Thumping neo-colonialists: New type of revolution in Sahel region

Residents of Niger's capital, Niamey, gather to protest the coup that ousted President Mohammed Bazoum. [Niger Presidential Office, Facebook]

There is serious 'revolution' taking place in Africa, mainly in the Sahel zone, which is not the same as regular military coups. The Sahel is a strip of desert countries stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea that is sandwiched between Mediterranean countries in the north and tropical ones in the south. It suffers economic drawbacks, socio-religious upheavals, and political instability with coups among them. Ordinarily, coups are against individual regimes/rulers that appear to be overbearing to other domestic power elites. What is happening in the Sahel is a rejection, not so much of an individual ruler but the international forces of postmodern colonialism that make regimes irrelevant to continued exploitation. There is real idealism, informed by the fact that individual regimes are expendable, which drive the actors to go beyond the regimes and try to tackle the actual masterminds of exploitation.

Tackling the actual mastermind actually means tackling France, the former colonial power in former French West Africa. Like Britain, which dreamt of controlling a North-South Cape to Cairo stretch of land, France seemingly dreamt of a West-East stretch from the Atlantic to the Red Sea/Indian Ocean. The imperial rivalry and confrontation at Fashoda between Britain and France gave Sudan to Britain, and denied the French the direct link to the Red Sea. Thus only Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Ethiopia interfered with this French dream. Sudan is culturally and environmentally similar to Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali in the West. Niger is the current global attraction because its people are rejecting France and those who represent French imperial interest.