The move to ‘bipolar’ planet key to Brics

The ANC had made it even more clear, if it wasn’t before, that its diplomatic and ideological sympathies increasingly lie with Russia.

The party said it is sending senior officials to Moscow to discuss “recalibration of the global order” with President Vladimir Putin’s party.

That would seem to go significantly beyond the ANC’s stated policy of keeping South Africa nonaligned in global affairs, although the party may justify it in terms of the striving of the Brics – Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa – countries to mould themselves into a counterbalance of the current “uni-polar” world dominated by the West.

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Brics has already given notice that it wants to develop its own currency as a rival to the almighty US dollar.

Were this to happen and were such a currency be able to be used in oil and gas transactions – replacing the petrodollar, which is the current currency of trade in that area – then it would have major implications, not only for the global financial system, but also for international relations.

However, the reality is that such a goal might be some way off for the Brics nations. For example, it is said that US-based airlines currently offer more direct flights to cities in Brics nations than their national carriers do.

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Also, all of the long-haul jets used by these countries are made in America or Europe … and changing that is going to be next to impossible, given the underdevelopment of the aerospace industry in the Brics union.

That, though, is just one stumbling block Brics will face in breaking the US-Western dominance of global affairs.

Yet, the more diversity on offer to the world, the less it is vulnerable to the dictates of the powerful industrialised nations, so the move to a “bipolar” planet is not something which should be summarily dismissed.

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