STATES project and defend their national interests, axiomatic of the diplomatic dictum that they have no permanent enemies or friends. Enemy states such as Athens and Sparta, Rome and Carthage were forced into cooperative military endeavours to fight the Persians and the Gauls.
And during the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States, by no means friends, united with the British to fight Nazi Germany. The 1939 invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union, didn’t prevent a military pact by the two states to fight a powerful common enemy: Nazi Germany.
What made the Soviets, Poles, Americans and the British to join forces to fight the Nazis? Was it the fear that fascism would supersede liberal and Soviet type democracies, and become the dominant political model? Or, was it to prevent upending the global economic and military order, dreadful that a victorious Germany, would retaliate with the type of massive reparations, and military restrictions imposed on it after the first World War, which grounded its economy and military? Or, were they fearful that their expansive colonial possessions, including booties from the defeated Ottoman Empire in the First World War, would be confiscated by the Nazis? Whatever the fears were, the threats by the Nazis were greater than the threats each of them posed to the other, before the pact of necessity to vanquish the Nazis in defence of national and related interests.
First, the political reward for slavish loyalty to the global hegemony is a blank cheque for Heads of State in Global South nations to be as draconian as they wish. Secondly, most of the economies of the Global South shackled by corruption, and opaque debts push their nations to the IMF/WB, imposing all sorts of bailout packages, embedded with draconian anti-people conditionality, dampening the political spirit of the people to interrogate the system, because they are preoccupied with existential challenges. A hungry people are weakened to effectively demand their rights. Thirdly, the Western, American and allied intelligence services would extract their pounds of flesh from regimes threatening the economic, military and geopolitical interests of their nations.
The allied war platform was God-sent to the United States to project and assert its leadership of what, in imperialist parlance, is called the Free World; as it provided the Soviet Union a platform to project the potency of its new political organisation, military invincibility and indispensability not only to the emergent global socialist bloc of countries but, ironically, even to the Free World.
Unfortunately, for the post-Second World War emergent African, Asian and Latin American nations, their destiny was impliedly sealed before they were born, at the 1944/1945 Bretton Woods and San Francisco conferences. Having used colonial military contingents to fight the Nazis, it couldn’t be explicitly stated at the conferences that the United Nations and its financial appendages would set the stage for partitioning the world into dominant and subsidiary nations. But decades after the creation of the IMF, World Bank and the United Nations, most of the post-colonial states have sunk deeper into poverty due to the nature of the economic and political model promoted by the financial and economic organs of the United Nations, dishing out concentrated poverty inducing policies in the Global South nations.
Conceived as a bulwark against future world wars, and for the promotion of global peace, the United Nations has been incapacitated by its principal founders from bringing lasting peace to the world.
Fed up with the indignity of modern slavery in an increasingly exploitative and unjust world order, some Global South nations reacted to change their sealed fate.
The Chinese wouldn’t play second fiddle to any nation, hence the 1949 Cultural Revolution to make China a global power, and by right contingent on its military and economic strength, a truly collegial partner to the most powerful members of the United Nations Security Council.
The Vietnamese would rather perish than be reduced to the backyard of French and American imperialism, hence the Viet Congs chased the Americans out of Vietnam in 1954.
The Cubans would rather shed the last blood of their compatriots than submit to the bondage of American imperialism, hence the 1959 Cuban Revolution, which established an independent Latin American nation beyond the control of the United States, helpful to the struggles of Global South nations bent on changing their sealed fates.
The Iranians were all out for a major confrontation with the United States to regain the freedom to independently manage their affairs as they deemed fit, hence the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a powerful counterpoise to American and Israeli designs in the Middle East.
Almost eight decades after the United Nations was founded, the veto powers of members of its Security Council are obstructive of genuine global peace, emboldening the United States and her allies to attack any state regarded as a threat to their national interests, fully unleashing the genocidal instincts of the settler state of Israel on Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. The Palestinians have been forced into one of the most heroic struggles any people could make in defence of their rights to statehood.
The struggles for freedom and independence illustrate that no sooner was the fate of the Global South nations sealed, than spirited reactions to change it began. The reactions of the Global North to the revolts, are tightening the noose against their escalation with political, economic, and in extreme cases, military responses.
First, the political reward for slavish loyalty to the global hegemony is a blank cheque for Heads of State in Global South nations to be as draconian as they wish. Secondly, most of the economies of the Global South shackled by corruption, and opaque debts push their nations to the IMF/WB, imposing all sorts of bailout packages, embedded with draconian anti-people conditionality, dampening the political spirit of the people to interrogate the system, because they are preoccupied with existential challenges. A hungry people are weakened to effectively demand their rights. Thirdly, the Western, American and allied intelligence services would extract their pounds of flesh from regimes threatening the economic, military and geopolitical interests of their nations.
The earlier reactions from the Global South nations against their fate are reinforced by ongoing emancipatory struggles. Sahelian Africa has severed ties with paternalistic French imperialism, underscoring the displacement of the French from the mastership of the Sahel, where they have been declared persona non grata. No one expected the relationships to have ended as abruptly as they did. The ended relations underscore the determination of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Republic to set themselves on a rough course to change their 1944/45 implied fate from underdog nations to masters of their destiny.
The narrative from the crumbling French African neo-empire is that Africa is fed up with sustaining the French economy, preferring to deploy its economic resources for the benefit of African people. Going against the genuine interests of the nation, the Nigerian authorities have glossed over this reality, moving the nation closer to France.
Changing the sealed fate of the Global South nations is fraught with risks, it isn’t for the faint hearted. It was what led to the assassinations of Presidents Mossadeq of Iran, Lumumba of the Congo, General Muhammed of Nigeria, Ghaddafi of Libya, and Col Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso among others.
France and her allies (global and local) would try to exact their pound of flesh from the coupists in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Republic. If the recent complaints by Nigerien foreign minister that Nigeria is accommodating the French to destabilise their nation has an iota of truth, then the angst of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over the disengagement of the three nations from the ECOWAS has derailed Nigeria’s foreign policy thrust from the concentric circles of West Africa, and the world, for long the cornerstone of the nation’s foreign policy, reinforcing the belief that in dysfunctional democracies the personal interests, and biases of presidents drive national interests and foreign policies.
Unlike the reactions of the Sahelian states, the reaction from Nigeria is that of contentment with the fate of a subaltern nation. Despite the revolt of the three Franco West African states; the formation of a confederate bloc out of the ECOWAS; its bandwagon effects; the dismal state of the Nigerian nation; and rising anti-French sentiment, Nigeria’s genuine national interest wouldn’t dictate closeness to France.
The narrative from the crumbling French African neo-empire is that Africa is fed up with sustaining the French economy, preferring to deploy its economic resources for the benefit of African people. Going against the genuine interests of the nation, the Nigerian authorities have glossed over this reality, moving the nation closer to France.
To the chagrin of those in Nigeria’s banditry-ridden and Boko Haram overran enclaves, French economic and military engagements in the nation are ominous.
Diplomatically and economically, President Macron has not lost from the French exit from the Sahel. The loss has been made good by presenting the largest economy in Africa for the benefit of France. The real losers would be Nigerians, if they allow their national interests to be reduced to the personal preferences of their president.
Jahun, a commentator on public affairs writes from Dutse, Jigawa State capital. He can be reached via email: aminuhabibu58@gmail.com
