From Bretton Woods to the Kazan Declaration …. Shazia Anwer Cheema

The world is facing a tug of war between unipolarity and multipolarity and events such as increasing poverty in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania; the Ukraine proxy war; and the genocide of the Palestinians are challenging the world order established in Bretton Woods. But the West is desperately trying to uphold its longstanding hegemony over the Global South. Any multinational alliance that does not have the patronage of NATO or Five Eyes is considered an ‘adversary’ by the Global North instead of a global partner; and BRICS is no exception.

Held in Russia, the Kazan Summit had a symbolic relevance that voiced against genocide in Palestine; demanded a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict; challenged Western sanctions over developing countries; and called the ‘protectionist approach’ a reason for global poverty. BRICS is an indicator of a new dawn and the decay of the old normal. It does not mean that the world is going to divide itself again into left right blocs rather all those targeted by the current systems have started unanimously disagreeing with bloc formation proposing a multi-nodal world where all the nods are equally important in their respect. Nonetheless, the shift from the old world order to a new one will not be sudden but more elastic.

The three-day BRICS summit held meetings of the BRICS Working and Business groups followed by the meeting of the heads of state. And the message that came from Kazan is that having the utmost necessity for change, the reality is that the old ways cannot be abandoned overnight nor should be so abruptly. The summit is tasked with keeping a balance. The much-discussed idea of BRICS’s new financial architect is a tiny first step towards this massive change. Change is always overwhelming and, at times, frightening. This is why there is a reluctance to present half-cooked ideas. BRICS pay or BRICS bridge, grain barter, petro-goods, petro-local currencies exchange, and the farfetched idea of a new reserve currency demonstrates the complexity of the task ahead. The post-Bretton Woods system lasted for almost eight decades, so its replacement is an enormous task. Nevertheless, its death by thousand cuts has begun in Kazan which may take two or three decades to fully materialise. It may be remembered Bretton Woods was a 1944 agreement and system of monetary management that established a framework for international currency exchange rates and economic growth.

There is a discussion regarding BRICS being only an economic arrangement, but that is not so. Alexander Dugin, a pro-Eurasianist, is of the view that the economy is just a continuation of philosophy. He is right because considering the new world order to be just about the economy is misleading and a logical fallacy.

The economy is not merely something external; rather it is driven by politics, civilisation, culture, and even spiritual values; and the fundamental flaw of the Western capitalist aka Bretton Wood design is that it thinks of the economy being a byproduct of human existence.

The media coverage in Europe portrays the Kazan Summit as a product of ‘Eurasianism ideology’ and this narrative is harmful because ‘Eurasianism ideology’ has been tagged in the Western world as the “dream of a new empire and revenge on the Western powers” although BRICS is challenging the concept of ’empire’ that is always based on ‘protectionism’ because protectionist approach results in economic dominance by few and policies repressing the majority.

The first two decades of the 21st century have testified that the neoliberal ideology of accumulation and containment of resources by a few has led to the chaos that we are facing today. In light of that, genocide can be justified and a country can be turned into rubble just to satisfy the need for resource distribution among few. Modern capitalism is not something authentic and universal. I, like many in Europe, believe that the world needs a new civilisation initiative, a new security initiative, new economic architects, and uninterrupted global connectivity for its survival. The Kazan Declaration testifies that if the old world order had not been monopolised, the need for a new system could have not arisen.

Courtesy Express Tribune