The inclusion of Iran in BRICS
The inclusion of Iran in BRICS
World tendencies toward cooperation
Islamic philosophy is rooted in a spiritual worldview with fundamental principles known through divine revelation. In contrast, the Third World project of national and social liberation has been forged by exceptional anti-colonial leaders on the basis of a synthesis of modern Western individualist materialism, Marxist-Leninist historical materialism, and traditional religious and spiritual worldviews. The philosophical difference between traditional religious conceptions and the Third World project was noted by the imperialist powers, which gave material support to traditionalism in a temporarily successful effort to undermine the advance of the Third World project.
The triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 was a victory for a particular version of Islam, Shiite Islam, which gave greater emphasis to questions of economic and social justice, even as it maintained a spiritual worldview. Meanwhile, the Third World project of national and social liberation took institutional form in the Non-Aligned Movement, which evolved to stress diversity within unity, including acceptance of the legitimacy of traditional religious concepts. Rapprochement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Non-Aligned Movement began in the first decade of the twenty-first century, when a new anti-imperialist political reality emerged in Latin America. The rapprochement is illustrated by the election of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement in 2013, and by the repeated declarations by the Non-Aligned Movement in support of the Iranian position that every nation has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. And it is illustrated by the increasing practical cooperation between Iran and Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. The rapprochement between Iran and the Third World indicates not only an emerging world anti-imperialist alliance but also a worldwide socialist/religious alliance in opposition to the post-modern capitalist world-economy and neocolonial world-system in decadence.
In seeking to see the logic of the inclusion of Iran in BRICS, I invite the reader to take a look at the following previous commentaries.
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