In all earnestness, as someone who isn’t too aware of Nigerian politics - why shouldn’t the elected government be helped back into power? What reasons do we have to believe that the junta has the best interests of the Nigerian working class more than the previous regime?
I don’t know much about Nigerien politics (btw Nigerian refers to Nigeria), but I’ve been trying to read up since the coup. It seems the coup government enjoys a lot of popular support, as opposed to the previously “elected” government. I’ve seen people claim that the previous elections were a sham, with the winning candidate straight buying up votes with US and French funds, though I don’t have proof for this claim (but seems plausible).
As an outsider looking it, it certainly seems to me that a government that wants to oust French economic and political influence from the country will be far better in improving Nigerien people’s lives rather than a government that is in favour of maintaining French influence in the country.
Niger is a prime example of Parenti’s view “there are no poor countries, there are over-exploited countries”. Niger has rich deposits of Uranium, Gold, precious stones, Oil, and rare minerals.
The reason it has become such a headline is that Niger is France’s prime supplier of Uranium, and France acquires that Uranium at 20% its regular price. France is the EU’s largest producer of electricity from nuclear powerplants. And it sells this electricity at quite a profit. France should have the cheapest electricity in the EU by far, but it actually sells it at the average EU price, which means all that difference is pure profit. It also exports a lot of this electricity, primarily to Belgium and Germany.
Long-story short, if France loses Niger as a Uranium supplier, its economic rating WILL go down from AA to A, which, along with everything else going on, will trigger a major recession. Germany’s energy needs will also be directly impacted, especially since they are cut off from Russian gas.
So I don’t know much about the Junta in Niger and their intentions, beyond what they’ve already announced publicly, but I do know that France has a vested interest in exploiting Niger. Therefore, any Nigerien government that France doesn’t like, is probably good for the people of Niger.
And lastly, we should remember that what is branded as military coups by the West are sometimes socialist revolutions led by the military. Examples: Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Thomas Sankara in (the neighbour of Niger) Burkina Faso.
It seems the coup government enjoys a lot of popular support, as opposed to the previously “elected” government.
I fully expect it to if they publicly frame it as a response to widespread grievances but they’ll have to quickly move to address them lest they lose that support. Junta and “protest” generally don’t mix.
branded as military coups by the West are sometimes socialist revolutions led by the military
True, but Sankara seized powers from other military rulers, not a civilian government. Chavez also won elections before rewriting the Constitution. The “military coups” in Venezuela were generally to ensure democratic institutions and processes were followed since the Venezuelan right wing engages in subverting Bolivaran Constituonal processes.
Not to mention the “democratic” president in custody belongs to a certain arab tribe, which doesn’t even make up 0.1% of the population. This arab tribe was also used by france as foreign mercenaries to beat down any rebellions which happened. This tribe is also immensely rich and powerful. So in sort these guys claim to be democratically elected, but once again the entire democratic process favours this particular group and in return, these guys give wealth to france for them to keep being in power.
I could see similar conditions existing in Niger as in Venezuela and Burkina Faso. As I said, I don’t know much about Niger politics. They do enjoy up to 80% support from their people (according to the Grayzone), which is an extremely high approval rate. I don’t think the previous government was that democratic to begin with.
99.9% good, except Venezuela never had a socialist revolution at all. It’s not socialist now and it never was. Some slight social democrat policies doesn’t make a country socialist. Socialising national resources, building housing, giving economic support to the poor etc. that’s not socialism.
And Hugo Chavez led a coup before becoming president, in the 90s. He came to power democratically.
The Venezuelan government not too long ago said its goal was to develop into a socialist country (which surprised me). Obviously that is only so many words, but that’s better than their absence.
As I understand it the French paid the last guy a lot of money to shut down human trafficking. A lot of people in Niger make their money from that and the last guy rather than use the money to create alternative industries people could work in elected to keep the money
I’m not super well read on it, but to summarize:
- We KNOW that the French definitely don’t have the interest of the Nigerian people at heart. (ask more if this isn’t clear).
- We also know that the French government is neoliberal capitalist, and opposes the aims of the global socialist movement.
- It remains to be seen how “good” or how “socialist” the future government turns out to be, but their initial actions of being hostile to French colonialism have been good for socialism so far.
- the most demonstrable action has been to cut off exports of uranium to France, putting the government of Niger in the driver’s seat to control that. Now we wait (months, years?) to see if they use that to benefit their people.
Also:
Niger’s coup leader has promised to return the West African nation to civilian rule within three years.
Revolutionary action, in this case a coup, is important to drive out colonial/imperialist grip over the country.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66562765
Note: I assume you mean Nigerien (Niger) not Nigerian (Nigeria)
Yes, my bad, and I agree but I wish (who tf cares what I wish lol) that they would do their revolutionary action under a socialist banner which isn’t exactly how I see it at this point.
We KNOW that the French definitely don’t have the interest of the Nigerian people at heart. (ask more if this isn’t clear).
Of course. I took that for granted that a former European colonizer wouldn’t.
the most demonstrable action has been to cut off exports of uranium to France, putting the government of Niger in the driver’s seat to control that. Now we wait (months, years?) to see if they use that to benefit their people.
They could easily switch to exporting to a country in a different ideological camp. International relations is always about power - no country behaves altruistically on the world stage.
Right. I think we are about in the same place then. We need to see what comes up next.
There are certainly questions we can discuss about the democratic process, and where it may fall short, and it may be necessary to circumvent, but that’s probably a topic for another thread.
I think that looking ahead, the country is better off paving a new future rather than restoring a government that’s gonna cozy right up to the French again and maintain the status quo. That could backfire. I guess one thought is that even if it backfires and they end up in kind of an Iran situation, the situation is overall good for the global socialist movement since it weakens at least one colonial power, and we can hope that the movement reforms the country again to something “good” at some point in the future.
cut off exports of uranium to France
Wasn’t that just a rumor (would rock if true though)
The government that got deposed has practically no popular support in Niger. We don’t know whether the junta will do a better job representing the people, but at least it’s not controlled by the west. That’s a necessary prerequisite for Niger to gain even a modicum of sovereignty and self determination. This is a really good breakdown of the situation if you’re interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAcc6U69E6o
That’s how I see it. At risk of regretting my words (the new gov could be terrible and could e.g. be backed by or fall prey to another imperialist power), at least the future (for) now holds the possiblity of a fair election. That’s not remote possibility while the French have their bloody fingers in the country.
Still likely have a long way to go for peace and prosperity. The French (and yanks) won’t just roll over. Hopefully the day is not too far away when Nigerien workers can enjoy their national wealth and support other independent movements. Looking forward to seeing Niger become a socialist nuclear-solar power house (I’m assuming it’s quite sunny in that part of the world), working with the Chinese to connect West Africa with HSR.
Nigeria? There are still french forces in the country at least last week.
