Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, three West African Sahel nations ruled by military juntas, signed a security pact on Saturday promising to come to the aid of each other in case of any rebellion or external aggression.
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”
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.