From BRICS to BRICS+: Six New Members to Join the Bandwagon on the First Day of 2024

BRICS Newest Members to Join the Bandwagon From the First Day of 2024

They are black, white, South Asian, East Asian, and South American; never has there been such a diverse organisation with a foundation for forming an egalitarian world. The new BRICS+ will have almost half the world’s population and a GDP gross of over $30 trillion and GDP (PPP) of over $55 trillion, that is unprecedented. The South Africa BRICS summit has shown how disconnected the global south is from the West.

Of the last 10 most used or most impactful inventions, as listed below, seven are American and nine are Western (including South Korea’s Samsung, as Korea mainly aligns with the West as a US ally). With the exception of Telegram and TikTok, you are beginning to see how a skewed minority has dominance over the overwhelming majority. This is why they can slap sanctions, impose their will, and dictate what they wish on the rest of us.

Google
Smartphones (Apple/Samsung/Huawei)
Social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), WhatsApp, LinkedIn, YouTube, SnapChat, Pinterest, Telegram, etc)
GPS
Visa
Mastercard
SWIFT/SEPA
Netflix
Boeing/Airbus
Microsoft Office

This does not mean that others cannot invent; far from it. The US and its allies stifle others by ignoring, placing hurdles, or putting other covert mechanisms in place so that none of their inventions can disrupt the status quo. One way they use their hegemony to bar outsiders from the club is the US’s and its allies’ ban on Huawei for allegedly spying. There is not an even playing field. China has never been caught spying on any country; the US, on the other hand, has been caught spying on the entire world, even on its so-called allies, yet China is the one accused of spying with no evidence.

BRICS, or now BRICS+, have come to balance the equation. Never has the global south been so united against a common injustice. An injustice coming from the West, which has degraded the global south for almost, if not over, a century. BRICS+ is not looking to become adversaries; it just wants an even playing field. When people come together, they grow in strength and broaden their leverage. BRICS+ has all it takes to leverage for an even playing field. It is now equipped with scientific and technological advancement and human capital more than at any time in human history, thus putting it in the lead position. In a few decades, our world will be a very different place. What that means is that it will be very non-white-centric.

Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will join the BRICS family on January 1, 2024. Never have they been such a diverse organisation with equal membership status regardless of GDP and other typical Western-invented barriers used to divide countries. From South America, Africa, Europe, and West and East Asia, a new world order is being formed. Gone are the days when one man elected by their countrymen dictates what happens thousands of kilometres away in places he or she knows nothing about.

For far too long, the Westerners have dictated to the world like they were the only ones who mattered; they stomped on other countries internal affairs, invaded, sponsored coups, imposed, and even openly called for regime change. They want their culture to be mainstream by forcing LGBT (Q), their version of democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, and other subjective characteristics that may be defined differently by different cultures.

BRICS presents a new world order, a platform where those not included in Western hegemony can dictate their own future without being subjected to sanctions, exclusion, and/or military intervention that almost always ends up with installing a puppet who rules by the dictate of Westerners.

Africa will now have three countries in this ever-growing family of equals. As we look forward to BRICS changing the narrative, the next decade will see the world totally defaced from the Western caricature it has lived under for more than a century.

With a GDP of just under $160 billion, Ethiopia will speak, share space, and have equal say with other countries, some with as big a GDP as $19 trillion. That’s the core value of BRICS: equality at its finest for the betterment of our world without subjugation of one culture over another.

By Ikechukwu ORJI