Introduction
A few decades ago in certain
African English-speaking neocolonies, it is not uncommon for educated but
untransformed talking heads to wax lyrical on their perceived inadequacies of family branches in the French-speaking neighbourhoods. A triggers was football competitions where French teams dominated by African sons. Another was perceived economic certainty with the preponderance of 'stable' CFA franc linked
to French franc at the time. Of course those boneheads had surplus poverty of
history and blind spot on the concept of civilisation. Fast-forward to the
present, so much has evolved from irreversible expulsion of unproductive forces
by wise French-speaking neighbours. Therefore our focus is the current
manifestation of the latest iteration of geostrategic changes in Africa.
Conventional Wisdom
It is critical to stress
from the beginning that full-spectrum European colonialism in Africa was a
long-term geopolitical project with integrated geoeconomic, geostrategic and despiritual dimensions. As a civilisational enterprise, there was no
methodological distinction in executing epistemic and physical violence of
Africans on industrial scale strapped on the acquiescence of fake Christianity. It
is therefore a weak intellectual debate as to differences in inhumanity
perpetrated by Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Denmark and
Germany. There was a common design, common agenda and common strategy currently manifesting in the form of European Union.
Furthermore, flag-independence
agreements on immutability of colonial boundaries, European language lingua
franca, limited intra-African trade and rejection of true sovereignty are set
in stone. Such mascara of illusion are forced down millions of children across
2 generation through poisonous public education system to reject themselves and
keep looking north. Any dissent is visited with either divide-and-conquer or shoch-and-awe.
History is littered with examples of such normalised disequilibrium countersigned
by so-called indigenous nationalists and independence fighters. 6 decades later
reveal them to be no less opaque as most of their legacies lie in ruins borne
by innocent millions crushed by their malignant decisions. This set the structure for temporal colonial
extension prolonged in the flag-independent flowers of neocolonialism
contracted to the indigenous elite.
Neocolonial Geopolitical
Culture
The British worked hard to ensure that their colonies where handed over to pliant satraps or to a divided ensemble of pretenders who unceasingly sang the moderate line of illegitimacy. Nigeria is the classic example where prior to flag-independence all players knew that they had no future apart from their stomach allowances. Sudan fell under the sway of immediate instability which still echoes till today while Nasser and Nkrumah were churned out quickly complementing their operational insensitivities. On the French side after the debacle of Algeria; le vieux Boigny held the forth in Abidjan for France Afrique, Bongo in Libreville while Senghor waxed negritude in Dakar to no effect.
Mobutu
massaged Zaire for Bruxelles backed by Washington DC (uranium for US WW2 atomic
bombs came from here) while the rest of Portuguese and Spanish colonial ventures
turned into textbooks of genuine African revolutionary triumph baptised in
blood. The 1970s, 1980 and 1990s came and went with seeds of hope struggling. When a fuller account is drawn decades later most neocolonial
spaces are no more better than a century ago as geographies of holistic stagnation while
foreign curators regurgitate their certainty that Africans flourish in suffering
and smiling. Or do they?
New Facts on the Ground
The murder of Col Muammar
Ghaddafi in 2011 was a watershed moment for many Africans particularly on the West African French-speaking neighbourhood in view of the immediate destabilising impact and the outsized role of President
Sarkozy. Of course, part of the geopolitical gambit include the humiliation of
Ivorians on their own turf. What is left out of narratives is the resistance
culture in many communities that fell to the French. Many West African peoples
faced down French forces with formidable solidarity and strategic response that
compromised designs and inflated cost setting the stage for intergenerational
enmity whose explosion would occur at the critical mass of time. A profound
aspect of these struggles and resistance is the role of Islam in checking
French penetration.
So what appeared like post-WW2 surface geopolitical stability enacted by Charles de Gaulle simmered with
tectonic pressure until it tipped over with post-2011 French overreach. A
country with a debt accounting over 100% of its GDP can only play for time
before its weakness turns into a rout. Descendants of the marginalised and
humiliated particularly led by gallant armed forces of Mali, Niger and Burkina
Faso saw the writing on the wall with each hefty stream of intelligence.
Holding territory and conducting conflict is pure money business. After
centuries of impunity, stealing and murder in Africa; new facts are emerging on the gradual decline of French power projection. The 3 cited countries became
economically sovereign for the first time from 2022, yes. For decades, they and
others were run like departments/ministries of the French government from Paris.
Uhuru is still far away but
its winds are picking up new strength. Gabon swung from Bongo dynasty and
Madagascar has at least recently confirmed another puncture in the French geopolitical
tyre. More is coming because the economic and political prognosis of Europe
devoured by deindustrialization and war debt imposed by US profiteering can
only raise new possibilities. Ascendant geopolitical powers are equally driven
by weighty geostrategic interests calling for higher interrogation and detailed
analyses for African consumption. Still culture and attitudes to power by
African elite remains neoliberal, anti-people, anti-solidarity and
anti-indigenous. Crisis of knowledge remain in the firm embrace of crisis of
identity. The road is very long.
Conclusion
A new era of possibilities is upon Africa
inserted by renewed awareness and incremental relegation of regressive
neocolonial forces currently facing massive costs that is blunting their geopolitical
designs and power projection. Few African countries are stirring beyond
rhetoric to commence genuine decolonisation for real independence. The currency
of conflicts on the continents is an indicator of the challenge but the moment
is pregnant with unknown options for deepening the path of restoration. This
path is bumpy, rough and existential. One thing is very clear, for Africans,
hope will be the last to die.
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