There is always a time in history when that one man (it is high time we also allowed that one woman) determines the character and the future of one country.
Maybe we can also have that one person who truly unites the continent and shields it from colonial designs. Because all the foreign interests that ostensibly dropped slavery and colonialism now act through a neocolonialist strategy: having understood and mapped the human and material potential of Africa, they will not allow the African peoples to push forward with an independent development agenda. And they have their representatives among us. Second-hand clothes? We are the market. In fact, second-hand anything, after our nascent industries were all dismantled with structural adjustments.
The African nationalism needs to come back. With their own failings of course, but in the context of what they inherited, many African nationalist leaders built a national character which is still enjoyed today by many countries, or shall we say, they built credit on which many of our countries are borrowing and indeed overusing. In many parts of the globe, not just in Africa, everyone will know Gamal Abdel Nasser, Habib Burguiba, Haile Selassie, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel, Nelson Mandela, Sekou Toure, to name a few.
That brings us to the point of the Palestinian struggle of decades, dramatically highlighted by the recent attack of Hamas on Israel, and the punitive response of Israel. What is happening as we write is the emptying of the northern part of Gaza Strip, already a constricted open prison, carpet bombing and trying to deny and erase the existence of a Palestinian people. With the open support of the US, the UK, France, Germany and other European countries. Aided by the Israeli narrative, these countries consider the Palestinians huma-like animals. The same colonial narrative used to characterize other peoples struggling: A bunch of savages that are going round killing our children, raping our women. Appealing to public emotions and crowding out whoever is not for “our cause”, we know this propaganda, used to suppress and kill Africans in America in the past and in the not so distant past (George Floyd is a recent memory)
They characterize Hamas as a terrorist group (and force it into the confinement of terrorism to justify future interventions as well). They erase the fact that Hamas was voted into power in the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian people. One could go as far as reminding us all of the suppressed FIS electoral victory in Algeria and of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Just not acceptable at the doors of Europe! A digression, but important.
How does the struggle of the Palestinian people relate to Africa? This is our alert: In East and Southern Africa, we did not see Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger coming. And perhaps we think it is happening very far from us. We are distant, and in a different neocolonial reality. We are still flirting with neocolonialism, inviting extra-continental military forces to come and help us fight insurgency. We need to acknowledge that what happens in West Africa is a defining moment for all of Africa. I pray that Mozambique is following these developments very closely. They are deep.
Guinea
The question of resource ownership and nationalism over reserves of bauxite that could lift the lives of the people of Guinea is at the centre of political changes in this country. Bauxite and iron ore have been exported from Guinea in raw form (as soil) directly from the mines into ships lying in wait ashore. Guinea produces 22% of global bauxite supply but the country and the people benefit very little from this riches[1]. Having been economically sabotaged by France for opting out of the agreement for the continuation of French colonial domination, the infrastructure of the country was destroyed at independence, and France dumped fake Guinea currency in the country to punish it for opting for full independence and out of the French CFA currency still in force in other West African countries to-day. Today, Guinea has taken one more step for better serving the people with the natural resources extracted from its territory, and that required a change of government through a coup. We hope the renegotiated terms of contracts serve the national economy better.
And here we have to digress again, to remind our Mozambican readers how Guinea sent thousands of Teachers, Medical Doctors and other cadres to help Mozambique in the most difficult post-independence period of some 15 years. More than Guinea, only Cuba showed larger solidarity.
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger
The common denominator of these countries was the insurgency that was created by the French and American destruction of Libya and the killing of Khadafi, the leader of the country. That started a flow of arms and insurgents to the South, affecting these countries primarily. A French Intervention to combat insurgency was started in 2012, together with a UN peace-keeping mission to Mali. Despite the continuation of the French military presence and the creation of the G5 Sahel (Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso), no progress has been seen in the fight against the Jihad during the 12 years. In fact, the insurgency expanded South in all three countries.
It has variously been narrated that in fact these forces did not help because France has been manipulating the situation to strengthen its chokehold on these countries, including the attempt to divide Mali as a country. Burkina Faso recounts how its troops were confined to barracks and prevented by France from being effective. At one point there was one rifle for four soldiers, making them not just not credible to the population, but actually sitting targets for an insurgency which was evolving southwards.
Frustrated that the French unending deployment, the G5 Sahel and the UN Peace-keeping mission were achieving nothing in their 12 years of presence, the military in these countries decided to take matters in their own hands and do away with foreign forces. Successive coups have happened, which, surprisingly to many, have been very widely supported by the peoples of those countries without exception. And other events followed:
The further removal and retreat of French forces from Niger into Chad.
The rapid removal of French forces from Mali and Burkina Faso, that retreated to Niger.
The request by the government that the UN forces leave Mali by the end of 2023.
The suspension of Air France from operating in these countries.
The suspension of services of Radio France from these countries.
The severance of diplomatic relations with France.
In Mali, the removal of French as an official language.
The refusal of the UN Security Council to hear Mali present proof of French sabotage of the country’s sovereignty.
The suspension of these countries from ECOWAS membership.
The mobilization of ECOWAS by the West to get it to invade Niger to restore the deposed President to power.
The imposition of sanctions by ECOWAS on Niger, with Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire as the most aggressive states ready to invade.
The cut off of electricity from Nigeria onto Niger.
Niger takes over the marketing of uranium at its real value of $200/Kg against what the country was receiving from France ($0.8/Kg).
French ships bring military heavy and light equipment to Benin and Cote d’Ivoire.
The EU imposes sanctions on Niger.
Mali, Burkina and Niger take control of gold exploration in their territories.
Mali, Burkina and Niger celebrate a mutual defense pact.
On the military presence of foreign forces, it needs to be said that Niger still hosts American military assets, an airport and a drone base. Foreign forces are still not all gone.
The EU imposed sanctions on Niger because, after they helped blow the Nordstream, they depend now on the much more expensive American gas, and they are now looking to Africa (Nigeria, Mozambique) as alternative sources. The media propaganda wants us to believe that the Russians have blown their own pipeline, which they could just have closed instead! I digress, but this point is important in the war propaganda. The gas from Nigeria is supposed to pass through Niger! And Niger has just made uranium much more expensive for the French!
ENERGY supply to Europe is at the centre of attitudes towards Africa. How do we play this?
It is to be noted that Europe is intending to reinforce their military presence in the Gulf of Guinea, under the pretext of fighting piracy and insurgency, a military industry that in order to justify its presence on African soil, will not hesitate to fan the flames of that insurgency. Piracy and insurgency discourses are justifications for the European continued military presence in Africa to ensure intimidation and uninterrupted exploitation of resources (including fishing).
The NARRATIVE is misleading us: The continued talk of Jihadism is a serious mischaracterization by the Christian right that wants us to believe we are fighting an Islamic radicalism. We are not. It is a motley of armed insurgents given weapons taken from a failing Libyan state that France and America destroyed, people whose livelihoods otherwise were the trans-sahara trade, licit and illicit, that had been disrupted by the very actions that brought the fall of the Libyan government. Subreptitiously, we are being led into a fight against Islam. The vast majority of people in these 3 countries are Muslim!
We need not adopt the European narrative and discourse about insurgency and jihadism, Their fear need not be our fear, any more than their standards should be ours now, should they?
What happens in West Africa can very easily be replicated elsewhere in Africa: a mechanism to maintain alive an insurgency so as to justify external military presence, or to finance the military presence of more acceptable forces that in the meantime help maintain the continuation of the said insurgency.
The AFRICAN ATTITUDE to these developments has been very disappointing, not giving any credit or breathing space to countries trying to break free from the excesses of neocolonialism.
Suspending four of the 15 ECOWAS member-states because of the coups ignores completely that these are giant youth waves. The same youth that, if not given the opportunity to live a dignified life in their own countries, will brave the Sahara Desert, brave the slave markets in Libya, brave the barbed wires in Morocco, brave the expulsion to the desert by Tunisia, all North African countries acting as gendarmes of Europe in Africa.
Suspending four of the 15 countries means paralyzing 25% of the ECOWAS body, making it dysfunctional. All of a sudden, a regional body that was exemplary in promoting free movement of people and goods becomes an instrument of oppression of the brothers that are trying to break free. Acting on behalf of a colonial system that is resisting the emancipation of peoples.
SANCTIONS: since when has any African country, let alone a unifying subregional organization practiced sanctions on a neighbouring African country which shares culture, resources, rivers, borders, ethnicity and destiny? Nigeria forgot that they had requested Niger not to build a hydroelectrical dam on the Niger River, so that Nigeria could continue to have unfettered access to the river waters, in exchange for Nigeria producing that electricity for sale to Niger. Now, they cut electricity to Niger, with all the economic and health consequences! Is that not both fratricidal and suicidal? Is that not borrowing into the racist superiority narrative and apply it to an African skin?
All of this to serve an unreformed colonialism? To serve as the bridgehead for France to regain control of the natural resources of Niger, first, but subsequently of the territories where they just lost the control of (Mali and Burkina Faso). In fact, aside from other resources, these three countries have also reserves of gold on which France was feeding its economy (apart from the Franc CFA).
It is not the mandate of a regional economic community to impose sanctions, any more than it is in its interest, and even less in its culture. Quickly the sanctions work against everybody, including those that impose them. Muscle flexing is a tool, and attitude, a superiority ideology imported from Europe and America. It is not how Africa resolves issues.
We are saying that we have reached a stage where those that purport to represent international standards by which we should live, have lost all credibility they always claimed to have. In the process, they are dragging international institutions into blunder and discredit. The behaviour of the United Nations in the Region is being put into question: is it there to help bring peace, or to help colonial projects? This is a tough question to ask because
on the one hand, one cannot ignore what has been happening to these countries:
the uncoordinated UN withdrawal from Mali and the creation of void spaces for the rebels,
the UN burning military logistical assets that could be useful for the government of Mali, as part of their withdrawal, whichever the explanation.
the support to French manipulation in Niger,
refusing the UN General Assembly platform to the new authorities in Niger,
refusal to hold a requested special session of the Security Council to hear Mali, etc.
and on the other hand, as an ex-employee of the United Nations, it hurst me to acknowledge that this United Nations, the ultimate guardian of international standards of conduct of business between and among nations, the standard-bearer, has not played a constructive, not even a neutral role in this situation. After all, with long years as an international civil servant, and an African 101, my mind is a United Nations product now! I belong there.
Add that to what happens in Palestine, the Israeli apartheid and the Gaza open prison, occupation of Palestinian land, and we are sold an old narrative: the Palestinians are now characterized as less than humans by Israel, a European/American colony whose borders no one knows, neither has Israel bothered to define! A racist narrative that we know all too well: once you are characterized as less than human, somebody else is human, and therefore superior to you: What are you then? The brutality of slavery reminds us: the African was characterized as a child without imagination, happy to be dancing in his poverty, but dangerous to the white folk: rapist good for nothing. The human zoos in the West come to mind[2].
We should refuse to conflate Israel and the Jewish people, any more than we should be led to confuse Saudi Arabia with Islam. The Muslim faith is much wider and does not have a territorial limit. Israel may be a concentration of jews, but maybe it does not represent the Jews all over the world. Narrative!!!
Put Ukraine, Palestine, Niger, Guinea, Burkina and Mali[3] together in the timeline and how the West is managing these situations, and they have no moral high ground over Africa. Or over anyone else. We may start to identify the need for a new international system.
Let us be attentive to the narrative. What applies today to Palestine, applied yesterday, today and tomorrow to Haiti, a people not left alone because they are Africans who dared become independent at the same time as the US, rejected and defeated the French colonial occupation and paid for it over more than 100 years[4]. A country kept under permanent instability by American interests, whose constitution was elaborated by the US, whose elections are constantly interfered with by the US. And now where Kenya has agreed to send a security contingent! Who are we helping? Have we understood the Haiti people?
That brings me back to the brutality of slavery, a condition that enriched people and enabled the industrial revolution in other continents at the expense of millions of African lives lost, enslaved and humiliated. While today, neocolonialism has understood that through local agents they need not be present to continue exploitation, when the going gets tough and the African peoples adopt resource nationalism, the military ships that docked in Cote d’Ivoire this year will dock in many other places (dominated by the way by Bollore, DP World, etc). They would not hesitate to recolonize or to at least attempt.
Who is providing us with the leadership that we desperately need? Not an African Union that depends on financing from the EU, and where American officers are observers in its African Peace and Security Council. An Au that almost admitted Israel as an Observer state!
With a media narrative dominated by non-Africans, the narrative remains unilateral[5], and the standards by which we are expected to live do not seem to be the same by which powerful countries are living. If they can kill 8,000 Palestinians in three weeks because of 200 Israelis, the US, French and UK leaders run to comfort Israel and give it unlimited action and weapons to kill more Palestinians, now they have no authority to demand a ceasefire. If they are happy to see people not having bread and water, corralled to half of the Gaza strip, the other question is: what is the plan for the other half? And someone wants us to believe that it is civilized warfare to tell all patients in a hospital to evacuate because they intend to bomb it. Pharisees!
Colonialism is alive and well, racism is alive and well and nothing prevents them from moving back from neocolonialism (colonialism in absentia) to the real colonialism. The technology exists, the void exists.
Notre Afrique, la nature a horreur du vide! Que quelqu’un(e) prenne le commandement de nos énergies, de notre savoir et de notre destin en tant que Continent !
Jose
Tete, November 2023
[1] https://www.inclusivedevelopment.net/cases/guinea-alcoa-rio-tinto-bauxite-mine/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo [3] And the silent but very dramatic and long-running genocide in Eastern DRC. [4] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed [5] History is always the narrative of the powerful, not of the vanquished. Hence the manifest exclusion of African inventors in the pantheon of scientists.
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