The upcoming BRICS Summit in South Africa (August 22-24) could be a pivotal moment of this century.
No, they are not dumping dollar. Nor would everyone of the 40 nations who want to join BRICS be afforded a seat.
Those who are pro or anti-BRICS are shouting up the wrong door.
Those pro are beating their chest on BRICS overtaking G7 for its share in global GDP (31.5% to G7’s 30.07%); largest foreign currency reserves of $4.4 trillion; or that by 2050, it would account for 50% of global GDP.
Those who rail against it claims that BRICS in all these years has achieved little; that in nearly a decade its bank, the New Development Bank (NDB), has distributed only $33 billion which is a third of what the World Bank disbursed just last year.
That the BRICS can’t dare take on the West for its bank has agreed that it would comply with Western sanctions; that it has declared it is not anti-Western; and that Vladimir Putin would not be turning up in person for fear of being arrested.
And that it could also be now safely said there is no proposal to introduce a BRICS currency as an alternative to dollar.
What everyone agrees to though, the supporters in either camps or those who are neutral, is that there would be a strident voice in support of trading in local currencies by the BRICS nations.
Now this is revolutionary. Sensational.
If all nations in due course begin to trade in their own currencies in their exchanges, a unique privilege of the United States and its Western alliance–of its dollars, pound and euro–would wither away.
The inconvertible currencies become convertible.
Think of the blow it would be to the black marketing, hoarding of currencies, flight of capital, tax evasion, etc etc.
There no longer would be that “begging” at bank counters for foreign currency, for your education, medical treatment, travel…anything.
No more an individual seeking foreign currency in black market and thus contributing to the devaluation of his own national currency.
Those economies which are state-run and their bureaucracies would lose its sting: imagine the blow it would do to corruption; all those economic hurdles, unhealthy social cohesion. If the States can’t claim ownership of currencies, its peddling of influence is dealt a major blow.
All this would promote nationalist sentiment, nationalist leaders. In short, the economic, commercial, political and even daily life would be unrecognizable from today.
As we see in our times, when Capital flees a country, when a local currency is devalued by manipulation, its a major instrument for global powers to exert control on local affairs.
Not to say of those countries which are victims of civil wars, anarchy or devastation like Libya or Yemen—their local currency goes for a toss and all transactions are subject to the availability of dollars and euros.
Citizens, who are the producer of the currency through their work essentially are left dispossessed of it. And those who bring in foreign currency are lauded as heroes.
At the moment, its the Americans and the Westerners who could go anywhere with their dollars and pounds and euros and find themselves welcomed.
So if BRICS really resolves in the upcoming Summit for trade in local currencies, it would hurt dollar enormously.
The US just can’t print dollars whenever it wants.
It would need to be pegged with the production of real wealth.
And the world won’t groan under America’s debt or be enslaved.
Xxx
There would be usual tricks by mainstream media to run down the BRICS.
Yet the upcoming Summit is important enough for the French president Emmanuel Macron wanting to attend it and yet denied the opportunity by the hosts South Africa.
It also unnerves the West, the US and the UK of our world, to see nearly 70 nations of the Global South get together without any invitation being extended to anyone in the western world.
It would also upset them greatly if the news filters in that the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and China’s Xi Jinping ended up having a closed door impromptu “summit”, and the pictures of these two beaming leaders, hugging or shaking hands, is flashed worldwide.
Nightmare, I say.
