Dialogues: Fw: USA Africa Dialogue Series

Reformatted

Let me attempt to summarize this:

More than two million people have been displaced in the Sahel
by the terrorists, jihadists, bandits,
or whatever you want to call them.
Thousands have been killed.
The "terrorists" were at a time in control
of about half of Burkina Faso.

The civilian government, and the French Barkhane mission
could not handle the situation.
More bark than bite.

The civilian governments refused to purchase the necessary equipment
to fight the wars, diverting the
allocations into their private accounts,
or their pet projects, instead.
The French, who were supposed to assist, allegedly made deals with the
terrorists, and even held back the
local soldiers when they tried to go
against them, raising deep suspicions.
Therefore, most of the populations
in this area have welcomed the
military leaders, who vow to restore
security with the help of Russia, or
the metaphorical devil himself,
if necessary. Time will tell how
successful the triad in Guinea,
Mali and Burkina Faso would be
but at this point in time,
there is hope. People are voting
with their feet. In this case,
they are walking away
from the ballot box, for now.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2022 4:42 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are coups back?

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Ken

Let me attempt to summarize this:

More than two million people have been displaced in the Sahel
by the terrorists, jihadists, bandits, or whatever you want to call them.
Thousands have been killed. The "terrorists" were at a time in control
of about half of Burkina Faso.

The civilian government, and the French Barkhane mission
could not handle the situation. More bark than bite.

The civilian governments refused to purchase the necessary equipment
to fight the wars, diverting the allocations into their private accounts,
or their pet projects, instead.
The French, who were supposed to assist, allegedly made deals with the
terrorists, and even held back the local soldiers when they tried to go
against them, raising deep suspicions.
Therefore, most of the populations in this area have welcomed the
military leaders, who vow to restore security with the help of Russia, or
the metaphorical devil himself, if necessary. Time will tell how successful
the triad in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso would be but at this point in time,
there is hope. People are voting with their feet. In this case, they are walking away
from the ballot box, for now.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net

http://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html

Chief Editor- "Africa Update"

www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries

2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies

University of Texas at Austin

2019 Distinguished Africanist Award

New York African Studies Association

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2022 8:09 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are coups back?

Please be cautious: **External Email**

i made the same point in my posting on jan 25. i wrote:

to begin... i have two thoughts here:

1.all people on earth want self-rule.

maybe that is true, maybe not. i am guessing that people don't want to be ruled over but want to rule themselves, and to exercise rule fairly. i doubt anyone likes a rich fat cat to decide everything for them, while they suffer in poverty. maybe some people think this is natural and inevitable, but if they thought the rich person's wealth were at their expense, they would probably revolt, at least in spirit.

2.all people want a life. they want to be able to live and have a decent life, free from conflict war suffering and want. free to live well enough. that matters more than the type of govt.

moses, i have heard you make that argument before, and i think it is true, but not enough. #2 by itself isn't enough if you feel you are being cheated in life by unjust people who exercise power over you. there was the "bourgeois revolution" in france, after all, in 1830.

i'd add that this motivation (#2) doesn't necessarily enroll all the people.

the trumpists tried a coup on jan 6th, and trump tried to play on people's discontent, many with their jobs. but others opposed them. the people celebrating in the streets of ouaga might not represent all the burkinabe. one picture tells 1000 words, but what is the 1001^st word?

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2022 7:06 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are coups back?

"I cannot lay my hands on the document, but I was part of the conversation in Egypt that concluded that we cannot define democracy to exclude putting food on people's table. This was well circulated.

Any government that cannot deliver security, including food security, ensure poverty eradication, put the energy and skills of young men and women to productive use, is a failure, irrespective of what you call it."—Falola

I rest my case. That is the rational, self-interested and pragmatic position of Africans, which causes them to celebrate coups against civilian "democratic" governments and autocratic military and civilian governments, and at other times to enthusiastically fight for and participate in multiparty electoral democratic contests. On the surface the celebration of coups may appear as ignorance of democracy, as Toyin Adepoju claims, or even as a form of ignorant nihilism, but I would argue that it is a radical, pragmatic, existential political flexibility, which is at variance with the abstract, ideological, political commitments of Westerners, which leads them to a mindset of democracy for democracy's sake. Africans have no patience for democracy as its own reward, and they say rightly that if democracy (or any other type of governing technology for that matter) cannot give us peace, stability, food, and other basic needs, we have no use for it and must embrace something new no matter repugnant that something new is to the Western world, the international community, and ECOWAS/AU leaders. The West can and should learn from this pragmatic African political disposition and temper its ideological fanaticism and arrogant certitudes regarding democracy. But then again, as Gloria stated earlier, the West is not even as democratic as it claims and uses it merely as a rhetoric to accomplish its foreign policy goals in poor countries.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 26, 2022, at 5:18 AM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

cannot lay my hands on the document, but I was part of the conversation in Egypt that concluded that we cannot define democracy to exclude putting food on people's table. This was well circulated.

Any government that cannot deliver security, including food security, ensure poverty eradication, put the energy and skills of young men and women to productive use, is a failure, irrespective of what you call it.

--
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Thursday, January 27, 2022

Fw: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are coups back?

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