I’m writing this from Rio de Janeiro, where I’m covering the BRICS 2025 summit as a member of the press. There are over 400 journalists in a huge media centre, but we really have no idea what is actually going on in the summit.
The media centre is an amphitheatre complex with several floors, workstations, stand-up positions, lounges, and a huge screen. The screen is, in theory, meant to follow live the multilateral meetings the so-called world leaders are attending. I say in theory because the only actual speech that was transmitted throughout the entire summit was the opening speech by Lula da Silva, president of Brazil.
All the meetings are happening in a building close to the media centre, Rio’s Modern Art Museum. There’s a handful of journalists who are allowed to enter; those are carefully selected to ensure there won’t be any uncomfortable leaks. Of course, this is because of security reasons. It is always about safety and security.
This begs the question: what are all of these journalists writing about? There’s nothing we can really see or hear of what is being discussed; at best, we only have access to second-hand footage or transcripts, which, by the time we get them—thanks to the internet—anyone, anywhere, can get. And only that which is deemed suitable gets passed on.
Despite that, we are hardworking professionals. We make live appearances, record videos, and write articles commenting on the latest developments and what so-and-so says as if we were seeing it and listening to it. Because we are here, our audiences (and our managers) need to feel that it was worth sending us, so we start our speeches and texts with: “Here in Rio…”
“Here in Rio” could be “Here in Washington” or “Here in Moscow.” Generally, it’s all the same. This is not just how this BRICS 2025 summit works; it’s how every summit and every conference attended by decision-makers—politicians, financiers, technocrats—works. Of course, it’s understandable: no intelligent politician would want unvetted press present at sensitive discussions.
So what is the press for? Career journalists grow up believing their work matters. We are writing the history for tomorrow, someone told me once. Granted, there are still a few brave independent journalists who actually report first-hand or do investigative pieces. But most of us don’t really do journalism, but rather, “churnalism”—as I heard it once—because we churn out articles.
I’m here, in Rio, and I know this is how it works. But I have colleagues who report on the summit based on what agencies give them. The agencies’ reporters, from AP to Reuters, are here next to me. And those articles then go into newspapers, online and offline, into news packages, to analysts and commentators. And based on that second-hand reporting, at best, a whole discourse is built up.
Though it might seem otherwise, this is not just a rant about how the media works and how public discourse is manipulated. Readers of this blog are well aware of that, and I’m not naive—that is what corporate and government media are for.
I’m not pointing out anything new either. Since at least the Spanish Civil War in 1936, it became common practice that newspapers and later digital media just printed out propaganda. I am going to take the license to quote George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, where he describes his experience—first-hand—during that war, because it is both to the point and well written:
Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”
To a great extent, that is today’s news-media, both mainstream and alternative—with a few rare exceptions. I’m not totally dismissing the value of it; there is some use. I learned early that news doesn’t tell you much about why or how something is happening, not even the what—it is just an indication that something might be happening.
That also applies to BRICS—not just this summit, but the organization in general. We can deduce that something might be happening. There are meetings, discussions, budgets for media and activities. They even set up a new bank and make yearly well-sounding declarations. Not unlike other international institutions. In fact, they behave very similarly.
This year’s summit was marked by the absence of Putin and Xi Jinping, by the presence of Iran as a full member in the aftermath of Israeli-US aggression, and the invitation of several Latin American countries. What has transpired the most has been a general call for “multilateralism,” for reform of international organizations, for the establishment of more equitable financial institutions and, because it was Lula’s initiative, for COOP30 and climate change. There has also been a timid condemnation of the attack on Iran—crucially without mentioning who carried it out—and a stronger, yet still insufficient, condemnation of the Gaza genocide.
This is just a report of what is already known. There are other issues which remain unknown. Why the absence of Xi Jinping? Of Putin, we could assume it was not to put Brazilian authorities in a compromising position. Are there inner tensions in the group? There was a condemnation of the Pahalgam attack that China refused to include in the SCO declaration. What is Türkiye’s role? And what was the intention of Mexico’s delegation? Presumably, its presence might have been one of the reasons that prompted Trump’s (quite pathetic) threat.
During the last few weeks, and the few weeks to come, commentators and analysts, both mainstream and alternative, will be indulging in speculation about what all of this means. Some will spin it to seem like this was a tremendous failure, that BRICS is a window-dressing organization to show that something is happening, but it does not go beyond haughty declarations. Others will say that it was a triumph of multilateralism and that it is establishing the foundations of a new world order and a new financial system not dominated by the West.
I, personally, remain skeptical of both. I maintain that we are living through an epoch where one political and financial system—with its necessary layer of ideology—is collapsing and that a new one is painfully being born, though not necessarily an actually different one.
Yes, it might have different players with varying levels of influence; the world has changed since World War Two, and Europe is not very relevant anymore. Crucially, the American empire is also morphing, accepting the trappings of imperial power now that its actual imperium is being called into question. Borders are changing, wars waged, and recycled ideologies being brought to the front with a fake new patina.
New technologies are presented which promise to bring either a utopian or dystopian future, depending on who speaks. They might greatly influence our society, but in reality, they offer nothing really new to the human existential experience. They continue the inertia of a thinking trend started centuries ago.
New constitutions and laws will be written to better reflect the current zeitgeist. We are witnessing the return of the one-party system with a powerful figure at its head—quasi a king—though we dare not call it that. New techno-feudal lords are vying to assert their power and influence with techno-cities and techno-states for whom people are not citizens but customers, and which run like private companies with CEOs at their head.
There is even talk of a fourth political theory which is neither liberal democracy nor Marxism or fascism, but it’s founded on a common “ethnos” that creates culture and claims to be based on Dasein. But is it really?
BRICS fits into this as one international organization to substitute another international organization that, belonging to the dying system, has become obsolete; so that it seems like it is all new, but in fact, it is all very much the same. Because the actual building blocks—the metaphysical assumptions, the dialectical politics, and the financial tools—have not changed. This is clearly observable in how the BRICS 2025 summit proceeds, and in what is said, and how it is reported.
Ernst Jünger, who not only lived but survived through a similarly eventful time, explained it perfectly in his book Eumeswil:
Seen politically, systems follow one another, each consuming the previous one. They live on ever-bequeathed and ever-disappointed hope, which never entirely fades. Its spark is all that survives, as it eats its way along the blasting fuse. For this spark, history is merely an occasion, never a goal.
