this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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Good on them for sticking to an Africa for Africans. Get the west out, let the people govern themselves.
Niger is ditching ECOWAS for the security from other states that recently underwent coups. It’s hard to see how this is in the interest of the common person.
Just because France is against the coup doesn’t mean it’s good for Nigeriens.
From the media coming from Niger and other countries it definitely seems to me that the people are fully supportive of the coup. The other nations that underwent coups also were deposing west-installed leaders.
Niger is a 25M inhabitants country. A couple of demonstrations supported by Russian don't reflect the global reality.
If the people fully supported the coup the military would have elections and cement their leadership.
How do you define "the people"? Do all Americans support Biden? Do all Russians support Putin? Of course not! Parts of the population in Niger definitely support the coup, I'm sure. But how many? No idea.
Ah yes, "let people govern themselves" said the people who undemocraticly govern the countries without any legitimization after couping
There are things called elections that I encourage Africans to vote in instead of cheering on autocratic coups
There are things called bullets that coup leaders use to stop ordinary citizens from carrying out democracy.
There are things called arms dealers that provide the guns and bullets.
There are things called oil companies and mining companies that provide support for governments that act in their favour.
I could go on. But pretending that ordinary African people don't want fairly elected leadership would be cynical and intellectually dishonest.
The people should be allowed to govern themselves I agree but it would be really naive to think that's what's happening here.
For starters, the west isn't "out". Both the US and France still have boots on the ground in Niger.
International mineral exploitation companies are still operating in the Sahel.
Non-African mercenaries now have a strong presence in the Sahel as enforcers.
How about we support democracy instead of a military junta.
If the junta had launched a coup because the president was corrupt or a tool it'd be one thing, but they did it because their leader was getting fired for being bad at his job.
Yeah. If they were "for the people" they'd have an election.
I agree that Africans should be in charge of their destiny, not foreign interests...but "Africa for Africans" sounds just as good/bad as "Europe for Europeans".
@Gsus4 ... "Europe should be governed by Europeans" would have a different ring to it if Europe had been colonized by Africa and Africans were still having a massive input into how it was run, making Europe peg its currency to African currency, dispatching drones to bomb people at a wedding in the French countryside, mining mineral wealth and carrying it off to Africa, sending military "advisers" to tell Europeans how to govern etc etc etc.
As usual, nuance is the important part here, not slogans (you can hide anything inside them). I'll admit that a little healthy nationalism is useful to keep foreign interests from overwhelming you (or more if anyone gets too pushy), but it's important to not let it stop you using all the tools at your disposal for development e.g. CFA Franc is very useful as a way to facilitate trade between neighbouring countries with the drawback that the "central bank" is located in Paris, but during decolonisation there was no clear leader to control the currency, so a foreign influence made sense at the time, maybe today it could be the AU, but I see no credible alternatives. https://theconversation.com/why-abandoning-the-cfa-franc-would-be-a-risky-operation-120551 (the Wikipedia article is notably terse)
@Gsus4 I agree, slogans are nebulous at best, which is why they are so useful to politicians. I'm not the person who introduced the slogan (that was @appel, and as I said elsewhere I don't actually agree with them that this is what it is - the Sahel is still in the clutches of global corporates).
I was just objecting because you seemed to be equating attempted decolonization with xenophobia towards powerless migrants in high income countries, and I don't think that's appropriate.
But xenophobia is not class-based, it can be aimed at powerful people (and be partially justified) or aimed at powerless people. Anyone can fall for it, look at the recent example in South Africa: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66808346
I'm just trying to figure out where to draw a line for an acceptable amount of useful self-defense xenophobia (a sort of protectionism) as a general principle e.g. legislation preventing foreign countries from owning any of your critical infrastructure sounds reasonable vs self-destructive xenophobia e.g. "those damn foreigners"
Take it a step further, what do you think Africa for Africans means, ultimately and then do the same for Europe for Europeans?
No it doesn't. One is about kicking out colonial rule, and the other is about kicking out migrants.