The coup in Niger and the impending eviction of French military forces from the Western Sahel brings to an end perhaps the longest imperial rivalry of colonial forces in Africa—that of the French and the British—a “victory” celebrated publicly Thursday by the editors of the Financial Times. “Africa editor and columnist” David Pilling’s not-so-subtle title for his piece was “Niger is the graveyard of French policy in the Sahel.”
“Unlike other colonial powers such as Britain, which abandoned its former dominions in Africa with almost unseemly haste,” writes Pilling, with incredible puck, “France stuck around. Either out of what you might call the ‘you broke it, you pay for it’ school of postcolonialism, or an enduring ambition to control and profit from its previous possessions, France has hovered like a ghost.”
The reason for London’s eagerness to see the French so humbled? “France’s loss has been Russia’s gain,” writes Pilling. “Yevgeny Prigozhin’s men in balaclavas now run everything from gold mines to Touadéra’s schedule. The generals in Mali also sought help from Wagner after expelling what its prime minister called the ‘French junta.’”
Looking back, the Times never “condemned” the coup—not in so many words—almost as if they were quietly anticipating the end. A week ago, on August 1, the entire editorial board signed off on a piece titled, “Niger coup highlights west’s failing policy in the Sahel.” After the crocodile tears cleared, they stated clearly: “The west has major interests at stake here,” then somewhat ominously added that “A collapsing Sahel so close to Europe is a frightening prospect, in terms both of security and of potential flows of migrants fleeing a lawless and dangerous neighborhood.”
Indicating that it was time for the “pros” (London) to take over, the Editorial Board concluded: “For too long, both Europe and the US ignored both Africa’s potential and strategic importance in favor of an anachronistic view of the continent as a purely humanitarian problem. Both have recently woken up to the fact that, in failing to see Africa’s significance, they have ceded ground to China and increasingly Russia. Only by taking the continent more seriously and by helping it prosper can they make up lost ground.” “They” above clearly means “we,” as in London. What “more seriously” means might be seen by the incessant spread of non-state terror, from east to west across the continent.
The unspoken irony, of course, is that, ever since 1898, and the meeting of the French and British colonial forces in Fashoda, the French have always been the toadies of the British in Africa, as made clear by Lyndon LaRouche in the early 1990s. What remains to be seen then, is exactly how the British intend to “celebrate” this victory, in terms of policy change.
They had better celebrate quickly, however, as the French demise in the Sahel is only presaging the demise of imperialism on the entire continent, as the forces of development—led by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative—sweep westward, celebrating their own “victory” at the BRICS Johannesburg Summit, beginning in less than two weeks.