The events in Niger testify to the weakening of the colonial positions of the West in Africa.
The St. Petersburg summit «Russia-Africa», without exaggeration, shocked the expert community, one way or another connected with the notorious «collective West». It is difficult to say where the degree of indignation was greater — in analysts and comments from the «think tanks» of the nominally former Western metropolises or «young democracies» like Poland and the Baltic states.
The reaction of Western governments also varied — from the traditionally restrained British to the equally traditionally emotional and practically directed French. The notorious «teachers of democracy», «market economy» and other things that have nothing to do with real life, suddenly discovered that Africa has woken up again and is mortally tired of neo-colonialism.
The military coups on the Black Continent became a threat to the key interests of the “collective West” as a whole and to Western capitals individually. It seemed to be a common thing. However, the destabilizing feature was not impulses from Paris, London, Rome or Washington, but from within the colonies of the 21st century . In other words, this time it was not Belgian or French mercenaries who overthrew one government after another, but local elites overthrew puppet pro-Western governments.
Photo: TASS
The St. Petersburg summit «Russia-Africa» became a challenge and even a demonstrative slap in the face to the «collective West». Moscow received representative delegations and formalized a wide range of agreements with African governments — in the humanitarian , trade, industrial, agricultural, financial, information and other (practically in all) areas. Particularly important were decisions in the field of security, once again fixing the status of Moscow as a counterweight to Western aggression and a donor of security to the Black Continent.
The Declaration of the II St. Petersburg summit «Russia — Africa» fixed «the need for joint counteraction to neo-colonialism» and provides for the achievement of the goal of «forming a more just, balanced and sustainable multipolar world order.» At the same time, the parties pledged «to contribute to the completion of the process of decolonization of Africa and to seek compensation for the economic and humanitarian damage caused to African states as a result of the colonial policy.»
The action plan of the summit participants secured, among other things, the further rapprochement of Russia with the African Union, the EAEU with the leading African regional organizations — the Arab Maghreb Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) , Economic Community of Central African States, Intergovernmental Development Organization. At the same time, ECOWAS, which is oriented towards Western capitals, is threatening to intervene in Niger, which has recently emerged from French control, and whose new authorities managed to conclude something like a defense alliance with Burkina Faso and Mali.
Photo: TASS
It is curious that the criticism of the rapprochement of African capitals with Moscow by the so-called Russian opposition agreed in its main theses with the training manual of Western media holdings. Both the «turbopatriots» and the pro-Western liberal rump (represented mainly by the so-called relocants) agreed on two positions. The first comes down to a simple thesis “stop feeding Africa” with a reference to the supposedly unsuccessful experience of the USSR. The second is openly racist in the spirit of the exiled Western conquistadors: they say, a certain “whole world” is drawn to the West, and only Russia sympathizes with Africans, Iranians, North Koreans, “Latinos” and others, in the terminology of the colonialists, the poor and miserable.
The second thesis is not devoid of rational grain: Russia has indeed always extended a helping hand to the humiliated and offended. Often, the Russians did this at the cost of huge sacrifices — as was the case in the history of the liberation of the Balkan peoples from the Ottoman yoke. Soviet Russia raised the level of development and well-being of its «national outskirts» at the cost of containing, for objective reasons, the standard of living of the Non-Black Earth Region and other Russian regions. This axiological problem, which is revealed not only in public policy, is devoted to a huge layer of Russian classics — philosophical and artistic.
Africa is actually not so poor, even those who are superficially familiar with economic geography will say. The land of Africa is great and plentiful, but there is no order in it. To a large extent — because transnational Western companies want to acquire African resources for next to nothing, and sell their illiquid assets to the local population.
The transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism has changed the way Africa is plundered and exploited, but not the nature of the process.
Russia does not have a colonial past on the Black Continent — this is one of its trump cards in the big geopolitical game. The African students of Soviet universities, by the very fact of their presence at the St. Petersburg summit, demonstrated the wisdom of the Soviet leadership, which left the fruits of its “soft power” to the Russian Federation as a legacy.
A couple of days after the II Russian-African summit in St. Petersburg, official Paris began the evacuation of EU citizens from Niger. The formal reason was the July 26 military coup in this former French colony. In the capital of the country, Niamey, unrest with a pronounced anti-Western agenda does not stop . The Associated Press reported on protesters with Russian flags chanting the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The new Nigerian leadership («National Council for the Defense of the Fatherland») accused Paris of intending to militarily restore corrupt President Mohamed Bazum to power. It pointed to the door to the French military, demanding to clear the largest air base in Niamey — 1.5 thousand French troops settled there. They are supported by thousands of regular military personnel who have settled in Nigeria from other Western countries — the United States, Germany and Italy.
Symptomatically: the overthrown neo-colonial government of Niger allowed the former metropolis to «strike» the country’s capital under the pretext of releasing Bazum, who was blocked in the presidential palace by the presidential guard. France refrains from striking revenge, choosing a better time and pretext.
The ex-president was left alive, it is possible — in order to judge. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell strongly hypocritically condemned such intentions in a well-known vein of «this is different.»
It is permissible to overthrow Viktor Yanukovych or Alexander Lukashenko, Slobodan Milosevic or Muammar Gaddafi and even kill them — such politicians impede the realization of Western interests and therefore “bad guys”. Maybe such rulers are not ideal, like many US presidents, including the sickly and aggressive Biden. However, here the problem is not so much legal as ethical, revealing the famous «double standards». It is unacceptable to overthrow and judge pro-Western corrupt puppets — they are “our sons of bitches” after all.
Emmanuel Macron is upset about the problem of Niger — the largest country in West Africa and not the first neo-colony to say to Paris “ come on, goodbye! «. The new government of the African country has announced a blocking of the export of uranium and gold — its main export commodities. France imported about half of Niger’s goods, mostly uranium for its nuclear industry.
Niger is not the only sore point of the «collective West» on the Black Continent. Prior to this, the appetites of Western TNCs were tempered by other African countries. Some of them took advantage of the strong leverage of the Russian PMC Wagner, while others took advantage of the equally strong economic leverage of Chinese state-owned companies and PMCs affiliated with them .
On August 1, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held talks with Chief of Staff of the National People’s Army of Algeria Said Shanegrikha. As a result, Shoigu stated the dynamic development of bilateral ties, noting: «We gave a clear signal to the whole world that Russia and Algeria are aimed at pursuing an independent foreign policy and defending their national interests, despite unprecedented pressure from the West.»
The well-being of the notorious Western «golden billion» is largely based on neo-colonial parasitism. Russia and dynamically developing China are knocking the African stool out from under the feet of Western European business. The US is inflicting coup de grâce by luring away the EU industry suffering from anti-Russian sanctions.
In this light, it is interesting how the European Commission intends to replace Russian gas imports with African ones. The Transsahara gas pipeline project, with 30 billion cubic meters of Nigerian gas for the EU delivered through Niger with shipment in Algeria, seems to have died.
Gold and diamonds, oil and gas, uranium, rare earth metals, phosphate rock and more are still liquid. The West needs these resources at cut-prices that only corrupt, pro-Western governments can provide. Formally, the former metropolises are happy to accept the offspring of the elites of the third world without unnecessary questions about the origin of huge capital.
In a multipolar world, the West will lose its former opportunities for neo-colonial robbery. He will continue to inspire coup d’état and seek to enthrone his clients, but without the former ease and courage. It will still influence Africa’s foreign trade, but with an eye to Russia, China and other regional centers of power.
As the influence of the BRICS , the SCO and other non-Western associations of the G 7 grows, it will be more difficult to arrange acts of international aggression following the example of the “Libyan scenario”. By the way, of the 23 countries that have declared their intention to join the BRICS, about a dozen are African. The next summit of this organization will be held in South Africa and promises to be very interesting.
BY TYLER DURDENWEDNESDAY, AUG 02, 2023 — 01:11 PM
Steven Sahiounie
Der Friedensstifter 
