Decolonization in West Africa
The coming of the post-imperialist world
In my commentary of August 11, 2023, I reviewed the analysis of Cuban scholars on the situation in West Africa in the context of recent coups d’état in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. The Cuban scholars maintained that the Western African coups are supported by the people, because they are driven by an interest in severing French neocolonial control, which prevents West African states from formulating their own development plan. And because they seek to eliminate terrorist groups in the region, which have been supported by the Western powers in its effort to destroy sovereign national projects in the Islamic World. “Scholars in Cuba explain: Coups in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali seek sovereignty for Africa,” August 11, 2023.
Today I continue to reflect on the quest for decolonization in West Africa.
In “The junta belt,” published on October 9, 2023, in the Africa is a Country Website, Tamas Gerőcs1 provides an excellent succinct expression of the situation in the Sahel region2 prior to the European conquest and colonial domination of Africa.
“Before colonization, the Sahel had a complex socio-ecological web of life. Its fertile lands gave home to diverse agricultural societies, while interethnic marriages were not uncommon even between pastoralist herdsmen such as the Fulani people, or traders of the Sahara, such as the Tuaregs, or settled farmers cultivating the fertile land, like the Hausa people. For many centuries before the European intrusion, the Trans-Sahara trade connected North and West Africa, from the gold mines of Mali and Ghana in the forestry coastal regions, through to Cairo in the Northeast of the Nile, and Nubia in the Southeast, to the global trade circuits of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. These trade networks largely coalesced with the spread of Islam which has been the predominant legal-cultural regulatory system throughout the Sahel up until today. It would not be an exaggeration to call the region one of Africa’s breadbaskets which had seemingly inspired the French to conquer and integrate this complex geography under a singular colonial system.”
The breadbasket, however, was destroyed by French colonial domination. In its efforts to “develop” the colony, the French “ended the communal use of the vast grasslands, rupturing the ecological balance between pastoralists, farmers, and the soil,” a balance that was maintained in part by the ancient practice of crop rotation. The French replaced this system with cotton and groundnut plantations and other export crops, which led to depletion of the soil. When independence came, France interfered in West African politics in order to ensure the preservation of political-economic structures established by the colonial administration.
Among the structures preserved in the neocolonial order, Gerőcs reports, was the Central French African franc zone, which ensured French control of the monetary policies of French West Africa. The exchange rate was pegged to French currency, and 50% of the foreign reserves of the member states were held in the French Central Bank. France could use these deposited West African state reserves as collateral, but the impoverished West African states could not use them without French permission, despite being independent states.
In addition, Gerőcs observes, France controlled the major uranium deposits that were discovered in Niger in 1957. The uranium deposits enabled France to build up its nuclear energy capacity, such that nuclear power arrived to be 68% of France’s energy, produced in 56 nuclear reactors in 2021. As part of the agreement on Niger’s independence in 1960, France was granted exclusive rights for French companies to extract minerals, including Niger’s uranium deposits. Niger is the largest supplier of uranium to France (nearly 30% of the total imports) and to the European Union (20%). The French state-owned company Orano controls 63.4% of SOMAIR, Niger’s national mining company.
Gerőcs notes that French domination of West African commerce and its monetary system has undermined intra-African trade and West African development since the African nations attained independence. As such, it is a concrete illustration of the mechanisms of neocolonialism. Gerőcs stresses that French neocolonial domination of West Africa was integrated into a U.S.-dominated neocolonial world order and into economic/financial control of Africa by the European Union, with Germany being the strongest economy in the EU.
Libya under Muammar Gadaffi, Gerőcs points out, was the most developed country in Africa, and it called for supporting other African states in overcoming the obstacles of the neocolonial situation. Gadaffi planned to create a regional currency bloc based in Libya’s extensive gold reserves, which would have been housed and regulated by a Pan-African Central Bank in Tripoli, thereby challenging French monetary domination. But before it could be implemented, Gadaffi was assassinated by NATO-backed rebels supported by U.S. bombings.
The fall of Gadaffi, in addition to provoking civil war in Libya, led to chaos in West Africa. Tuareg mercenaries that had been employed by the Gadaffi government were let go, and they returned heavily armed to their homelands in Mali and Niger. They joined with local paramilitaries, many of whom had been dispossessed by pauperization, thus intensifying conflict over diminishing grazing lands and water resources. In Mali in 2012, these paramilitary groups launched a large-scale insurgency, which has been widely described as a jihadist and terrorist movement. The insurgency spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015, and it attained de facto control of significant amounts of territory.
The inability of the civilian governments to control the terrorist insurgency led to military coups supported by the people, for whom physical security and widespread poverty had become paramount concerns. France does not recognize the military governments, because of the economic interests at stake and because of the centrality of the region in French neocolonial structures. The military governments have been opposed by the Economic Community of West African States (OCOWAS), led by Nigeria, which is controlled by Western interests. Nigeria and ECOWAS have threatened invasion of Niger; and in response, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have signed a mutual defense pact. Gerőcs considers that any military incursion into Niger by Nigeria and its allies would not have the support of the peoples, and it would be unrealistic, given the impoverishment of the region.
Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso also have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), with the declared intention of increasing trade among the states of the Sahel region and strengthening cooperation with respect to fuel, electricity, transportation, mining, and agricultural production. This is consistent with the declared goals of the renewed Non-Aligned Movement and the G77, and it revitalizes the Pan-Africanist vision of African unity. AES, therefore, has strengthened the support of the people for the military governments. Gerőcs notes that Ibrahim Traore, the 34-year-old army captain who has led the coup in Burkina Faso, has emerged as a dynamic leader in the movement.
We therefore see a situation in West Africa of military governments supported by the people, as a consequence of the evident failure of the civilian governments, embedded in the neocolonial situation, to develop the national economies of the region or to provide even a minimal level of security. Their ideological declarations are consistent with emerging tendencies of the regional and international organizations and leading nations of the Global South during the last twenty years.
Inter-imperialist rivalry or anti-imperialist construction?
The recent dynamics in West Africa occur in the context of increasing Russian and Chinese economic, commercial, and military presence in Africa in recent years. Some view it as an expression of an inter-imperialist rivalry, in which China and Russia are challenging American and European dominance of the world-system, seeking a greater share of the wealth and power attained through world trade and economic exploitation. I view it differently, and my view is based on what the governments and organizations of the Global South are saying. My view is that China and Russia are cooperating with the governments of the Third World in the construction of an alternative, more just world order, with declared principles different from the practices of the capitalist world-economy and neocolonial world-system. They are forging a practice of cooperation rooted in such anti-imperialist principles as respect for the sovereignty of nations and for the right of each nation to formulate its own development plan.
When a world power or emerging power increases its economic, financial, and/or military presence in a region, does this reflect domination and exploitation, or does it signal cooperation with the governments of the region? The question needs to be addressed in each concrete case. And the key to responding correctly is to ask another question: what are the characteristics of the economic, financial, and/or military interchange? Is it designed to promote the interests of the world power? Or is it in harmony with the development plans of the nation in development?
To provide a clearcut example, if infrastructure investment connects mines and plantations owned by the companies of the world power to the coast, it will largely benefit the powerful nations. On the other hand, the construction of roads and railroads to connect peasants to urban markets and to connect cities within a nation is far more likely to promote national development. So, it is not enough to say that China is investing in infrastructure in Africa; we must ask about the quality of the infrastructure in relation to possibilities for national development.
During the last twenty years, the governments and organizations of the Global South have been increasingly and repeatedly saying that the expanding relations with China and Russia have been beneficial to their nations. This is a matter of empirical observation. The governments of the South are saying that the investments of China and Russia are responding to the specific development needs of their nations, as expressed in the development plans that they have formulated in their struggles to attain sovereignty. They have repeatedly declared that the current expanding relations with China and Russia are structurally different from previous and current relations with the United States and Europe, which are constantly imposing or giving with conditions. China and Russia, the leaders of the Global South say, are supporting the development projects that the states with economies in development have formulated.
To be sure, the emerging powers also benefit from their expanding relations with the Global South, at least in the long term. What is being forged is a mutually beneficial, “win-win” cooperation, which is leading to increasing trade by the nations of the Global South with China and Russia, and less trade with the USA. What is occurring is the concrete construction, step by step, of a new world order based on the principle of win-win cooperation, repeatedly declared as such by the governments of the Global South as well as the emerging powers.
The political-economic systems of the West are characterized by representative democracies, in which de facto control is in the hands of elites. In this context, politicians emerge who are skilled at defending the interests of the elite while formulating a discourse that pretends to defend the nation and the people. This leads to pervasive cynicism. Intellectuals of the West do not take politicians and institutional representatives at their word, and they have become habituated to constructing explanations that treat cynically the speeches and declarations of governments and leaders.
But we today are in a new situation. We are in the presence of a multitude of governments in the neocolonized region of the world that have been brought to power by the current and historic anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements of their peoples. In order to maintain themselves in power, such governments have no option but that of maintaining the support of their peoples through clear explanations of structures of domination and exploitation, accompanied by intelligent policies to resolve concrete problems and to develop the nation in the long run. In this situation, the cynical eye of the intellectual and the skepticism of the social scientist is out of place. To the contrary, intellectuals, historians, and social scientists can increase their understanding by listening with openness to those political leaders who are in the frontline of a worldwide construction of a more just world order, many of whom have been lifted up by their peoples to speak in their name. This, incidentally, was the method of Marx, who formulated a framework for understanding the political-economic system on the basis of the understandings of leaders of the emerging working-class movement.
At the Second Russia–Africa Summit in St. Petersburg on July 28, 2023, the Interim President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore, declared that Russia and Africa are striving for a world without interference in the internal affairs of nations, so that nations rich in natural resources do not wind up in poverty. An important problem, he declared, is that leaders of African countries do not lead the people in a fight against imperialism. The heads of African states act like puppets, ready to act whenever the imperialists pull the strings. He further declared:
“Yesterday, President Putin announced grain deliveries to Africa, and we were very glad to hear about it and are grateful for this decision. This also sends a message to the heads of African states because we must make sure that before we come here for the next forum, we ensure that our nations are self-sufficient and have the food they need. We must rely on the experience of African countries who have been able to achieve this objective and reinforce our cooperation in this field by strengthening our relations with the Russian Federation in order to meet the needs of our people.”
The recent emergence in West Africa of anti-imperialist military governments supported by the peoples in West Africa is one more sign of an emerging worldwide transition to a post-imperialist world order.
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Tamas Gerőcs is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at SUNY Binghamton and an external research fellow at the Institute of World Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies in Budapest, Hungary. His research interest is in the field of historical sociology and world-systems’ analysis. He has written extensively on Eastern European dependent development in the German industrial complex, as well as geopolitical development in West Africa from a global perspective. He is currently working on his dissertation on the role of Chinese capital in Nigerian industrialization.
The Sahel region or Sahelian acacia savanna is the transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel is mostly covered in grassland and savanna, with areas of woodland and shrubland.