Fulani, an cultural group accused of being peculiarly fond of jihadists, has been victimized by retaliation and pogroms in fresh years. / Source: Wikimedia commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), photograph SMMIMAGESRarely can we hear in Polish media about events taking place in various parts of the alleged Global South. Our attention is drawn to the war in Ukraine, events in the United States and Western Europe, and above all our interior policy. This does not mean, however, that things are not worthwhile or even challenging.
Universal poverty, climate change, unstable governments – this is the explosive mixture that has pushed the Sahel region in fresh years (a border strip threatened by desertification of farmland, which extends from Senegal to Eritrea, separating the Sahara sands from picturesque savannahs) to the edge of the abyss. Young democracies have fallen, giving way to military juntos. The cultural conflict has warmed up with 2 forces. Thousands of young people join jihadist guerrillas, deepening chaos, and the erstwhile colonies of France turn to Russia and China. This area, erstwhile the center of many African civilizations, present has become an arena of bloody struggles of military junt and jihadists, whose repercussions we can feel besides in our part of the world.
Postcolonial card house
The states of the Sahel, especially the western part of the Sahel, are peculiarly susceptible to the many crises of the modern world. They originate from the colonial structures of French West Africa, and their boundaries do not in any way reflect local cultural conditions and economical links. In the second half of the 20th century and in the early 21st century, they were heavy influenced by France, their erstwhile colonial metropolis. any countries of the region, specified as Mali, have democratized as a consequence of the end of the Cold War. Others, like Burkina Faso, remained violent dictatorships. Regardless of the interior political system, no of them could either become economically independent of France or importantly reduce the distance between them and developed countries. In a natural way, specified a situation caused expanding discontent of average people.
The stableness of the situation in the region does not aid the cultural diversity of the people of Sahel and the artificial division of the area. Its transient nature between the desert and the savanna makes neighbouring peoples lead diametrically different lifestyles, which frequently leads to strong conflicts. An example is the wandering cattle farmers Fulani, whose ancestors spread Islam in crucial areas of West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. Their wandering lifestyle leads to many conflicts with settled farmers from the Niger Valley.
Inflammatory point
Over the years, crises have grown, but in 2012 a complete breakdown of the current order began. On 16 January that year, the Berber people of the Tuaregs broke out in northern Mali. Although Mali and neighbouring Niger have faced the rebellions of this people respective times since independency from France in 1958, this time the rebel forces have achieved unprecedented successes. Tuareg militants, much of the veterans of the First civilian War in Libya, returned to the country after Gaddafi had fallen with combat experience and dense weapons, pushing government forces into defensive action and gaining Timbuktu. Their eventual goal was to force the Mali government to recognise the independency of the northern Saharan part of the country as dominated by the Tuaregs of Azawadu.
The first successes of the tuare separatists rapidly exploited the regional jihadist group Ansar Dine, which began to fight both secular militants and government forces. This provoked a strong reaction from France, which launched Operation Serval on January 11, 2013 to deal with spiritual fundamentalism in Mali. At a fast pace jihadist militias were forced to leave Malian cities. However, this was only the beginning of the regional crisis.
In subsequent years, the local structures of muslim fundamentalists, inspired by both the muslim State and Al-Qaeda, did not quit the armed struggle, but changed their tactics. Spectacular marches by the acquired cities replaced the partisan conflict in which French bombers were incapable to tip the scales in favour of local governments. The jihadists did not shun panic against their opponents and bystanders, but besides the armed forces of the Sahel states committed many massacres. interior chaos began to fuel an inexorable demography. Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and another countries of the region have entered the demographic detonation phase, with millions of young people of age without prospects of uncovering any unchangeable work. France, accused of moving a neo-colonial policy and imposing unequal economical agreements on countries in the region, began to rapidly lose support in an increasingly unstable Sahel.
As of 2020, Sahel has become part of a wider area of the alleged State Attack Belt. Last year the army took power in Mali, and already in 2021 another junta overturned the erstwhile one. The current decade besides brought a coup in Chad in 2021, 2 military coups in Burkina Faso in 2022 and a coup in Niger in 2023. As a consequence of the wave of coups, the Sahel countries, especially Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, forced French and American forces in the region to leave their borders, seeking fresh support in the fight against terrorism in the form of mercenaries from Russia and material aid from China.
African version of Afghanistan?
So far, the efforts of the fresh military junta have been counterproductive. Local armies and Russian mercenaries by applying collective work and utmost force to communities suspected of sympathizing with jihadists only reenforce their support in the province. The situation has become so serious that a crucial condition of northern Mali is under the control of the muslim and Muslim Support Group (JNIM), an organization from Ansar Dine and closely related to Al-Qaeda. JNIM fighters besides control over 40% of Burkina Faso territory. In many areas their main enemy is no longer government forces, but militants of the Sahel Province/Great Sahara of the muslim State. Local supporters of the muslim State control the western border of Niger and any areas of east Mali, organizing terrorist attacks from there throughout West Africa. Despite the increased cooperation of pro-Russian military juntas, dozens of soldiers and hundreds of civilians die in local jihadist uprisings, and juntas themselves seem equally incapable of resolving structural causes in the form of universal poorness and deficiency of prospects, as the overthrown civilian regimes.
Is it so crucial to fear the repetition of the Afghan script in Africa, with militants of muslim organizations entering capital cities and de facto forcing the global community to accept their control? Currently, this is not the most likely scenario, as military juntas exercise strong control over the cities and seem to have more support in them than the puppet authorities of Afghanistan on the eve of Taliban victory. However, there is presently no chance of resolving the problems underlying the conflict with jihadists quickly. If local wars continue, we will surely feel it in Europe too, especially if hundreds of thousands of people are desperate adequate to decide to march through the Sahara in search of any chance for a better life. Additionally, if Mali or any another country of the region becomes an organizational base for Al-Qaeda or the muslim State, it will become a problem for both the West and China and their supporters.
Oskar KMAK
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