The effect of Postcolonialism in Françafrique
Looking from hindsight, the claim from a 1962 U.S. Bureau of African Affairs report, stating decolonisation had ‘eliminated [the] remnants of the colonial system’ from former European empires, seems deeply flawed. Independence movements across Africa had forced European empires to relinquish political control, but control is not solely political. Since the decolonisation of Africa, which took place from the 1950s to 1970s, nations outside of Africa – often Britain, France, and America, and increasingly China and Russia – have been using economic coercion and manufactured political crises to influence ex-colonies.
On the 30th of August, Gabon, a country situated in Central Africa on the Atlantic coast, became the latest country to experience a coup d’état in a series of coups that have taken place in West and Central Africa. Niger, only a month earlier, had also gone through a forceful change in government. Nine African countries in total have had their governments toppled over the last three years –seven of which have been former French colonies. Looking back even further, twenty-one of the twenty-seven coups in sub-Saharan Africa have been in former French colonies.
The reasons for these coups are complex and deeply rooted in the region’s history. There are many contextual differences between the motives of each country, but anti-French sentiment is a common denominator among the most recent seven.
Why are the people of its former colonies resentful towards France?
Gabon had been ruled under a pseudo-democracy by the same family since soon after decolonisation, only ending after this recent coup. The Bongo family came into power legally, but soon consolidated their power with French assistance, establishing a one-party system and a police state. In Togo, another former French possession, the French supported the assassination of the first president after he and his government sought an independent Togolese economy. The French then supported a coup, replacing the democracy with a hereditary dictatorship friendly to France that still grips Togo to this day. Similar events have happened throughout France’s modern-day sphere of influence – known as Françafrique – with France altering the policies of its former colonies through force.
Extremely simplified, it's like if you want to become self-employed, and whenever you try to quit, your current employer coerces you into staying. Not only is most of it illegal, but someone else is invading your life and personal goals – you’d certainly have the right to be mad. And, though for reasons immeasurably more complex, Africans are mad too.
France has continually endorsed tyrannical rulers in order to keep its influence in Africa locked in place. Economically, many countries in West Africa are part of a monetary union known as the CFA Franc. The currency, under a French-led agreement, pegged the CFA Franc against the French Franc, and later the Euro. This has led to countries in Françafrique having less autonomy, and many are trying to institute their own currencies. Their economies, politics, and ways of life still revolve around, and in some cases depend upon, France. For the Gabonese, Nigeriens, and other former French colonies, the understanding that France continues to control their countries led to scathing criticism of the West’s role in the ongoing instability in Africa.
These ideas coalesce to create postcolonialism. It aims to question and analyse the disproportionate power of the West in the international system and how it affects those of the global South. Supporters of postcolonialism try to reveal the contradictions of the West. They argue that under the guise of neoliberal and democratic cooperation, these countries have routinely manufactured and broken international law in order to maintain their political and economic hegemony. This is epitomised in the concept of orientalism, which is a thought process that attempts to create the idea of a duality between the West, as a focus of international regard, and the global South as a peripheral group. Orientalist thinking has been used to justify coercive behaviour by the West towards the South, including France’s illegal actions in West and Central Africa.
In 2019, when thirteen French troops were killed in a helicopter crash in Mali, President Macron of France soon demanded an ‘emergency’ summit of West African leaders in Paris. This is despite the fact Mali and other Françafrique armies had recently suffered far greater losses. This was seen by critics as ‘neo-colonial arrogance’; orientalist bias towards the West. These views, they say, are extensions of prejudiced and paternalist colonial thinking which should have died decades ago. Instead, they linger on as an active force against those who wish their countries had more self-autonomy to conduct their own affairs.
How have these sentiments affected the current crises?
It must be said that anti-French views are not the whole problem and in most cases they aren’t a major factor which drives the coups towards success. Governments that represent only the èlites, increasingly poor living standards, and support from other external entities such as Russia, are where most prospective juntas have found weak spots to overthrow governments. However, the backlash against French influence is a factor with a deep, symbolic history and deserves to be considered.
After the coup in Mali, a heavily-disputed referendum was held to institute a new constitution, passing 97% in favour to 3% against. While, expectedly, the general purpose of the new constitution was granting greater powers to the military junta, one important absence was French as an official language. Advocates of postcolonialism argue French is the language of the colonisers, and as some West Africans see it, it only perpetuates the colonial legacy of France over her ex-colonies. The dismantling of French institutions in Françafrique has been a motif in these latest coups, with seemingly small acts like these possessing a heavy historical weight.
In Niger, one of the poorest countries on Earth, France’s continuing economic power has been blamed for the country’s financial fragility. Although receiving $2 billion in aid, with well over a quarter from France and the EU, the CFA Franc is seen as a major holdback on the Nigerien economy, including mass unemployment. Because of this and negligible law-enforcement presence since the coup this July, protests have been frequent. With a major chant being “down with France”, the earliest protests included protesters burning the perimeter walls and breaking the windows of the French embassy.
The anger behind the continuing exploitation of Africa has left many rallying against their French-aligned governments. In doing so, the people of these countries have been moving to support alternative governments in hopes of finally relinquishing French colonial ties. In doing so, however, powerful military dictatorships have gained power by weaponising the backlash against France. These new juntas are not good news. As in coups past, most of these governments will turn out to be as tyrannical, or possibly even worse, than those they toppled. But they do symbolise the deep resentment of France’s imperial legacy in much of Françafrique. Partly by using anti-French sentiment as a political tool, these new military governments have been largely unchallenged, and often supported, by the general populace.
What’s next?
It's easy to argue that all this intervention is to sustain a lesser evil; that France is preventing China from gaining more influence in Africa, or Russia’s Wagner Group. That’s certainly an argument worth debate. Democracy in the region tends to be superficial and, when it exists, fragile. For all the pronouncements of postcolonialism’s advocates, outside help is needed to pull many African nations out of the instability they now face –albeit in a multilateral context.
Over the past few years, the African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States have become more prominent entities on the continent. It is likely that they will play a role in solving the ongoing crises, having already administered sanctions on many of the new junta-led governments. The AU especially is becoming a more powerful force, closely tied to the more republican and internationally-active African states. The best outcome would be for the internal bodies of Africa to come to a solution with the help of other international institutions –including those led by the West. By promoting democracy and self-government as the best options, the AU could assert its agenda as the right path for Africa going forward. Likely, however, the ongoing struggles will continue to manifest themselves in new ways as long as African nations and their governments stay relatively disunited on their goals.
Postcolonialism gets this right: as long as we focus on the big players, we lose sight of the humanity of the individuals in these struggling countries. At the end of the day, real lives are at stake while these governments struggle for dominance; there’s a reality on the ground that must be considered and as long as we don’t, little of meaning will be achieved.
Image courtesy of Vincent van Zeijst via Wikimedia Commons, ©2019. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
