BRICS - A View from South Africa w/ Prof. Narnia Bohler-Muller

Speaker 1: You remember din-din-boo? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a wrangler. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on them.

Henry Huckamacki: Hello and welcome to Guerrilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckamacki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussain, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today?

Adnan Hussain: I'm doing great, Henry. It's wonderful to be with you.

Henry Huckamacki: Absolutely. It's lovely to see you as always. We have a terrific guest today and a very important topic that we will be discussing. But before I introduce our guest and discuss what the topic will be, I want to remind you listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that we're doing by following us on social media. We're on Twitter at Gorilla underscore pod. Again, Gorilla to ours. On Instagram, Gorilla underscore history. And we also have recently reactivated our sub stack so you can get updates directly in your email box by going to Gorilla history dot sub stack dot com. Again, Gorilla's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A. So without further ado. As I mentioned, we have a really terrific guest today and a very important topic. So before I introduce our guest's name, we have had numerous discussions over the last year to year and a half that have involved BRICS. And when we bring up BRICS, we have talked about many of the different countries that are involved, both as full members, as partner countries, etc., But there is a tendency, and we are very guilty of this ourselves and are trying to correct this now, to focus primarily on Russia, China, and sometimes India when we are talking about the formation of BRICS. We often don't focus too heavily on South Africa's role within BRICS, and they do play a very critical role. So we are wonderfully pleased to invite Professor Narnia Bowler-Muller onto the show today. She's a former professor and a divisional executive in the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa and has been involved with BRICS and South Africa's role in BRICS for many years. So hello, Professor. It's nice to have you on the show. How are you doing today?

Narnia Bowler-Muller: I'm doing very well and it's very nice to be with you, Hendry and Anand. Thank you for having me on the show. I'm looking forward to sharing these thoughts with you.

Henry Huckamacki: Of course. Before we get into BRICS and South Africa's role within BRICS, I think it'll be useful for the listeners to understand a little bit about you and your background and how you got involved in the push to have South Africa added to, at the time, BRIC and become BRICS. And I think that that requires us to go a little bit back into your history. Can you talk about your early upbringing? I know that your parents were journalists in apartheid South Africa and had some very interesting experiences and loss of income as a result of what they were involved with during the apartheid era and whether or not that struggle that your parents were involved in influenced your early political thought. And then we'll get into your more academic side of things a little bit later.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: Thank you for that question. And I think there's no doubt that what happened at home when I was younger had a real impact on me. Yes, both of my parents worked for a newspaper that it was that time called the Rand Daily Mail. And the Rand Daily Mail was as well. They were exposing things as much as they possibly could as journalists. But it was very dangerous terrain for a lot of journalists to work in because the government was watching. And in fact, there were a number of security officials that used to come to our house at night when I was very young, question my parents, ask for material. So it was really intense. And eventually, I think the government just decided that the journalists were too pesky. The newspaper was becoming more respected and it was shut down without notice, really, leaving both of my parents without work. So that was when we lived in Johannesburg. We then moved from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth, where my father lectured at Rhodes University. So he lectured journalism there for a few years until his retirement. So I was always interested in the newspaper business. And I wanted to become a journalist and I wanted to go to Rhodes University to study to become a journalist. And he said, over my dead body. So I ended up doing law. But I've always been able to see things differently because of what my parents did, what they spoke about. And I think we just had... I had an opportunity to see some things that other people didn't see. Although I find it extremely difficult to believe that people couldn't see what was going on. But at the same time, if you are going to unban and you are going to sanction and ban again newspapers, then television shows, then you are going to put the public into a dark place where not everybody understands what's happening in the country. It's a kind of what happens in these kinds of regimes where there's authoritarianism and oppression. The media is targeted, almost number one target. And so, I mean, blogs like this are absolutely amazing. But in those days, there was no opportunity to go online, you know, to break away and to go online and to start your own online newspaper or blog or vlog or whatever you want to call it. It was really still very, very old fashioned in those days. But it did give me a different perspective on life in South Africa. and a sense of injustice. You know, I just have in me this sense of a dislike of unfairness, injustice, oppression, because I've seen what it does and I've seen how you can use the law to do it. And so having studied law, also gave me a different perspective. Because when I studied law, it was prior to 1994 in South Africa, just before. So in fact, I was finishing off my law degree when Nelson Mandela became the first democratic president. And before that, our law curriculum was very narrowed. It was very Western-centric. It was all about how you use the law in order to force order. And so it would be sort of rule by law instead of rule of law. And that's exactly what the apartheid government did and what my parents criticized them for. And that was the legislation and the policies adopted to separate people. And then to oppress them. So you have these pieces of legislation that legislating hate in a sense, if not... Yeah, I can't really put it in another way because when you separate people... You don't allow them to get to know one another, one another's cultures, the way we think and feel, especially as children. So when you have separate schooling systems, from a very young age, you don't know anyone except people who look like you. In a country where we're a minority whites, and I didn't have any black friends at school because, you know, there were separate schooling systems. And we didn't have an opportunity to get to know one another, even as youngsters. So, and the law thing together with the journalism thing, I guess, and then the research made me want to learn more about, I guess, about justice. Yeah. Get to know more about how the law can be used to do good. And that's something that I've really been emphasizing a lot in my work. And that is, you know, we have human rights and everybody says, oh, that's great. You know, that's sort of the right freedom of association, freedom of expression, the kinds of things we hear Americans talk about all the time. But there are other rights in our constitution, in any case, and in many other constitutions in the world called socioeconomic rights. And these were actually included in the constitution within the context of coming out of apartheid. And they're really... Loosely, social welfare rights. So we have the rights to health care, access to health care. We have the rights to water, food, shelter, education, a clean environment. And all of these things must be done by the state. And so it's an interesting constitution in the sense that it is a mix of what we call blue rights, which are the traditional liberal rights, and left rights, which are sort of, you know, coming from the Cold War and the United Nations Convention of Human Rights having two sub-conventions, right? One dealing with civil and political rights and the other one dealing with economic, social and cultural rights. So they're not all in the same document. So there were some ideological differences that led to us having two human rights instruments in the world today. And so I think it is very important for us within the context of poverty, of inequality and of unemployment that we do have these rights in South Africa and redress them. It's a form of reparation. And yeah, so I have gone through life wanting, I guess, to see things becoming better. It's not necessarily happened, but I tried through my research, through my, I guess, my academic activism to a certain extent, you could call it that. to just bring new things onto the plates, new food onto the plates. So not your usual Brussels sprouts, but just for people to experience life differently or think about life differently. And so, yes, that's been an experience, but hasn't been a linear one. And I think I haven't really told it as a linear story. So apologies for that. But it is something that I was very aware of from being very young was the injustice of apartheid. And that is why we care about Palestine. Many years ago, you know, South Africa stated that it was an apartheid state, Israel. And it was actually one of my predecessors at the Human Sciences Research Council, Dr. Adam Habib, who did that research. And when he went to America with his visa, he was rejected entry and sent back because he was involved in a legitimate research project on the nature of the apartheid state in Israel. So lots of things have happened in my life that have led to me probably thinking in the way that I do, but I'm a feminist and I want to bring that to bear in the work that I do as well and to try and make a difference through that kind of voice as well.

Adnan Hussain: Well, I wanted to pick up on a number of the threads. I mean, a lot of very interesting points. Of course, we're dealing now with an era of suppression of free speech and journalism, and maybe even more so is a lack of the kind of courageous investigative and principled kind of reporting that your parents did during the apartheid era and suffered as a result of it. I mean, we have now... journalism that's been, as it always has been, but sometimes, particularly with what we're dealing with in the world today, we're seeing journalism being kind of derailed or appropriated as an adjunct of imperial propaganda and discourse. So that was one component that resonated strongly with your story. But I did want to ask, you know, those very interesting points that you raised about how and why there are two different human rights documents, you might say, that are in the overall code of the UN. And of course, there's an ideological difference between between those who emphasize just liberal civil rights, kind of political rights, and those who expand the understanding and definition of what a human being, you know, deserves as an inalienable right in their lives to social, cultural, and economic rights. But what I wanted to ask is that even in that context, rights as legal instruments, you know, and it's very interesting that you were engaged in this work in the early post-apartheid African legal field in teaching and thinking about the constitutional developments and trying to enact these and expand this to a You know, dismantling racism, but also expanding, you know, human flourishing and social welfare at the at the same time that there's a very, you know, there's a difference between having them as rights constitutionally and the conditions in which they actually can be achieved, not as abstract principles, but implemented. And those rest upon conditions of society and economy. And I understand that you've been involved in South Africa's role and participation in BRICS. And so I'm wondering what led you to move from academic teaching of the law and into what we might think of as a policy arena. And I'm wondering if perhaps part of that was the sort of sense and realization that the legal dimension has to be, you know, developed in companion with the actual historical and material and social and economic conditions as well. So how did you start getting involved into policy that led to engagement with South Africa's Roland Bricks?

Narnia Bowler-Muller: I think what led me to it was really philosophy because I was doing law and then I was starting to realize that law could be used as an unjust instrument, trying to find ways in which law could be used to improve life and in particular human rights. And then reading a very powerful piece by Jacques Derrida called The Limits of the Law. And I then began to study this in a lot more detail and to understand the limits and to realize that it was very naive, I think, to rely on the law to do good. I mean, it really is an instrument that can be wielded in terrible ways. And it can be used for good, but it has a very limited effect, the force of law, so to speak. So no matter what, the law will always be forceful. It will force us to think in a different way, even though it is normative. So after I delved into all of that, I did realize that there was something more to it and that more was political. And in my case, probably then, you know, more on the policy side. And that led to me moving away from academia into the space where I am now. I could quite, I don't know, I'm a... public commentator of some sort, I guess. But I'm also involved in research projects and I'm involved in multilateral work. And that's something that developed through my introduction into BRICS. So moving out of the law, I came to Pretoria, which is the diplomatic capital of South Africa. And I came into the Human Sciences Research Council. And my CEO was a very powerful woman. At the moment, she's one of President Ramaphosa's social sciences advisors. And she introduced me to BRICS. And she took me to a meeting in Russia in 2009 in Kattenberg. And I just observed what was going on. And that was prior to the invitation for South Africa to join. I think there were a lot of negotiations behind the scenes about South Africa joining. It took a while. So I think China invited Africa to join in 2012. And the first BRICS meeting in South Africa was in Itikwene, which used to be called Durban. And so 2013 was a really important year for us. We didn't have a structure for BRICS at that time. And so what South Africa did, or the contribution that we made, was that we established a BRICS think tank, which is still in existence today. And so the first sitting of this think tank was in 2013 in Itokwene. And we established, you know, what the important areas were within BRICS that we wanted to work on as academics, as politicians, you know, wherever, whichever perspective we were coming from, because there are all sorts of different kinds of people who sit in these bodies and have these kinds of discussions. And that's what makes it a very vibrant place. And then I started thinking about BRICS and human rights. And the questions kept coming to me because my involvement with IBSA wasn't seen as problematic because India, Brazil, South Africa is the three giant global democracies of the South. And that was fine. But IBSA sort of, you know, gave way and became BRICS. And, you know, Russia and China are not traditionally global South countries. But, you know, this body was formed. You can't call it a coalition or anything of that sort. And it was an interesting combination of different countries with completely different economic models, cultures, you know, different laws, different ideologies, different ways of doing things. And that difference is respected within the group. So I thought, okay, that's probably human rights there in practice because it's got to do with dignity. and mutual respect. And that is an extremely good thing. I loved what I saw there in terms of the tolerance of difference and that there wasn't a striving or a drive to change what wasn't like you. There were other things on the agenda that people were passionate about, that people were concerned about. And that BRICS is still all about, really. And that's changing the world order. So, you know, moving away from a bipolar, I mean, I don't know if we've only been bipolar, we were unipolar, then we became a bipolar world, what they called the Cold War. We now call ourselves a multipolar world. Still not sure whether we are a multipolar world or not and where those poles actually are currently because everything is shifting all of the time, especially now. And I think, you know, I'm referring to the power of America and the influence that one person can have on the mood of an entire Earth. Unreal. So BRICS is really there as an alternative to this idea Western hegemony, Western and Northern. And that's why we talk about the Global South and the importance of the Global South. Because in the past, I mean, all the industrialization took place in the Global North, though. Colonization came from the Global North. The Global South was colonized. And so we wanted this emphasis on another kind of world, sort of flipping the earth upside down. And so changing the global architecture that we are still living with now is something that BRICS has been working on since 2009. And there were talks when we hosted in South Africa in 2023 of this new currency, which is an interesting development. I'm not sure. how it would work because I'm not a finance person. But I can understand why Russia is pushing this. I've been to Moscow and St. Petersburg since sanctions. So from the beginning, the push was really for a new world order. So I was involved in writing a book with a colleague of mine, Francis Kornegay, from the Institute for Global Dialogue. He passed away during COVID, unfortunately. And it's called Building the Bricks of a New Global Order from Jokaterinburg in 2009 to Itukwene in 2013. And there we do a little bit of a retrospective as to why South Africa was brought on board and what we could foresee happening going forward. And one of the things that was mentioned in the book was the growth of BRICS. And I think the more that the West kicks back at change, doesn't want to change, the more countries that have been left on the peripheries want to push for change. So that's why there's a queue going out the door and down the street of countries that want to join BRICS. And now we have BRICS Plus and very strategic, of course, bringing the Middle East on board. The first few members are mostly from the Middle East and North Africa. And the final country joining BRICS is Ireland. And I think Ireland is interesting because they also joined us in the International Court of Justice case against Israel. And they've been invited as partners to join us for the G20. So we seem to have developed a very strong relationship with Ireland. which is something worth exploring a little bit. So BRICS has become even more diverse than it was initially, but I think its aims are the same as they were previously.

Henry Huckamacki: Well, I want to hop in on this point. I'm going to put a pin in a couple of things that you had said. So you had talked a little bit about what South Africa brings to BRICS. I want to hold that off to the side for just a moment, as well as the ICJ case against Israel. That certainly will come up in the conversation as we go on. But I want to hop back to a couple of things that you said earlier. And in a preamble to that, when you were talking about the usage of the law, something that I say on this show pretty frequently is that certainly law can be used for good and law certainly can be used for bad. But who determines what is good and bad internationally and how... law is used as justification for certain actions is typically held by the hegemonic powers within the world system. It's those hegemonic powers that create quote-unquote international law and then use that as a cudgel to beat anyone who is not... quote-unquote following international law. Of course, those same entities that were responsible for putting that law in place also feel free to circumvent that law or completely ignore it when it is convenient to them. And they never come up as an exemplar of a rogue state or a rogue actor within the international system. It's only when countries that are not within the hegemonic Western alliances break those same laws that, again, were imposed in many cases by the West onto the international scene, they get called out as rogue states or rogue actors when they do so. So thinking about law as... an opportunity for good, also an opportunity for evil, but in addition to that, also it's just used as a justification very frequently. And pushing back against that is why some of these institutions are very important, which gets me to The point that I wanted to get to, which is you mentioned BRICS is becoming more and more diverse. So I want to take a little bit of a historical perspective here with how I ask this. The moment at which BRICS was formally invited to join BRIC and become BRICS, was a very specific historical moment, and BRICS has developed significantly in the intervening years since then. And as you've mentioned, and as we've said in many episodes in the past, there is not a great deal of ideological coherence between many of these states which are joining BRICS, particularly as time goes on and more and more are joining. So can you talk a little bit about what... does unite these countries politically. as well as what some of the, I don't want to say conflicts, but maybe political tensions or incongruities within BRICS as a grouping are and have been, and how that is developing over time as more of these countries are coming in. The political dynamic is very interesting within BRICS, and thinking about how they reconcile some of those differences in this grouping is also very interesting. Maybe you have some perspective on that.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: It is interesting, and it's something that comes up quite often is whether BRICS is a geopolitical body or not. And I think that the core, BRIC, did not create it as an ideological enclave. I think that they created it very much for the purposes of trade, which is very important. It's all about money, really. Trade and sort of shifting global power. And, yes, so that was, I think, the initial thinking. And even when we were sitting down as the BRICS think tank in 2013 and we were going through this again, there was a real emphasis by the original members, BRICS. that they wanted to maintain this as an economic cooperation and try to steer clear of geopolitics as much as possible. And you'll see that, I mean, this plays out in many different ways. There are very, very seldom statements made about anything across the globe that comes from BRICS. So you won't have BRICS release a statement saying we're unhappy about what's happening with the women in Afghanistan. It doesn't happen. So the players in this game are really economic players, ultimately. And I guess, you know, a counterbalance, yes, a counterbalance to a world order that was leading to an absolute disaster for everybody on the planet. And so that counterbalance is essential. And it's growing is a good thing because then it's tipping the balance more and more away from the original balance. a Western Northern hegemony towards something that is new and hopefully not a new hegemony. Because, you know, then, I mean, what's the point really? You're shifting one pole to the other pole. That doesn't make any sense at all. So I'm interested by the countries who are joining BRICS, who are asking to join, who haven't been included in BRIC, whether they're going to be included in future. And I can't really see the commonalities, quite frankly. And I can actually see quite a lot of conflict, bipolar conflict within BRICS. So you have India and Russia, very uncomfortable relationship there. Along their borders, there is a lot of tension between India and China. China and Russia have some issues around trade. So right throughout the grouping, there are small nodes of conflict. that is occurring or that are occurring. But it doesn't overwhelm the bigger picture of what bricks want to do. And that I find interesting. It's sort of setting aside the differences, which will always be there, But, you know, setting them aside and then focusing on what the grouping believes to be important. And that is the, you know, the financial, global financial architecture has to change. Debt is killing half of the world. So those kinds of things are, I think, too important to change. to allow other squabbles, and I don't want to belittle it, but from taking us off course, I guess, from, you know, what we want to achieve. But also as you work in a grouping, You get to know one another better through people-to-people exchanges and things like that. And that's, I think, where the real change happens is more of an opening up of minds. And this is BRICS as something else. You know, I've been invited to China a few times to present on something called Human Rights from Below and the right to development. So, you know, the Chinese are thinking through their own ways of understanding the human rights and the right to development is a very interesting one. And it's similar to, you know, the kinds of things that South Africa is doing with the National Health Insurance Fund, which is very controversial. because it's going to take money out of the pockets of the rich and give it to the poor, so to speak. But so, you know, that thinking around human rights in China, for example, is very interesting. And it is the new way of looking at the law and that rights. And whether you agree with it or not, it's at least something that's enriching the discourse beyond what we already know and what we already know so well. So I think that BRICS is strong enough to hold. I don't think it's going to collapse because of the fact that as it grows, it will probably become stronger and not weaker because, yes, there will be squabbles. But as I say, there's a core, a central core of what BRICS wants to achieve or BRICS Plus wants to achieve. And, you know, they're working tirelessly towards doing that. This year, South Africa is a little bit less BRICS focused because the G20 is with us. And yeah, and that's interesting domain at the moment taken into account. Argentina and the U.S. and some of their pronouncements around sex and gender. Because I'm in the engagement group, Women 20 engagement group. So we look at gender equality within the G20 group. And yeah, so that's an interesting domain, another story altogether, a very different dynamic from Bricks. But of course, Bricks is part of the G20. So that makes it interesting to work in both. So you see where the Bricks is actually working together within the G20, where there is a block, in other words. And I don't think it is. It seldom is a block. I mean, sometimes we can rely on other BRICS countries to back us here and there. But I don't think it's a block. And I think that's because ultimate decision-making powers still lie elsewhere. And I think the problem is not necessarily international human rights. I think the problem is the United Nations, its architecture itself. And in particular, the way in which the Security Council is structured and the fact that nothing can be done at Security Council level because of the vetoes. So that's something that South Africa has been pushing from the beginning. What we've wanted from BRICS the whole time, two things. Reform of the Security Council of the United Nations is number one. And the second one is bringing Africa onto the agenda. And I think that the reform issue is still dragging, but I do think we've succeeded in bringing Africa onto the agenda. And that is something that is very important to us. And obviously, it's a benefit to the BRICS countries because we are seen to be the gateway, again, this trade issue. So there are some issues around like ordinary people questioning the involvement of China in Africa, for example, and then obviously questioning BRICS as a result of that. So everything is very, it's very complex. I mean, it's because it's at a global level, but it is very complex. And I don't think there are any easy answers, but we have to try and do something to balance that. the world order or rebalance or unbalance even, but something, something has to change.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, I was interested in, you started to answer the question that I had in mind, which was going back in the period of South Africa's joining of this new formation from brick to bricks, which happened, you know, fairly quickly in the gestation. I mean, I understand that there might have been some informal meetings that were happening on the margins of Other occasions where foreign ministers and leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China were having these side conversations and trying to incubate some sort of more formal arrangement that then in 2009, they held a summit. That was a BRIC summit. But then immediately the next, the following year, South Africa joined this grouping and it became BRICS. And what I was wondering about and thinking about in terms of the historical circumstances is both the G20 and the sort of failures for an agenda suitable to some of these countries in the G20 that always seem to be a large meeting or gathering, but that the real decisions would still be the G7. And of course, the G20 was only created because people felt, hey, listen, this G7 is running kind of decisions about world trade and international architecture and so on, and there needs to be more participation. So there was an expansion to include the G20, but I think BRICS initially was a development that might have been a reaction to the fact that after a decade or more, I can't remember when they moved to the G20, but it was maybe late 90s and so on. So after about a decade, there still wasn't a lot of opportunity to present a kind of counter view. And so maybe BRICS was an attempt, as you said, first a kind of trade relationship for middle economies or what were seen at the time as middle economies that weren't part of the G7 necessarily, but wanted to start developing independent trade kind of policies and arrangements. And so I'm kind of wondering, since South Africa was the only African country to join at that stage, and as you mentioned, one of its purposes or South Africa's goals in this was reformation of the Security Council to have a better and more equitable and more functional international security. you know, organization, you know, the UN, but also to put Africa on the agenda. And so I guess what I'm wondering is beyond those things, and perhaps you could also elaborate, but beyond those things, what did South Africa... really see as what it was wanting out of its relationship to BRICS and what it felt it could contribute and has contributed as a result of its participation over, you know, the last a little over a decade since it first joined, I guess, well, 15 years, basically, since it since it joined. What is like the unique role, you might say, of South Africa in BRICS? Because it wasn't initially, you know, really part of this kind of trade consortium, but it's been very important perhaps to giving some shape and some perspective to this developing and contested and I'm wondering if you can elaborate what that is exactly, both what it wanted to get from it and also what it has kind of done in shaping bricks as a grouping.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: I think what South Africa wanted to get out of it was to be a part of a very exclusive group. It was our president, former president Jacob Zuma, who started pushing for BRICS. And I think a lot of it did have to do with, you know, the burdens that South Africa lives with, poverty, inequality and unemployment. So I think that the purpose was really to become part of a very powerful body of countries that would open, you know, doors and, you know, corridors for South Africa. And for South Africa to be amongst the heavyweights. I mean, we've always been seen to punch above our weight in international relations. And that's, you know, partly as a result of Nelson Mandela's passion about things like Palestine, right? So he started focusing on the importance of South Africa in the globe. And first of all, what we give in terms of our history, how we overcame the things that we've overcome, what is possible, what isn't possible. So, you know, Biko wrote about the human face of Africa. So, you know, that giving the world something different that South Africa can offer as a result of our unique history. And also, you know, to be in the big league. And we consider BRICS and BRICS Plus to be the big league. And I'm not sure, though, if we're getting as much as we're giving because our main trade partner is still Western and Northern. So we have to be very careful, for example, about our positioning around certain things. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, you know, America can pull the carpet out from under our feet and we will be in big, big, big trouble. So the question that's being asked really is, okay, so we've opened up the African continent to BRICS, and in particular Russia and China. You know, what what are they doing to make things better on the continent? Yeah, they, okay, they're making money and maybe even, you know, giving loans, but are those loans at better terms than they are? Perhaps they are, but I mean, we've heard about, you know, harbors being closed down because the country couldn't pay for the building of the harbor to be completed. Things like that, you know, infrastructure issues on the African continent. So we've given a lot in terms of what South Africa is and everybody wants to be in South Africa and everybody wants to know about South Africa and everybody's interested in this country and what it's been able to achieve. And I want to learn from that what we've received. In exchange, the Security Council hasn't been reformed yet. And although we've opened the gates, so to speak, and Africans don't like this because it's Big Brother, you know, there's not much else that, I mean, ordinary people in the streets can sense about security. any benefits that have come from this relationship. And we've done some studies around this and the skepticism around BRICS. But it also has a lot to do with general fear of otherness that we're facing globally at the moment.

Henry Huckamacki: I'm curious about how the feelings vis-a-vis BRICS and Western hegemony are in South Africa generally, not just within the policymaking circles, not within the people that are involved in BRICS and trying to utilize BRICS as a method of opening space against that Western hegemonic systems, but within South Africa more generally. Yeah. How is BRICS really viewed? I know that obviously you can't speak for everybody in South Africa, but what kind of public debates or public conversations are taking place that are regarding South Africa's involvement with BRICS, the role that South Africa plays within BRICS, as well as the opportunities that BRICS could potentially play in South countering or pushing back against Western hegemony, and whether or not that's even something that is desirable. You know, what kind of conversations and debates are happening in South Africa?

Narnia Bowler-Muller: I think different. As you say, there's a different debate amongst the policy and decision makers. In academia, I think there's a thriving discourse around BRICS. There's lots to study. There's lots of study visits that you can do in other countries and so on to learn more about BRICS. I think that the general feeling is, so what, from many South Africans around anything to do with international relations. And I think that is something that is interesting and it would be important to take a look at why there is no real understanding as to why it's important for us to build these kinds of global networks. Because there really seems to be a general feeling that you're just having fancy meetings and nothing much else is happening. And quite a lot of people are talking about that. Others are talking about the fact that South Africa hasn't received enough support from the BRIC countries around the Security Council and also now, interestingly, around the Palestine case. So, you know, people are looking at this and going, what are we getting on the ground? And they're saying, well, okay, things are really bad. Poverty, inequality and unemployment worse than ever before. How is this helping? And why are we spending so much money on these meetings with all these different international organizations when we don't have money to put food on the table? So it's less about ideology and more about practical stuff, you know? And that happened in our elections as well. It's why the ANC didn't do so well, right?

Henry Huckamacki: Actually, I have a very small follow-up on that specific point. You know, so I asked about popular discourse or public discourse surrounding BRICS, but also the... The political discourse between the various political parties and political factions within and without the South African government can also be probably wrapped into this in terms of what kinds of debates are happening. So, you know, we've talked about policymaking sides of things in terms of people that are trying to work with this. You also mentioned a little bit about academia. But, you know, zooming out in terms of public and then also government and other political, as I said, within and without the South African government, that also is like a separate question, but very related to the way that narratives are constructed within public discourse, I would assume.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: Yeah, I would assume so as well. So what I was saying is it's sort of like a general, you know, shrugging of shoulders by people on the streets. And this led to the results of the 2024 national and provincial elections. This is why the ANC lost power, because people have become less interested in politics, less interested in positioning, and far more interested in service delivery, basic services, which they're not getting. If you don't have running water, food on the table, public transport, you don't have access to health care, none of this matters. And so there was a shift in sentiment away from the struggle of the liberation movement or the struggle heroes, a shift in emphasis from that to the realities on the ground. And that's why we have a government of national unity now. And that is a very interesting dynamic that's going on. Nobody thought it would last more than a couple of days. I think that the ANC did really well, considering that they weren't in the majority to actually come out on top anyway, because they are controlling the governments of national unity. I mean,

Adnan Hussain: President Ramaphosa is very, very good at what he does, despite what people think.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: And so the government of national unity is working. There's a lot of compromises that are being made. Very little is being said about international relations generally. There have been some rumblings. around Israel and a couple of ministers who've made some pro-Israel statements and been reprimanded for that. But I think any country you're going to see that kind of thing happening, It's nothing that is going to cause a crash. So, you know, we're still in BRICS. We're still going to be in BRICS. I think that's one of the compromise positions that the opposition has taken. And, you know, we'll have to see where we go. I think the ANC is growing in popularity again, looking at some of the by-election results now because they've woken up and realized that people want running water. And so, yeah, that's the kind of feeling I get is that it's, you know, it's kind of okay. And people are starting to feel a little bit more comfortable about the BRICS Plus because then more countries joining who have less authoritarian tendencies than the original members did. I don't know if, you know, I mean, you know how people see things. Yeah, and as we go, each country is changing. I mean, you know, China's not the same China it was 10 years ago. India is probably going to be our biggest economy in the next 10 years. You know, it's a very interesting dynamic and maybe with this, it will either grow or it will shut it down, depending on, you know, depending on how much the countries actually need one another to do what they need to do in terms of growing their economies, ensuring, you know, global stability because that's not, you know, this instability is not good for the economy if you want to focus on the economy. Yeah, and so it's an interesting question because there's different very different views but these aren't very strong anymore at the beginning they were very strong it was like either this is absolutely fantastic or it's absolutely rubbish because i mean who wants to partner with these people you know and it's that that discourse has sort of quieted down quite a lot and people have kind of accepted bricks as something that we do

Adnan Hussain: Well, I mean, there's so much to talk about when it comes to BRICS, and this is such a fascinating perspective to learn more about the South African environment on this. I mean, I think, broadly speaking, it'll be important to see where some of the actual initiatives of BRICS go forward. You know, broadly speaking, you know, whether the new development bank becomes an alternative financing, then, you know, for infrastructure and for countries to turn to instead of the IMF World Bank and whether those conditions will actually work. improve the possibilities for sovereign development and, you know, rest of the global south, the currency question, and whether or not international trade can be conducted effectively and fruitfully, you know, without using the US dollar as a reserve currency. And, of course, these are the kinds of things that, of course, have gotten BRICS a lot of attention, some of them negative in the halls of, you know, power and the imperial west about, you know, possible challenges to the financial institutions and architecture, the international system that they've been committed to. And of course, that's what makes it difficult for, you have to have some kind of basis and political program and ideological commitment to face those challenges. And so that's very interesting that you know, at all levels, these things are being thought through and contested. And it seems in some ways in the last few years, part of the reason why BRICS emerged in any kind of ineffective alternative was partly because of the extent of U.S., you know, geopolitical, its role in geopolitical affairs, the illegal and unilateral sanctions and, you know, some cooperation among Countries that were either part of the BRICS originally or were part of the 2024 expansion, of course, have relied greatly on, you know, alternative trade arrangements among those countries to be able to survive, you know, under China. U.S. sanctions. But one of those components that I think is interesting to think about that we've alluded to a couple of times here about, you know, some of the political and legal regimes in which there is discontent in the world and in which South Africa in particular has been a leader and a champion of which arises, I think, partly from what you had been talking about before, of what it gives to BRICS is, in some sense, its history, a very important global achievement to have defeated a settler colonial apartheid system. That gives it a certain kind of moral standing that is far beyond perhaps just what it has economically, but, you know, has a kind of importance in geopolitical relations as a result. And that has expressed itself very interestingly in. you know, the last year, year and a half, with the opening of the case against Israel's assault on Gaza at the International Court of Justice, and then subsequently, you know, renewal of provisional measures from the court to stop the Rafah, you know, incursion and then subsequently the ICC, the International Criminal Court, a different body, but also operating in international, in the international arena, I think building upon the activities of South Africa's case in the ICJ, feeling that within international legal circles that it had to, you know, also begin to act and put, you know, charges on, you know, for war crimes on two Israeli officials, Prime Minister Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Yoav Galant. And so I wanted to actually get your perspective. We're at the moment where there's been a ceasefire announced and, you know, perhaps your discussion of these legal cases might also flow into, you know, how the ceasefire may affect the ongoing course of seeking remedy in international law. But I just wanted to get your, as somebody intimately involved in the teaching and thinking about international law, human rights law, and particularly South Africa's role and responsibility in the international arena about these cases, how they have... It's been a while. It's been over a year since it was first put forward at the ICJ. And so, you know, how would you look back on the year and the development of the case and how... Within South Africa and South Africa on the world stage, how has that unfolded? Any remarks and analysis that you have about that?

Narnia Bowler-Muller: Thanks. Well, I mean, the first observation was really that South Africa stuck its neck out on this one. And our BRICS allies did not jump to assist us. And so that is something that people did notice, I think. Ireland was the first country to stand up and say, OK, we're with you. And now we have been joined by a number of other countries as the case proceeds. Look, we love the underdog. Um, that's just how we are as a country. Um, Cuba, Venezuela, you know, we, we want to help wherever oppression is. We want to be there and we want to lift people up. And I'm saying, I'm talking figuratively now, obviously. Um, but it is, and it comes from the, I guess the anti's experiences in exile, um, That's part of it. But anyway, we really do care about the role that we can play in this regard, in sort of pointing out, calling out things like, you know, genocide. And so, I mean, the attack from Hamas happened on the 7th of October, 2023. South Africa was in front of the court at the end of December the same year. That's how fast it happened. And it was because of the fact that that attack, the counterattack, was disproportionate beyond belief. And it was very, very clear that there was some intent there. And we have an exceptionally good legal team. There's something about South Africans as well. We punch above our weight because we're just really good at what we do. It's an exceptionally good legal team, supported by the Department of International Relations. You know, going, well, we referred the case to the International Criminal Court, and that's where the individual summons or given out and, you know, Netanyahu and his cronies can be arrested. And the other one is the International Court of Justice is where the court results, and that's the actual court of the United Nations itself, where the court resolves disputes between countries. So South Africa went there and said, hold on a minute. You know, what is happening here is clearly not acceptable. We consider it to be genocide. We put the facts before the court. And to a large extent, the court agreed, but then didn't go as far as to say we want to cease fire. All I can say to that is this is where the limits of the law lie. Because a ceasefire is a mutual agreement between two parties to stop fighting. It can't be an order of the court. So the court can say, desist in your acts of genocide. But they can't say, we want to ceasefire. It's not possible. It's not a legal order. It's a political decision. So, I mean, I think that we feel frustrated. We've had to go back to the court twice in early 2024, especially around Rafa. And the whole issue of, you know, I mean, people using starvation as a weapon of war. It is extremely distressing and something that I think we will continue with as long as we have to. And it's going to take a long time. The ceasefire, I guess, is a kind of a response to the International Court of Justice's, you know, outcome. Because you have to basically, you have to stop the fighting in order to get the humanitarian aid done.

Henry Huckamacki: to the people who need it.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: And so it's a relief to see, I was watching early on Al Jazeera, it was a relief to see that humanitarian aid is now getting through. I don't know for how long this is going to continue. I really hope that we can get through all three stages of a ceasefire. I think all the exchange of hostages and prisoners have now occurred in the first phase. But it'll just take, you know, somebody to throw a stone at the wrong person. It could all explode again. And we went through apartheid and we know what apartheid looks like and we know what it smells like. And what is happening there is apartheids is using law to separate and oppress people. And this is what is happening in Israel. Israel using the law to oppress. And that is apartheid. I mean, besides the issue of the genocide that we are arguing in the court. And we have, as I say, we have an extremely good legal team doing this. And we're going to see it through. Despite all sorts of threats from the U.S., having gone all the way to the Senate to say that they don't want us as part of AGOA. They're going to get rid of the preferential trade agreements with South Africa. And that is very bad news for us. And fortunately, we've had two delegations going to the US and the Biden who saved us from this fate. It's terrible that we have to be in a situation like this, really, for doing the right thing. Not sure what to expect under Trump. I mean, you know, it's surprising that the ceasefire was declared before Trump was inaugurated. I don't know if that has anything to do with anything at all. But, I mean, it is clear that Trump is a probe. I mean, moving the embassy and everything as he did. So, yeah, we're waiting on tenterhooks, really. But we're not, you know, we're not in favor at the moment with Europe and the U.S. and everything. We'll just have to, you know, see what happens because also we haven't chosen a side between Russia and the Ukraine. So, and this is something that also irritates a lot of the Western powers is that we don't want to pronounce, we don't want to make a statement. We don't want to choose a side. And so we, you know, we are pariahs in many ways. And so South Africa is loved and hated simultaneously, I think. But we play an important role on the world stage. It's just that we maybe we're a little bit, I don't know, maybe our bark is a bit loud. I'm never sure about that.

Henry Huckamacki: Turning away from bricks a bit and turning towards some of the work that you're doing within South Africa today, I think it will be very interesting for the listeners to know some of the work that you are engaged with. And there's some really interesting work. national health insurance legislation that you are very intimately involved with. And I think the listeners will be quite excited to hear about this. So can you talk about what this legislation is, as well as what your role within that legislation was? And you can smile and be proud of it, by the way.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: It's always a team. It's never just one person.

Henry Huckamacki: Oh, I never said it was only you, but you can still be proud of it.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: Well, the same person who introduced me to BRICS introduced me to NHI. So NHI has been on the South African agenda for about 20 years, you know, almost since just after democracy. So we've had the green paper, we've had the white paper, and actually the bill was approved by our National Assembly and National Council of Provinces and signed by the president, but it hasn't been gazetted. So there's a little legal technicality here that is being used to delay the actual operationalization of the act. Because there is an enormous pushback from the private sector in every sense of the word about this piece of legislation. So let me explain why. So as I was saying earlier, I don't think international human rights are really at fault here. I think there's something else. Because we want universal health coverage and what we call national health insurance because there is a right to health that's recognized internationally. And this right to health is recognized in our own constitution in Section 27 as the right to access to health care that has been interpreted to also mean the right to health, purely the right to live a healthy life, you know, well-being. So it was decided that the system that we have at the moment is a two-tier system. We have a public healthcare system and we have a private healthcare system. And so that's to this day, this is what apartheid did to us. This is what the laws did to us. To this day, we have a public healthcare system and a private healthcare system. The private healthcare system, people belong to medical schemes. and they get covered with lots of money. They get some from their workplace, and they get covered for the year, and they have all their medical expenses paid through the medical aid. Of course, The money runs out as well. And so you have to pay out of pockets a lot, even if you belong to a medical aid. And the medical aid and our medical costs in South Africa are the highest in the world. And this was established by our competition commission. It was about five years ago. But it might have changed. But at that time, South Africa's health care system was the most expensive health care system in the world for people to use. So it's very clear that this two-tier system can't continue because it's contributing towards inequality in the country. And if you want the post-apartheid democracy to last, you have to do something about the inequality that we see in this country and the poverty. And so all that the National Health Insurance Act wants us to do is to have one system of healthcare. It's as simple as that, really. It's just getting rid of this poor side of the healthcare system, the public system, where most of the money actually goes to private healthcare through tax rebates. So we want to get rid of that system, want to create a national fund and through that national fund, purchase all healthcare services and then have a system within South Africa whereby people can go to a hospital, go to a general practitioner and get their treatment free of charge at that point. Everybody, not only some people. So that's all. It's NHS in a nutshell. And, you know, it's been done in other countries. Singapore was very successful with it. The UK, when they were in dire straits, they did it. Japan did it. And people keep saying, no, but South Africa can't afford this. It's been done when countries are even poorer than we are now and succeeded. So I think that argument is just not on. But the private sector is pushing back so hard that they're actually using this little technicality of the act not being published in the Gazette to delay its operationalization. I can't say that word. It's the Afrikaans in me. So this is a real struggle that we're undergoing in the country at the moment. And that is for people to just accept that. The fact that we have to do things differently, we have to treat everybody in this country in the same way and not have one system which is far more superior than the other and can be used only by the rich. So I've always thought that that argument is very simple. We have the right to access to health care in South Africa. The right is recognized internationally. We have international best practice. It's only the good thing and the best thing to do. is to provide free health care to every South African. But the medical aid schemes, the GPs, the pharmacies are still pushing back. And it's being taken to the Constitutional Court by six different groups. Although I think it's constitutional because that's the part I worked on. Maybe get to that part. So I did assist in the drafting of the act, but most importantly, I stress tested this act to make sure that it was constitutionally sound. And so it can pass constitutional must in my view. It can go to the constitutional court. It's delaying everything, of course. It can go to the constitutional court and the constitutional court is not going to strike down that legislation. It might strike down something that says, you know, asylum seekers aren't entitled to free health care. That's a problem. But that can just be, you know, dealt with. You say, okay, change that number, you know, section seven of the legislation and we move on. But yeah, it's incredible to see. And for me, I don't really understand why people cannot see the benefit to this. I guess because there's one aspect of it that is quite radical, right? And that is that medical aid schemes will only be able to provide top-up cover. So there's no parallel system for the rich to opt out. And I guess, you know, people are scared that they're going to have to go to these horrible, dirty public hospitals or, you know, I don't know, go to a GP they don't want to go to or, you know, something like that. But I guess that's the big, big deal is it's in Section 33 of the legislation. And that is that... Medical schemes will only be able to top up. And of course, doctors must contract in. And then those payments will be regulated. So it's a big deal. But I know the Department of Health is very committed to getting things up and running. They're starting to accredit hospitals and clinics because you have to be accredited in order to be part of the system. But it's going very slowly because of the legal challenges and this one technicality that we're facing.

Henry Huckamacki: Well, Professor, this has been a really fascinating conversation over many topics, from your background to BRICS and to some of the work that you're doing on today, as well as South Africa and the ICJ. It's been a pretty wide-ranging conversation, and I want to thank you for taking the time to come on the show and talk with us about all of these things. In wrapping up, I would like to ask you if you could let the listeners know some of the things that you're going to be turning your attention to now, and if there's anything that you would like to direct the listeners to if they would want to find any of your work. I know you've been published in a bunch of places, book chapters, articles, and things like that. So if there's anywhere that you would like to direct the listeners to so they can find some of your work, please also let them know in that wrapping up question.

Narnia Bowler-Muller: So currently, I am involved with the social track of the group of 20, and that is Women 20. So we look at issues of gender equality within the G20. And at the moment, this is an extremely pressing issue because women, Donald Trump has just declared that he's ending all diversity and inclusion programs in the US. And this is really disturbing because it affects minorities and it affects women. And so, you know, we have a role to play as Women 20 this year that's going to be a little bit difficult when it comes to the political playing field. And so that will be interesting to watch. And also, you know, just to contribute towards this thinking around what is happening, the backlash that we are facing at the moment in the world. to turn to authoritarianism in a bad way, not a good way. And, you know, how we can counter this kind of, you know, sort of neo-Nazi, I can't call it, I don't know what to call it, tendencies that we have across the globe. And those are the kinds of pressing issues that I'll be looking at In my capacity as a researcher, as well as in my capacity as the head of delegation of Women 20 for South Africa, you can find me on my works website. It's hsrc.ac.za. hsrc.ac.za. You can find information about me on the website. It will give you some links to some of the work that I've published, but not everything. I generally publish in open access sources as much as possible. And hopefully if you Google me, you'll come across some of those publications as well. I've been working recently on two books to do with South Africa and South Africa's state of the nation. And it was a completely new way of looking at the nation. So the first one was on the issue of ethics and an ethical state. And the last one that we've just finished now was well-being and the role of well-being in being in the state and in citizenship. So those are two very exciting books that I'd like to punt while I'm on your show.

Henry Huckamacki: Absolutely. We'll have your profile page linked in the show notes so the listeners can just click on that and find your published works that are located there. Again, listeners, our guest was Professor Narnia Buller-Muller. Very generous with your time, Professor, and thank you very much again for coming on to the show. Adnan, I'm going to pitch it to you now. Can you let the listeners know... where they can find you on social media. And also you have kind of a new platform, a morphed version of your previous platform. So let them know where they can find that as well.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, thanks, Henry. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm still going to call it Twitter, at Adnan A. Hussain, H-U-S-A-I-N. And listeners of the Majlis should be excited to know that I'm launching a new show on YouTube related to things related to the Middle East, Islamic world, Muslim diasporic culture, but, you know, ranging... even more broadly than that. So you can find out about it. Of course, if you follow Twitter, my Twitter, you can search me on YouTube for the new channel that should be coming out, you know, before the end of January. And you can also follow my sub stack. I'm going to be doing a little bit more writing. And that is Adnan A. Hussain. dot substack.com. So very similar to my Twitter handle. Thanks, everyone. Looking forward to a new phase of activity, you know, on those fronts. Look forward to connecting with all of you there as well as here on Guerrilla History as ever.

Henry Huckamacki: Yes, and I was just about to say, listeners, that that is in addition to the continued work that he will be doing on Guerrilla History. He's not abandoning us just to launch his solo career. We're still Simon and Garfunkel. Garfunkel has not become too much of a pompous... Well, anyway, that's an old music reference. In any case, listeners, you can follow me on Twitter. I am also not leaving this duo at Huck1995, H-U-C-K-1-9-9-5. You can also follow Gorilla History on social media. You can follow us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A underscore pod. Instagram, Gorilla underscore history. And also on Substack, where we'll keep you up to date in your email inbox about things that we are doing. And... For listeners who are subscribed to our Substack and not Adnan's yet, we'll also have information about that in one of our coming newsletters as well so that you'll be able to subscribe to both. You can find our Substack at guerrillahistory.substack.com. Again, guerrilla has two R's in it. You can also help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. And until next time, listeners. Solidarity.