Why South Africa and Iran need each other
Iran’s expansion of relations with South Africa, an emerging power, besides strengthening South-South cooperation, can help reduce Western pressures.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is fresh from a visit to Pretoria, where he said, “Great steps have been taken to consolidate relations in various areas” since the establishment of new diplomatic relations between Iran and South Africa.
His visit aimed to pave the way for the official trip of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi to Johannesburg on August 24 to attend a summit of the BRICS group of major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran embarked on renewing relations with the African people based on Islam’s prohibition of racism.
The world today is witnessing the creation of a bloc of countries that have experienced high economic growth and turned to new economic powerhouses.
China in Southeast Asia, India in South Asia, Russia in Eastern Europe, Brazil in Latin America and South Africa in the African Continent initially began to play a role in their peripheral regions, but they have gradually sought to engage in extra-regional collaborations.
They have formed new alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, IBSA Group of India, Brazil and South Africa, and BRICS in order to make their mark in the world order and offer an alternative force to reckon with.
In 2001, Goldman Sachs identified Brazil, Russia, India and China as four emerging markets, with South Africa entering this league in 2010.
The BRICS economies have been identified as the fastest growing economies of the world and the engines of the global recovery process after the US subprime mortgage crisis.
The alliance is rooted in two main phenomena, the first being the economic growth of these countries, which has allowed them to act in international financial and monetary relations.
The second phenomenon relates to transformation and change in the nature of international politics, where US power is waning and the country is losing its clout.
Since the most important needs of the emerging powers are the supply of raw materials, energy and foreign markets, the regions with the most resources and the largest commercial markets are about to be the scene of new competition.