Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

BRICS advances to South-South cooperation

7/26/2014

0 Comments

 
Posted July 30, 2014

     BRICS is composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.  These nations comprise 41.6% of the world’s population, 19.8% of the world GDP, and 16.9% of world commerce.  Whereas the combined GDP of the developed nations has grown 60% in the last decade, the combined GDP of the BRICS has increased 300%.

     BRICS was established in 2009 with the intention of facilitating economic and commercial cooperation among the member nations.  But BRICS is now taking a further decisive step.  It is connecting itself to an alternative process that is unfolding in Latin America and the Caribbean.  This alternative process is not merely an integrationist project of ascent in the world-system but a project that seeks to develop alternative structures that can serve as the foundation for an alternative and more just and democratic world-system.

      The Latin American process has roots in the Latin American independence movements of the early nineteenth century, which established republics that were semi-colonies rather than truly independent.  Popular movements during the twentieth century followed one of two roads.  The first, the more common, was a reformist project of ascent through import-substitution, supported by an alliance of the national industrial bourgeoisie and the popular sectors.  It could not succeed, because the neocolonial situation provides limited possibilities for autonomous industrial development and for the satisfaction of popular needs.  The second path was the revolutionary taking of power through armed struggle by the popular sectors, which triumphed only in Cuba.  With the emergence of the structural crisis of the world-system in the 1970s, the global powers launched the neoliberal project, sweeping aside the modest gains of the import-substitution project.  Meanwhile, Cuba, battered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the neoliberal global environment, nevertheless endured.

     But the neoliberal assault, a true economic war against poor, politically backfired.  It provoked popular movements that sought to cast aside governments and political leaders that had violated the dignity of their nations by implementing the neoliberal agenda of the global powers.  And as the popular movements gained momentum, there stood tattered but proud revolutionary Cuba, a model of Latin American and human dignity.

     Venezuela was the first government to fall to the popular outrage at the neoliberal project, bringing to the presidency Hugo Chávez, whose soul was nurtured by the Bolivarian dream of a single country of all Latin America and by the warnings of Martí of the imperialist intentions of the great power to the North.  When Chávez began to speak at an international meeting, in which Fidel also was present, the Cuban revolutionary passed a note to him, saying, “I think I am no longer the only devil in the room.”  Chávez would become like a son to Fidel, a relation for all the world to see.  Bolivia would soon follow in the change that was beginning to sweep the region, led by an indigenous coca farmer association leader who soon mastered the art of international diplomacy and formulated a Latin American popular perspective with an indigenous ecological emphasis.  And then came Ecuador, led by an economist in expensive suits who had studied in the United States and who, once he arrived to the presidential office, hit the ground running with his insistence of the development of alternative political-economic structures.  Others emerged, a little less radical but nonetheless participating in the process of change: Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and El Salvador.  Ultimately, the entire region was affected, and all of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean would affirm the basic principles of the alternative process and would bury the Pan-American project of the United States, once the dominant project in the region.

      So the connection being established between BRICS and CELAC has significant global political implications, for in establishing formal relations with CELAC, the nations of BRICS are casting their lot with the alternative popular project of CELAC.  They are not merely seeking ascent in the established world-system, but seeking to promote their development through the construction of an alternative world-system, more just and democratic.

     Sensing the importance of the historic moment, and appreciating the leadership of China and Russia in the process, Fidel Castro has recently written that Russia and China are “the two countries called to head a new world that would permit human survival, if imperialism does not beforehand unleash a criminal and exterminating war” (2014:4).


References

Castro Ruz, Fidel.  2014.  “Es hora de conocer un poco más la realidad,” Granma: Órgano Oficial del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, La Habana, 22 de julio, Págs. 4-5.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, South-South cooperation, China, CELAC
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation