Modernization Without Westernization: Brazilian Expert at BRICS Futurological Forum
09:40 17.07.2024 (Updated: 12:31 17.07.2024)
© Sputnik . Alexei Danichev
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The BRICS International Futurological Forum "Smart Civilization: Horizontal Connections of Civil Society Organizations, Universities and Innovative Companies of the BRICS Countries is the Key to Shaping a Common Future" took place on July 10-11 in Moscow.
Speaking to Sputnik, Marta Fernandez, Director of the BRICS Policy Center at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, highlighted considering past years' experiences of transformations in order to successfully construct a just world order and foster future intercivilizational relations at both the national and international levels.
According to her, the forum participants agreed that the dominant Western view that modern development is inseparable from cultural Westernization is not the only correct one.
"The very concepts of civilization and modernity are in many ways contradictory, it is argued that in order to develop and look to the future it is necessary to somehow completely erase the past. In the Western understanding, the past is presented as something unworthy and subject to destruction, which seems strange. At this forum, on the contrary, we talked about the need to respect different cultures and to plan the future with diversity in mind," expert said.
In particular, she notes that each of the BRICS countries has its own unique experience in overcoming the harsh consequences of socio-economic and social transformations, as well as in implementing major infrastructure projects aimed at improving the lives of the population, "taking into account specific cultural and material circumstances".
The scholar posits that the Western theory linking modernization with perpetual consumption contradicts the principles of sustainable development and the efforts to combat climate change.
"If you bring consumption to the level of the so-called Global North, it will lead to environmental catastrophe," she argues, noting that in many ways the West was able to achieve such socio-economic indicators through the exploitation of the Global South during the colonial and post-colonial periods. According to Fernandez, the BRICS alliance was initially formed on the principle of respecting national characteristics and differences, a principle that was reinforced with the expansion of membership last year.
"It seems to me that the association has built its identity in a way on this diversity, and this is not a weakness, but rather the strength of BRICS, in which respect for differences is a fundamental principle," the expert said, emphasizing the bloc's role in ensuring national interests while reforming the current system and instruments of international financial and economic relations and global governance.
