By Ranjan Solomon
“The Third World was not a place. It was a project.” (Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations”)
When BRICS was first conceived, it was often reduced in Western commentary to an economic acronym, a clever grouping of emerging markets seeking to balance the financial weight of the United States and Europe. Yet beneath that pragmatic exterior, BRICS has always contained a deeper philosophical vision: the assertion that the Global South will no longer be dictated to by imperial centres of power, but will reclaim voice, agency, and destiny.
Palestine’s entry into BRICS will be more than another accession. It will be the completion of a circle that began at Bandung in 1955, when leaders of Asia and Africa declared that the age of colonialism was over, that the newly independent would not be pawns in a Cold War, but agents of a multipolar world.
If Bandung was the first great articulation of non-alignment, Palestine’s entry into BRICS will be the declaration of a new era: decolonisation in practice, backed by institutions, resources, and political muscle. BRICS is not NAM reborn, it is its spiritual heir, built on a decolonial vision. Where NAM offered a moral counterweight, BRICS offers structural counterpower:
- The New Development Bank, a rival to the World Bank and IMF².
- The push for de-dollarisation, weakening the chokehold of the U.S. currency².
- South-South technology, energy, and infrastructure exchanges².
- A political bloc representing over 40% of humanity, speaking from the margins of empire².
Kwame Nkrumah warned that *“neo-colonialism is the last stage of imperialism” *³. BRICS is a collective refusal of this stage. It seeks to build a world where development is not hostage to conditional loans, where trade does not mean dependency, and where sovereignty is not crushed by sanctions. In the writings of Samir Amin⁴ and Immanuel Wallerstein⁵, dependency theory and world-systems analysis exposed the way global capitalism entrenched the periphery’s subordination to the core. BRICS is a concrete effort to erode that structure.
If any nation embodies the unfinished business of decolonisation, it is Palestine. Edward Said reminded us that Palestine is not only a territorial struggle but a symbol of resistance against the permanence of colonial domination⁶.
While Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, and others eventually broke the chains of settler colonialism, Palestine remains under siege — militarily, economically, and epistemically. Its admission into BRICS would be a profound correction of historical injustice: the occupied will now sit among the architects of a new order. This would mark a Bandung 2.0 moment. As Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth: *“Decolonization is truly the creation of new men. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the thing which has been colonized becomes man during the same process by which it frees itself.” *⁷
Palestine’s entry into BRICS is precisely this: a declaration that Palestinians will not only resist occupation but actively shape the emerging multipolar world. Their participation ensures that decolonisation is not only a memory of the twentieth century but a living practice in the twenty-first.
Beyond Europe’s hollow gestures, it is tempting to see recognition by European states as victories.
But recognition without consequences is empty ritual⁸. When states recognize Palestine yet continue to trade arms with Israel, buy its spyware, and shield it diplomatically, such gestures become acts of complicity. Recognition without sanctions rewards the oppressor and abandons the oppressed.
BRICS offers something far more consequential: structural support⁹. Access to the New Development Bank, South-South investment, alternative trade mechanisms, and, above all, political solidarity from some of the world’s largest economies. It is the difference between polite applause and tangible partnership. In this sense, Palestine’s inclusion in BRICS marks a strategic divergence from Europe’s hypocrisy: it is not interested in symbolic recognition, but in real participation in shaping the world’s political economy.
Palestine’s entry into BRICS would inject a new moral legitimacy into the bloc. For years, BRICS has been dismissed in Western capitals as a mere club of emerging economies, focused on trade balances and financial institutions. But the presence of Palestine – a people whose struggle is universally recognized as one of the last great decolonial battles would anchor BRICS in the moral terrain of justice and liberation. It would demonstrate that this is not only a coalition of states but a movement grounded in ethical purpose. Palestine would embody the principle that multipolarity is not simply about power-sharing but about redistributing dignity. Within all this is the implications for authentic multipolarity are played out.
There is also the question of geopolitical weight. Alone, Palestine has often been pushed to the margins of global negotiations, its voice drowned by the stronger lobbies of powerful states. Within BRICS, however, Palestine gains a shield of legitimacy and strength, backed by the world’s two most populous nations and several of the largest economies. This alters the calculus of diplomacy. Israel and its allies will no longer negotiate with Palestinians as a people in isolation, but with a state backed by a bloc representing nearly half of humanity. The asymmetry that has plagued the “peace process” for decades would begin to shift.
The third implication is the continuity of decolonisation. From the mid-twentieth century, the Bandung Conference, NAM, and the G77 articulated a vision of political freedom and economic sovereignty. BRICS carries that vision forward, but with institutional instruments capable of delivering material results — development banks, currency alternatives, and infrastructure alliances. Palestine’s entry bridges past and present. It reminds us that decolonisation is not finished business, not a closed chapter of history, but an ongoing project. Palestine in BRICS would symbolize the direct line that connects yesterday’s anti-colonial movements with today’s struggle against neo-colonialism.
Finally, Palestine’s entry would catalyse a shift in narrative. In Western discourse, Palestine is almost always framed as a “problem” to be managed — a humanitarian crisis, a source of instability, an obstacle to peace. By contrast, BRICS would frame Palestine as a partner, a sovereign actor with agency, creativity, and a future to shape. This re-framing is not cosmetic; it is transformative. It rejects the infantilization of Palestinians and affirms that they are equal contributors to global dialogue. In this sense, Palestine’s membership in BRICS becomes not only an act of solidarity but a restoration of subjectivity — the right to speak, decide, and participate as equals in the making of a multipolar world.
From Bandung to Johannesburg, from Nkrumah to Lula, from Nehru to Mandela — the arc of the Global South’s vision has always bent toward a world free from colonial domination. Palestine in BRICS is not an aberration; it is the logical culmination of this arc. We must add too, in optimism the inevitable reality: Martin Luther King asserted: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Nelson Mandela’s refrain was: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” *¹⁰
When Palestine sits at the BRICS table, it will not only speak for itself. It will embody the struggles of all peoples still shackled by occupation, neo-colonialism, or economic dependency. And it will remind the world that solidarity is not charity, that justice is not a gift, and that decolonisation is not yet finished.
Palestine’s entry will be the Bandung of our century: a gathering not just of governments but of histories, memories, and unfinished dreams. It will tell the oppressed everywhere that the world is shifting, that empire is not eternal, and that the Global South — with Palestine at its heart — is building a future where freedom is not granted by the powerful but claimed by the people.
References / Endnotes
1. Vijay Prashad. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. The New Press, 2007.
2. BRICS official statements and communiqués, BRICS Secretariat, 2023–2025.
3. Kwame Nkrumah. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1965.
4. Samir Amin. Accumulation on a World Scale. Monthly Review Press, 1974.
5. Immanuel Wallerstein. The Modern World-System. Academic Press, 1974.
6. Edward Said. The Question of Palestine. Vintage Books, 1992.
7. Frantz Fanon. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 1963.
8. European Union policies and public recognitions of Palestine, 2023–2025.
9. AA News / Al Jazeera, “Palestine Applies for Full Membership in BRICS,” 2025.
10. Nelson Mandela. Speech, United Nations, 1990.
Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator and has long articulated the central core of South-South solidarity
9 October 2025
Source: countercurrents.org