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    Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
    What if the centre also represents an extreme? People who claim their view is above ideology, are full of shite.
    The centre is the most viciously ideological of all. Who the fuck else thinks privatization and a low-tax economy are an unmitigated good anymore?
    Last edited by Flynnie; 19-06-2018, 14:57.

    Comment


      Originally posted by Bruno
      The problem with being on the extreme (relative to the powerful) is that it's a circular continuum, so the extreme left and extreme right are very close to each other, and are both born of the perceived necessity of violent means for just ends.
      Not to be overly literal, but surely a circular continuum has no centre pretty much by definition?

      Comment


        Horseshoe Theory, I believe it's called. Isn't that a centrist construct, though?

        Comment


          Originally posted by Bruno
          so the extreme left and extreme right are very close to each other, and are both born of the perceived necessity of violent means for just ends.
          Just so I'm not misreading this, you're not saying that what-we're-defining-as-Centrists-here don't do 'perceived necessity of violent means for just ends', are you?

          Comment


            Macron is a centrist. His policies in Africa are anything but non violent. Orban started a liberal centrist, that used fash tropes as a cynical way to build power, and now seems to believe his evil bullshit. Tony Blair. Fuckface Bill Clinton. All used violence home or abroad in a totally cynical manner. Partly cos they believe in nothing but power and a fuzzy “progressiveness”, that can be used to hide behind horrible triangulating evil like Three Strikes, being tough on “bogus asylum seekers”, declaring war/air strikes under false pretenses as some kind of geopolitical cock waving/domestic distraction.

            Comment


              And the kings of Centrist bullshit the lib Dems, allowing a pure evil racist immigration bill through in return for a tax on plastic bags. Sensible Labour centrists of course abstained on the bill Cos Legitimate Concerns. Leading to the Windrush scandal.

              Comment


                Like neoliberal, it's a term that had a useful meaning at one point, but in internecine Labour conflict is just a catch-all way of slamming the Not-We, rather than describing where the centre of British politics might actually lie.

                Comment


                  Bruno - get back in your Peterson box.

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by Bruno
                    (I'm not on the left in the Marxist sense. More the American Progressive sense.)
                    You're not on the left in any meaningful sense. Except possibly which side the table was that you chose in the pizzeria .

                    Comment


                      Don't be a dick, Nef.

                      Unless a poster is deliberately trolling, their posts deserve to be responded to on their merits, not discounted simply on the basis of who made them.

                      Comment


                        Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                        Macron is a centrist. His policies in Africa are anything but non violent.
                        Could you elaborate a little on this one Spoony? I am interested. Apart from the run-of-the-mill sucking up to dictators and propping up bastards that all Western and non-Western countries – alas – routinely do in Africa, I’m not sure what’s so particularly violent about Macron’s policies in Africa that deserves singling him out. I don’t like the guy as I’ve so often written and explained on these boards, but whether we can lay that sort of accusation at his door I don't know. But I may well be missing something here, I read a bit about Africa but don’t really have the time to closely follow the situation there and as I say, I may have missed some episodes of Macron in Africa.

                        Comment


                          Originally posted by Bruno
                          Aha, yeah the "ends" I was alluding to there were specifically the aim of establishing and maintaining one's desired political system, or fighting against the existing system root and branch. The hard right is authoritarian by definition, maintaining authoritarianism typically involves violent means, and the hard left can be lured into authoritarianism through the process of replacing and suppressing the old authoritarians (or any perceived enemies), in much the same way that a poor person who hates a rich person enough to take his money away will instantly find himself rich. Even relatively enlightened systems have never been above using violence once in power for narrower political ends.
                          How do you think bourgeois democracy established and maintains itself? Or rather, what do you think would happen to me if i stopped paying my rent?

                          Comment


                            Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                            Macron is a centrist. His policies in Africa are anything but non violent.
                            Originally posted by Pérou Flaquettes View Post
                            Could you elaborate a little on this one Spoony? I am interested. Apart from the run-of-the-mill sucking up to dictators and propping up bastards that all Western and non-Western countries – alas – routinely do in Africa, I’m not sure what’s so particularly violent about Macron’s policies in Africa that deserves singling him out. I don’t like the guy as I’ve so often written and explained on these boards, but whether we can lay that sort of accusation at his door I don't know. But I may well be missing something here, I read a bit about Africa but don’t really have the time to closely follow the situation there and as I say, I may have missed some episodes of Macron in Africa.
                            Spoon, if you’re thinking of the French intervention in Mali (started under Hollande in January 2013-to date), it relates to a series of counter-rebellion and counter-terrorism operations jointly conducted by (mainly) several neighbouring African countries and France (military personnel + special forces & French Foreign Legion, altogether ~3,000 French personnel deployed, half of them coming from nearby French bases, Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger) on the desperate request of the Mali gvt after the situation turned very violent in the vast northern part of the country at the beginning of 2012.

                            The UN sent personnel too a bit later throughout 2013 and after I think, approx. 10,000 troops mostly in a protective and peacekeeping capacity, particularly in and around Mopti and the capital, Bamako, who were both in danger of being seized by the Jihadists at some point (a lot of these UN troops were from neighbouring countries, Nigeria, Chad etc. but also 1,000 German troops over the course of the operations, 300 British troops too, after a bit of humming and hawing from Cameron etc. Not sure the British troops stayed long, they were sent mainly to neighbouring countries to offer logistical help and assist with training. No British troops on the ground as Cameron was very wary of casualties as he knew this would have been very unpopular back home, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21009663 and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21240676).

                            In a nutshell, it all started in January 2012 with a separatist Tuareg insurrection in Northern Mali. The insurgents seized a few villages/towns and then cities and whole areas, mainly Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.

                            On the back of this, Jihadist Salafists from Algeria and Libya (total chaos there at the time) with strong connections with Al-Qaeda and AQIM sections (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) who double up as drug traffickers and arms dealers in that vast and lawless area, + the Islamists of Ansar Dine (also linked to AQIM), joined the fray and after a few months took over from the Tuaregs.



                            Cue a very strict Sharia rule imposed in the whole of the north, more villages seized, the population under the yoke of these Jihadists terrorists, hundreds of men tortured and killed, women raped, villages burned down, whole areas landmined, populations chased from their villages, about 400,000 internally displaced people and refugees sent into forced exile abroad (neighbouring countries) etc. Not to mention the destruction of many villages and buildings and ancient libraries, particularly centuries-old mud buildings in Timbuktu, eg in July 2012 this famous mosque classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site: Mali Islamists destroy tombs at famous Timbuktu mosque

                            For a whole year, the Malian forces tried to take control of the situation but failed to (too vast a territory for the under-equipped Malian forces to control). That’s when they asked the French to intervene, which they did in January 2013, that’s Operation Serval, then replaced by Operation Barkhane (cf wikis) and they managed to free Northern Mali from the Jihadists and reclaim the main cities and towns within about a month, and the rest later.

                            Check out this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict

                            Incidentally, Mali is the only place on earth where François Hollande is popular…

                            French President François Hollande might be the most unpopular head of state in recent history at home, as polls suggest, but in Mali he is seen as a hero. Even new born babies are being named after him.
                            Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 19-06-2018, 23:10.

                            Comment


                              Hands up Kev, Wasn’t meaning Macron has done any single thing that amounted to atrocities or whatever in the Francophone “sphere of influence”, more that he is enthusiastically continuing the same shitty policies in the ex colonies. France does seem more meddlesome than the Brits since the days of Amin say (is Sierra Leone the last time the UK has flexed its power in the old colonies?), , though that seems to have been the case throughout the colonial period for good or ill. France was far more interventionist and imposing of its culture than the Lugardian divide and rule methods of the British, by spending more money on Africa has done a lot of shite the Brits generally didn’t (but then the French did offer Citizenship etc in some colonies as rewards for pliant assimilation, whereas the British model was explicitly racist and outside the settler colonies run on a shoestring).

                              Comment


                                Originally posted by Bruno
                                I'm not sure what the point of your question is. It does rely on consent of the governed to some extent.
                                The bourgeois state only preserves itself through enormous violence (though we call it "protecting private property", "the rule of law", "strong borders", "humanitarian intervention" etc.). Deaths or violence caused by homelessness, poverty, immigration status or even imperialist/carceral logics are not looked upon as political violence in the way cops shooting demonstrators is, but they are.

                                Any movement that seeks to do away with the bourgeois state inevitably has to confront that violence. That doesn't make "the extreme left" as bad as the bourgeois state though.

                                Comment


                                  Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                  Hands up Kev, Wasn’t meaning Macron has done any single thing that amounted to atrocities or whatever in the Francophone “sphere of influence”, more that he is enthusiastically continuing the same shitty policies in the ex colonies. France does seem more meddlesome than the Brits since the days of Amin say (is Sierra Leone the last time the UK has flexed its power in the old colonies?), , though that seems to have been the case throughout the colonial period for good or ill. France was far more interventionist and imposing of its culture than the Lugardian divide and rule methods of the British, by spending more money on Africa has done a lot of shite the Brits generally didn’t (but then the French did offer Citizenship etc in some colonies as rewards for pliant assimilation, whereas the British model was explicitly racist and outside the settler colonies run on a shoestring).
                                  I'll try to reply tomorrow, a bit too pissed now. If not in about a week's time as will be away in Edinburgh on Sunday & Monday then away elsewhere for work for a few days.

                                  Comment


                                    Get to Leith shore for the grub Kev, Stockbridge and the water of Leith (little river running from Leith through the very quaint (but no grub or pub stops) Dean village are very nice as well and a bit away from the tourist traps. And the botanic gardens... and.. don’t go near the financial sector but. Shit post and pseudo modernism in cheap sandstone cladding. A stunted Leeds. In Keeping, dontcha know?
                                    Last edited by Lang Spoon; 23-06-2018, 03:19.

                                    Comment


                                      Crammond is braw as well, nice beach and low tide accessible island about half a mile from shore, and a wooded river with posh cafes and the like dotted along the way inland. Remains of water powered Industry all safe and quaint half ruined as much as any medieval castle. embra is full of great beaches when the weather is nice. Portobello High st has about the only chippy worth the name in the pseudo capital, and a fine long beach on the other side of the city from Crammond.
                                      Last edited by Lang Spoon; 23-06-2018, 02:35.

                                      Comment


                                        Always nice having a mini mountain in the city centre as well, and the Pentland hills are worth a go for a more Splendid Vista.

                                        Comment


                                          Thanks. I’ve "done" most of that (Stockbridge, Water of Leith etc.), been going to Embra since 1985 (living 100 miles from it for 17 yrs helps I suppose) but I may try your Dean Village tip so it's duly noted, thanks.

                                          My all time fav’ in Embra was a fantastic Ndebele cafe-restaurant in Tollcross (I love Ndebele art), unfortunately the lovely South African woman who ran it died in a terrorist attack in Kabul a few yrs ago.

                                          Comment


                                            Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                            Hands up Kev, Wasn’t meaning Macron has done any single thing that amounted to atrocities or whatever in the Francophone “sphere of influence”, more that he is enthusiastically continuing the same shitty policies in the ex colonies. France does seem more meddlesome than the Brits since the days of Amin say (is Sierra Leone the last time the UK has flexed its power in the old colonies?), , though that seems to have been the case throughout the colonial period for good or ill. France was far more interventionist and imposing of its culture than the Lugardian divide and rule methods of the British, by spending more money on Africa has done a lot of shite the Brits generally didn’t (but then the French did offer Citizenship etc in some colonies as rewards for pliant assimilation, whereas the British model was explicitly racist and outside the settler colonies run on a shoestring).
                                            1/3

                                            You’re right on France being historically more interventionist militarily, it was known as “the Gendarme of Africa” for a long time but there’s far less direct purely political military interventionism these days. The military interventionism debate in that part of the world isn’t cut and dried anyway, it can get extremely complex, for the reasons that I will to try to explain over the next posts, might be a bit disjointed but it’s long (too long for 1 post, character limit) and I don’t have all day to organise everthing neatly while watching the football and multitasking (less direct purely political military interventionism although of course France continues to exert its influence over its former African colonies in other ways, eg via the French foreign aid policy; via the monetary policy of the CFA Franc zone; and via maintaining a strong military presence through 23 ”security pacts” signed between France and these countries, almost all of these defence contracts were signed after they became independent, so 1960 for most of them). Far less direct purely political military interventionism mainly for these 3 reasons:

                                            # 1. France has generally lost influence and soft power in Africa (Chinese muscling in, other BRICS countries coming too), as well as economic clout – France’s market share in Africa has plummeted to 4% (10% in 2000). Chinese’s: 22% (2% in 1990).

                                            Times are also slowly changing ethically for French companies, we’ve seen what happened for instance 2 months ago to the Bolloré Group’s huge African business interests (port concessions/logistics, shipping, electricity, communication, advertising etc.) with billionaire Vincent Bolloré being placed under formal investigation by a French judge in a corruption probe. A Bolloré Group subsidiary allegedly undercharged for work helping two African presidents win power in return for lucrative contracts.

                                            French and UK authorities are also investigating other dodgy deals involving French banks and Airbus. This would never have unthinkable only 10 yrs ago (investigations on Bolloré Group started 5-6 yrs ago).

                                            French presence still very pregnant however in Francophone West Africa as French corporations and companies are heavily embedded in some local economies (particularly Sénégal-Gabon-Ivory Coast, in the latter 650 French companies account for one third of the country’s GDP and half of the fiscal revenue). Politically too but influence generally dwindling throughout the continent.

                                            # 2. Francophone African states now have more structures to mediate, defuse or sort out internal/regional problems before they escalate or afterwards, such as the PSC (Peace and Security Council of the African Union) and the ECOWAS, (Economic Community of West African States, created in 1975 but more pro-active in the last two decades; wiki: ECOWAS also serves as a peacekeeping force in the region, with member states occasionally sending joint military forces to intervene in the bloc's member countries at times of political instability and unrest. In recent years these included interventions in Ivory Coast in 2003, Liberia in 2003, Guinea-Bissau in 2012, Mali in 2013, and Gambia in 2017)
                                            Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 23-06-2018, 13:08.

                                            Comment


                                              2/3

                                              # 3. The Françafrique model of yore (which I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the French threads) is not as potent as it was even 10-15 years ago under Sarkozy, who famously pledged to “dissolve the African commission [cellule africaine] based at the Élysée Palace”… but didn’t of course (he did reduce its staffing levels and budget though).

                                              There is still a permanent African commission within the Élysée Palace but it has been considerably downsized, 4 staff with no specific budget (the cellule africaine had up to 80 staff in its heyday, 1960s-1990s, a substantial specific budget and a direct link to both French presidents and African politicians). The role of the cellule africaine now is to liaise with the French diplomatic services in Africa, inform the French gvt on African matters and occasionally serve as advisers to Macron’s close team when he has to get in touch with African politicians.

                                              Militarily speaking, what you systematically had before, in the glory days of Françafrique in Western Africa, is a system where France would send troops to help governments defend themselves against military coups or help opposition leaders overthrow the gvt, or intervene to prevent further bloodshed during/after an uprising, a civil war etc.

                                              Also sometimes because, in the unfolding chaos, Westerners and French citizens were targeted by rebels or counter-rebels (eg circa 2000 just before Laurent Gbagbo came to power in the Ivory Coast - he was the Ivorian president between 2000 and 2011 -, Gbagbo’s partisans triggered a series of anti-French riots), as it’s happened before several times in Ivory Coast, Gabon etc. One of the (interconnected) reasons that explain the traditional high levels French interventionism in the area is the high number of French companies and French nationals/binationals (eg in Gabon-Ivory Coast-Senegal = ~50,000 French nationals).

                                              Eg in Ivory Coast in the 1999-2007 period, and 2010-2011, both times of huge unrest, violence and political crisis, 1,000s of victims. It was particularly bad in 2010-11 in Ivory Coast post-elections in Oct. 2010, an insurrection broke out and turned into an 18 months-long civil war between “the 2 winners” (and their troops and assorted mercenaries, 100s of them) of the Presidentials, namely Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara.

                                              The UN and French forces were called in to help evacuate French and Western citizens, about 8,000 French citizens left the country in total. ECOWAS heads of state and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union got together, helped later by the United Nations and France, to solve the situation and stop the bloodbaths, the massacres, rapes, kidnappings etc. (3,500 deaths between the two camps post presidential elections in 2010-11 throughout the country, over 1 million people displaced, internally and to neighbouring countries) and it eventually stopped with Ouattara being officially declared president. (Gbagbo is now in jail in the Netherlands, awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity). I’ll write a little more on Ivory Coast in my next post.

                                              Direct interventionism is less marked now, eg as we saw in Mali in 2013 (my previous post) when the Mali gvt tried to sort out the problems themselves but were overrun and had to call for UN and French military help. <20 yrs ago, things would have been different although of course as I wrote in a previous post.

                                              The nub of the problem is that the French colonial legacy and French geopolitical & commercial interests in some of these West African countries are still way too large for these countries to self-govern and that means dodgy compromises galore on both sides, but not with the same levels of French interference and mateyness that used to very high, eg outrageously corrupt Omar Bongo in Gabon when he died in 2009 after being in power for 41 years – good grief, the fuss that Sarkozy and other top French politicians made of his death was embarrassing. His son, Ali Bongo, took over of course (not as bad as the father but still a rotten bastard).

                                              Macron is the first president born after the colonisation period, he’s never known the heyday of Françafrique and all that, he has no personal links with these despots unlike all the French presidents before him etc. so he should be less personally involved in their governance problems and far less likely to send troops for dubious reasons, as it was routinely done until the late 1990s. But yeah, essentially I don’t expect much change from the Hollande era in this respect, it should be a smooth seamless continuation, the past is still conditioning the present and France still has huge geopolitical and commercial interests in West Africa so not much to expect from Macron, just more detachment with the past, different methods, far more talk of “start-ups” and more spurious bollocks about “cooperation”.

                                              To his credit, Macron did denounce in no uncertain terms French rule in Algeria in February 2017 (Macron calls colonisation a 'crime against humanity' in Algeria interview, Hollande had done the same more softly before him and even Sarkozy) and again 6 months ago in Burkina-Faso (“the crimes of colonisation are incontestable and are a part of our history”) but that’s about it, that’s the extent of his awareness. It’s an acknowledgement but don’t count on Macron to rip up the rulebook and mark a rupture with the past, or even use France’s pivotal role and influence in that area to reflect on her responsibilities, and try to help tweak the mechanisms that lead to reproducing the same patterns and ills that afflict most African countries in one way or another (perennial crisis of governance, dictatorships or “démocratures” – democratorships – corruption/looting of resources, dependency on foreign aid, poverty etc.).

                                              You read French reasonably well I seem to remember, this short article outlines Macron’s (vague) African policy:

                                              https://information.tv5monde.com/inf...afrique-168473

                                              But of course, as I’ve just written it’s woolly and only a programme, and we know what generally happens to those. Money talks, so he will as keen as his predecessors to defend the French market shares there, who are now in competition with far more countries than previously.

                                              This is not bad either (particularly the bit about Macron’s willingness to reinforce Francophonie there, language is a key culturo-political tool to keep the existing links. In 2050, Africa will account for 85% of all Francophones in the world): https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/201...n-afrique.html

                                              Also this short article:

                                              Why are ex-colonies in Africa so important to France?
                                              Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 23-06-2018, 13:14.

                                              Comment


                                                Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                                Hands up Kev, Wasn’t meaning Macron has done any single thing that amounted to atrocities or whatever in the Francophone “sphere of influence”, more that he is enthusiastically continuing the same shitty policies in the ex colonies. France does seem more meddlesome than the Brits since the days of Amin say (is Sierra Leone the last time the UK has flexed its power in the old colonies?), , though that seems to have been the case throughout the colonial period for good or ill. France was far more interventionist and imposing of its culture than the Lugardian divide and rule methods of the British, by spending more money on Africa has done a lot of shite the Brits generally didn’t (but then the French did offer Citizenship etc in some colonies as rewards for pliant assimilation, whereas the British model was explicitly racist and outside the settler colonies run on a shoestring).
                                                3/3


                                                Not sure about the UK re Sierra Leone, I’ll try to check later if I have time to see if I can find a detailed list of UK military overseas operations in Africa but yeah that sounds about right.

                                                As far as France is concerned re OPEX in Africa (Opérations Extérieures – military overseas operations) specifically mounted to help African politicians, I’m actually now looking at a list of French OPEX in Africa from 1964 to 2014 (here, pages 15-17) on the geopolitical site Ondes de choc and quickly cross-referencing that list and the details in subsequent pages with other sources I’ve got and corresponding wikis. It looks like the last real one as per (sort of) what I’ve underlined above was Opération Khaya in Ivory Coast at Christmas 1999 (the day after the military coup of General Robert Gueï).

                                                The rest of the French OPEX in Africa since then have been either to do with humanitarian concerns (evacuation of civilians, French & other citizens, freeing of hostages etc.), interposition or interventions (often with UN troops), in relation to counter-insurrections, securing particular areas & protection of population as per the security pacts signed with 23 African countries post independence (my intro in 1/3), recently to do with terrorism (Mali) etc. that sort of thing.

                                                Re The Ivory Coast (IC) and the complex case of Ivory Coast post Félix Houphouët-Boigny’s death in 1993, as I wrote earlier that I'd come back to it.

                                                IC has been in a very complex political, economic, ethnic and religious situation since the late 1990s, it’s been a seemingly never-ending series of military coups, insurrections, rebellions and so on since then.

                                                It kicked off for good in the aftermath of the coup led by General Robert Guéï in Dec. 1999, (IC’s first successful coup d’etat, although a swift and relatively bloodless one). Cue 3 years of unrest (Guéï was killed in 2002 during an army mutiny) during which French forces intervened along with UN troops, particularly from 2000 when the situation serious degenerated after the election of the new president, Laurent Gbagbo.

                                                This long period of unrest (1999-2002) morphed into the First Ivorian Civil War (Sept. 2002-2007, with this interesting sub-development, wiki:The Côte d'Ivoire national football team was credited with helping to secure a temporary truce when it qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and brought warring parties together.), one consequence of which was the establishment of a partition within Ivory Coast between the Muslim north (parts of it controlled by Muslim rebel militias) and the Christian and animist South, Abidjan etc. Between 2002 and 2007, it was to all intents and purposes 2 separate countries with a clear split in the middle (peace agreement signed in March 2007).

                                                In summary, what’s happened in Ivory Coast since the independence in 1960 is that under the Francophile president Félix Houphouët-Boigny (1960-1993, he’d actually been a French MP and minister under Coty and De Gaulle before the independence), IC was fairly prosperous and stable until his death in 1993, with huge yearly growth % for the best part of 3 decades, less so from the early 1980s onwards (serious recession) but overall relatively affluent. It had all the hallmarks of a soft dictatorship (one party rule, widespread corruption, state-controlled media etc.) but an economically successful one (mainly coffee and cocoa) with Houphouët-Boigny managing to keep the complex ethnic situation under control (mosaic of 60 ethnies, 70 languages etc.). Compared to neighbouring countries (eg Upper-Volta/Burkina-Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone), poor and very unstable, Ivory Coast was seen as a success story.

                                                After Houphouët-Boigny’s death, naturally new politicians emerged, there were calls for more democracy and a few parties were created. What changed with his death as well is that all the ethnic and regional antagonisms that had been contained suddenly erupted. Some of the new politicians were partly or fully of foreign extraction, Burkina Faso, Niger etc. (a lot of the Ivorian population have foreign origins or a foreign parent) and that added extra layers to the already volatile situation. The guy who finally took over after years of chaos, Henri Konan Bédié, had little taste for democracy and multiculturalism (he was particularly discriminatory against those citizens deemed not to be "pure Ivorians"). He was ruthless with his opponents, particularly the current (Muslim) Ivorian president Alassane Ouatarra, and all hell started to break loose from that point (economically it really hit the skids too), late 1990s. Then Bédié was overthrown by General Guéï in a military coup.

                                                The whole area, still fairly poor compared to IC in spite of the latter’s decline, had become increasingly volatile, with strong migratory pressure on the IC. That led to yet more migration, more ethnic and religious tensions exacerbated by IC’s further economic downturn.

                                                In October 2000, Laurent Gbagbo was elected president amid a background of violence which led, as I wrote before, to this First First Ivorian Civil War which broke out after a military mutiny, a war largely fought along religious and ethnic lines between the Christian partisans of Laurent Gbagbo vs the Muslim ones of his main opponent, Alassane Ouattara (the current president. Laurent Gbagbo, is now in jail in the Netherlands, awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity).

                                                What followed (2007 to date), as I explained in my previous post, has been chaotic (especially 2010-2011), the UN’s special force (the ONUCI, United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire, created in 2004) and French forces there have been busy, although it seems to have substantially calmed down in the last 2 years.
                                                Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 23-06-2018, 14:47.

                                                Comment


                                                  PF
                                                  It had all the hallmarks of a soft dictatorship (one party rule, widespread corruption, state-controlled media etc.) but an economically successful one (mainly coffee and cocoa) with Houphouët-Boigny managing to keep the complex ethnic situation under control (mosaic of 60 ethnies, 70 languages etc.). Compared to neighbouring countries (eg Upper-Volta/Burkina-Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone), poor and very unstable, Ivory Coast was seen as a success story.
                                                  The Ivory Coast had a big part to play in keeping those countries poor.
                                                  Boigny was the French's man in francophone "black" africa and was pretty reliable in doing the dirty work on their behalf (See his involvement in sabotaging the Burkina Faso revolution).

                                                  The French have no need to go in with the troops like days of yore as they have their bit of the continent sewn up. There aren't Pan Africanist and revolutionary leaders popping up whipping the locals into a frenzy like in the 50's and 60's which required military intervention to quell.
                                                  The last one was Thomas Sankara and that was the best part of 35 years ago.
                                                  If Soldiers need to go in, they just pay ECOWAS to send the boys in, that gives them a bit of separation and reduces the chances that they get associated with whatever political unrest is taking place.
                                                  Don't France still have a presence in Niger?

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                                                    https://twitter.com/owenhatherley/status/1039124249145950208

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