are only allowed to survive in folklorized form: as a kind of cute Disneyworld phenomenon, as some kind of tourist attraction.
The inhabitants of former European colonies and those of nations subject to Western neocolonialism afterward have known that at least for some eighty years. Today, growing numbers of inhabitants of European nations and North America are arriving at the same conclusion.
This serves to prove that, like colonialism, globalism is doomed to fail. The only way forward for humanity is to mind its own business. Each people really ought to be sovereign and cherish its own values. It is what Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini already said in the early 19th century.