Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mali coup etc

thanks for the posting gloria.

it was, for me, an interesting mix of ideological truism, and good analysis.

sorry to be slightly disagreeable. but the evocation of imperialism or colonialism seemed, to me, an automatic trotting out of verbiage more than an accurate marker. second objection: the fall of libya might well have precipitated a tuareg march south, with the attempted overthrow of the malian govt and the increase of french interventionism.

 but but

with or without that, with or without tuaregs armed and retreating south, the dogon and fulani and everyone else in the sahel still have their interests, are still in conflict, and most of all, the islamist movements are there and would have been there. the french and u.s. interests might well be to maintain a favorable relation with the regimes in power in the 5 countries of the sahel; but those regimes themselves happen to be in opposition to islamism in the desert which they can't control. i thought the article did a decent job in evoking some of the economic factors at play; but in truth they represent a very small interest to the u.s , or even france, which is probably why trump is withdrawing forces from africom. the french have larger economic and political ties they want to maintain.

the references to the people and popular movements etc. strike me as pretty irrelevant with this military coup,. and if you read the article carefully, you'll see he says pretty much the same. come on. a military coup that says they want to restore civilian govt, and in the next breath says...after 3 years...that's hardly a popular movement.

you want a popular movement? it was burkina's magnificent overthrow of the long standing the autocra compaore.

we need a decent govt, without any american africom drones, and ideally without any french troops. but we do not need an islamist takeover of mali, burkina, niger, which would hardly represent a decent expression of the will of the people.

i frankly do not know yet what to think about this coup in mali. ibk was a failed president, and his attack on the opposition made democratic voting impossible.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2020 9:55 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mali coup etc

 

https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/35-mali-coup/

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