BRICS: Summits, coups and a changing world order

In the launch of our fifth season, we are pleased to welcome back author, public intellectual and director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad. Taking us through the recent economic summits of BRICS and the G20, as well as the cascade coups in West Africa, Prashad delves into the rapid and stunning changes taking place in the world today, where they came from and what this could mean for a changing world order. Is it multipolarity or is it something else?

In speaking of the origins of the BRICS bloc of economically emerging nations, Prashad says:

“You know, it's interesting because it's almost as if people in the West were blindsided by the appearance of this thing called BRICS and recently, of course, the term Global South … there's a straight line between the anti-colonial struggles of the 19th century and these developments now … And so the BRICS isn't some invention of the Goldman Sachs economists. It didn't come out of nowhere. It's part of a long history by these countries to fight for economic sovereignty, political democracy on the world stage in one sense or the other, and then some kind of economic parity.” 

Prashad also reflects on the history of coups in the Global South and those now taking place in West Africa:

“In many parts of the Third World, especially during the period of the debt crisis and subsequent to that. .. there was a sense that nothing is going to change. You know, people resigned themselves to a kind of futility ...There is a sense of resignation to decay. We are not going to be able to develop. We're not going to be able to advance ... These coups, two of them in Mali, two of them in Burkina Faso, one in Niger, one in Gabon, these coups ... represent the frustration of their populations. And that's a reality. That's hard to take away. And that's why millions of people across the Sahel have been coming out to defend these coups.”

Tune in to my conversation with Vijay Prashed on summits, coups and an empowered Global South that says, “we are not afraid of the West anymore.”

About today’s guest: 

Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad is an historian, journalist, researcher, activist and a prolific writer. He has over 30 books to his name, including: The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World; The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South; Red Star Over the Third World; and Washington Bullets: A History of CIA, Coups, and Assassinations. He is the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, a columnist for Frontline News and chief editor of Leftword Books. 

Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute. 

Image: Vijay Prsahd / Used with permission.

Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased. 

Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy); Grace Taruc-Almeda, Karin Maier and Jim Cheung (Street Voices)  

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Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca. 

Host: Resh Budhu.