Because I can’t tell whether:

we should just critically support them only for their role in inducing multipolarity and anti-imperialism, a la Russia, due to their shitty domestic politics

or

we must support them further in depth, for their inherently socialist and progressive politics, like Burkina Faso under Sankara, and modern day China.

This is not to say I won’t at least give critical support to this nation.

P.S. If you can, could you answer same question about its modern allies, current Mali and Burkina Faso.

  • loathesome dongeaterAEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    From an article by Vijay Prashad:

    Discarded populations with no real political platform to speak for them, these communities have rallied behind their young men in the military. These are “Colonel’s Coups”—coups of ordinary people who have no other options—not “General’s Coups”—coups of the elites to stem the political advancement of the people. That is why the coup in Niger is being defended in mass rallies from Niamey to the small, remote towns that border Libya. When I traveled to these regions before the pandemic, it was clear that the anti-French sentiment found no channel of expression other than hope for a military coup that would bring in leaders such as Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, who had been assassinated in 1987. Captain Traoré, in fact, sports a red beret like Sankara, speaks with Sankara’s left-wing frankness, and even mimics Sankara’s diction. It would be a mistake to see these men as from the left since they are moved by anger at the failure of the elites and of Western policy. They do not come to power with a well-worked out agenda built from left political traditions.