I have been watching CNN Cable News lately and have noticed that there was a dedicated programing called “INSIDE AFRICA”. There had been programs of similar nature on BBC and other Western media. Paying attention a bit to these regularly scheduled radio and TV programs, one is reminded of the renewed interest in Africa and continent’s importance for the rest of world in terms of unexploited resources and manpower as Africa has a huge market as well. We see fierce competition between former colonial Western countries, Russia and China. China’s approach to the African countries involves coming in with know-how and cold cash/credits with construction of insfracture much needed in Africa, while Russia is engaged in boosting security and stability in a number of West Africa countries. Western countries are alarmed by Chinese-Russian recent in-roads into the African Continent. But, their problem is that they have no positive and constructive economic proposals to help and meet the needs of the people of Africa. They are still stuck in past failed and disastrous World Bank and IMF economic restructuring policies. They are doing the same thing over and over again to expect better outcome to keep and consolidate their colonial hold of the continent. It won’t work this time around. Already, we see the rising revolutionary spirit of peoples in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and more, to expel French troops and curtail French exploitation of these countries’ resources.

However, former colonial masters have cultural advantage over Russia and China. English, French, Portuguese, and even Dutch to lesser extent, are official business languages of the continent. Besides Somalia, Ethiopia and Egypt,  there are few African countries who have native official language.

For Russia and China to succeed in their approach to Africa in terms of economic and political cooperation, they need to develop people- to -people relationships with cultural aspects.

South Africa, an economic and cultural giant with progressive political leadership, is a founding member of BRICS, a huge trading block, can bring African countries along these lines.

When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in the 1990s, followed by the end of the Cold War, it was a moment for celebrations in Western World. But, it was a historic disappointment for developing countries, and  Global South in general. That is because the world had lost the balance of power. There was a need for multipolar equibrillium to safeguard international peace and security. With Soviet Union as a counterweight to USA, it guaranteed a check and balance of power against USA hegemony and spheres of influence in many corners of the globe.

Now the rise of China as a major economic and military superpower power in the Southeast Asia is about to shakeup the old Western dominated economic construct and architecture with new challenges to USA sponsored financial instruments, including the US dollar. Russia is set to come back as a major power in world affairs. Moreover, Washington is unable to play China and Russia against each other as it did during the Cold War. If there is a silver lining in the raging Ukraine War, it brought Russia and China closer together, creating uneasiness or even alarm in Western capitals. To make their headaches even more severe, the creation of BRICS Block (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and other important countries now joining in) constitutes an existential threat to the economic and military domination of Western World, the so-called the “New World Order”. American dominated World Bank and IMF, their financial clearing houses and SWIFT Code could be an experience of the past soon. Already, BRICS are launching inter-trade and monetary transactions among the block members, doing away the financial instruments of the West, including VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS and other credit cards, replacing them with brand new BRICS cards.

Paradoxically, the genocidal war in the Gaza Stripe of Palestine has exposed the double standard and hypocritical nature of “Western World Order” on human rights, freedom of expression, self-determination and justice.

Now USA and its allies (in fact satellite states) have no any standing of moral high ground left to lecture on democracy, “Rule-based World Order” or fundamental human freedoms, given their role in the Gaza Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity- a mass slaughter of children, women and elderly in daylight before the eyes of the human race with USA lethal weapons of war,  2000kg bombs that smash whole neighbourhoods of schools, hospitals, shelters for war displaced persons and nursery homes. These barbaric war campaigns against defenceless people make the very existence of the United Nations and its Security Council irrelevant and shameless in the “Western Rule-based World Order”.

Further on BRICS, please read this article by Chinese Network:

https://www.kbc.co.ke/xi-jinping-putin-meet-in-kazan-russia/