the season we didn't even up at the moment, but it was put us okay to film to fill in with ah mm hm. hello and welcome to wells far as one of the leaders of the indian national lumen famously sad freedom is not given. it's taken, including the freedom to charge your own course as a people or as a nation, but in the world that's increasingly and deliberately segregated across political

economic, cultural lines. what's the price of such freedom? to discuss that i'm now and join by ross again maharaj cheap, cheap director of the institute for economic research and innovation at one a university of technology in south africa. professor is great to welcome you here in russian. thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to you. thanks very much. i'm not sure that you to be here. now i know that you were born in 1969 in the still a par say it's ruled south africa and i heard you saying that in another interview that you almost feel historically lucky. you have been born to have been brought into this world on the cost of an outgoing era. and that the dawn over a new one year observing the latest developments in the world today. i wonder if you have the same feeling. well, we, we are seeing cycles in history repeating themselves. and a big concern is, are we as a species learning from what we are experiencing? it's so important intergenerational that is encouraged because those lessons in

fact hold oh, future and do you think we're learning? i'm concerned, i'm extremely concerned about it. but seriously, when people are talking and trying to make sense of what's happening around the world, then come to fold into a sort of apocalyptic plan. others tend to be overly optimistic. i wonder where your place yourself and what would be, let's say the one thing that's worthy, the most exciting the most about the current events. well, i think we for us to have a more realistic material optimist. we really have to explore the stuff that we really have to be absolutely convinced that we don't want to return to a pass that talks about barrick. and if we agree to the future holds many possibilities. so my optimism is based on my business. i know that you, for quite some time have been very critical of the economic system and in the world of the neo liberal system, which some could argue is also

a system of privilege. pretty much like apartheid. yes. to fighting which you gave many, many years of your life. and many of the people who have a stake in that system today aren't in that it needs to be reform. do you trust the intention to reform within them in a more balanced, fair way, or do you think they will try to sort of shape the process in a way that keeps serving them? so i think what history is also told us is hit germany tends to reproduce it and the ruling ideas because of that have a tendency of placing themselves upon people. they bind people's rationality and then lock people into choices. so if you don't mind, i would encourage rather than reforming the other process, we need to transform. we need to actually embrace the fact that our challenges are bigger than what we've learned from the past and for the future that allows us to survive on the planet we need in your system. all the evidence shows us, and it's most acutely brought home by the vaccine, the partic,

so what we thought we defeated the tape in 1994, to have seen what happened in the last 2 years. an entire continent was excluded from producing the vaccine on the basis that they did not hold intellectual property rights. now, in addition to call that they also now have the war in your crane, which at least here in russia as, as a much broader conflict than just the charity re when taking place. and both of these calamities in a way and changing the system because they come from dominic already rearrange the way global system economic system was functioning. where in the ukraine and the economic sanctions and counter sanctions and delivering even bigger shock to that system. do you, how do you think the world will be able to absorb it and what kind of a worlds will we have after after it?

so i think it's very important as you raise those 2 issues are big issues for us. but we have to understand that in a 3rd issue, that's even bigger than those 2, which is the crisis of the climate and the ecology that we are inside. the resilience that we only need to be able to sustain ourselves from dec demands and equitable sharing off especially knowledge resources and the tools to cope with what's happening outside. currently, if we accept the way in which the world is ordered, that is not something that's going to be deliver. it has to be, as you said initially taken, it has to be something deliberately acted upon so that people both such resilience and resolve crisis. most of what we experience today are the results of centuries of conflicts, but these contradictions come from a thing in the system. and it's incredible to believe at this point, the 21st century that people are willing to see us into a catastrophe, rather than change the system that's driving has spent some time. catastrophe is, i mean, look at what,

what is happening right now. sometimes catastrophe is for the change on the system a cell because i don't know if you visited the was for the last couple of years. but they, they've been talking about the need to, you know, for more ethical, you know, allen's distribution of well for, you know, they came on them, but it is only now that the, the system seems to be changing by itself because people never had enough results to do understand as you raise that in terms of the tools that we have available to us. so if we all only have hammons, every solution has to be a male. i think as a complex 8000000 people, we have the opportunity to think of alternative ideas to resolve challenges and the barbarism that we see around the world being predicate. a lot of it originated in tampa itself, cannot be allowed to continue in. therefore, as you say, broken promises once twice, but now after decades, what we see is real lives that are last, look at the excess mortality out of cold,

with at the people's lives been lost in russia and elsewhere in africa. this continues on a daily basis. i really think we should have mature as a species to transcend those tools or we have more than have available to us. you mentioned the fisher and i remember in one of your interviews, i think it was a couple of years ago in the midst of the comment pandemic who said that we as a species where the bread is not on the national level, but really on a global level, but nowadays everybody seems to have forgotten about not everybody, but many people have forgotten about. that's right. there is a thread of a war in your frame right now. how dangerous it is in your juicing. we're still under threat as, as a species, because in that conflict it's not only about the virus, but it's also about nuclear weapons. absolutely. collectively, we on the trips and the threats escalate to a big part of it is the way in which also information and knowledge is being restricted and constraints. the imposition of certain restrictions on the flow of

information really needs to be counted. it cannot be that a single narrative determines what's happening in the well, it's a connective in terms of social enterprise, the more exchange of ideas, the better for all of us. and we really need to encourage that type of dialogue. increased let's, let's engage in that dialogue. if i may, i would ask before you go unreserved opinion, because you are a here in russia, but they were in the ukraine. and this is what i want to ask you about is a very difficult issue for the center, because on the one hand, it's the use of violence. it's a normal loss of resources and human lives, both on both sides. but on the other hand, i know that many people here see that as an ontological struggle in toronto for you being who you are and being true to your own path. for the right to develop according to, to your own understanding of who you are as

a nation. now i don't want to impose that on you. i would like to have your opinion as somebody who is a cool hair removed from the western perspective and critical of their western perspective. but it can also be critical and objective to when it comes to rushes. and so i think if we ask this question a century ago, which is just a few years, it would have been fine using the tools that we had, the violence being expressed for self determination struggles for national liberation, etc. but where we are today, we are enjoined and a much tight in truck dependence, not to interdependency. it's so finally into us personally, we have friends, we have family, we have people we work with in both charities. yeah. i have relatives in the ukraine. i and we have to ask ourselves in our families when we have conflicts, do we have to resolve it violently? we have any should be able to transcend,

but then the powers that be in terms of well systems are not in favor of peaceful resolution. and that's so important that we continue to raise them. opportunities for peace have been broached. in fact, people have gotten closer to achieving, but that doesn't serve the interest of those that are profiting from what's happening and what needs to happen for old besides. and we, here, we have here, at least, besides russia, ukraine, the larger west where needs to happen for all of them to have the motivation to have a realization finding some sort of a peaceful solution of them better than having this kinetic conflict. if you don't mind, if i use the link with the party that you mentioned earlier, so for, for centuries, south africa existed where people with black skins were considered some pew. it was beneath express, legally. and because of the position hierarchical was determined and that way today

we would see what a ridiculous idea you scratch me. i believe the same. to that extent. that's so much in that way of understanding we need to push back against those interests that see profits over our lives itself, reconciling ourselves is possible, but needs to be people to people. and we cannot achieve that unless we confront you called at the west. i would suggest being more specific in targeting, which is we are talking about. they are very particular transnational interest, most of them in fortune in countries, north america, europe. and those are the ones that are fostering the conflicts that are taking place. you mentioned that per se, then i think this sort of distinction exists even even among the so called white people. because within the larger western community, if i know that we the russians or if the new european in general have long been treated as some sort of barbarians. you know, who, you know,

not knowledgeable enough to absorb all the closely civilized western values. and in your writing you, you argue laws for sort of integrating localized indigenous knowledge into all sorts of politic economy. cultural thinking, understanding tradition, not putting it on the pedestal, but trying to integrated within ideological thinking within the innovation from what is in the way of doing that because it seems so logical, you know, you don't have to be me. i don't have to be new, and yet there seems to be a very strong pressure to confine everybody to some sort of ideal. that doesn't work. absolutely. so i think as you pretty much in that way, the defense of the indefensible because that's exactly what we are confronted, needs to be confronted with the evidence. so. so when we saw initially conflict take place, there was a huge opening up in europe. refugees,

welcome signs held up at the same time as that's happening and trains are being welcomed and people are dying in the mediterranean trying to cross over from africa . black students that were in these areas where the fewest exit. how is it possible that we continue on the space that it's not that everyone that was thought to be ukrainian was welcome to your professor. we have to take a very short break right now, but we will get back in just a few moments station with mm. what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic. development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful,

very difficult time. time to sit down and talk ah welcome back to was a part with ross again, maharaj cheap director of the institute for economic research on innovation. it's one the university of technology in south africa. professor my heart before the break, we were talking about how unfair this world is. and one of the features of the current crisis is the fact that it's not only a russia and ukraine and the ones that are suffering, but many of the 3rd countries that have absolutely nothing to do with this part of the world in the global south. and that's primarily because of the use of

unilateral use of extra territorial sanctions. and if you look at it from an economic or survival perspective, rush is a large country. it's fairly self sufficient. i think if gonna pezora the pain, but many of the developing countries on the other side of the world are pushed to the limit because of the galloping food and fuel prices. isn't that also a form of a power side economic birthday? when you make the decision for somebody else on the other side of the globe that they can take that pain. so i think as you're free method, so it's so important to realize if the system were to be fried fit, it would apply to all including goes imposing sanctions. they are suffering to, i'm in the price of gallon of gas in there in the united states is increasing, but it's incomparable to the effect that it's having. let's say some people in africa, americans can take it as painful, but maybe i was saving it for in terms of the impact. so when you have

a deliberate use a violence to a fix palestine look at anywhere else in the world. we do not see the same imposition of sanctions against those involved in the conflict itself. the consequences, the nfl test collateral damage. but even for the collateral damage, we need to respond, which is the cause of this, what is driving these things forward. and in that context, if we had everyone belonging to a singular multilateral body, an international court for justice as an example, in the sanctions that flow from it should be based on the world of 8000000 people, not waving flags at each other. so to that extent, if we one fear outcomes and in economic system of sanctions against ever and behavior, it has to apply to everyone. it cannot be singular that certain countries have the opportunity to utilize. and others are just the victims of the point about africa and the consequences of the conflicts taking place as well. this is followed

centuries of marginalization and to the extent africa itself needs to pick itself. to that extent, africa has to develop the type of resilience that you say russia has currently. and there's a lot more that africa itself must do internally to reduce some of its and not to be as dependent as it remains to be stuff in there. a couple of examples in africa lead to being one of them and i'm not trying to defend the regime, but i wasn't the country for many years prior to that conflict and it was relatively well off. certainly there were fair criticisms, how it was managed, but it was one of the richest and i would think most generous countries on the continent and look at all reduced to a big slave margin. do you think your content, which has been a source of material? well, for a significant part of this was, do you think it would be allowed to charge this course him to stand on his own fees to you know, help on that. so as you raise it in that way,

it's so important for us to realize what is the norm that's be aspire towards. the africa continues to believe it is catching up with a western mode, a variety of capitalism as a courtesy of teams. it has no hope because those ahead constantly put in place obstacles towards achieving that state of africa really needs to reconcile itself to it's people. 1.3. 0 the and people live in such conditions that you mention. and we cannot afford more international intervention in africa. it must be, as africans, libya was a key swan. so the african union beside south africa contributing financially tool . and that's why in terms of now, you need to be really concerned that the agenda of african becomes driven by donors and not by the subscribing members who are african themselves. now let me broaden our discussion a little bit here because we're recording this conversation on the silence of the

st. petersburg. economic form is become a tradition here or have some sort of a panel on the bricks countries, rozelle, russia, india, china, and south africa as well. as some observing members, and it's true that they have enormous human and economic potential, but compared to the consolidation and integration of the west that i think that synergies remain in a somewhat latent form to put the diplomatically. what do you think prevents all those countries who have a lot to contribute to the international system from, you know, using the organization better or more efficiently? so i think as we understand bricks, it's important for us to beyond just let's, as i said, we are talking off nearly 2 thirds of human being contained inside such a combination. and we need to ask ourselves that relationship between that number of people and the states that represent the point i want to make is clear. they are

internal contradictions within each of the 5 countries as they exist. some countries have managed to ment, manage those contradictions better than others. it has have been and externals below because of also the actions what is taking place in brazil. what's currently happening in india. i think that should have the concern all of humanity, but especially the bricks, or maybe we aren't paying as much attention to exactly those internal contradictions. the potential exists, but it's people to people for potential. and we need to exploit death more than just seeing it as states entry and leaving it or talking to site on this. now, one of the things that i here here in russia often is that for breaks to become truly meaningful, it needs to develop not just mutual trade, but try to come up with a new socioeconomic system that would better integrate the best practices of the

member states. especially when it comes to sort of limiting the accesses of capitalism and expanding the the public goods failed. do you think that's an a tool path? yeah. well, utopia is remaining utopia is until we base them in material realities and what we have available to us out of the conditions that demands such solutions. it's really a question of whether the countries themselves. so if we use, by example, china has been able to recognize some of these challenges and has absorbed into its domestic agenda. and so we can learn from china to that extent. we have different systems, different cultures to other points of quite critical in this. and that's the narrative formation of the thought on the logical aspect around picks itself. if we link it more to the non aligned movement with respect to the poles and look at the period post, that is even better opportunities that spring from

a 3rd aspect is actually deep kaloni, ality and de colonization. our colonial mental structures are main preference and we see it's on around us to civilization. all states are part of itself. we have so much to learn in terms of that system, a site that has removed it from dominant point. if we return to the we have much better potential rethinking the world, our place in it, and in relation to the future, aspiration was more ecologically sustainable. i know that you have a great passion for public goods, and i wonder how far down the social isn't power. you're willing to take it because i read somewhere that as a key, if you were an avid consumer of marks and lennon, do you think those someone discredited thinkers can still offer anything for the said bill, there's nothing that form that has been tried before, but perhaps in terms of ideas or in terms of values. so i think an enduring value,

particularly of linen in this context, was the ability to translate ideas into practice found in the context and time in which those ideas arose. it was appropriate and we saw a massive move form in terms of the progress of humanity as well. but the as a significant cost as well. remember that was over time and over time systems, if they refused the dynamic system that allows people participation as soon as that gets encroached upon and restricted the possibilities of remaining creative dynamic and finding it to futures gets constrained. so i think to that extent it would be inappropriate to bring linen from $970.00 into $22.00. is he appropriate? no animals live. it's up to us, the ideas that we've drawn from it to bring it into practice. i would not advocate the type of state lead system that existed previously because what we have

available to us today, 5 outs trips, what was the vailable? them all means of communication integration globally. that allows us to bring about change much more rapidly. those were not tools that you printed out on a little leaflet and distributed and support for. so having these opportunities, i think creativity and especially in the younger generation, those 25 years younger. the possibilities without is a is so important. and we shouldn't then constrain if we are willing to say, as you say, maybe some hold the view in russia that socialism is a failure at the many that hold of you, that capitalism is a failure. i know from my personal experience in south africa that there are many people who share laughter. idea, where do you think the, where do you think the country will move now after having very hard experience with at least in terms of the public health care, specifically in south africa,

proposed putting in place the national health insurance system. it's a concern for us. it isn't the full solution. what we need is good quality health care available tool and object use and it's part of the reform agenda. enough transform is how to make the system into one that allows for private participation . but this process is opening up. and as we start implementing a national health insurance, which is already policy, we will start seeing the elements of the national health system emerge from it. and the national health system ultimately is about health, not about mit. and that's also quite critically important. it's a different way of thinking. we remove the sources of health, putting a human on the center of them, rather than the material in 2 years. and the prophecy, arise from another aspect to south africa, was the question of philanthropy. and whether we can expect private donations. and

this is really what's troubled all of africa with vaccines out as opposed to we can talk about distribution now distribution. but if you don't produce something, what, what do you have to ship? to that extent, having productive capabilities remains in for and even in how we need to bring indigenous into and traditional ways of thinking about how about, well be back into such discussions itself. and i guess that would apply not only for africa or south africa in particular, but for the rest of the world because in each individual countries we are dealing with pretty much the same challenges. but we are dealing with them in a different point. and i think these are going to accelerate daily because of climate change and the rapid pace of which that's happening. if we as societies have evolved and emerged within particular geographic territories, we've come to understand how best to cope within those territory. that's the

knowledge and that have been excluded. and we now norm to, as you said, a north american model of how the bricks have discussed, well, be report so produced. but none of this because it didn't have a narrow economic perspective gained currency. so the discussions such as that, and i was so impressed when i listen to russia presentation, i didn't think that they had such a well of indigenous knowledge in the northern territories, the eastern territories that are incorporated ultimately about valley and your own experience. bad and good experience and being able to analyze that rather than looking at some distance star and believing that your only goal is to be like yeah, i think that's the crux of the matter to be like someone else know that a fairly enough us each one of us is an individual, but we co exist on the planet with other life forms. and to that extent that's we. indigenous knowledge is so important. over sent over millennia. we as

a species have managed to cope with our environment in interaction with others. that's not the norm today. yeah, well, indigenous and global altima even though it's a parent, but it's a part of that going to work well, we have to leave it there. thank you for these very interesting discussion. and so the challenge christian as well. thank you for watching hope to see her again and will depart with mm ah ah

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