First of all, it’s an acronym, formed from the initials of the five original member countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

But what does it do?

“Originally identified to highlight investment opportunities, the grouping evolved into an actual geopolitical bloc, with their governments meeting annually at formal summits and coordinating multilateral policies since 2009 . . .” [Wikipedia, last edited July 26, 2024]. Membership has doubled in size, and now includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); and their meetings are not limited to the annual summit.

* NOTE: The August 2023 meeting in Johannesburg was attended, not by Vladimir Putin, but on his behalf by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, due to the outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Putin in March of 2023 for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

And the potential for further growth is great. The following countries are said to have applied for, or expressed interest in, membership:

In Africa: Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe; in the Americas: Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela; in Asia: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yemen; and in Europe: Belarus. [Wikipedia, id.]

That’s a lot of countries!

So we’re still left asking: What is their purpose? That, of course, is the all-important question. According to BBC.com (Feb. 1, 2024):

“The group was designed to bring together the world’s most important developing countries, to challenge the political and economic power of the wealthier nations of North America and Western Europe.”

Oh.

In searching for a BRICS website, I at first found only specific sites referencing their former and upcoming (2024) annual summits. When I tried to open the 2023 site, I was informed that my computer was in danger of being hacked. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there in a hurry.

But never fear — Vladimir Putin is here! Russia has been assigned the presidency for 2024, and he has published a statement . . .

Holy crap! I had continued on to open the site for the 2024 summit, to be held in Kazan, Russia, and hosted by none other than President Putin himself in October of this year. And when I expanded the page by clicking on “More details,” which included the entirety of his official announcement, I was suddenly booted out, with a message saying that the server had stopped responding.

But before that happened, I managed to get a screen shot of this:

What was going on? Russian censorship at work? A simple technical glitch? What the hell . . . ??!!!

I decided to try again later; but in the meantime — and particularly in view of the makeup of its membership — I began to wonder: Exactly whom are they trying to replace?

*. *. *

Luckily, perseverance paid off. It turned out there is a website: http://www.infobrics.org. Although I still couldn’t find Putin’s statement, this did bring me to a very lengthy summary of a meeting that had been held on June 10th in historic Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, which included the expanded membership (BRICS+) and focused on a wide range of economic and environmental matters . . . with a generous sprinkling of political double-speak, such as:

“The BRICS+ approach to reach key decisions through consensus and extensive consultations marks a major shift from characteristic historical hegemonic influence and marginalisation [sic] associated with the unipolar global order associated with exclusionary dominant Western influence.”

And this:

“However, emboldened discussions point to major progress towards collective influence for the group and for developing countries within international organizations such as the UN, the World Trade Organization and the Bretton Woods institutions. A collective approach in the multilateral institutions is crucial in leveraging growing influence to realise [sic] a level playing field in international economic and political participation, fostering a more stable and peaceful global community.”

*. *. *

And there it is: Right out of the Vladimir Putin / Xi Jinping manual for the creation of their New World Order: telling the West, in effect, that you had your chance, the world has serious problems, and now it’s our turn to fix things . . . the Putin/Xi way.

I need to know more; but between Vladimir Putin’s BRICS+ and Viktor Orban’s Patriots for Europe, I definitely feel a nightmare coming on tonight.

*. *. *

And by the way, I still can’t open http://www.brics-russia2024.ru. The server refuses to respond. Sounds like a Moscow restaurant in the 1980s.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
7/27/24