As Africa Gets Colonized, So Do We

Abstract: Formal “decolonization” worked splendidly… for global plutocracy (with few exceptions). Otherwise, decolonization is a myth. Worse: a crime the way it was accomplished, in all too many places. Nowhere is that more blatant than in Africa, where regimes after regimes are horror shows, and should be viewed as having run out of excuses. And therein a lesson for the whole planet. And in particular for the whole “left” and other pseudo-intellectuals of the simplistic type, who have been more busy collaborating with a system they set-up, rather than fighting it.

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On April 18, at 6;50 am, heading for Turin Airport, I headed towards the Montgenèvre  pass. Montgenèvre is probably where Hannibal crossed the Alps, as it is the lowest pass. However the famous general suffering huge losses at the hands of the uncooperative Natives, the Allobroges… He lost at least a third of his army, nearly all his elephants. Those Allobroges with whom the Romans, under Augustus, would draw a treaty, two centuries after Hannibal, making them part of the Roman empire… as an independent kingdom: Augustus was so proud of himself, he mad a gigantic monument, still overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. (The world owes to Briancon, the Roman Brigantum, the word “brigand”, depicting well the rapport between Rome and the Briancon area…)

In some places, all what is left are ancient baobabs, from desiccation, and abuse of the land. Baobabs like many African things, starting with the land itself, are enormous. Unfortunately, most of African ecology gets ravaged as we speak. The problem is not sourced just in Africa, we are all part of the problem, thus, the solution.

Along the road, suddenly ten Africans, Subsaharan African, black as charcoal, walking… All French speakers. They came, illegally, from south of the Sahara desert, crossed Libya, and the Mediterranean Sea, thanks to smugglers. Once in Italy, charities gave them clothes, addresses and cell phones, with subscriptions working in France and Italy. Train transportation was provided. From Sicily to deep inside the Alps, at the foot of formidable passes enjoying more than ten meters of snow over the last few months. Only one road goes through, passing in a tunnel below the Montgenèvre,  the world’s oldest ski resort. There are kilometers of tunnels on the “Italian” side. This is the road those outlaws took, obviously hidden in smugglers’ cars (the border between France and Italy is not enforced, but the French Gendarmerie has descended upon some technically Italian towns to make anti illegal immigrant raids, to loud protests from the Ligua Norte (a pseudo-independentist party)…. That whole area of “Italy” was French until Louis XIV gave it to the enemies he had created for himself by throwing 2 million protestants out, and making his grandson king of Spain… The fury of some Italian politicians is explained by their desire to see Africans go to France, instead of enjoying Italy.

Those smugglers through that one French Alps’ pass don’t view themselves as smugglers, but as friends of man, as charities. Yet, ultimately they are the accomplices of horrible regimes in Africa, themselves set-up by global plutocrats and the Western governments which served them (no relief to be obtained from China, which is arguably doing worse, under the guise of helping, as French and US politicians recently pointed out).

Of course, should I be stuck in Subsaharan Africa (as I used to be), I would also walk through the desert, and swim across the sea. Why?Far from the pleasant land I used to know, Subsaharan Africa is in danger of becoming a vast “shithole”, as Trump may have noticed in private… we are well into the process of following it down the toilet. And this we will presently address.

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A superficially absurd question in Quora, which turns out to be very deep:”Why aren’t the French colonies in Africa liberated? Why don’t they ask for their independence?

My answer:

Silly question, superficially: there are technically no colonies in Africa, at the present time. Or pretty much anywhere else. However, the reality is just the opposite. “Independence” and decolonization was pretty much a sham. It was more of a delegalization, and the creation of a wild west, with Natives to exploit freely, far from law and prying eyes.

Indeed, it’s not France, the French Republic which has the colonies (as it used to be). The truth is worse. Much of the world has been colonized. By global plutocrats, immensely wealthy men (typically men), conspiring with local leaders (“elected” or not).

When the French Republic was in nominal control of much of Africa, there were laws, rules and regulations, of a Republican, democratic character. Roads, trains, schools (mandatory, secular) were built, covered the land. Through Subsaharan Africa, one could find an hospital every one hundred kilometers, in populated areas (which was ruinous for France, from the point of view of some pro-independence French politicians… Most of Africa didn’t ask for independence, it was hurled at them by French racists).

For example, most of the Ivory Coast forest was protected from destruction. After nominal “independence”, very wealthy men came from the north, made deals with the local potentates, and freely exploited the African environment.

They were free, the rest were enslaved. Not just diamonds for Al Qaeda in Sierra Leone, forest in Ivory Coast, oil off Nigeria and Gabon, etc.

Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabists, decided to extend their influence worldwide with a Salafist project flushed with oil money. This completely changed the nature of Islam in Subsaharan Africa, sending the (gigantic) region into a turmoil that profited the Saudis, version 1970s… but few other people besides. Subsaharan Africa became partly a mental colony of Saudi Arabia, with disastrous consequences for economy, society, peace, wisdom, and knowledge.

Sadly, degradation is contagious. As exterior individuals became free to plunder Africa, African natives themselves duplicated the plunder, all the more as the top leaders were part of the conspiracy (consider the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in Congo, to be replaced by CIA pawn Mobutu). The later example shows it’s not just the French and the Saudis. For example the (quasi) dictatorship in Rwanda intervened in Congo, to grab rare earths, with discrete, ignored US support, bringing the death of 5 million Congolese citizens (and cheaper electronics for the rest of the world, and the fortunes of many a US plutocrat).

The problem was ignored: individuals such as Bernard Henri Levy, who became a billionaire by plundering African forests, is also an influential intellectual in Paris, or Morocco, and respected not just by left wing but right wing presidents… who financed him. He also controls (nearly) all media.

Worldwide plutocrats own most media, so they colonize us all. After they have made up our minds, the way they like it, we are free to opt to serve them further.

Just as the plundering of Africa, post “independence” has been contagious, and the natives have joined in the plundering, so it is, worldwide: the more the hyper wealthy plunder the planet and control minds, the more average people don’t care. That’s how the sense of citizenship was lost when the Roman Republic became Augustus’ dictatorship (the Roman “empire”, or, technically, “Principate”).

For the preceding to happen, it was necessary that the self-described “left” or “progressive” be completely blind to the preceding. Worse: much of the naive “left” is controlled by plutocracy.

Is there hope? Just a little. French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, a ten billion dollar billionaire, was arrested and detained on Tuesday near Paris over allegations that he indirectly influenced election outcomes for governments in West Africa and secured lucrative port contracts for his company in return. A Bolloré Group subsidiary allegedly undercharged for work, helping two African presidents win power in return for lucrative contracts.

According to a report by the BBC, Bolloré, 66, who is the head of the Bolloré Group, was taken into custody as part of an ongoing investigation into how his company obtained contracts to operate the Lome and Conakry ports in Togo and Guinea respectively. Now he has been charged. All, I repeat, all, billionaires who had to do with Africa, should be charged. That may not seem fair, not according to the “state of law” but all billionaires have overridden the legal process in the last few decades (at least in Africa). (Weirdly, Trump, whose pseudo-progressives love to hate, to change the conversation, gets a pass for now, being the less bad of them all, as he tries to change things, and didn’t become wealthy from corruption, as, say, Xi, Putin, Berlusconi, and an immense cortege of those lurking in the swamp between politics and greed…) 

The spirit of the law, worldwide, has been confiscated by the .1%. It’s not just Africa. We are all been colonized, or, more exactly, possessed (much of French Africa was more administered than colonized, in the sense that few “colons” ever came).

It’s high time to do something about ourselves becoming the property of others (consider the social networks and the virtual slavery they exploit us with). Because otherwise our future will be as bad, or worse, than the worst colonization (and there were very bad colonies, for example Congo, personal property of the Belgian king, where millions were enslaved).

Ah, a few technical points to finish: the French military interventions in Africa, from Rwanda to Mauretania, were, and are, not akin to “colonialism”: just the opposite (they tend to be all UN approved). They are efforts to free Africa from outrageous exploitation and plunders by (“religious”) gangs, or the likes of Gaddafi (who tried to physically invade Subsaharan Africa, before being stopped by the French military).

Part of the disaster that Subsaharan Africa has become has to do with demographic explosion (itself a consequence from the lack of intelligent administration, education and good healthcare). Many countries went from six millions in the 1960s (when the French administration left), to 45 millions now. In many countries, women have eight children (many to be tempted by violent Jihadism)

No ecology can sustain this, especially one which was borderline to start with. Thus, now dozens of millions of Africans from Subsaharan Africa are plotting to go to France, and try to do it at immense risks of lives and limbs (most of them fail, raped, drowned, eaten by Saharan hyenas, enslaved, or desiccating in the desert… but thousands a month make it to France…)

Something needs to be done, something drastic, and it won’t come from the old playbook…

Patrice Aymé

 

Tags: Abuse, Africa, Colonization, France, Plutocrats