[Let us stop celebrating coups aimed at furthering the interests
of a few military elites as acts of anti-imperialist resistance. ]
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WHAT WE ARE WITNESSING IN AFRICA IS NOT AN ANTI-COLONIAL REVOLUTION
 
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Tafi Mhaka
September 5, 2023
Al Jazeera
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_ Let us stop celebrating coups aimed at furthering the interests of
a few military elites as acts of anti-imperialist resistance. _

Supporters of Niger's National Council of Safeguard of the Homeland
(CNSP) protest outside the Niger and French airbase in Niamey on
September 2, 2023., AFP

 

On August 17, Arikana Chihombori-Quao, former permanent representative
of the African Union to the United States, claimed the recent military
coups in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea were part of the early
stages of an “African revolution” against Western neocolonialism
[[link removed]].

“What is going on now in Africa is a revolution similar to what we
saw with the demise of the mighty Roman Empire, similar to what we saw
with the fall of the mighty British Empire,” Chihombori-Quao said in
an interview with New York-based Nigerian news channel Arise TV.

This wave of military interventions is a reaction to the West’s
ongoing “plunder of the continent’s natural resources”, she
explained. “This is just the beginning of the African revolution and
it is not going to stop.”

Chihombori-Quao went on to argue that these recent coups “led by our
people” represent “children of Africa taking back what is ours”
and have nothing in common with the brutal Western-led military
interventions of the past.

Sure, Western powers committed particularly heinous crimes against
young African democracies in the last century. The
Western-orchestrated 1960 coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC), for example, saw the country’s first democratically elected
prime minister, independence hero Patrice Lumumba, assassinated by a
hastily put together firing squad and his remains dissolved in acid.
All for the fear that he may have brought the DRC closer to the Soviet
Union and given Moscow access to its precious natural resources.

These recent coups thankfully did not include such atrocities and were
not overtly aimed at furthering the interests of colonial power. But
does this automatically mean they were “led by our people”, and
aimed at delivering on the people’s wish to end colonial plunder, as
Chihombori-Quao claims?

Not so much.

First of all, every single one of these coups was led by powerful and
privileged high-ranking army officers – men whose lives are far
removed from the everyday experiences of “our people”. And these
men appear more than willing to suppress the voice of the people,
whenever it happens not to align with theirs. They have no problem
with crippling democracy or even physically harming the very people
they claim to represent when it fits their agenda.

These men not only upended the democratic process by toppling
governments brought to power by reasonably free and fair elections,
but are also dragging their feet about setting a date for new polls.
Mali’s military government – like the unelected regimes in
nearby Chad and Sudan – has repeatedly delayed a transition
to democracy. There is not much hope for Niger, Burkina Faso or
Guinea’s swift return to full democracy either.

In May, the United Nations reported that Malian troops – with the
help of foreign military personnel – tortured, raped and killed at
least 500 civilians during a five-day anti-dissident operation in
Moura in March 2022.

Around the same time, Human Rights Watch reported that on April 20,
2023, Burkinabe soldiers burned homes, looted property and summarily
executed at least 156 civilians in a similar six-hour operation in
Karma, northern Yatenga province.

Coup leaders like to talk the anti-imperialist talk because it gives
them legitimacy and helps them garner public support, but they are
much more reluctant to walk the walk.

Burkina Faso’s interim president, Ibrahim Traore, for example, likes
to employ fierce anti-imperialist rhetoric at every opportunity.

Speaking at the Russia-Africa Summit in July, for example, Traore took
a swipe at Africa’s older leaders, saying, “The heads of African
states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the
imperialists.”

But, ironically, he has openly demonstrated sycophantic affection for
Vladimir Putin of Russia, a prominent and particularly brutal imperial
force in Eastern Europe, and increasingly in Africa.

Traore is not the only “anti-imperialist coupist” in Africa who
appears suspiciously blind to Russia’s demonstrably brutal
imperialism.

The military government in Mali is known to be very close to the
Kremlin and has had help from the Russian Wagner mercenary group in
its efforts to stifle dissent. Niger’s coup generals have also
openly asked Wagner for help in dealing with the West African regional
bloc, ECOWAS.

So much for coup leaders standing with everyday Africans against
imperial powers.

This, of course, is not meant to minimise the harm Western colonialism
inflicted on Africa. The West has been for centuries, and remains to
this day, the most destructive outside actor and the strongest force
against swift, independent development and deepening of democracy on
the continent.

Indeed, the remnants of the West’s abusive colonial arrangements are
still crippling African states, politically and economically.

For example, 14 African countries, including Niger, Mali and Burkina
Faso, still use the neocolonial CFA franc – which is guaranteed by
France and pegged to the euro – as its currency.

In return, France requires these countries to keep 50 percent of their
foreign exchange reserves with the French treasury.

This adverse and costly financial entanglement has allowed Paris to
exercise undue and outsized influence over CFA franc countries’
economic and political affairs.

As a result, most of these countries have struggled to flourish in the
postcolonial era. Niger, for example, is one of the world’s poorest
and least developed countries. Along with Mali, Burkina Faso and
Guinea, it occupies the lowest ranks on the United Nations Development
Programme’s Human Development Index
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While Russia is undoubtedly a destructive imperial power, both in
Africa and elsewhere, it is the West that is primarily responsible for
Africa’s chronic economic and developmental shortcomings.

This is perhaps why Chihombori-Quao is turning a blind eye to the
close relations Africa’s new military leaders have with Russia, and
insisting on presenting them as anticolonial revolutionaries.

In fact, she seems to believe in the anti-imperialist credentials and
anticolonial intentions of these generals so much that she describes
their actions not as coups but an “ideological realignment of
economic, political and social values”.

But what have these military regimes said or done so far to achieve
that much-longed-for realignment? Are they charting a new path forward
for an independent Africa, free of all imperial intervention and
manipulation? Have they, for example, announced any plans for bringing
an end to the CFA?

Sadly, it seems, these new military regimes, despite their
anti-imperialist posturing, lack a strong ideological grounding and
political direction.

I am an African. I know what colonialism has done, and what
neocolonialism is still doing to these lands. As such, just like
Chihombori-Quao, I also long for an African revolution to put an end
to this plunder. I want predatory Western governments and companies to
end their exploitation of Africa and all African nations to stand tall
and independent in the international arena.

But I refuse to support undemocratic actions.

What we are witnessing in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and beyond is not
the beginning of an “African revolution”. What we are witnessing
is just a few military elites taking advantage of the genuine
suffering and frustration of their people to further their interests.
They are employing anti-imperialist rhetoric to win support from the
streets, but doing very little to actually further Africa’s
independence and free it from the clutches of outside powers.

Every coup, regardless of any anti-imperialist or populist facade it
may put on, is an attack on democracy. Military rule, however
people-oriented it may appear to be, is always a threat to the rule of
law. And it is not the ideal vehicle for promoting solid economic
growth and development.

Chihombori-Quao is right – African countries do have a moral and
economic imperative to end neocolonialism. Nevertheless, they also
have an obligation to respect people’s human rights and implement
any necessary sociopolitical and economic changes to ensure true
African independence within a democratic framework.

Let us stop celebrating harmful power plays by self-centred military
elites as acts of anti-imperialist resistance, and focus instead on
planting the seeds for a true African revolution that would end
neocolonial theft of our resources for good, and empower everyday
Africans to shape their own future free from oppression.

_THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REFLECT AL JAZEERA’S EDITORIAL STANCE._

_Tafi Mhaka
[[link removed]] is an
Al Jazeera columnist, has a BA Honours degree from the University of
Cape Town._

_Al Jazeera [[link removed]] is a Qatari
state-owned Arabic-language international news television network_. 

* Africa
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* colonialism
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* anti-colonialism
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* Mali
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* Niger
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* Burkina Faso
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