The BRICS Summit was by all counts a success. This is from its development content, countries that actually joined, the mobilisation of the African continent to participate and, importantly, the offer of support by China to South Africa on the issue of energy, from nuclear and coal to renewables.
The summit certainly shifted the magnetic field of the socio-political and economic landscape to the true south. The build up to the summit had important sign posts. The Africa-Russia summit signified a potential shift in economic relations.
This, however, was preceded by an equivalent of what in 1974 was labelled the Hidden Agenda at the Third World Population Conference in Bucharest where Africa raised development as core to population deliberations.
The world was eager on population control and reducing the birth rate as its core objective. The Club of Rome in 1960 had been building a spirited neo-Malthusian agenda that culminated in the main theme of the 1974 World Population Conference. Africa rejected this position.
While the 1984 conference retained the population control theme, the road to Cairo in 1994 stamped the position of Africa in Bucharest, and the conference henceforth became the International Conference on Population and Development.
Just as in the meeting convened by President Emmanuel Macron in Paris as the BRICS Summit was being prepared for, the voice of African leaders was unanimous on self-determination and breaking the back of neo-colonialism and imperialism.
President William Ruto of Kenya was very direct to Macron that Africa for far too long had tolerated an unfair and amoral economic relationship with its former colonisers. The BRICS Summit was a furtherance of this purpose.
While this felt like Bucharest 1974 – a hidden agenda – this time around it was the South discussing its development agenda on its own and defining what a multilateral world should be like. It is backed by massive resources, and importantly, by massive human resources that can be catalysed into a true liberation army from the consequences of colonialism.
If there is something South Africa desperately needs to turn the corner, it is stable and reliable energy. The exchange of material benefits and goodwill by China to South Africa at the moment of its greatest need, however, requires a historical context of the political economy of the two countries.
Lessons are needed lest we miss the point and deepen the mistakes we have made that are visible currently, while repeating and disappointing the BRICS Plus no sooner than they leave our shores – just as we did with our national football team after the 2010 World Cup.
The Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25 makes the point with crystal clarity: “Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
“And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying: ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’
“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterwards the other virgins came also, saying: ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said: ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”
In his book titled “Wy Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu makes a point similar to the one that Matthew makes, that nations fail at the altar of politics and policies. The book is summarised thus: “Why Nations Fail dives into the reasons why economic inequality is so common in the world today, and identifies that poor decisions of those in political power are the main reason for unfairness, rather than culture, geography, climate, or any other factor.”
During a lecture at Unisa, Professor Weiwei Zhang on how China became the superpower it is today, makes the point in reverse. China succeeded because it focused on the nexus of the four supers of: population, territory, traditions and culture, and anchored itself in the hearts and minds of China’s people through Confucian meritocracy.
Why is a historical perspective necessary? In the 80s China had no energy industry and South Africa had Eskom and Koeberg and nuclear energy, with the capacity to build a nuclear bomb. South Africa is a classic case study of the five foolish virgins, a case of Daron Acemoglu’s book of Why nations fail. It failed on the altar of the poor decisions of those in political power.
A classic example of the poverty of thought is South Africa’s wanton destruction of its coal-fired system as recently as November 2022, and counting. At BRICS, China, which had none of the capabilities South Africa had in the eighties, offered a hand to assist in nuclear, coal and renewable energy.
China is continuing like Germany and the UK to open coal-fired power stations, while South Africa has frantically abandoned the medicine of planned maintenance Molefe and Koko provided for from 2014 to 2017.
For five years in succession and counting, South Africa has been a classic case of the foolish maidens. Will we learn something from China and benefit from BRICS? Only time will tell, but if Bafana Bafana and 2010 is anything to go by, big disappointments are on the way.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
BUSINESS REPORT