Ken,
I will agree with you that the reference to Arabs is a hyperbolic statement on my part and may confuse the meaning of what I really wanted to say, and that is, to drive out these extremists from African politics. And I will hate to play any role in anti-Islamist propaganda ( or anti-Christian propaganda) having been born into a one hundred percent Muslim community, called Zongo, in Ghana. The grand parents of my best friends from these communities came from all over the Sahel. These communities co-exist today with churches and not once has a church been set on fire, or a book been burnt, or an arm amputated, a daughter stoned to death for having sex out of marriage, etc., And in the many years I spent in Nigeria I saw huge Muslim communities in Ibadan, Lagos, co-existing with churches. These were great communities then and still may be. That is the nostalgia I carry with me when it comes to Islam and I cannot demonize it. However, where do these aberrant behaviors of book burning and amputation we see these days come from? Are these Western-inspired? Where is the evidence? The extremists are the ones I blame for these behaviors.
Having said that, I strongly believe that there will be no peace until the marginalization of the mostly Muslim Northern sections of West African countries is addressed and they are well integrated into society. They have legitimate grievances that must be addressed. In Ghana our luck was Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah who, from day 1 , had an honest, non-humiliating affirmative action policy for the North. Today, our current president is from the North and he is acceptable to the majority. Our next door country Ivory Coast actually had a policy of taking away the citizenship of their Northerners, and we all know how that ended. Mali has marginalized the Tuaregs since independence, and we are seeing the results now. I do not like complicating issues more than they are. The scramble for African resources may be ongoing, dictated by political hegemony or market capitalism ( what is the difference?). But this must not explain all of Africa's self-inflicted problems. When we see the west in all these intricate plots in every issue confronting Africa we assume that Africans played no roles. We are simply dumb pawns in geopolitics and I have problems with that line of thought. Always will. Your narrative below is the west this, the west that. That really scares me to death. Is the west responsible for Nigeria importing petroleum products when she has all these hydrocarbon resources? Which West African country is capable of supplying safe drinking water to all citizens ( Ghana is trying to achieve that)? Is the west responsible for that too? I can go on and on and on. The other day the World Bank report showed that remittances to African countries in 2012 summed up to $530 billion, more than 10 times the sum of Direct Foreign aid or investments in all African countries. Yet our governments have found no way of developing policies to actually leverage this money. The west is also responsible?
Ken , I need help in debating these issues. My priorities in Africa are 1) be a part of the global economy but strive to rely on your own resources-human and materials, 2) have policies that benefit the citizens, and 3) avoid extreme ideas. There are too many conspiracy theories going on. If one follows Osagyefo Bangura one would say that the thing to do is to form United States of Africa ( we cannot even unite our little countries), form an African army ( under whose command) and, perhaps, fight somebody! Hell, no. That will be suicidal.
Kaku Mensah
Chicago
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2013 7:43 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - mali, france, and resources
dear kwaku
your resistance to the argument is slightly off, if i may say so. first, i didn't say the french went to drive out the arabs because of their interest in uranium mines. i said, they had an interest in the assuring regional security because of uranium mines, not that that interest was their only reason. i think they probably wanted to insure the security of the regime in niger, which is now a close ally and the country where 30% of the uranium they use is located. foreign policies are usually made of many reasons.
secondly, i didn't say they went to drive out the arabs. i would be annoyed by such claims. the islamists in n mali consist of many people, including especially non-arb tuareg etc.
thirdly, i wouldn't call them wahabists; maybe some are, but that is a designation being used too loosely. i could go on: i am glad this group of islamists is being countered, but my happiness is tempered by the increasingly anti-muslim propaganda, even anti-arab propaganda, that reduces these conflicts to meaningless us/them divisions, that magnifies the threats far beyond reason, and that justifies not only legitimate interventions but especially hegemony. the hegemon in this region, i would surmise, is the u.s. with its gigantic africom base and operations.
there was a time when the u.s. intervened blithely in the americas to insure that regimes we considered safe for pro-american business were put in power and remained in power. the shock of castro led to reinforcement of that policy. after vietnam, we started to extend that rationale for interventions ourside our sphere of influence. now, since bush one, and especially since his son, we have turned the minor threat of oppositionality from al-qaeda into a rationale for military interventions anywhere on the ground of opposing terrorism.
this is a horrific use of american hegemonic power, using force as no other state on earth is willing to do, or cares to do. it costs us an ungodly amount of money, and worse it turns us into an ideological monster willing to purvey a broad ideology of militaristic power by dubbing any oppositional regime as terrorists, as was the case of the islamic courts regime in somali, which we ousted using ethiopians just as reagan used the contras in niguaraga.
will obama temper this reactionary foreign policy? or will he continue it from a distance, using french troops here in mali, but supporting them at a distance w cargo planes and drones for information? will power extend to the point of a sustained effort to destroy militant muslims, to paint conservative muslim movements like wahabism as extremists justifying military actions when desired? not in saudi arabia, where wahabism is centered, but in northern pakistan where we have different interests.
it isn't the picture below that you need to believe in. this report, after all, is written by the esteemed french journal le monde. it is the american ideology that is interpellating you--an ideology that has been moved so far from our post-vietnam policies of resistance to interventionism to this current policy of intervening so broadly throughout the muslim world.
so today's nytimes story on mali has lydia polgreen stating, " Indeed, while the Islamist militants have retreated to the desert, there are no illusions that they have ceased to be a threat. As American officials praised the speed of the French-led operation to recapture northern cities, they also cautioned that a lengthy campaign would be needed to root out the militants from their desert redoubts — and that it was not immediately clear who would carry out the daunting task."
"rooting out militants from their desert redoubts" sounds like a lifetime job, one only a hegemon would imagine as necessary.
i hate to think what reign of state terror that might actually entail
ken
On 1/31/13 7:25 PM, Edward Mensah wrote:
I do not read French. However, I am not trained to simply believe you by observing this picture as a proof of the statement that France went to drive out the Arabs from the heart of Africa because of their interests in the Uranium mines. This stretch is unscientific. Poor France! No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes. But the only lasting solution will be based on the government in Bamako addressing the legitimate problems of the Tuaregs, who are also Africans. Driving out the Arab salafis/wahabis is the right thing to do. However, settling the balance of power between the south and the Tuaregs should be the business of all who want to address the marginalization problem in post-colonial Africa. Else, the French are going to keep coming back. Poor France!! Already some members of the Tuareg population do not want Africans in their towns. Oops! I thought the Tuaregs are Africans. Pardon my ignorance.
Kwaku Mensah
Chicago
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2013 8:48 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - mali, france, and resources
here is an argument in Le Monde to the effect that france's interest in sending troops to mali were to assure regional security, especially in relation to the uranium mines in niger. this bolsters abdul's argument. at the same time hollande states france has no interest in the resources in mali. sorry if you don't read french, but that's the gist of the piece below
kenMines d'uranium : "la France n'a pas intérêt à ce que le conflit malien s'étende au Niger"
Le Monde.fr | 30.01.2013 à 20h37 • Mis à jour le 31.01.2013 à 13h41 Propos recueillis par Angela Bolis
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La France a-t-elle, derrière son intervention au Mali, des intérêts économiques à protéger dans la région ? C'est ce qu'affirme Stéphane Lhomme, directeur de l'Observatoire du nucléaire, selon qui l'entrée en guerre de Paris vise directement à "sécuriser l'approvisionnement des centrales françaises en uranium : ce dernier est extrait dans les mines du nord du Niger, zone désertique seulement séparée du Mali... par une ligne sur les cartes géographiques".
C'est aussi ce qui est avancé dans certains titres de presse, comme le quotidien algérien El Watan, qui explique que "la proximité du Mali par rapport au Niger (4e producteur mondial d'uranium), son appartenance à la région du Sahel considérée par les experts comme 'espace charnière pour le transport du pétrole et du gaz', et plus globalement au continent africain, théâtre de luttes d'influence entre les puissances économiques mondiales, sont autant de facteurs pouvant expliquer l'intervention française au Mali". Sur le site Atlantico enfin, le journaliste Florent Detroy, spécialiste des matières premières, est du même avis, estimant que "l'arrêt des mines du Niger serait catastrophique pour le groupe [Areva] et pour les Français", et que "le risque d'un 'choc uranium' du fait d'une internationalisation du conflit actuel au Mali n'est pas impossible".
Dans un entretien au Monde.fr, Emmanuel Grégoire, directeur de recherche à l'Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), avance que, s'il n'y a pas de lien direct entre l'intervention de la France au Mali et ses mines d'uranium au Niger, il est clair que la France n'a pas intérêt à ce que le conflit s'étende à ce pays, qui assure un tiers des approvisionnements en uranium de son parc nucléaire.
- La France n'a-t-elle aucun intérêt, en termes de ressources naturelles, à protéger au Mali ?
François Hollande a assuré que la France n'avait pas de véritables intérêts actuellement au Mali. C'est vrai. Elle ne participe pas à l'extraction d'or, principale ressource d'exportation du pays. Mais à l'avenir, elle pourrait en avoir : dans le bassin de Taoudeni, du nom d'une oasis à cheval entre le nord du Mali et la Mauritanie, des permis de prospection ont été accordés à des compagnies algérienne, canadienne, angolaise et française (Total) pour trouver du pétrole.
Total a fait un premier forage (côté mauritanien), en 2010, qui a été estimé décevant. Elle avait prévu d'en faire un second, qui a été gelé en raison du conflit. Cette région malienne est, certes, très enclavée, mais elle pourrait s'avérer rentable avec la hausse du cours du pétrole, surtout si les gisements sont abondants et de qualité.
- Quels sont les intérêts de la France dans le pays voisin du Niger ?
Au Niger, la France n'exploite pas de pétrole : c'est la Chine qui est sur le marché, dans la région d'Agadem, et compte, à long terme, en exporter. Toutefois, c'est dans l'uranium que la France possède d'importants intérêts. Le Niger pèse en effet pour 30 % de l'approvisionnement des centrales nucléaires françaises.
Areva y possède deux mines, celle d'Arlit et celle d'Akokan. Et une troisième est en construction, à Imouraren. A l'horizon 2020, elle devrait produire 5 000 tonnes de minerai, et devenir la première mine d'uranium d'Afrique. Le Niger, propulsé au second rang des pays producteurs d'uranium, pèserait alors pour la moitié des approvisionnements de la France.
Après la prise d'otage meurtrière à In Amenas en Algérie, la France a décidé de sécuriser ses mines au Niger. Il y a eu des prises d'otage par le passé, or, avec la nouvelle mine d'Imouraren, le nombre d'employés dans les sites français devrait atteindre plus de 300 expatriés. Le président nigérien, Mahamadou Issoufou, a accepté la présence de forces françaises sur son territoire, alors que son prédécesseur s'y opposait. L'arrivée au pouvoir de François Hollande et de M. Issoufou, qui est membre de l'Internationale socialiste, a changé les relations entre les deux pays. Il a aussi prôné une intervention militaire au Mali, et a envoyé des troupes sur place, à Gao notamment.
--kenneth w. harrowfaculty excellence advocatedistinguished professor of englishmichigan state universitydepartment of english619 red cedar roadroom C-614 wells halleast lansing, mi 48824ph. 517 803 8839harrow@msu.edu--
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kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
distinguished professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu
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