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A Journey with Cheddad into Mauritanian Revolutionary Activism

By
ROAPE
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Pascal Bianchini interviews Ahmed Salem El Moctar, also known as Cheddad, who was a leader of the Mauritanian student movement in the early 1970s, as well as an underground activist with the Kadihine party. Cheddad recounts his activism in Mauritania during the late 1960s and 1970s, providing insight into the period’s school movements, strikes, and the fight against neocolonialism. He offers insight into the complexity of Mauritanian post-independence politics, the significance of the Kadihines and the National Democratic Movement. 

Pascal Bianchini: Cheddad, thank you for this interview. Just before we start, a few words, perhaps to introduce yourself. Are you a former militant of the revolutionary left in the 70s?

 

Cheddad: Well, at the time, I was a pupil who entered school a bit late as we used to do in those days. First, I was an activist at Rosso secondary school, then at the national high school in Nouakchott.

 

 So that was at the end of the 1960s…

 

I went to the Collège de Rosso in 67 perhaps. Then in 71-72, I went to the Lycée National for a few months. The situation was intense in terms of the school movement. I was expelled in January 72 with almost a third of the school’s staff, because all the students were involved in the strike movement.

 

Can you explain the reasons for these strikes?

 

Well, first of all, it has to be said that there was a ferment around independence, with Arab and Black African nationalist movements. Well, I was too young to be influenced by that. It was from Rosso that I began to evolve. It was the most modern town in Mauritania. There was a church in Rosso, with a large library of general literature, French newspapers, and cultural magazines. I read a lot of books by Rousseau, Diderot and Balzac. Having experienced certain dramas linked to racism when I was still very young, accelerated my maturity and enabled me to overcome these situations. Then, there were a number of events that were to have an impact on me. First of all, the 1967 war.

 

In Palestine?

 

Yes, when the Arab armies were defeated by Israel, and Nasser withdrew. Although I’m not an Arab nationalist, I was attached to Nasser’s personality, with the nationalisation of the Suez Canal and the achievements he had in mind. Then came 1968 with the workers’ movement that had called a strike in Zouérate and the army firing on them. They killed around ten workers.

 

For people who don’t know Zouerate…

 

Zouerate is the town around which Mauritania’s iron ore mines are operated, in the far north of the country. It was practically the only place where there were workers, and also in Nouadhibou, with the dockers, and at the same time, there were building sites and construction work. In fact, the movement never presented itself exclusively as an ideological movement but as a liberation movement. Liberation was incomplete during the 60s. It was an illusion. People realised that. There were people who engaged in a new struggle against neo-colonialism. In 1968, the poet in front of us got together with his friends to create a movement in a village in Gorgol called Tokomadji. One of them was assigned there as a teacher. As for me, I joined the movement in 1972. 

 

 What did your movement do?

 

Our action focused mainly on the economy, in particular the need to nationalise the mining companies, for example, copper in Akjoujt, iron in Zouerate and fish in Nouadhibou. There were also other demands, such as education, which called into question the French system that was imposed on us on the basis of agreements between France and Mauritania. I remember that when we demanded education reforms, we were told that we couldn’t touch the French system under the cooperation agreements.

 

At the time, however, there was limited teaching of Arabic. How was the system organised then?

 

There have only been hours of Arabic in the education system since independence. Generally speaking, in a primary school, there were six French teachers for every two or three Arab teachers. So they taught several classes, whereas the French teachers taught one class. At the lycée, the teaching staff was mainly French, with a few black Africans or Moors. Initially, the baccalaureate was taken in Dakar or Saint Louis in Senegal, at a time when we still had cooperation agreements.

 

So there were French aid workers too?

 

Almost all the teachers were French development workers. When they came to the beach in the 60s and 70s, you’d have thought they were in Nice or somewhere in France.

 

And Moctar Ould Dadd’s regime was, you might say, pro-French?

 

Yes, at the time of independence, there were two parties, roughly speaking The first elements came out of French schools. They were interpreters, people who had just finished primary school. So they weren’t trained. They were low-level people, academically speaking. Moctar was targeted by the French. He completed his secondary education. In 1957, he was one of five Mauritanian baccalaureates. Then they trained him to become a lawyer.

 

So, these baccalaureate holders went to Senegal to take their baccalaureate.

 

Yes, he passed his baccalaureate in Senegal in 1957. What I’m getting at is that some of these interpreters had close ties with the French, which was normal given their position as interpreters. There were also teachers and nurses, who were more independent from the French. They were the ones who started a youth movement that led to the formation of a party called Ennahda (Awakening), which was one of the first to demand independence.

 

But what was Mokhtar Ould Daddah’s party called?

 

The PRM, Parti du regroupement mauritanien. Then, in 1961, the Nahda party and the PRM party merged to form the Mauritanian People’s Party (PPM).

 

 So there was no longer any opposition?

 

Well, strictly speaking, there was no longer any opposition. But there were often clashes between the pro-French and the anti-French, for example when Air Mauritanie was set up. The company was entrusted to a certain Bouyagui Ould Abidine who was the Minister of Transport at the time, the former leader of the opposition having joined the PPM. He did not agree with the French. He left to buy the first planes in Spain. He was sacked as a result. The fact remains that all Mauritanians were marked by a certain nationalism in economic terms. Even those who were close to the French wanted to do something, even without upsetting the French. Well, there were also those who were against the system as a whole. Until 1972, it was said that it was the French ambassador who ran Mauritania. From 1972 onwards, the movement gained momentum and was able to bring the regime to heel. This could have led to an armed struggle, as happened in Chad. To avoid this, Moktar denounced the cooperation agreements in 1972. This paved the way for the nationalisation of MIFERMA and the creation of the ouguiya, the national currency, as well as reforms to the education system to pave the way for further decolonisation.

 

Coming back to the political parties, before the Kadihines, were there any other left-wing groups that existed underground?

 

First of all, the group that formed the Kadihines included pro-Nasser Arab nationalists. With the failure of the 1967 war, they were disappointed, like most revolutionaries in the Arab world. They no longer saw nationalism as a prospect for liberation. They turned to Marxism, as they did everywhere else in the world. However, others continued in Arab nationalism, either pro-Iraqi or pro-Syrian Baathists, but they were not combatants. We occupied all the space from the end of the 1960s until the overthrow of the Mokhtar regime in July 1978.

 

Was there a party equivalent to the African Independence Party (PAI) like there was in Senegal?

 

I think there were attempts in the 1950’s. There were black African elements, including two survivors Ladji Traoré and Daffa Bakari. Before joining the movement, they had their own party, a Marxist party, the Mauritanian Workers’ Party (PTM). They were linked to the African Independence Party (PAI).

 

Did the movement publish a newspaper?

 

Yes, in the manner of Lenin’s Pravda, which was intended to channel a general movement throughout Russia, we had a newspaper that was distributed throughout the country. It had to be read throughout the country at the same time. So we created Sayat El Madhloum. It was distributed all over the country, in French and Arabic.

 

 What does Sayat El Madhloum mean in Arabic?

 

In Arabic, it’s the cry of the oppressed. At the same time, there was poetry, because Arabic and popular poetry was in a way the traditional press. That’s why practically three-quarters of the literary production at the time was linked to the movement. Even in music, All the songs were transformed into militant music.

 

So, The term Kadihine in Arabic means?

 

The working masses – those who live off the fruits of their labour.

 

 And there was a manifesto, a founding text?

 

Not as such. In fact, the founding text was the publication of the first issue of Sayat el Madhloum. The Kadihine party, which published the newspaper, existed in total secrecy, so much so that the intelligence services were unaware of its existence. In October 1973, it was decided to declare the party’s existence. So we had to prepare for several months, distributing the proclamation leaflet. I remember a sub-prefect in the Hodh region in the east of the country who, when he saw the leaflet proclaiming the party, sent the information to his superiors as if the movement had started in that region. The intelligence services were completely unaware of this. Even when they arrested people, they didn’t know that there was an organised party. They thought it was just a movement.

 

Was there a lot of repression?

 

A prison was set up in a district of Nouakchott in a building that had been used as a prefecture in colonial times, where up to 400 people were held. At the time, there weren’t even fifteen thousand inhabitants in Nouakchott.Can you imagine? Our poet friend here was one of them. He was detained there! I remember an issue of Le Militant, which was the party’s internal organ. It said that out of 400 detainees, there were only five party members. The party was clandestine. They usually arrested teachers and intellectuals whom they thought were the inspiration behind the movement, when in reality the real pillars were the students, like me at the time. The dozens of students expelled from school who made up the fighting elite of the movement. In fact, the regime’s mistake was to expel all these students for going on strike because they were the backbone of the movement. In fact, they were old enough to be students because most of them had gone to school late. But there were also younger generations with them.

 

There were also students, but who were outside?

 

Well, there were students who went on strike in 73 to support the students and workers on strike, but their grants were cut off. There were also civil servants who went on strike. And they were fired from the civil service. That was the peak of the movement, in 72-73. That’s what prompted the regime to denounce the cooperation agreements.

 

It’s often said that the Kadihines were Maoists. Is this true?

 

Well, internationally, Beijing was helping and the Eastern European countries were helping us. They were the socialist camp. It was normal to have sympathy for them. In the past, it was the great Western nations that oppressed us. So it was normal to distance ourselves from them and their Western democracy. The reference to Marxism was like a universal ideological reference against the arbitrariness of the West. We were slaves. We wanted to free ourselves. We used all the experiences of all the ideologies. We used everything to free ourselves. That was the case with Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau. This was the case with all the Arab nationalists. Even Nasser was willing to cooperate with the West, but he was not forgiven for nationalising the Suez Canal. He was pushed to become a socialist. It was all part of the Cold War. So, it has to be said that we were very much inspired by Mao because we were in an underdeveloped country and our society was peasant. We saw ourselves as closer to the Chinese revolution than to the Soviet or French revolution because it was a peasant movement. Reading Mao’s writings inspired us much more about this reality. We were thinking of carrying arms and Mao Tse Tung’s military writings were references for all revolutionary movements. That’s what Maoism was all about at the time. I remember Mao Tse Tung saying in the introduction to his military writings: “You learn war by waging war. You learn revolutionary war by waging revolutionary war. You learn revolutionary war in China by waging revolutionary war in China…”. So, Mao is inviting you to adapt. He’s not inviting you to be Maoist or to copy from others.

 

 At the same time, there is another liberation struggle going on nearby, the Polisario, the Saharawis…Were there any links?

 

More than links. If you don’t mind, the Polisario was a creation of the National Democratic Movement (MND). There were Mauritanian elements who originated from or were related to the Sahrawi populations, the Reguibat and others. It was these elements that inspired the Polisario, which was created in Zouerate, in the far north of Mauritania. When their movement was launched, the Polisario newspaper was printed in the Sayat El Madhloum printing works. It was then sent to the Polisario camps. Their main support in the beginning was the MND. We collected money and medicines. The regime let it happen. In the beginning, it wasn’t hostile to the Polisario. It just lets them get on with it. Even when we were campaigning to raise money or resources for them, the regime didn’t punish us for that. It was only afterwards that the French and the Moroccans pushed it into a confrontation with the Polisario. So they dragged it into the Sahara war. With the war in the Sahara, the regime was dependent on weapons from the West and the Moroccan army. It no longer had any autonomy. At one point, the Polisario was encouraged to reach an agreement with Spain, just as Mauritania had sought support from France to avoid Moroccan demands. But that’s when Hassan II had the intelligence to sabotage this agreement, with the Green March. The man was super-intelligent to effectively drag Mauritania into this war and sabotage the agreements between the Polisario and Spain. So, the link between Mauritania and the Polisario was direct.

 

In relation to the term Kadihines, how do you situate the term National Democratic Movement (MND)?

 

Ahmed Salem El Moctar, aka Cheddad

At the beginning, we were talking about the National Democratic Movement. But that gave rise to a debate. The D before the N meant that, given our feudal and tribal reality, we had to democratise our society. The term democratic didn’t mainly refer to democratic freedoms and so on, but it meant democratising society, overcoming slavery, abolishing slavery, involving women and so on. In our minds, that was democratisation. But other comrades had said that we were a society under occupation. Therefore the most important task was the national task. We had to liberate the country. Then we have to develop democracy in all its aspects. After a debate lasting several months, people agreed on the term MND rather than National Democratic Movement. In other words, it wasn’t the Marxist or ideological or Maoist option that took precedence. The first concern was that it was Mauritanian.

 

But was the MND a creation of the Kadihines?

 

Of course, it was. In terms of chronology, it comes after. 1968 was the start of the Kadihines

Yes, practically, it was the beginning of the Kadihines. The Kadihines was a bit of a pejorative! The movement was called the National Democratic Movement in Arabic. Now its militants were called the Kadihines, which had an ideological connotation.

 

And the MND was broader than that? 

 

Exactly! All the movement’s militants were called the Kadihines.. In fact, that was also the name of the party. But nobody knew it existed. The Kadihine party in Mauritania was clandestine

 

But how did the MND develop its activities?

 

The MND began with regional, local and sectoral structures, and so on. You had movements of revolutionary action committees. For example, here in Nouakchott, you had a local revolutionary action committee (CARL). In the North, I was active in another structure which covered Zouerate, Nouadhibou and Akjoujt, which was still a big mining town at the time, the Comité d’Action Révolutionnaire du Nord (CARN). In the east, there was a Revolutionary Action Committee. Moreover, within this structure, there were young people, there were women with a very strong presence. I remember a report on Radio France Internationale in 1992 about an opposition demonstration at the time of the UFD. It was said to be the biggest demonstration in Nouakchott since 1972. It was a gigantic demonstration: on 29 May 1972 we commemorated the massacre of the Zouerate workers. It was commemorated every year. Nouakchott was still a small town: young people were invited to gather in one neighbourhood, women in another, workers in another. There were at least three or four thousand women present at the women’s rally. The working-class neighbourhoods were called quartiers libres (free neighbourhoods), where the police couldn’t dare wander in. The high school in Nouakchott, the national high school, was also called a “liberated zone”.

 

So Moktar Ould Dadda’s regime had to take steps to distance itself from France?

 

Yes, that’s right. There was the denunciation of the cooperation agreements, then the nationalisation of MIFERMA in 1974, which operated the iron mines, and before the creation of the ouguiya in 1973.

 

And from then on, were there internal differences within the movement in relation to this new situation?

 

Yes, initially we thought that the regime would never give in. As elsewhere, we were of the opinion that we had to prepare an armed struggle to make the regime give way and that we even had to sweep it away. There may have been differences of opinion on the issue, but the general tendency was to take up arms. But from 1973, there was a tendency among us to take up arms against the regime, while there were more moderate people who thought that things were beginning to change. We pushed the regime into a confrontation with France. The poet here and I were among them, and we thought that in this context, we had to support the regime in this confrontation with France, to radicalise this effort. But for the others, it was all smoke and mirrors. I even remember an article in Sayat El Madhoum that read? “Down with the new CFA! So to say that there was nothing new and that we were deceiving public opinion and that there were no real concessions, that there had been major negotiations on details.

 

 As a result, the movement no longer has the same momentum as before.

 

For me, the movement’s historic mission was coming to an end. Our raison d’être was to complete the decolonisation of our country, to fight against French neo-colonialism.Now, of course, there were militants fighting. There were structures in place. All that was going to be affected and the movement broke up. Strangely enough, most of those who denounced the regime’s support ended up getting closer to it. Those who were most virulent against the regime became agents of the regime or disbanded or disappeared from the scene. Some rushed to study abroad.

 

But which regime? Because there were several regimes afterwards.

 

I’m talking about the regime of Mokhtar Ould Daddah. But in fact, it’s a bit more complicated. I was a bit hasty. In 1973, we had a debate but we managed to close ranks.

 

For those who don’t know much about history, when the Mauritanian state went to war against the Polisario?

 

There was a secret agreement between Morocco, Spain and Mauritania to divide the Western Sahara, one part for Mauritania, and one part for Morocco. In fact, Mauritania only got a small part of the Sahrawi territory. When the agreement was signed, there was a meeting of the national assembly, which at the time was in fact a rump parliament. Officially, we voted to elect deputies, but in reality, the members of the assembly were appointed. However, there was one Soninke parliamentarian, Camara Seydou Boubou, who dared to raise his finger. Mokhtar Ould Daddah, who was capable of irony, said: “A Soninké always has something to say! Go for it! Comrade. Talk!” He said it reminded him of a story their elders used to tell them when they were little. The lion, the hyena and the jackal got together to go hunting. In the evening, they must share the booty. But when evening came, only the hyena managed to bring back a cow, a sheep and a rat. The others had spent the day sleeping. The lion then asked the jackal: “What do we do?” The jackal said, “It’s obvious: the cow for you, the sheep for me! And the rat for the hyena!” The audience burst out laughing. Well, the important thing is that during that period, the war plunged the country into another situation, which was then exacerbated by the drought. It was truly catastrophic! So I remember well at a tea party, when we heard Mokhtar’s speech announcing the start of the war, it was the start of new differences for us on the question of support for the regime. It wasn’t the debates on reforms that separated us. It was just the war.

 

So, some of your people supported the war?

 

Absolutely. Some were looking for justifications for the war. There’s one element that we’ve perhaps overlooked a little too quickly, which will resurface in contemporary history, and that’s the tensions between the Black Mauritanians and the Moors. These tensions are not new. At the time of the colonial administration, the Moors were still nomads and there weren’t many of them who went to school.

 

So, the administration’s auxiliaries were often black Africans, often even Senegalese. In one school, almost all of the five or six teachers were Senegalese. Only the teachers who taught Arabic were Mauritanians. At independence, most Moors didn’t go to school. They were nomads. It was the drought from 1968-69 onwards that prompted the Moors to accept schooling. However, long before that, some Moors had attended school and Moors were beginning to emerge as managers. But they were up against an administration of black Africans who they tried to push around to take their places. So that’s how it started. With the drought, school became the only way out. There were no more cattle, there was no more farming, and there was nothing left. You had to be a civil servant or an employee to survive. So the Moorish world switched over to the school system. And as the administration was still run by black Africans. So that made the confrontation worse. We, on the other hand, managed to mitigate it because we brought everyone together in the same framework. 

 

How did you achieve this?

 

The united objective was the liberation of the country. And in neighbouring Senegal, there was a movement similar to ours, which also helped. It should also be said that Maoist ideology and the writings of Frantz Fanon and many others helped us. We gave people perspectives and solutions to their concerns. That eased the clash. There was a first clash in 1966 at the Rosso College and elsewhere over teaching in Arabic, but just after that, in 1968, came the events in Zouerate, which strengthened national unity. Finally, there was the MND, which brought everyone together. Now, the new exogenous dividing factor has been the war in the Sahara.

 

Can you explain why the problem has resurfaced?

 When the military took power in 1978, it weakened the movement and its unitary ideas. Divisionist ideas began to flourish because the military had no political training. Most of them had a tribalist or regionalist ideology. They were not in a position to create a climate of unity in the country. Everyone came to get their piece of the pie, which created a climate conducive to communitarianism. You have to unite your community, your tribe, and your region, to get your share of the cake. It wasn’t just us. It was a universal backlash that existed everywhere.

 

We’re coming to the end of our interview. Is there still a memory of this period? Are there any commemorations? Has anything been written about it? 

 

Well, I’ve had the advantage of having developed independently. Initially, as a student, I even led the movement in Rosso completely independently. I wasn’t structured. People would send me their leaflets and statements and I would distribute them. Well, when I joined the movement, I kept this independence of mind and of observation and synthesis. This has helped me today to think about the situation and defend this heritage. The others have practically disappeared into thin air. With my friend Jemal Kaber, who has a huge library that you met yesterday, we keep track of everything that is written and that is of some importance about that period.

 

And aren’t there any historians who have taken an interest in that period?

 

From time to time, students and lecturers at the University of Nouakchott ask me to write about that period. But I mainly see foreign visitors who are interested in the MND.

 

 I only started talking about the Kadihines when I became interested in Senegal with And Jëf activists because there were links at the time I suppose…

 

Yes, very close. At the time, And Jëf used to send its activists to us for training. They would spend months or even a year with us. In organisational terms, we were further ahead of them. I remember at university in Dakar when Mauritanian students spoke, there was complete silence when they listened, unlike many others.

 

 Finally, how did this revolutionary experience end for you?

 

That’s a chapter in my book that I call “the painful break”. I was following national and international events, and I was beginning to doubt our ideological references, particularly Marxist, socialist and others. And in 1979, after the end of the war, I decided to break with the movement on that basis, while maintaining relationships of friendship, contacts with everyone and exchanges. kept a militant side, working in the field on national issues and at the same time deepening my reflection on current international phenomena, including the evolution of ideologies.

This interview with Cheddad took place on 10 June 2023, in Nouakchott, in the home of the great poet Mauritanian Poet Ahmedou Ould Abdelkader. 

Born in the 1950s, Ahmed Salem El Moctar, aka Cheddad, was a leader of the Mauritanian student movement in the early 1970s, as well as an underground activist with the Kadihines. For several years now, he has been writing articles and memoirs about this revolutionary period (notably Les cris des sans-voix, published by Editions Joussour Abdelaziz in Nouakchott).

Featured Photograph: Mauritanian youth protesters in Nouakchott on 25 April 2011 (Wiki Commons)

The Lenin Centenary Conference in Nigeria

By
ROAPE
-

Owei Lakemfa and Salvador Ousmane write about a vibrant conference held in Abuja on the politics, life and ideas of Lenin. The conference involved a rich array of discussion and debate about socialist and working class politics in Nigeria, Africa and the world. Students, researchers and activists, discussed the relevance of Lenin’s revolutionary ideas for the deep and on-going political and economic crisis in Nigeria.

By Owei Lakemfa and Salvador Ousmane

A major international conference from January 22-23, 2024 was held in Abuja on the 100th anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the first socialist revolution.

The two-day conference with over 300 attending discussed the legacy and continued relevance of Lenin’s ideas. This included a number of international participants, veteran socialists and labour leaders in Nigeria, but importantly a number of young students.

The chairperson of the International Lenin Centenary Coordinating Committee was Owei Lakemfa a well-known commentator on current events in Nigeria and former Secretary General of the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU), the umbrella trade union centre in Africa.

Lakemfa said that the conference would, among other topics, examined Marxism-Leninism as a tool for analysing neo-liberalism, multilateralism, the rise of bodies like the BRICS, globalisation and the contemporary world and why the so-called socialist countries collapsed in 1989-1991 and if Marxism-Leninism can be used to analyse, understand and tackle the current challenges of democracy and underdevelopment in Africa and whether it is still emancipatory and relevant today.

The organisers stated that:

Lenin’s example, led to the explosion of revolutions in the world including those in Vietnam, Kampuchea, North Korea, Laos, the Chinese Revolution led by Chairman Mao, the Castro-led Cuban Revolution, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the Venezuelan Revolution led by Hugo Chavez.

In Africa, the defunct USSR which provided training, logistics, arms and funding, was crucial to the success of the liberation movements and independence for Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

Lenin, lawyer, theoretician, strategist, tactician and organiser was perhaps the greatest advocate of working peoples’ power in the 20th Century and one of the greatest thinkers and intellectuals of that century.

The keynote address on the “Labour aristocracy and the denouement of democratic politics in Nigeria” was provided by Nuhu Yaqub, the former Vice Chancellor of universities in both Abuja and Sokoto.

Solidarity messages were presented from a range of organisations, including the Nigeria Labour Congress. Joe Ajaero, its president, said “It is clear that without the work of Lenin and his group, all the beautiful Marxian postulations may not have found traction in the real world economy…” He went on to say: “Leninism’s emphasis on the class struggle and the need for a revolutionary vanguard to address the concerns of the working class remains relevant. In the face of transnational corporations and global economic disparities, Leninist ideas encourage us to scrutinise power structures and advocate for social justice.” He added: “The Leninist lens, with its focus on imperialism and the exploitation of the working class, remains a potent tool for analyzing the root causes of social inequality…The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is a challenge that transcends borders, and Leninist principles encourage us to explore collective solutions that address the systemic issues underlying global disparities.”

Twenty six papers were presented at the conference. In the first session, these included introductory papers from two veteran socialists, Dipo Fashina, former President of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the university lecturers trade union and Edwin Madunagu a former lecturer in mathematics and a prolific writer. These were followed by a paper by Drew Povey, on “Lenin supported strikes as seeds of working class self-emancipation” and one by Issa Aremu a former textile workers leader.

Other papers presented at the Conference included Biodun Olamosu’s “National question and the quest for social change”. Olamosu is a researcher, writer and publisher, and has appeared frequently in ROAPE. He talked about the need to unite the working class of Nigeria and to counteract those fanning the flames of ethnic chauvinism.

Saleh Mari Maina spoke on “Globalisation, imperialism and the fate of the Nigerian working class” a paper which emphasised that the Nigerian left is fragmented and needs a unified platform to guide its socialist transformation by the working class and other oppressed classes. While Adelaja Odukoya presented a paper on “Escaping underdevelopment: charting a new path for Africa’s development in times of neoliberalism”..

The final session on focused on the way forward and was chaired by labour leader, Huawa Mustapha. Benson Upah of the Nigeria Labour Congress, noted that the left had been on retreat and asked what we could do to re-invigorate the it without romanticising the past. He argued for the need to connect Leninism with the local environment while avoiding mutual blame by labour, students and civil society.

Femi Aborisade called for change from the current catastrophic state of Nigeria. He argued that the current President Bola Tinubu is  the worst in history from the point of view of the working class. Aborisade said there is the need to invest in full-time organisers to build a vanguard party.

Osagie Obayawana, a veteran lawyer, called for a committee to agree on a  minimum program and to get workers, farmers, traders and students to work together in workplaces, schools and communities towards capturing state power.

The conference ended with rousing singing of solidarity songs.

Owei Lakemfa and Salvador Ousmane are Nigerian socialists who have spent years involved in activism, socialist organising and the development of radical organisations and ideas for an anti-capitalist future in Africa.

Macky Sall’s coup in Senegal: an interview with Florian Bobin

By
ROAPE
-

ROAPE’s Leo Zeilig interviews researcher, writer and activist Florian Bobin on the deepening crisis in Senegal. Bobin describes the repression and bloodshed of the last few years, and the efforts to unseat the president. He analyses the potential for a radical left alternative emerging in the country, based on the “deep, systemic re-foundation” of society and its institutions. If this does not happen, Bobin argues, the ranks of the opposition once in power will have at their disposal the same powers that oppressed them.

Leo Zeilig: Comrade, can you introduce yourself to ROAPE’s readers? Many of us know your work, and writing on roape.net, but please outline your activism and research.

Florian Bobin: I am a researcher in history at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, and my work focuses on liberation struggles and state violence in Senegal under the rule of President Leopold Sedar Senghor (1960-1980).

I believe in going beyond the confines of academia and making radical histories, buried by national myths, accessible to a wider public as part of the toolkit of those fighting injustice today; by making my publications open access and available in French and English, by trying to disseminate their content through multimedia formats on social media platforms, and by participating in various non-academic events.

In recent years, I have also been active in promoting the life and work of revolutionary philosopher Omar Blondin Diop. In 2023, on the 50th anniversary of his death in custody, we published, with his family, his selected writings, which resonates tremendously with contemporary struggles and are now available in Dakar. The biography I wrote about him will be published later this year.

Can you give us a quick overview of the situation, and the background to the political crisis in Senegal?

At the heart of the current crisis is President Macky Sall’s desire to retain power for his clan. He sought a third term in office, but popular mobilisation forced him to renounce it. Sall then named Prime Minister Amadou Ba as his candidate for the upcoming presidential race, but Ba’s unpopularity with the public, even within his own party, has created a crisis within the ruling coalition of Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY).

And while Sall’s regime has sought to eradicate the opposition (‘reducing it to its simplest expression’, as he put it in 2015) and successfully disqualified his main opponent Ousmane Sonko from running, Sonko’s number two in his party African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics, and Fraternity (PASTEF), Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was ruled eligible to run and is now considered one of the favourites. If free and fair elections were to be held, the current regime would likely fall and cede power to PASTEF. In such a case, Macky Sall and his clan would risk being prosecuted by a party built on the fight against corruption, which could deviate from the usual impunity that prevails after party changeovers in Senegal.

So Macky Sall had to find a way to keep his coalition – or at least an objective ally – in control. On 3 February, a few hours before the start of the presidential campaign, he announced the annulment of an earlier decree “convening the electoral body”, on the pretext of an alleged institutional crisis following unsubstantiated allegations of corruption in the Constitutional Council by Karim Wade (son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, for whom Macky Sall was a leading collaborator in the 2000s before taking his place in 2012), who had been disqualified for falsely declaring that he had renounced his French dual nationality.

Two days later, on 5 February, the government coalition of BBY joined forces with Karim Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), despite the latter’s official status as an opposition party. After calling on the gendarmerie [a military police force] in the chamber of the National Assembly to expel MPs who opposed the move, BBY and PDS voted unanimously in favour of a law cancelling the election and calling for a new vote 10 months later, in December 2024. In a sense, this sealed the reunification of the extended liberal political family, whose aim is to ensure the survival of the “neo-colonial pact” by eliminating serious contenders and selecting acceptable heirs.

On 15 February, however, the Constitutional Council declared this decision unconstitutional and called for elections to be held “as soon as possible”. Since then, the president has refused to respect the electoral calendar (the first round was originally scheduled for 25 February), calling instead for a “national dialogue” to reach a “consensus”.

The gap between Macky Sall’s rhetoric – in part directed at his international partners – and the brutality of his rule is profoundly Orwellian. How can there be a “dialogue” with a president who has violated the Constitution by illegally seeking to extend his term in office, and who has then violently suppressed the voices denouncing his institutional coup? As a result of this crisis of the president’s own making, at least four young men have been killed by the police since 9 February.

Members of the gendarmerie in the chamber of the National Assembly after expelling opposition MPs opposing the vote cancelling the 2024 presidential election – Dakar, 5 February (D.R.)

For more than two years, at least since 2021, there have been major disturbances, and unprecedented repression and killings of opposition supporters and opponents of the Macky Sall’s government, and the ruling Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) coalition. Can you please talk us through what has been going on, and efforts to record who has been killed?

Senegal has a long history of political repression, dating back to Leopold Senghor’s regime, itself an heir to the violent colonial administration. After a relative political opening under the Abdou Diouf and Abdoulaye Wade administrations – repressive in their own rights – Macky Sall has significantly strengthened the security apparatus.

Over the past four years, Senegal has witnessed the systematic persecution of dissenting voices, epitomised by the bloody repression of the March 2021 and June 2023 protests (over sixty people have been killed). The judiciary has been instrumentalised, journalists harassed, TV stations broadcasting protests were switched off, and internet access via mobile data cut. Demonstrations, almost all of which were banned in the past year, have been met with tear gas and sometimes live ammunition (much of it manufactured by French corporations), with the police backed up by plainclothes militiamen marauding through the streets. The main opposition party, PASTEF, has been dissolved; hundreds of national and local opposition figures have been imprisoned alongside demonstrators and bystanders in appalling conditions, some of them tortured. One of Macky Sall’s legacies is undoubtedly the dramatic decay of fundamental rights in Senegal.

Together with journalists, cartographers, and data scientists, we launched an initiative last year called CartograFreeSenegal to keep an accurate record of those killed in the government crackdown, and to put faces and stories behind the statistics. What we have found is that many are young, working-class men living on the outskirts of Dakar or in the southern region of Casamance. The authorities have not launched any official investigation (Macky Sall announced on 22 February an imminent amnesty law, presented as a measure to appease the opposition, but more likely an attempt to cover up his administration’s involvement in the killings from 2021 to 2024), but the victims’ families, along with collectives and organisations such as Amnesty International, are fighting for justice.

You have written about the closure of the main university in Dakar, and the student’s struggle. Can you tell us a little about the role and involvement of students in the current action? I am always inspired by the solidarity, daring and action of students in Senegal. What are the links and connections between campus politics, and city, countrywide action?

The students at the University of Dakar have been a key force in social mobilisation, from independence struggles of the 1950s to the strikes of 1968 and 1988. The past four years have been no exception. Recognising that the campus was central to blocking the major roads of the capital and posed a serious political threat in the pre-electoral context, the authorities decided to close the university in June 2023, resulting in the dispersal of tens of thousands of students across the country and significantly weakening their mobilising potential.

This closure, together with the suffocating blockade of the southern region of Casamance through the suspension of the ferry line from Dakar to Ziguinchor (of which Ousmane Sonko is mayor), is undoubtedly an expression of the current regime’s desire to dismantle the politicised student body and of the class war being waged against the most disadvantaged sections of society. Many students have since abandoned their studies and sought low-paying jobs to survive; others have already taken the dangerous routes of exile to Europe and North America, some at the cost of their lives.

On 9 February, the violent death of Alpha Yoro Tounkara, a student at the Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, in the north of the country, who was killed by a policeman during a demonstration on campus, sent shockwaves throughout the country (another student, Prosper Clédor Senghor, who had been in a coma for ten days, died of his injuries on 21 February). Despite the blockade in Dakar, student unions from all the other universities immediately announced the suspension of classes for several days, joined by high school students who also organised walkouts.

A wall at the Gaston Berger University in memory of students killed by the police on campus, which reads: “Justice for our martyrs Fallou Sene, Alpha Y. Tounkara, Proper C. Senghor. RIP brothers” – Saint-Louis, 21 February (D.R.)

Can we talk about the left in Senegal? There are several important figures and associated coalitions, the principle anti-government leader is Ousmane Sonko, who has a great deal of support. Sonko’s party African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics, and Fraternity (PASTEF) has been very active – can you tell us about his politics, and positions? Then there is also FRAPP (Front for an Anti-Imperialist, Popular, and Pan-African Revolution), led by Guy Marius Sagna, who is the group’s administrative secretary. What does FRAPP represent? What sort of connection is there between Sagna and Sonko?

As Ndongo Samba Sylla pointed out at the recent Dakar book launch of Revolutionary Movements in Africa (Pluto Press, 2023): “In francophone Africa, we have the colonial legacy of ‘hold elections, but don’t go outside the box’, and the left cannot exist from an electoral point of view. We have left-wing problems, but they cannot be solved by the parties in power because they form coalitions that pander to metropolitan or neo-colonial interests or pursue a neo-liberal agenda”. A related phenomenon analysed by Pascal Bianchini, another co-editor of the volume, is how historic left-wing parties that fought underground under Senghor’s one-party regime later formed alliances with neoliberal parties and suffered internal divisions over personal struggles for leadership. Today, most of these parties survive because of their alliance with the ruling coalition. A few voices have cautiously expressed their disagreement with Macky Sall’s annulment of the election, but none have come out to break their collaboration.

In the face of what Amadou Kah calls “the transition from class struggle to the struggle for seats”, the Ousmane Sonko phenomenon has undoubtedly contributed to the politicisation of a youth – especially urban and poor – that had hitherto been excluded from political discourse, including that of the institutionalised left. Just look at the number of working-class Senegalese – from students and street vendors to tailors and bus drivers – wearing bracelets to show their support for his party.

PASTEF is a mix of several ideological currents, some conservative, others progressive and openly left-wing. In 2021, the party changed its name from “Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity” to “African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity” in a merger of some 14 parties, including Yoonu Askan Wi (a split from the historic Maoist party And Jëf, now an ally of the ruling coalition) and the National Democratic Rally (a pan-Africanist party founded by the scholar Cheikh Anta Diop).

The newer generation is best represented by Guy Marius Sagna. Sagna, who was Sonko’s campaign director for the 2017 legislative elections and was elected as an MP in 2022 under the PASTEF party, is one of the founders of the FRAPP movement (Front for an Anti-Imperialist, Popular and Pan-African Revolution), which campaigns on a pan-Africanist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist platform.

The struggle of working people has always been central to political change in Senegal. How active and what role have trade unions played in recent mobilisations?

On the whole, trade unions have expressed their concern about the crisis, but have played a minimal role in the recent mobilisations. Since the mass strike of May 1968, the watchword of “responsible participation” has contributed to the weakening of unions, which have become even more fragmented since the first political change of power in 2000.

Today, they tend to express their dissatisfaction through statements and local actions linked to their sector (teachers on the blockade of the University of Dakar, students on the assassination of their comrades, telecommunications workers on the recurrent Internet cuts, etc.). As we see in Ndongo Samba Sylla’s definition of forms of protest, trade unions have become more “corporatist” and civil society platforms “republican”, rather than “proletarian”.

Protestors demanding the liberation of political prisoners – Dakar, 17 February (Florian Bobin)

How would you assess the development of radical alternatives emerging, and developing in Senegal, and connecting these to a wider region and international anti-capitalist politics?

Some grassroots organisations, such as FRAPP, are at the crossroads of these protest logics, campaigning against the rising cost of living and for workers’ rights, and against Macky Sall’s planned third term and now institutional coup d’état. They have also developed pan-African networks through initiatives such as festivals and retreats with progressive movements from other West African countries. However, the ferocity of state repression has hampered the expansion of such initiatives.

Amid the current crisis and in its immediate aftermath, it seems crucial to assess its main cause: the extraordinary powers granted to Senegal’s head of state – a lasting legacy of the presidential constitution of 1963 installed by Senghor – who can rule the country as an omnipotent monarch by militarising the police and instrumentalising the judiciary. How can leading opposition figures be accused of serious crimes such as “threatening state security”, “conspiracy against state authority” and “criminal association in connection with a terrorist undertaking” and then be released at the stroke of a simple presidential decree?

Without a deep, systemic re-foundation of the governing institutions – one that includes all the segments of society that have been excluded from the social contract since 1960 – the next president coming from the ranks of the opposition will have at his disposal the same powers that oppressed him. As we have seen with the examples of Abdoulaye Wade in 2011-2012 and Macky Sall today, it is one thing to seize power in the midst of a public rejection of the incumbent regime; it is another to exercise it within the current inherently repressive institutional framework.

Artwork depicting Macky Sall heading a carriage inscribed “France-Africa plantations”, which is being led by a policeman and a judge, both of whom are charging a young Senegalese boy draped in a Senegalese flag – March 2023 (Madzoo TRK / Radikal Bomb Shot)

Florian Bobin is a researcher in history at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar who studies liberation struggles and state violence in 1960s-1970s Senegal. He is the author of a forthcoming biography of revolutionary philosopher Omar Blondin Diop.

Featured Photograph: A protest calling for the release of political prisoners – Dakar, 24 February (Florian Bobin).

Call for Papers – Frantz Fanon at 100: A Century of Radical Thought and Action

By
ROAPE
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The year 2025 will mark the one hundredth anniversary of Frantz Fanon’s birth. ROAPE intends to mark this occasion through reflections, arguments, and analyses of his life, his philosophy, his activism, and his political legacies today. For this issue, our call for papers is proposed in the belief that Fanon is an indispensable thinker for addressing Africa’s past, present, and future.

The editors welcome abstract submissions that address Fanon in a variety of ways. We are particularly interested in:

  • Proposals that address political situations and movements in Africa today
  • Proposals that address Fanon’s legacies and influence in North Africa and the MENA region more generally
  • Proposals that situate Fanon and his reception within lesser studied geographies
  • Proposals that situate Fanon in comparison to other political activists and intellectuals
  • Proposals that address understudied topics such as Fanon’s gender politics, his medical research, and his diplomatic travels during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

We especially welcome submissions from scholars based in Africa and activist-intellectuals beyond academia. We seek gender balance among contributors as well.

Frantz Fanon at a press conference during a writers’ conference in Tunis, 1959 (Frantz Fanon Archives / IMEC).

Deadline: April 1, 2024, for 300-word abstracts. Space and selection will be limited.

Christopher Lee and Chinedu Chukwudinma

Please email: christopherjlee512@gmail.com & chinedu.chukwudinma@gmail.com

Featured photograph: The Frantz Fanon School at eKhenana, Durban (20 February 2022).

Conspiracy Theory as Myth-Busting?

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ROAPE
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A response to Ludo de Witte on Dag Hammarskjöld, Katanga, and the coup against the Lumumba government

Henning Melber challenges Ludo de Witte who claims to reveal the “true role” of Dag Hammarskjöld “in the imperialist catastrophe that savaged the Congo”. Melber argues that De Witte’s blogpost offers no new empirical evidence, and demonstrates a failure to understand global institutions and the role of individuals within them. He argues Ludo de Witte shows a total denial of local dynamics and agency, which has led to misperceptions bordering on conspiracy theories.

By Henning Melber

“A terrible myth has developed around the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld”, opens the intro to Ludo de Witte’s blog of 8 February on ROAPE. It recycles his “revelations” of “the true role” of Hammarskjöld, whom he refers to as “Mr. H” (more fondly called “the boss” by his staff). Since almost 30 years de Witte has accused him to be “one of the architects of the Congo crisis that led to the removal and murder” of Patrice Lumumba. His blogpost claims to reveal the “true role” of Hammarskjöld “in the imperialist catastrophe that savaged the Congo”. It offers no new empirical evidence. It is an interesting example how a lack of understanding of global governance institutions and the limited role of individuals within institutionalised asymmetric power relations, combined with total denial of local dynamics and agency, leads to misperceptions bordering on conspiracy theories.

My counter arguments are – as those of de Witte – based on earlier work. This includes my article in ROAPE in 2012 and my monograph Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa, which offers detailed references and sources for all what follows (and more). Beyond the case of the Congo, it puts Hammarskjöld’s approach into a wider context, including his anything but “imperialist” role in handling the so-called Suez crisis (1956), and being – much to his anger – prevented from opposing the French occupation of Bizerte (1961). Both cases show in opposite ways the scope and limitations of the office held. Limitations, which were also visible in the case of the Congo.

As de Witte mentions, the Congolese government requested the UN to assist expelling Belgian troops and ending the secession of Katanga. But the Security Council, which – then as now – has the decision-making power, dealt with the matter only because Hammarskjöld used for the first time his right under Article 99 of the Charter to bring matters to its attention. After intensive negotiations a draft resolution was tabled (in consultations with Hammarskjöld) by Tunisia, a strategic move already successfully applied in the Suez crisis. Adopted with the votes of the US and the USSR, with France and the UK abstaining, the compromise led to opposing interpretations by the USSR and the US. As we know since then, a problem the UN has not managed to resolve. Another resolution – again submitted by Tunisia – therefore requested all states “to refrain from any action which might undermine the territorial integrity and the political independence of the Republic of the Congo”. Again, we now know, implementation remains in many cases wishful thinking. Is the UN Secretary General to be blamed for that?

The mandate of the Blue Helmets of ONUC (Opération des Nations Unies au Congo), including in the main a contingent of over 11,000 soldiers from six African Member States, Ireland, and Sweden, remained disputed. Confronted with different expectations, Hammarskjöld defended the ONUC abstention from direct interference into domestic policy of a sovereign state, in line with the UN Charter. As Hammarskjöld stated in the General Assembly with reference to the contested meaning of the resolutions adopted: “one gets the impression that the Congo operation is looked at as being in the hands of the Secretary-General, as somehow distinct from the United Nations. No: this is your operation … It is for you to indicate what you want to have done.” Backed by the Southern Member States, he refused to resign, as demanded by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. As Brian Urquhart (1919-2021), the longest ever serving UN official, stated in an interview for the UN History Project, this made Hammarskjöld “a heroic figure in the West – which was the last thing he wanted to be.”

When Lumumba was ousted from office, Hammarskjöld asked for legal advice on how to react. He was advised to follow the Loi Fondamentale as the provisional constitution of the Congo. It allowed the President – Joseph Kasa-Vubu – to dismiss the Prime Minister if – as had been the case – it was endorsed by at least one minister. But while Hammarskjöld felt there was no mandate for ONUC to reinstate Lumumba by force, he regarded him as the legitimate Prime Minister. Both Lise Namikas and Alanna O’Malley – far from being sympathetic of Western (neo)colonialism or uncritical of Hammarskjöld – agree, that despite animosities in the personal interaction between the two, Hammarskjöld was convinced that without Lumumba a solution for the Congo was impossible.

When Lumumba at the end of November decided to leave his residence guarded by the Blue Helmets to mobilise for his return to office, the ONUC mandate did not allow his continued personal protection, as an undue interference in domestic affairs. Learning of Lumumba’s capture, Hammarskjöld warned Kasa-Vubu in a letter on 3 December against action “taken contrary to recognized rules of law”, putting “in jeopardy the international prestige of the Republic of the Congo” as “a most serious blow to principles to be upheld by the United Nations”. In another letter two days later, he referred to the Charter principle of “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all” and urged that the “International Red Cross be asked to examine the detained persons and their places and conditions of detention”. Kasa-Vubu rejected on 7 December the demands as partial interference.

Learning of Lumumba’s execution, Hammarskjöld wrote in a letter to John Steinbeck, which is archived in the Dag Hammarskjöld Papers at the Royal Library in Stockholm: “no one, in the long pull, will really profit from Lumumba’s death, least of all those outside the Congo who now strain to do so but should one day confront a reckoning with truth and decency.” As Brian Urquhart remembered: “I think it took a great toll on him; he became extremely irascible, extremely emotional … and it really was a very gloomy time.”

To prevent any misinterpretation: Hammarskjöld was not infallible. But blaming him for an active role in Lumumba’s assassination is as far-fetched as turning him into an anti-imperialist icon. In the case of the Congo he made some bad choices of staff, appointed and was not always in full command or control over the dynamics unfolding. Such a nuanced approach lacks de Witte’s sweeping condemnation.

There were indeed contradictions and inconsistencies, suggesting that the Congo operation was at times influenced more by individuals rather than being a concerted action based on a common strategy. Communication with competing Congolese factions was at best complicated. Confusing situations required often quick decisions and actions. Much responsibility and room for manoeuvre was left to individuals on the ground and in the UN Secretariat. The “Congo Club”, composed of senior staff members directly involved in the operations and was a mix, in which personal chemistry – especially a toxic relation between the Afro-American Ralph Bunche and Patrice Lumumba – played a negative role beyond the direct influence and control of the Secretary-General.

Influential officials shared, as Georges Nzongola-Ntalala observed, “a common Cold War outlook with Western policy makers and saw their mission in the Congo as that of preserving the then existing balance of forces in the world.” But there is no convincing evidence that this happened with the authorisation or acceptance of Hammarskjöld. Blaming him, borders to accusing Antonio Guterres for not preventing the genocidal warfare of Israel in Gaza.

Hammarskjöld articulated his frustration on 13 February 1961 in the Security Council. When the UN was accused to have acted in complicity with Western interests and should be held responsible for the brutal murder of Lumumba, he responded: “For seven or eight months, through efforts far beyond the imagination of those who founded this Organization, it has tried to counter tendencies to introduce the Big-Power conflict into Africa and put the young African countries under the shadow of the Cold War. … We effectively countered efforts from all sides to make the Congo a happy hunting ground for national interests.” It is indeed debatable if this was achieved. But it is fair to give him credit, as Catherine Goetze does, “that he particularly sought to order the world according to a specific idea of how the rules of the world should be written, and not how the brute force of the states shaped it.”

Dag Hammarskjöld’s agenda was anti-hegemonic; where he failed as Secretary-General, it was a failure by all others too, who followed him in the office. Not always for personal lack of commitment, political bias, or incompetence.

Ludo de Witte could have shown more awareness of the limitations of individual actors within institutionalised global governance – not least being aware of more recent examples, when any meaningful role of the UN in conflict prevention or solution has been blocked, at the cost of millions of lives. It is somewhat a sad irony to target the Secretary-General, who is widely considered as a role model in the search for even-handed approaches, while being fully aware of the limitations of his office.

For those in doubt of what to make of Dag Hammarskjöld, and willing to give him a minimum degree of trust, it might be instructive to read some of his statements and speeches between 1953 and 1961. They are documented in four volumes (amounting to more than 2,000 pages). Despite the usual inherent discrepancies between word and action – even more so when action was prevented by those who were in command of the organisation’s role in international politics (and these were the Security Council’s permanent five Member States, not the Secretary-General) – they are indicative of Hammarskjöld’s values and principles. Alternatively, the biography by Roger Lipsey  or the study of his role in the UN system by Manuel Fröhlich  might do no harm. As these show, his convictions were far from being a willing instrument of Western imperialism.

Henning Melber is the Director emeritus of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and author of Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa (Hurst, London 2019). He is Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, Associate of the Nordic Africa Institute and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London. Soon to be published: The Long Shadow of German Colonialism (Hurst, London 2024).

Featured Photograph:  UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld arrives at Lydda airport, on his way from Beirut to Cairo (10 April 1956).

Imperialism and Resistance in the Red Sea

By
ROAPE
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Jesse Harasta describes the complex dynamics of contemporary imperialism and resistance. Understanding a world system divided into Core, Semi-Periphery and Periphery is essential to the workings of global capitalism. Harasta argues that Gulf states have engaged in an active imperial re-peripheralization of the Horn of Africa.

By Jesse Harasta

Since the beginning of the 2023 Israeli assault upon Gaza, the Red Sea has been the most significant non-Palestinian theatre of the war. The Houthis of Yemen have presented a potent challenge to the global movement of goods that has precipitated the full intervention of the United States and others in a so-far unsuccessful containment campaign.

At the same time, in an apparently unrelated event, the BRICS alliance announced its long-awaited expansion by welcoming five new members – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE – all with significant involvement in the Red Sea area.

If these events seem recent and coincidental, it is only because we have largely overlooked elements of the complex dynamics of contemporary imperialism and resistance.  The Red Sea region uniquely combines three aspects of the imperial world system: it is a central conduit for global trade, a site of violent re-peripheralization, and home to dynamic resistance to those trends. This confluence is several decades old now but has been under analyzed; by developing a subtler understanding of the layered dynamics of contemporary imperialism, we can better interpret these events.

Understanding the World System 

For decades, Marxist scholars developed Capitalist World System theory upon the work of Immanuel Wallerstein and others.  They view the current global distribution of wealth between the Global North and South not as a product of policies or culture of particular nations, but instead of a single system. Put simply, the Global North is wealthy because the Global South is poor and vice-versa.

Within this system, the world’s nations are roughly divided into three categories: the Core (wealthier regions with complex economies, effective states able to project military power, and corporate power centers), the Periphery (regions producing only a few basic products for the global economy, with weak or non-existent states, and decentered from corporate decision making) and the Semi-Periphery (those states that mediate between the two, in a position of both exploiter and exploited).

The most important aspect of the World System is its central dynamic: the exploitation of the Periphery by the Core, generating a net outflow of wealth generated by the Periphery’s labour and natural resources.

This system, like all entities founded upon exploitation, is inherently unstable as the exploited will inevitably resist oppression. It must be ultimately maintained through force and therefore, different iterations of the World System have been dominated by a central Hegemon. America is the current Hegemon, singularly able to enforce the central dynamic through the projection of military might.

A common misconception is to define only actions coordinated by the Hegemon or Core states as “imperialist,” which blinds us to many important processes. Instead, we can more usefully define “imperialism” as any act that reinforces the core dynamic of the World System, including acts by Semi-peripheral or Peripheral elites seeking to ‘rise’ in the system.

I explored this process in my recent essay “Non-Hegemonic Imperialism within the Capitalist World-System: A Rwandan Case Study”, in Socialism and Democracy. There, I differentiate between Hegemonic Imperialism, which includes actions by the Core to maintain and deepen existing relations of exploitation, and Non-Hegemonic Imperialism, actions by Peripheral and Semi-peripheral elites to renegotiate their states’ position.

This process of renegotiation necessarily requires the creation of new peripheral zones dependent upon the emergent Semi-Periphery. Because the entire globe is currently integrated into the World System, this is “re”-peripheralization. As Hegemonic Imperialism supports the status quo, it often maintains situations created through historic brutality, but with minimal levels of ongoing violence. Re-peripheralization, however, involves the creation of new peripheral zones dependent upon the emergent state, a process which inevitably involves the creation of new class relationships, often involving violent hyper-exploitation.

Importantly, while the Core always eventually benefits from these processes, they may run counter to the immediate goals of particular Core states and can be conducted by the emergent power without Core involvement. Core elites have tremendous, but not infinite, power and have an interest in keeping down World System maintenance costs. Hence, it is possible for a Semi-Periphery to carve out zones of influence without significant Core response.

Role of the Sea

Naval power has long been the primary path to hegemonic power projection. Because of the crucial importance of security along sea routes, the Core powers have it in their interest to support relatively strong states along their shores. In fact, the structure of the British Empire was explicitly organized around seizing and maintaining control over sea chokepoints.

Connecting the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea/Suez are among the most important trade routes in the world. Vast quantities of trade pass through here, making it profoundly important to Core economies and elites: the 2021 Suez Canal blockage cost US$6-US$10 billion in profit losses.

Among the globe’s great trade choke points – Malacca, Panama, Gibraltar, and Hormuz – the Red Sea is the only one where trade is threatened by active insurgencies, civil war, and significant non-state actors.

The United States has taken direct steps to protect the Red Sea trade routes. It has been a military ally of Egypt for decades, and more recently has set up a significant presence in the small nation of Djibouti at the Sea’s southern end. Djibouti is particularly remarkable for hosting the militaries of ten states and its elite has carved out a space as the stable, pro-Core anchor in an otherwise unstable region.

This raises the question: if the Core prefers stability along the shores of the Red Sea what counters their interest and undermines stability in Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia? To understand the remarkable capacity of war-devastated peoples to threaten invaluable trade routes we need to understand not just the imperial actions of the Core states, but also the aspirations of regional Semi-peripheral state elites.

Re-Peripheralization of the Horn of Africa

Duffield and Stockton’s 2023 article “How capitalism is destroying the Horn of Africa: sheep and the crises in Somalia and Sudan” in ROAPE [based on their journal article here] demonstrates how the Gulf states have engaged in an active imperial re-peripheralization of the Horn of Africa. They start with the seemingly paradoxical observation that at the height of the conflicts and famines in Sudan and Somalia, these regions exported unprecedented meat to the Persian Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

They link the rapid urbanization of the post-1970s Gulf to the rise of voracious “militarized ranching.” Militarized ranching is “an environmentally destructive mode of militarised livestock production that, primarily involving sheep, is necessarily expansive, land-hungry, livelihood destroying and population displacing” (p.4). It is hostile to the central state and traditional substance agriculture and pastoralism and puts ethnicized communities in a state of perpetual war. In this context, Gulf and other regional powers compete over Red Sea ports, reorienting economic and political control away from national capitals and traditional domestic elites and towards new dependent classes – militia leaders and import-export compradors.

This violence has never been separated from the events of the Gulf, as “the Horn and the Gulf are locked into a deadly destruction–consumption embrace. […] Rather than separate national economies, Horn countries are organic parts of a single, ethnically structured geopolitical economy that differentially integrates the region’s labour” (p.4). This system violently inserted the region into a new peripheral relationship and, in the process, reorganized the relationship of both regions to the World System.

It is not only on the western shores of the Red Sea that Gulf Semi-Peripheries are aggressively annihilating pre-existing political, and socio-economic systems.  Since 2015, the Saudis and Emiratis have fought a brutal war to re-peripheralize Yemen. While this campaign has not yet been successful, both sides have occupied strategic territories.

The aristocratic/corporate Gulf elites seek to alter the World System and move their states into Core status, but doing so requires that they create their own dependent peripheries.  This is Non-hegemonic Imperialism, as it does not challenge the fundamental dynamic of the capitalist world system but instead seeks to alter the list of Core nations.

This brings us back to the expansion of BRICS. Despite early hopes that it might serve as an anti-imperial force, it is increasingly obvious that the BRICS elites seek to strengthen their hand in the world system, not to overturn it. Even more so after its expansion, BRICS is a gathering of the most aspirational and aggressive of autocratic semi-peripheral elites willing to violently create dependent peripheries, especially as the power of the Hegemon wanes. In this context, we should expect to see the Red Sea become the stage for even more of the coming confrontations between the old Core, rising imperial powers and the people’s resistance to them.

Resistance

This conflict of imperial interests, with the Core desiring stable shorelines, and the Semi-periphery seeking to re-peripheralize new dependent territories, has resulted in unique forms of anti-imperial resistance.

Core states have avoided direct involvement in Somalia since the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, leaving the conflict to Semi-peripheral proxies under the UN banner and the unfettered interest of Gulf livestock importers. The outcome was economic, social, political and ecological devastation in Somalia, resulting in a vacuum of power with no central state able to protect nearby sea routes. The emergence of repeated waves of increasingly sophisticated piracy off the Somali coast was an understandable outcome of this situation.

These pirates are not primarily politically motivated but still presented a significant threat to the Core profits, resulting in naval operations by Core and prominent Semi-peripheral states which contained but never fully eliminated the threat.

While Somali piracy re-emerged in late 2023, the primary regional news was the organized anti-shipping campaign launched by the Houthis, a Shi’a aligned, revolutionary movement from the highlands of Yemen whose seizure of power sparked the Saudi-Emirati war.  Over-hyped Iranian assistance aside, the Houthis are homegrown and have developed a sophisticated resistance to Saudi aerial warfare.

While they have attacked Saudi warships and shipping in the Red Sea since 2015, their willingness to join the Palestinian cause in late 2023 with missile attacks against Israeli-affiliated shipping was a major departure from their previous actions. While an American naval buildup has been largely successful at preventing strikes on shipping, the costs are high and, barring engagement on the Yemeni mainland, bear little chance of preventing a Houthi strategic victory.

Ultimately the remarkable capacity of the Houthis and Somalis to disrupt shipping is a product of the inevitable resistance born out of the Gulf states’ willingness to fuel their own urbanization and advancement in the World System on the backs of re-peripheralized regions.

If we limit our definition of imperialism as only pertaining to its Hegemonic forms, we miss most of what is happening on the ground in the region. We are left conceptually weak, not only in the Red Sea region, but in other front lines of re-periphalization, including the Donbass, the Eastern Congo, and Artsakh.

Jesse Harasta teaches at the University of Texas at San Antonio where he works in the Department of Academic Inquiry and Scholarship.

Featured Photograph: The World Book: organized knowledge in story and picture (1918).

Learning nothing from history: Germany, genocide, and colonialism in the time of Gaza

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ROAPE
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Heike Becker writes about what has been going on in Germany since 7 October last year. She contextualises the German government’s unconditional support of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and astonishing efforts by government and civil society associations to silence critics of Israel’s actions. Becker points out the deafening silence in mainstream German politics and society about the thousands of children, women, and men who have been killed.

By Heike Becker

When I started expanding my long-time research on memory, colonialism and activism in Namibia and South Africa with a new project to investigate the role of memory activism within current decolonisation movements in Germany, among the first books I read was Susan Neiman’s then just-published Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (2019). Neiman, a Jewish-American, Berlin-based philosopher argued, in a nutshell, that German society had largely accepted responsibility for and learned from actions done by the country in the past (whereas Americans had not done so regarding their history of Jim Crow – thus the provocative title). Neiman reasoned that while particularly the former West Germany had resisted taking responsibility for the Holocaust of the European Jews, after German reunification in 1990 the country had developed an exemplary example of how to atone for an evil past.

Neiman’s book made a lot of sense to me then although I was dismayed by the fact that she makes very little mention of how Germany had atoned, or rather had failed to do so, for its colonial past, and especially the German empire’s genocide of the Herero and Nama in what was then German South West Africa, today’s Namibia. As I learnt during my initial field work in Berlin, and following the public, media and political, debates on postcolonialism and antisemitism that flared up time and again in 2020 and 2021, mainstream Germany’s stance was at best ambiguous.

For sure, in contrast to decades of colonial amnesia, the country’s colonial past became a topic of public discourse from the later 2010s onwards, with a focus on museums, human remains, restoration and reparation. Some civil society initiatives received substantial state funding for projects to decolonise the public space. In 2021 the German government concluded what has been termed the ‘reconciliation agreement’ with Namibia, still controversial and contested, but one could argue that, slowly and awkwardly, some progress had been made.

Yet, postcolonial and decolonial activists, artists and scholars also felt an ever-tightening space. The antisemitism allegations against Achille Mbembe in the northern spring of 2020, and the media uproar that followed the publication of the German edition of Michael Rothberg’s Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization in early 2021 were just the tip of the iceberg. In 2022, Germany’s high-profile contemporary art exhibition DOCUMENTA came under attack for alleged antisemitism, when the event, which takes place every five years in Kassel, was curated by the Jakarta-based collective ruangrupa.

It appears at times that Germany has been trying hard to focus on its own sensibilities and to close off from the challenges of decolonisation and the postcolonial world. A flurry of antisemitism accusations hit particularly those of Arab and Muslim backgrounds, Black and Afro-diasporic people, and also anti-Zionist left-wing Jews. In fact, everyone who dared calling for an expansion of the country’s ‘memory culture’, so celebrated in Neiman’s book, could quickly end up being suspected of ‘relativising’ the Holocaust. In 2021 the Australian historian Dirk Moses provoked a heated debate about what he described as the “new German catechism”, that is, the German government’s and the country’s leading media houses’ insistence that comparing the memory of the Holocaust with other genocides was more than just probing the moral foundation of post-1945 Germany; it was “an apostasy from the right faith”.

Although not unprecedented thus, what has been going on in Germany since 7 October 2023 has been quite incredible. The German government’s 12 January 2024 stringent declaration, even before any words had been heard from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, that it would join the ICJ main hearing as a third party in support of Israel may be unparalleled, even among Western governments, but it is not at all surprising considering the country’s general atmosphere since 7 October.

Susan Neiman was among the first who raised concern, in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) on 19 October 2023, about what she termed “philosemitic McCarthyism”, and on 3 November, writing again in the NYRB, she pointed out that, “in recent weeks, Germany’s reflexive defences of Israel and suppression of its critics have assumed a fevered pitch.”

In the first week of February 2024, the much-admired Lebanese-Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage was sacked from his position as a visiting senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. The unilateral severance of Hage’s association with the Institute resulted from an article, published a few days earlier in a right-wing German newspaper, in which Hage was accused of antisemitism due to his alleged “fiery BDS [the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement] activism.”

The DIE WELT journalists referenced a selected few of his recent social media comments on the current Gaza war. Hage, who is globally renowned for his profound and insightful scholarship on ethnonationalism, immigration and race in Australia, as well as his Middle-Eastern anthropology, responded with a statement, in which he clarified his position. He pointed out his consistent analysis, as expressed in both his academic writings and his social media posts: “I have a political ideal of a multi-religious society made from Christians, Muslims and Jews living together on that land. … I have criticised both Israelis and Palestinians who work against such a goal. If Israel has copped and continues to cop the biggest criticism it is because its colonial ethno-nationalist project is by far the biggest obstacle towards achieving such aim.” Hage’s contemplations on framing the 2023 Gaza war were pertinent in a thoughtful and moving article, published on the ALLEGRA LAB blog-website in November 2023.

This has been the first prominent case of supposedly philosemitic McCarthyism in the academic realm, although there have certainly been threats in German, Austrian and Swiss academic institutions  for some time. Mostly, censoring has targeted artists and the cultural sector, exhibitions and symposia long in the planning have been cancelled, prize awards have been withdrawn or award ceremonies awkwardly re-drawn, a major cultural institution in Berlin had its core funding cancelled, the list goes on and on. Introduced on 5 January, the conservative regional council of Berlin announced that it would introduce a new measure. Supposedly intended to combat antisemitism, state funding would in future be awarded only to applicants who commit in writing to a controversial antisemitism clause, based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which proscribes criticism of Israel as “antisemitic”. Critics made clear that this clause was going to silence any critics of the state and politics of Israel and undermine freedom of expression.

After more than 6,000 signatories of an open letter protested against this clause, and boycott actions proposed and supported by numerous international artists, the Berlin senate Department of Culture backed down and withdrew the clause. The successful collective actions are, some hope, a few cracks in the wall of Germany’s deafening silence regarding the violence and deaths in Gaza. There have been also some brave statements in defence of freedom of cultural expression and research, including a statement made by the German association of social and cultural anthropologists on 12 February, which expressed concern over the attacks on renown intellectuals and warned against “our public sphere [being] shaped by reductionist judgements of socially complex conflict dynamics and indiscriminate accusations of antisemitism.”

Yet, listening to German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s new year’s address, the deafening silence, which has been pertinent in German public discourse, came to me as a terrible – and lasting – shock that the head of the German government had not even one word of compassion to spare about the dying, freezing, starving people of Gaza after having expressed his government’s profound grief about Hamas’s attack on Israel. But then total silence followed: Not a word about the thousands of children, women, and men who have been killed by Israel’s air strikes and ground war. Not one word. None. Complete deafening silence.   

This made it abundantly clear that in the dominant German discourse “Never Again” does not mean “never again for anyone”. Instead, the German government’s unconditional support of Israel’s conduct in Gaza comes across as just a logical conclusion of what Susan Neiman termed in one of her recent articles “historical reckoning haywire.” 

Considering the unspeakable devastation in Gaza, it seems self-indulgent to speak about the personal and affective, but here I go: I have been tearing up a lot lately. I came of age in 1970s West Germany and was part of a 1980s generation of young activists who set out to break the walls of silence about the genocides of the Jews, the Sinti and Roma, and other ‘undesirables’ that continued to prevail in West Germany, as it was then. I defiantly wore my Palestinian keffiyeh on marches against antisemitism and racism in Germany, as well as on rallies against apartheid in South Africa and Namibia. Despite all the contradictions of the past few years, I was getting cautiously hopeful, never did I think I was once more going to be so deeply ashamed of being German.   

Heike Becker focuses on the politics of memory, popular culture, activism, and social movements of resistance in southern Africa (South Africa and Namibia). She also works on decolonize memory activism and anti-racist politics in Germany and the UK. Heike has been a major contributor to roape.net since 2014.

Featured Photograph: Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Germany on 10 February; such protests are incredibly tough for activists, artists and intellectuals to attend, organise and support (Credit: Heike Becker).

References

Hage, Ghassan. 2023. ‘Gaza and the Coming Age of the “Warrior”’. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. 16 November 2023.

Moses, A. Dirk. 2021. ‘The German Catechism’. Geschichte der Gegenwart, 23 May 2021.

Neiman, Susan. 2023. ‘Germany On Edge’. New York Review of Books, November 3, 2023 issue.

Neiman, Susan. 2023. ‘Historical Reckoning Gone Haywire’. New York Review of Books, October 19, 2023 issue.

Neiman, Susan. 2019. Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil. London: Allen Lane.

Rothberg, Michael. 2009. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (German: 2021. Multidirektionale Erinnerung: Holocaustgedenken im Zeitalter der Dekolonisierung. Berlin: Metropol Verlag)

Myth-Busting: Dag Hammarskjöld, Katanga, and the coup against the Lumumba government

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ROAPE
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A terrible myth has developed around the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in a plane crash in 1961. Ludo De Witte explains that the UN chief was one of the architects of the Congo crisis that led to the removal and murder of the country’s first leader, Patrice Lumumba. De Witte reveals the true role of the UN, and Hammarskjöld, in the imperialist catastrophe that savaged the Congo in 1960.

By Ludo De Witte

On an almost monthly basis the press, and scholars, focus on the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, in  a plane crash near the Rhodesian town of Ndola, not far from the Congo-Katanga border, on the night of 17 – 18 September 1961. Accident or assassination attempt? And if it was an assassination, who was guilty?

These are questions to which the UN itself is seeking answers. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the plane was shot down. If this is indeed the case, we must look for the perpetrators in what was then Katanga, a Congolese province which, shortly after Congo’s independence, broke away from the central power with the powerful mining company Union Minière (Umicore) and local politicians in the entourage of Moïse Tshombe. This was done with the enthusiastic support of Belgium, which provided soldiers, diplomats, civil servants, and mercenaries to support the secession, with the aim of irreparably weakening Patrice Lumumba’s central government.

It is not the crash and death of Dag Hammarskjöld – commonly known as ‘Mr H’ – that I am referring to here, but his role (and that of the UN) in the Congo Crisis. The United Nations is still a taboo subject in media circles. Critical remarks about UN operations are unwelcome, because for the West, and especially for a small country like Belgium, the organisation is a major instrument for influencing world politics.

Benefiting from the presumption that his plane was attacked by Katangese forces, the Secretary General has acquired the image of a man who had to pay with his life for his fight for a unified Congo. The Belgian paper De Standaard puts it this way:

Officially, the Western powers could not support the secession of Katanga – that would run counter to a UN peacekeeping operation supporting the Congolese army in its fight against Tshombe. But behind the scenes they were not above it. The UN’s Number 1 was a thorn in their side. He was a little too zealous in his mission to reunify the Congo and put an end to the civil war in Katanga.

Is it really true that Hammarskjöld who led the peacekeeping force on the Security Council sent to the Congo were primarily aiming to re-establish a unitary state, against Western (mining) interests? Noble principles opposed to (neo)colonialism?

This view fits in perfectly with the myth of ‘Mr H’: posthumously acclaimed with the Nobel Peace Prize, he has become an icon of international pacifist diplomacy. The investigation carried out in the United Nations archives, the conclusions of which can be found in my book Crisis in Kongo (1996), invalidates this myth. Hammarskjöld fully supported Katangese secession for as long as Patrice Lumumba was in power. And this, it should be noted, was done with a peacekeeping force who came to the Congo at the express request of the Congolese government to expel Belgian troops and put an end to Katanga’s secession. The secession of rich Katanga – which accounted for two thirds of Congolese public revenue – was in the view of Belgium and the United States supposed to ruin the central state and contribute to Lumumba’s downfall. The UN bureaucracy around Hammarskjöld  made common cause with Brussels and Washington.

It was only after Lumumba’s assassination (17 January 1961), when the nationalist threat had been averted, that the West changed sides. Secession, a weapon against the Lumumba government, had become superfluous. The United Nations Security Council put the reintegration of Katanga on the agenda (Security Council Resolution 161, 21 February 1961). It was only then that Mr H spoke out against secession, to the great displeasure of the diehards in Katanga, who dreamt of an eternal replica of apartheid South Africa in the heart of Africa. These diehards were to be found among the “colonial staff” of Union Minière; among the staff of the CIA, which continued to fully support secession; and among the Belgian and South-African mercenaries in the Katangese armed forces. A fine illustration of a genie that could not be squeezed back into its bottle: secession was not finally defeated until early 1963.

From the very first day of the Congo Crisis, Hammarskjöld and the United Nations were in league with Western forces, both before and after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. To such an extent that without the actions of the United Nations, the overthrow of the Congolese government and its replacement by a meekly pro-Western regime would not have been on easy operation.

The popular imagery of the United Nations with its “civilian servants” as the embodiment of “the international community” on its way to a world of democracy, peace and human rights does not stand up to scrutiny in this case. The UN is a concentrated expression of global power relations, which in turn reinforces through its interventions. Just as it did in 1960-61, it continues to function today at the service of an imperialist system that ensures a net transfer of billions of dollars  each year from South to North, via interest transfers, capital flight and unfair trade in goods and raw materials.

By way of illustration, here are a few points that illustrate the complicity of the  top bureaucrats of the United Nations in the establishment of the neo-colonial regime in the Congo. They are analysed in detail in my book Crisis in Congo, freely available in Dutch here.

The list of UN and Hammarskjöld sanctioned interventions is impressive:

  • July 1960: after the Belgian military intervention in the Congo and the secession of Katanga with the support of Belgian soldiers, shortly after independence, President Kasa Vubu and Prime Minister Lumumba requested the assistance of the United Nations for “the protection of the national territory against the act of aggression by Belgian troops” (13 July). Mr H quickly had the UN force deployed, but not in Katanga, where the Belgians could quietly develop the secession.
  • August 1960. Under pressure from the Congolese government and African public opinion, Mr H was finally forced to send peacekeepers to Katanga. But the UN Secretary General paid a prior visit to Katangan “President” Tshombe – the author of a coup d’état! – “to give Tshombe some form of guarantee that he would not jeopardise his personal political future or the legitimate objectives he was defending by accepting UN troops” (telegram from Mr H to his staff, 26 July). Hammarskjöld was in agreement with Washington and Brussels, who wanted to build a reorganised neo-colonial Congolese power around Katanga.
  • During secret talks with Tshombe and his Belgian guardians, it was decided that peacekeepers would be sent to Katanga. Not to put an end to secession, but to “freeze” it. The “conflict” between Lumumba and Tshombe was considered to be “a constitutional political conflict that should be the subject of negotiations between the two parties”. The UN would remain outside these discussions. The UN force could not be used to bring the Tshombe regime to power, and the Congolese government was forbidden to use UN facilities to bring civilian or military personnel to Katanga against Tshombe’s wishes. From that moment on, the United Nations formed not only a political but also a military buffer between the Congolese government and the Katangese authorities.Moreover, the Belgian soldiers in Katanga did not leave, rather they donned “Katangese” uniforms the small secessionist army of Katanga.
  • 9 August 1960. UN support for Katanga’s secession prompted Forminière, a Société Générale subsidiary that mined diamonds, to separate South Kasai from the central government as well. Lumumba had no choice but to send Congolese troops to Kasai and Katanga. The capital of Kasai was quickly taken, but Hammarskjöld positioned peacekeepers on the borders of Katanga to prevent Tshombe’s downfall.
  • A telegram dated 26 August from the US mission to the UN states that Hammarskjöld was more convinced than ever that Lumumba had to be “broken”. Hammarskjöld took up the theme again in a telegram dated 1 September: “There is a page that must be turned and it is that of Lumumba, Gizenga and Gbenye with their totally erroneous interpretation of their rights concerning the United Nations and their role in the world”.
  • Early September 1960. Hammarskjöld sent a man he trusted, the American Andrew Cordier, to the Congo. Before joining the UN, Cordier had been a top bureaucrat from the US State Department. He discussed the overthrow of the Lumumba government with President Kasa Vubu’s entourage. A coup d’état, since under the Congolese constitution the president had only a ceremonial function. Under the constitution, it was up to the National Assembly to appoint or dismiss the government, and Lumumba had a majority there. In a telegram to Cordier, Mr H encouraged the coup. He referred to a “state of emergency” and told Cordier that he “could allow himself to do on the ground what, within the framework of imperative principles, I could not justify if I did it myself: to run the risk of not being recognised when it hardly matters any more”.
  • On 5 September, President Kasa Vubu read a statement on Congolese radio in which he dismissed Lumumba. But Prime Minister Lumumba retained the support of parliament. The reaction was swift: on 14 September Commander-in-Chief Mobutu suspended parliament. The UN’s support for Kasa Vubu and Mobutu was decisive. The UN force closed the radio station and airports in the Congolese capital, preventing Lumumba from mobilising supporters and friendly troops. In a telegram, Hammarskjöld revealed that the United States had made US$1m available to UN officers to pay the wages and food of Congolese army units that chose to side with Kasa Vubu and Mobutu. This did not escape the attention of the pro-Western press, as The Times wrote: “So there you have the UN, apparently in the middle as always, but obviously leaning in one direction”.
  • From 10 October 1960, Mobutu’s troops permanently surrounded Lumumba’s residence. Lumumba was “protected” by a double cordon of soldiers: the first circle consisted of the blue helmets “protecting” him; the outer circle, soldiers of the Congolese army, who wanted to arrest him. The encirclement was in response to the wishes of the neo-colonial coalition, which wanted to cut Lumumba off from his base. Lumumba had become a political exile in his own country. The US ambassador to Congo, Clare H. Timberlake, wrote in a reassuring telegram that Lumumba’s physical isolation meant his “political death”. Rajeshwar Dayal, the head of the ONUC (United Nations Operation in the Congo), told Hammarskjöld: “Lumumba is in fact a virtual prisoner in his house, with no free contact with anyone and no telephone”.
  • End of November 1960. Under massive pressure from the West, the UN General Assembly recognises Kasa Vubu’s delegation as the Congo’s legal representative. Having lost all faith in the UN, the dismissed prime minister left his residence incognito. With a few loyal followers, he tried to reach Stanleyville, where the nationalist forces were regrouping. But on the way he fell into the hands of Mobutu’s troops, which led to his death six weeks later. UN documents indicate that the UN was responsible for the arrest of the prime minister. Lumumba, pursued by Mobutu’s troops in the Kasai, called on Ghanaian peacekeepers to intervene. The latter wanted to take him under their protection, but their officers forbade them to do so, whereupon Lumumba fell into Mobutu’s hands. Shortly before, General Von Horn, supreme commander of the UN forces in Congo, had ordered the Ghanaian peacekeepers not to protect Lumumba: “I repeat, no action can be taken by you concerning Lumumba. We were responsible for his personal security only in his house in Leopoldville. We always considered and made it known that it was at his own risk that he would venture to leave his house”. A copy of this telegram of 1 December was sent to New York.
  • After Lumumba’s death, Hammarskjöld lied to the Security Council about Lumumba’s arrest and the role played by the United Nations: “Lumumba (…) was arrested in the country without the UN having the slightest possibility of opposing it, given that it had no control over the situation” (statement of 15 February 1961).
  • On 17 January Lumumba and his comrades Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito were taken to Katanga in a DC-4 plane. They were tortured during the flight. At 5 p.m. they were dragged onto the tarmac at Elisabethville and handed over to Belgian officers and their troops. One Belgian officer described the prisoners as “a human mass (…), their shirts in tatters, blood at the corners of their mouths, their faces swollen, shattered, exhausted, more dead than alive”. The Swedish UN troops watched from a distance. That day, the ONUC guard consisted of six soldiers, under the command of NCO Lindgren, who wrote a report on the events. Four hours after their arrival, the three nationalist leaders were dead.

The UN in no way hindered the action of the regime in Katanga and the Belgians who were manoeuvring to carry out the murder of Lumumba. The UN chief in Katanga, New Zealander Ian Berendsen, later said that he had been informed of the arrival of Lumumba, Mpolo and Okito “one or two hours” after the DC-4 had landed by NCO Lindgren. But the local UN chief did not bother to put pressure on Tshombe or the Katangese army leadership. It was only on 18 January, and then only in passing, that Berendsen mentioned it to Tshombe. In a letter to Tshombe dated 19 January, ostensibly only written ‘for the record’, Hammarskjöld did not demanded the release of the three, nor their transfer to the Congolese capital; he only asked for their humane treatment. But by then it was already too late to influence events.

Ludo De Witte is an investigative journalist, and writer of The Assassination of Lumumba (Verso, London) and Meurtre au Burundi (in English, Murder in Burundi) (Investig’Action/IWACU, Brussels), on the liquidation of the Burundese Prime Minister Louis Rwagasore in October 1961.

Featured Photograph: Dag Hammarskjöld memorial stamp in 1962 from the United States. 

Lenin The Heritage we (Don’t) Renounce

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ROAPE
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ROAPE’s Ray Bush reviews a major new volume on the politics, practice and legacy of Lenin. In a highly original volume, the editors, Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichorn and Patrick Anderson, have assembled contributions including love letters, fiction and political treatises which affirm the significance of Lenin’s contribution to understanding and engaging in revolutionary moments. Bush commends a breathtaking array of contributions each animated by the desire to undermine the horrors of militarised, genocidal late capitalism.

By Ray Bush

The mention of Lenin’s name generates anxiety and concern among the ruling class and reactionary social and class forces everywhere. His shadow is (mostly) enlivened by Leninists deploying often varied understandings of theory and practice for revolutionary transformation. It just isn’t enough to tear down his statue as fascists in Ukraine and elsewhere enjoy so much.  As one contribution in this collection notes, ‘A proper memorial to Lenin is not a monument but a practice’.  ‘Lenin’s cause is a workers cause.  It is a daily commitment to engage in society, its transformation, and the liberation of workers’ (see Anatoli Ulyanov’s essay in the collection ). 

The editors of this collection on Lenin and his lasting influence, have collated a simply wonderful and critically engaged celebration of the 20th century’s most significant political actor.  It’s difficult to summarise the 104 contributions that include poems, love letters, imaginary dreams, fiction and ‘dialogue’ with Lenin as well as theoretical treaties and political manifestos. The collection provides insight and dynamic interpretations of the range of many of Lenin’s contributions to political struggles that shaped revolutionary transformations for generations and continues to do so. 

The editors, Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichorn and Patrick Anderson, joined by Johann Salazar as founders of Kick Ass Books have in their words attempted ‘to create a new style of left-activist publications: edited volumes dictated by the actually lived struggles, questions and convictions of our contributors, expressed in a variety of forms that speak to their own personal-political reality’.  In doing this they have assembled a volume that delivers their promise to promote ‘lesser heard voices’ in combatting ‘revisionist histories’ reclaiming ‘the dignity of past victories and defeats’ that may help contest present day oppressions.  They have certainly succeeded in this volume on Lenin.  It provides a ‘platform for a truly broad range of authors and artists’ who express their thoughts, visions and pain deploying narrative, poetry, song and images as vehicles for highlighting struggles against oppression.  The volume includes activists and examples of activism from more than 50 countries including Afghanistan, Philippines, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania, Russia and Ukraine, Peru, Thailand, Cuba, Slovenia. 

Yet this is not a Cook’s tour. On the contrary. The editors claim the immodest project of the book is to be an active part of the process of ‘communisting’, in an ‘unapologetically Leninist’ way. This advances Nadezhda Krupskaya’s call to ‘learn to live with Ilyich without Ilyich’ or to do all that is possible to put ‘his teachings into practice’. For that to be delivered Lenin’s manner of struggle is central and in that call to arms, literally and metaphorically, this volume assembles a breathtaking array of contributions. They both affirm and continue to highlight the significance of Lenin’s contribution to understanding and engaging in revolutionary moments.  It also crucially helps to foster and drive struggles against contemporary hegemonic ruling classes.

The book is at its analytical best, and most fervent, when it reminds the reader what, and how, Lenin explored and analysed historically specific conjunctures and how he argued against those who tried to undermine him. That might have been over issues of theory – the central importance of dialectical and historical materialism or why pulling Czarist Russia out of the imperialist WWI was an integral and systemic part of Marxist analysis.

The volume is less exciting when contributors slip into the world of reflection, ‘well, what would Lenin have done now’? or worse, when some contributions flirt with Trotsky’s critique of Stalin, asserting that Lenin had tried too late and unsuccessfully to prevent Stalin’s rise to power. That doesn’t work well where authors fail to present the historical context of persistent imperialist military and economic attempts to scupper the October revolution and the building of socialism. Several authors also rhetorically talk of Russian and Chinese imperialism with no substantiation other than the Russia-Ukraine conflict and trade war between China and Washington and a (continuing) poor (and exploited) Chinese working class without providing any evidence.

This is nevertheless an exhilarating collection that grabs you from the start.  It’s a ‘who done it?’ that doesn’t lose traction when we know exactly who the main player is and why unpacking his analyses helps to inform contemporary villains and class enemies. There are at least two big takeaways that wet the appetite, exciting a return to Lenin to help inform analyses of key global drama’s and conflicts: Politics (class stuggle) and imperialism.

Lenin was a political pragmatist with a keen eye on delivering the goal of socialism. While he noted that revolution will likely only be possible when ‘lower classes do not want to live in the old way and the “upper classes” cannot carry on in the old way’ he always had a keen eye on how social and political mobilisation could push a class impasse into a revolutionary transformation. This involved more than the development and focus on the vanguard party, over which so much has been said often by over zealous party hacks who may reify organisation and theories of class purity instead of engagement with social and political mobilisations that may be  structured, initially at least, around issues of gender and race. Lenin was acutely aware of struggles around social reproduction for instance as several authors here note (see the essay’s by Anara Moldosheva; Espasandín Cárdenas; Daria Dyakonova; Elsaa and La’al).    

Lenin’s pragmatism was grounded in the understanding that socialist transformation required ‘revolutionary theory’ because without it, as he famously argued in What is to be Done  ‘there can be no revolutionary movement’ (see Sandro Mezzadra in the volume). The relationship between theory and practice in the development of revolutionary politics is a recurrent theme in this collection. We are reminded of his oft quoted favourite passage from Goethe’s Faust  reflecting on Mephistopheles,  ‘theory my friend is grey but green is the eternal tree of life’. As one contributor notes, ‘The historical task of the revolutionary organisation does not ..consist in somehow magically awakening (dead) labour and the sleeping masses into a revolutionary class, but to detect and to participate in the process of their awakening’ (Gal Kirn).

Political pragmatism is used in contemporary politics as a stick to usually beat conservative politicians with but Lenin’s analytical clarity was to always remind his interlocutors that while the vanguard party was essential to edge towards delivering a revolutionary transition, the frequently used ‘correct line’ of contemporary self-declared Marxist (Trotskyist?) parties may be reluctant to engage with ‘elements of rupture  and discontinuity’ – how objective conditions may quickly change and revolutionary parties need to adapt to changing political conjunctures (Mezzadra, for example, highlights this point). This theme underpins several contributions on Zimbabwe (Tafadzwa Choto) Nigeria (Baba Aye) and Afghanistan (Naweed).

Lenin was scathing about promoting what might be called politically correct positions in arguing against the capitalist ruling class or non revolutionary groups or other so called revolutionaries. For while Lenin was more than able to hold his own in polemical combat ‘what was primary for him was helping mobilise practical struggles  capable of materially defending and advancing the urgent needs of workers and the oppressed’ (Paul Le Blanc).  ‘Political practice’  for Lenin maintained ‘its specificity when acting upon the concrete situation’ (Natalia Romé). Lenin many times reminded comrades of Marx and Engels’ comment, ‘Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action’.

And herein lies one of the ever present constants that gnaws at the well-being of the capitalist class: Marxism/Leninism, and Mao Zedong thought, deploys critical political economy that highlights the stuctural flaws in capitalism and the specific social historical analysis to intervene to overthrow it. The tools to analyse the conjuncture underpin Lenin’s ability to develop a conception of emancipatory politics.   ‘It is in this sense that Lenin can be said to have been the inventor of politics’. Lenin promotes three core principles – the building of a political party that represents the working class in the political arena’, ‘to outline and fight for a uniquely dialectical proletarian politics’ and a communist future, and the insistence that the party has ‘confidence in the independent action of the broad masses and not just that of the working class’ (see, in particular, Michael Neocosmos’ contribution).

The role of the broad masses in overturning capitalism and promoting socialist transformation is a recurrent theme in this collection (Alain Badiou) that also raises question of what or who is a revolutionary social force. Leo Zeilig reminds us in his engagement with resistance to capitalism of Walter Rodney’s words, ‘The only great people among the unfree are those who struggle to destroy the oppressor’. The role of classes in the transition to socialism provides the key linkage between Lenin’s politics, analysis of imperialism,  the centrality of worker-peasant alliance and the national question and struggles for genuine sovereignty.  These debates are ever present even when not always explicit in this volume and they include crucial arguments about race, black power and anti-imperialism (Issa Shivjii; Earl Bousquet; Christian Høgsbjerg).

Lenin’s Imperialism -the Highest Stage of Capitalism highlighted the transformation of late 19th  century capitalism, the role that monopoly plays in the scramble for African resources and lays the ground for analysis on how and why the imperial triad of the US, EU and Japan promote the permanent dispossession of the Periperhy (Demba Moussa Dembélé). Lenin’s Development of Capitalism in Russia is his other monumentally empirically rich and analytically important work of engaged research that also underlines possibilities for emancipatory political intervention. He highlighted the significance of the trajectory of capitalist development and its impact in shaping economic development beyond the European and US economic powerhouses. Lenin also highlighted why, as in the case of Czarist Russia, revolutionary overthrow is possible where the industrial working class was small with the majority of the population being a mostly illiterate but socially differentiated peasantry – hence the need for worker-peasant alliances.

Lenin’s analysis from these two volumes continues to have immense implications for the Periphery. In Africa, for example, there is urbanisation without proletarianisation that may help explain why it was that Egypt and Tunisia are the locations of the two most recent, politically significant upheavals that were driven by small farmer mobilisations and by the dissafected landless and not by an (organised) industrial working class.

The contribution by Adam Mayer is important here as he notes that ‘Lenin taught us that monopoly capital rules through imperialism, which in the neocolonial context means domination also through war or the threat of war’.  Mayer problematises the important role that militaries can and do play in creating conditions for social transformation, national liberation and anti-imperialism. In so doing, he also reminds us that a revolution can emerge in the absence of a numerically high or strategically strong industrial working class.  As Mayer writes, ‘Class conscious peasants, informal workers, market women have attacked colonialist occupiers on African soil, and radical states [have] built radical armies on the continent’. 

Mayer argues that while rallying behind soldiers may not always come easily to Marxists it is in fact our ‘dialectical responsibility’ to do so. Left support is necessary. As Cabral noted, ‘When your hut is burning, it is no use beating the tom-tom’…’we are not going to succeed in eliminating imperialism by shouting or by slinging insults, spoken or written, at it. For us, the worst or best we can say about imperialism, whatever its form, is to take up arms and struggle’ (Abel Djassi Amado).

This volume is ultimately, and at its core, a collection of hope and suggestions for creating the conditions to deliver the dream of socialism by undermining the horrors of militarised genocidal late capitalism. Buy it and spread the word.

To purchase a copy of Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn and Patrick Anderson (eds), Lenin: the heritage we (don’t) renounce (Daraja Press and Kickass Books, 2024) click here.

Ray Bush is Professor Emeritus of African Studies at the School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at the University of Leeds. He is also a leading member of ROAPE’s Editorial Working Group.

Featured Photograph: A statue of Lenin at Kalyani, West Bengal (2 August 2016).

Remembering Kenneth Kaunda (1924-2021), Africa’s Last Anti-Colonial Leader

By
ROAPE
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Towards the end of 2023, the fully open access and free to download Zambia Journal of Social Science published an edited collection of nine articles investigating and reflecting on the life and legacy of former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda. Here, one of the collection’s editors Duncan Money introduces the body of work. The contributions are wide ranging, from those that deal directly with anti-colonial struggle – including an exploration of some of the tensions and failures within Zambia’s liberation movements – to those interrogating Kaunda’s postcolonial politics and governance, to a remarkable series of interviews with Kaunda and those close to him, which offer a fascinating glimpse into his daily life and habits.

By Duncan Money

The death of Zambia’s President Kenneth Kaunda on 17 June 2021 marked the end of era. Kaunda, known widely as KK, was the last of the generation of anti-colonial leaders who fought for independence in the 1950s and 1960s, and one of the best known.

Kaunda’s momentous life, his central role in events across the region and his legacy invites investigation and reflection, and we sought to provide this with an edited collection of nine articles published in the Zambia Journal of Social Science. These articles and an introduction to them by the editors – Marja Hinfelaar, Mary Mbewe and myself – are all free to read and download (as with all papers published by this Zambian journal).

Anti-colonialism and nationalism are perhaps inevitably the key themes of these articles. Kaunda is best remembered now as a symbol of the struggle against colonialism across Southern Africa. The specifics, however, are recalled less readily and there was a poignant moment at one of his last major public speeches, at the funeral of Nelson Mandela.

A photograph of Kenneth Kaunda on an election poster in readiness for the elections on January 21st, 1964.

Kaunda was a consummate showman. You can see this in the footage: Rising slowly from his seat, a man of 89 years, grasping a walking stick, he pauses, and then runs towards the stage. There, he sought to rouse the crowd with his trademark song ‘Tiyende Padmozi’, until, at the chorus, “his listeners did not dutifully sing along, as they had in the past.” Kaunda paused, “Ah, you have forgotten,” he admonished them gently.

Kaunda had outlived almost his entire political generation, his audience was gone.

Three articles in our collection deal directly with the anti-colonial struggle: those by Kaluba Jickson Chama, Chris Saunders and Jeff Schauer. Chama’s article deals with the earliest period on this collection, looking at the emergence of anti-colonial nationalism in rural Luapula in the 1950s and the politics of food. He notes though that the new independent government continued colonial agricultural policies, pointing to a tension between nationalist parties and their intended constituents.

Zambia paid a price for its commitment to the liberation of Southern Africa. The country was bombed both by Rhodesian and Portuguese forces and targeted with sabotage attacks. Schauer’s article looks at how Zambia armed itself in the face of aggression, securing arms from Britain. Such a military deal so soon after independence prompted accusations of neo-colonialism against Kaunda, but Schauer argued Zambia’s government used this to buy time and subsequently broadened its suppliers of arms beyond the former colonial power. Kaunda aimed to make “neocolonial relationships manageable, useful, and impermanent.”

Saunders looks into some of the tensions and failures within the liberation movements based in Zambia, the kind of details that are now overlooked in the memory of Kaunda as the iconic champion of liberation. Saunder’s focuses on Kaunda’s role in Namibia’s long struggle for independence and his relationship with the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO). Key disagreements between them included Kaunda’s 1969 proposal for a peaceful approach to Namibia’s transition, which led to the curtailment of SWAPO’s military operations from Zambia.

The other articles in the collection focus more on developments within Zambia.

One crucial and now much neglected topic is Kaunda’s development of what became Zambia’s governing ideology under the one-party state: humanism. Edward Mboyonga’s article on higher education takes seriously humanism as an ideology that aimed at decolonising society in Zambia. Mboyonga locates the establishment of Zambia’s first university in 1966 within the public good discourse, where the benefits of higher education did not only accrue to the individual, but to the society as well. Yet there was a tension between the professed egalitarianism of humanism and academic freedom, and Kaunda intervened to remove academics deemed critical of the government from the new institution.

Contradictions in the way Kaunda governed emerge too in Alexander Caramento and Agatha Siwale-Mulenga’s article on emerald mining, which raises questions about whether this supposed governing ideology of humanism was ever really followed. The establishment of an emerald industry is a good example of how the state implemented economic policy in ways that were contradictory to its stated aims. Though Kaunda spoke sympathetically about small scale miners, his policies for emerald mining entrenched dependence on foreign investment by partnering with a British firm and effectively criminalised artisanal mining. This has long-term consequences for the sector.

Kaunda (left) walking in Malawi with Hastings Banda, the first President of Malawi. National Archives of Malawi.

State ownership of Zambia’s economy was a relatively brief episode. Kaunda’s economic policies were rapidly and comprehensively reversed after he was ousted in the 1991 elections. Michael Gubser questions whether the structural adjustment that followed was inevitable, as is often assumed. Gubser goes back to the debates in the final years of Kaunda’s rule among intellectuals and activists about how to fix the country’s failing economy. Economic liberalisation was not the only or even the dominant idea in these debates, and Zambians imagined other possible futures for themselves in a moment of great political change. At the same time, there was a marked intellectual shift towards free-market economics, something exemplified by the one-time editor of the Journal of African Marxists Mbita Chitala becoming an advocate of structural adjustment as Deputy Finance Minister.

Kaunda’s economic policy and legacy are well-known. His close interest in wildlife conservation is less so. Chikondi Thole, Thomas Kweku Taylor and Thor Larsen examine Kaunda’s role in promoting tourism and conservation in South Luangwa, which he declared a national park in 1971 and where he took regular working holidays. Kaunda’s role in South Luangwa also provides insights into political life in the one-party state. Conservation was an area personally important to Kaunda and so he often bypassed state institutions to implement policy and used his personal connections with overseas donors to finance it.

The final two articles in the collection tackle the question of legacy.

Meldad L. Chama and Beatrice Kapanda Simataa argue that official memorialisation marginalised discontent and opposition to Kaunda. It is easy to forget that Kaunda was forced to abandon the one-party state in the face of mass protests and lost the subsequent 1991 election in a landslide. The mourning period, they argue, involved “forgetting and choosing what to remember about KK.” Indeed, those who remember Kaunda for his resolute opposition to apartheid may wish to forget his serenading North Korea’s Kim Il Sung with a variation of his famous call and response: ‘One Korea, One Nation!’

The final article by Victoria Phiri Chitungu is different. Other articles focus on Kaunda as a public figure and a symbol, and Kaunda as a real-life human being can sometimes disappear in this perspective. Chitungu and her team conducted a remarkable series of interviews with Kaunda and those close to him, and through them we get a glimpse into Kaunda’s personal life: the food he ate, the songs he sang, how he slept, and his family relationships. These interviews will become an important source for future work on Kaunda and his legacy.

Duncan Money is a freelance historian and his work focuses on Southern Africa and the mining industry.

Featured images: A portrait of Kenneth Kaunda, March 1983, and photos in the text. Wikimedia Commons

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For 50 years, ROAPE has brought our readers pathbreaking analysis on radical African political economy in our quarterly review, and for more than ten years on our website. Subscriptions and donations are essential to keeping our review and website alive.
Subscribe
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We use cookies to collect and analyse information on site performance and usage, and to enhance and customise content. By clicking into any content on this site, you agree to allow cookies to be placed. To find out more see our
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