All bets on new world order

George Galloway, a British politician, has likened the Kazan summit of the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group to the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. “The children unborn will grow up in a world shaped by Brics 2024,” he said in a video posted on social media during the bloc’s conference in the Russian city last month. “This is the future; this is a new world that is struggling to be born, no doubt. But it is being born ineluctably. Once the process of labour has begun a birth is inevitable. People will be exchanging commodities within the Brics countries in local currencies. The dollar is beginning to die,” he concluded. Mr Galloway may appear to some a bit too excited about the ascent of Brics — or conversely, the diminishing US global economic influence. Yet the fact remains that the group’s growing influence is signalling a shift away from Western dominance and towards a more multipolar world, helping shape a more just and democratic future.