Something big happened last week. No, it wasn’t the mugshot heard around the world or the fact that President Biden ordered funding for a new COVID vaccine – this time one “that works” (or at least he hopes!).
What happened while Americans were being purposefully distracted was a meeting aimed at counteracting Western influence.
At a summit hosted by the South African government last week, the five member states of the BRICS group — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — agreed to an unprecedented expansion of the bloc to include six new countries. These new members — who will officially join on New Year’s Day 2024 — include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Think of them as an antidote to the G20.
So, what is the ‘mortar’ that binds these BRICS together? Well, for one thing, all these nations have incredible natural resources. Two of the world’s top three oil-producing countries, and most of the top 10 countries based on natural resources (including many of the minerals needed for the West’s much-touted ”green energy transition”), are now aligned in a geostrategic partnership that does not include the United States.
Writing in the Financial Times last week, editor Janan Ganesh suggested something else that binds this ragtag band of nations together: “grievance”. Grievance against how the West has asserted its preeminence, and also against how these countries have been treated by the West since the fall of the Soviet Union.
So ultimately, the question is: Would you really want membership in a club that features Russia and China, Iran and Saudi Arabia — countries that were once at each other’s throats? Probably not, except here we are. Welcome to the new reality. The West has galvanized itself by any number of measures — weaponizing the SWIFT banking system, taking for granted its reserve currency status, the list goes on — as the common threat for all of these countries and their leaders.
In a clear rebuke of colonialism, imperialism, and interventionism, foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan of Saudi Arabia said his country shares a belief with other members of the BRICS: “respecting the independence and sovereignty of states, and not interfering in their affairs.”
What will take the place of the West’s hegemony is yet to be seen, but the axis of power is clearly already shifting in a new direction, and talk of ‘de-dollarization’ could have a huge impact on the political and economic stage.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was on hand at the BRICS summit and had this to say: “For multilateral institutions to remain truly universal they must reform to reflect today’s power and economic realities and not the power and economic realities of the post-Second World War.”
This kind of global seismic shift is the impetus behind the launch of this new publication. We’re calling it Collapse Life.
It’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ the American empire comes to an end. And, while we certainly don’t have all the answers about what a post-“Pax Americana” world looks like, we’re going to try to shine a light on pockets of wisdom and knowledge that exist out there to help you make sense of it all. And, we’re going to do it with intelligent, critical journalism and hopefully a little bit of wit, too. That’s our commitment to you.
So when the collapse does finally come, it won’t come as a complete shock.