#143 How to think about Africa Pt 3: The story starts with Libya

Speaker 1: As far as I'm concerned, as long as that same respect and recognition is not shown toward every one of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me. And during the few moments that we have left, we want to have just an off-the-cuff chat.

Speaker 2: Welcome back to another episode of the Malcolm Effect and it's a pleasure once again to be joined by my friend, comrade, someone I consider a brother and co-host, Christian Joseph. It's been a while. And this is the third installment in how to think about theorize Africa with the scholar, someone I consider a mentor, uncle to Zubaira Wai. Professor Zubaira Wai, welcome back to The Malcolm Effect. How are you?

Zubairu Wai: I am good. It's been a while, but it's always good to be here. And I look forward to this conversation.

Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. I think thus far, the first episode we talked about, for example, situating Africa within the story of modernity, right? And what is probably perhaps missed in so many of discussions, focusing on the kind of ground zero, which is 1492. Part two, we spoke about Ngugi. Right. And we spoke about how to understand these thinkers and writers and theoreticians of Africa. Right. And I think now bringing that all together, I want to bring now let's talk about applying some of this theoretical knowledge that you imparted onto us. in a way that helps to understand the modern contemporary world. And I know that Libya features quite heavily in your work. So looking at the international order from the perspective of Africa, why does Libya become important?

Zubairu Wai: Okay, thank you very much. And yes, you are right, the conversation that we were having. I mean, we have moved. This was supposed to be a three-part series, but then we got overtaken by other events and stuff. So it's good that we are back. Libya continues. It still vexes me. What happened to Libya still vexes me. And in fact... When you pair that with everything else that has happened since Libya, the war in Ukraine, for instance, the way in which Maldoro recently was basically kidnapped, the whole sitting head of state was kidnapped from his country on trumps of charges. And then, of course, you consider what has been going on in Palestine with the mass murder and desecration of a whole civilization and people, destruction of a whole people. the misadventure in Iran, it all tells a story. And to me personally, I think that Libya is very central to everything else that has been happening. Not only because Gaddafi, again, when you look at Gaddafi, people usually tend to, it's either you love him or you hate him. Some people are like, oh, well, he was a dictator or he ruled for this long and stuff, right? But why is it that it is always our own leaders who get labeled like this? Why is it that it is not leaders who, for instance, they may be so-called dictators, if you want to call them that, but nobody really cares for them. The only countries that are usually under attack are the ones that usually try to to put forth an independent perspective in politics. The ones that try to defend their national sovereignty. And sovereignty, I'm not just saying don't interfere in our affairs, but actually exercise material and political and economic control over their resources. And the ones ideologically that are at variance with global capital and the dominant powers of the world. Why is it that it is always these that get to be attacked? Because if the issue here is that we are going to decide only countries that have so-called and quote-unquote democracies, then I wonder how many countries will really qualify as I'm within that. They will be invading everybody, right? The issue here is that it's the countries that really... tend to exercise or expose a sovereign national project, whether in terms of development and especially over their resources, not rhetorics over their resources that get to be attacked. So let's come back to Libya. We were told that we love Libya so much that we were going to bomb democracy into them, that we're going to save them from the dictator. And then what happened? Libya was destroyed. One of the countries, maybe even the most prosperous country in Africa in terms of GDP, but also quality of life, was destroyed. Its long-term leader was killed, like sodomized on camera. And the project, by the time Gaddafi was overthrown, Libya had over $200 billion investment in Africa. The transformation of the Organization of African Unity to the African Union was Gaddafi's idea. So Gaddafi had moved his political life in three different orientations. He started as a Nazarist, which was like a Pan-Arabic idea in terms of uniting North Africa and the rest of the Arab world in the Middle East or West Asia. And then after NASA basically got out of the scene, then he decided to look internally inwards and he turned towards an Islamic socialist ideology based on the green card. And then he tried to fund revolutions or armed conflict across the continent in order to be able to combat the Americans or Western imperialist powers and stuff. And when that didn't work, Gaddafi ended up his life as a committed pan-Africanist. And this is something I won't lose sight of. He was the one now who was basically talking about, maybe we should have a single currency. Maybe we should have a single army in terms of defense. Maybe we should coordinate our trade and infrastructure policy. And he was not just saying this. He was actually putting his resources... to some of this project. By the time he died, Libya had over 200 billion investment. There is this a doctoral candidate who is actually doing his PhD dissertation on the question of the wage bill in Libya, post Gaddafi and pre Gaddafi. Africa basically has disappeared from that project. I mean, Libya has become, I don't like using this term, but Libya has become a failed state. So we have to understand it that way. And why is Libya important? Let me come back to this. It's not just because of the Pan-African vision of Gaddafi. And you could fault Gaddafi and say, oh, he was a dictator. He was just trying to think of different ways of actually integrating himself in Africa. Or you could like the message and say you hate the messenger. Again, I'm not here to argue about that, but just to say that the overthrow of Gaddafi to get rid of him was a big setback for the vision that he had for Africa because he was doing all of this investment and stuff, right? But why is Libya important? Because Libya was really the place where the Western, the Americans and the Western powers, but especially the Americans, were able to renegotiate a hegemonic crisis. This is significant. So what do I mean? The Arab Spring, after the 2008 financial crisis. So they have been telling us from the 1980s that neoliberalism is the way to go. Neoliberalism decimated our economies, our countries. In Africa, there were civil wars everywhere. But when the story is told, it's always because of dictators and all of this. Again, I'm not going to go into that. But then 2008, that system of crisis displacement and the crisis that it generated affected the West itself. I mean, we saw Greece, for instance, how that really decimated Greece and all of this, right? And so coming out of that, it manifested itself. This is why I always say every form of crisis localizes grievance, especially in Africa or in marginalized societies. There is this tendency of trying to battle the catastrophic consequences of global political economy and the violence that it displaces through lateral violence and localized grievance. So Even though the crises in the Middle East, in North Africa and the Middle East, and also other parts of the world, in Africa and all of that, were really tied to the nature of economic infrastructure and ideology and the violence that it displaces in these societies. It always manifests itself locally through localized violence. So when the so-called Arab Spring started in 2010, beginning with Tunisia, then it goes to Egypt. And the entire, from North Africa to the Middle East, you started seeing tendencies of this hegemonic dismantling or a crisis, at least in American hegemony in this region. Libya presented an opportunity to renegotiate that crisis and turn it into strength. What do I mean? So the Americans and the British and everybody came in and said, well, even though Western power is winning, and especially American power, because Hosni Mubarak, I mean, basically, like, it was... a friend of the U.S. If you take Tunisia, I mean, Ben Ali, the French foreign minister was vacationing in Carthage whilst those kids were confronting the Tunisian police on the streets of Tunis. So the issue here is now the Western governments, they were in with these guys. Until those stone-throwing kids in Tunisia overthrew their government, the government fell, then everybody started taking notice. Then it went to Egypt, of course, we saw Tahrir Square. And so it means that there was a potential of sweeping off that region. of American influence, because that was the governments that were basically in bed with the Americans who were now coming under crisis. And Libya provided an opportunity to negotiate that crisis of hegemony. And here is the point. When Gaddafi was actually saying that it was al-Qaeda elements that were responsible for the virus, I mean, we saw the same thing in Iran. where now everybody was like, oh, the Iranian government is so brutal. They are killing people on the streets, protesters. I'm not saying that there were no genuine legitimate protests, but the American president has said, we send them arms. You know, so that's what happened in Libya as well, right? And when Gaddafi was saying, oh, it's al-Qaeda elements, everybody was like, oh, you are just lying and stuff. Until later, it became clear that these guys, what they actually did was they were the ones who, they didn't even just train and arm those rebels. They actually also engaged in a savage violence of bombing Libya. to the Stone Age. And when Gaddafi, like imagine the African Union had a delegation and they said, we are going to talk to Gaddafi and put in place a peace plan where he will accept to step down and democratize the country. What did the so-called international community tell African head of state? If you decide to go to Libya, we won't guarantee your freedom and your safety. Just think of that. They are telling Africa, something is happening in Africa. The African Union is the primary continental organization that says we want to intervene in this problem and to stop bloodshed. They were like, if you decide to go, we won't guarantee your safety. So they stayed. Whenever the African leaders would come up with a plan and say, they were like, oh, well, you are Gaddafi's lackeys. He's been giving you all of money. So you do not have an independent perspective in this issue anyway. So they bombed Gaddafi's convoy. He was basically trying to leave. They bombed his convoy, the rebels' convoy. arrested him, sodomized him on camera and killed him. We saw this. His dream for Africa, whether you like him or not, that is verifiable. His dream for Africa was put to the sideline and Libya was destroyed. Okay, let me try and end this. Yeah.

Speaker 2: No, no, no.

Zubairu Wai: Let me try and just conclude this. The significance of Libya then is that after Libya, because the French, sorry, the Russians and the Chinese had been promised at the United Nations that we just want to establish like a no-fly zone to protect civilians. So they abstained from the UN resolution, 1971, I think. And then what happened? The Americans and the EU and NATO Turned that into a regime change operation where they destroyed the infrastructure of Libya and turned everything. So the Chinese and the Russians were actually very, very angry about what happened in Libya. Everything else that followed suit and the way in which they have been carrying themselves. When the same thing repeated itself in Syria, what did Russia do? 2015, Russia basically intervened. But it's not just that, because it happened first in Ukraine. And the Russians were like, oh, you have supported a coup. And there are, I mean, Viktor Nuland is on tape. I'm not saying that the Ukrainians did not have genuine grievances against Viktor Yanukovych and all of this. But always, we are never allowed to solve our own problems. Never. There is always somebody else who has their own ideological and geopolitical interests that always intervene. So even when there is the possibility of solving the problem, if that solution does not reinforce their own interests, it's always. So the significance of Libya then is that that moment, which was supposed to be hegemonic unraveling, Libya allowed it to then was manipulated and it become a moment of hegemonic rearticulation. Unfortunately, the very moment of hegemonic rearticulation created a global crisis that is now playing itself out in different ways. To the point that some people have started talking now about we are living on the cusps of the emergence of a multipolar world order. And I think anybody who really wants to understand that has to pay attention to what happened in Libya. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: And I appreciate you bringing in Syria, Ukraine. And even more recently, when we saw China and Russia not just abstaining, but vetoing the Bahraini-led resolution for even though the language was watered down to say defensive measures of the Strait of Hormuz, China explicitly said, the ambassador to the UN explicitly said that we have seen this language be used for offensive actions and regime change operations. So we're going to veto this. And I can't help but see a long history of that being connected to Libya. Right. So my follow up then is you've mentioned quite specifically Gaddafi's pan-Africanist vision. Right. And you mentioned a single currency. You mentioned national sovereignty. You mentioned a unitary army. You mentioned trade relations. Right. All of these seem very materialist, right? And this is probably a, perhaps, no, this is a definition of Pahit Africanism that we operate. But what's interesting, and I know this is quite, this is in your upcoming book, which I had the pleasure of going through, you have a periodization of like anti-colonial, post-colonial, decolonial. What you seem to be saying with Gaddafi's project seems to be more in line with the anti-colonial moment as opposed to the post-colonial and de-colonial. Do you mind perhaps going through, maybe as much as you can, as much time as permits as well, going through this periodization of the ways in which decolonization have been spoken about as it pertains to the continent?

Zubairu Wai: Okay, so if you go back, we are now living in a moment, of course, that is known as the decolonial term, right? Everybody's talking about decolonize this, decolonize that, right? But the thing is that normally the way in which this decolonization or decolonial sensibilities are spoken about is And there is either a trans-historical vision in which they try to collapse in the period of Bandung to the current moment, or they just say, oh, like, for instance, in the case of Africa, there is this very confused way of thinking about decolonization. The anti-colonial struggle gets folded in with the current moment of decoloniality without taking any responsibility of trying to actually show that these are completely different moments. Now, that does not mean that the questions that animate these processes are not similar. Of course, the question of colonial transcendence, how do you transcend the legacies of colonialism and its structures? How do you transcend not only its economic structures and the infrastructure of exploitation and dehumanization, but also what are even the frames, the ideological position or epistemic in terms of knowledge? What kind of knowledge would you need for this? So the Latin Americans, especially like Nelson Maldonado Torres, basically is like, oh, there is a decolonial tone. I think Ramon Grosfugo also talks of a decolonial tone. Basically, we are now in a place where this question of decoloniality or the colonial question and its transcendence has come back. But on the menu or on the table of political organizations, social organizations, but also in the academy in terms of the kinds of knowledge that we produce and all of that. That is fine. The problem is Nelson, for instance, goes to Du Bois and says the color line, that moment that Du Bois was proclaiming the color line as a fundamental problem of the world was the moment of the beginning of the decolonial talk. and so and then but he says but the colonial term as it manifests itself today basically then says coloniality that is basically the succeeding structures and and mentalities and hierarchies that have been constructed by colonialism continue to inform the way in which contemporary social post-colonial processes and even the globe continues to be organized right So the thing then is that colonialism may have ended in its formal sense in many places in the world, even though when you look at the violence and the dehumanizing violence in Gaza and Palestine, for instance, you realize that no, colonialism is not a thing of the past. It's actually the colonial mentality is very present in the way in which the world functions. But so for them, basically, whatever happened, whether it was Bandung, whether it was to go to Du Bois or whether it's to take Minolo, all of them operate in this decolonial zone. I have a problem with that because I think there is a trans-historical obfuscation that is taking place where we are trying to say that, oh, we all just be involved in this colonial question as if there are no ideological and temporal differences between these projects. So on the one hand, for me, the decolonial term is the current moment that tries to go back to resurrect the questions about decolonization, which the Bandon Project in the 1950s and 60s put on the table. And for you to be able to understand the present moment, I believe that there are three areas or three moments that have come in the so-called third world intellectual or political landscape. And the first was the anti-colonial movement. The anti-colonial movement basically going against colonialism and trying to transform with national sovereignty. But it's not only national sovereignty. It was also at, what's her name, Adam Getachew, like recently theorized that It was a world making. Basically, we are trying to dismantle the structures of the world that you have created based on colonizing logics to build a solidarity politics that allows us to breed and create an alternative future that is not based on these colonial logics. But it was a materialist project. It was a sovereignist project. It was also cultural. I mean, if you take, for instance, Sekou Touré's Guinea, some of the cultural production during that period, taking pride in Guinean culture, in national culture, right? But it was also epistemic, but epistemic in the sense that we have to go back to our local traditions to see what is there that works for us, that allow us to be able to organize this kind of world-making vision that we have. So it was not just materialist. It was epistemic. If you ask me, the anticolonial period is probably the most complete in terms of the vision. If you read Frantz Fanon, for instance, all of those elements are present. Fanon did not pay too much attention to culture, but he did pay attention to the matter. In fact, when Fanon talks about creating the new human, colonialism and decolonization is that basically you create a new society, you create a new human that takes all of those elements into being. Kwame Nkrumah, one of the foremost theorists of decolonization in Africa, actually had a very explicit view epistemic dimension to his understanding of. So for him, it was pan-Africanism. It's not just the dismantling of colonial structures, but the total unification of Africa under one government. But to be able to do that, conscientism, which is like basically an ideology or a philosophy of decolonization, also says we have to marry local traditions to bring out the African personality with whatever it is that exists. So the economic, the political, the sovereignty, and continental unity, it was present in that sense, right? The second phase was... The post-colonial period, when the crisis in global development, and in this case we're talking about Africa, African development in the 70s and early 80s, when that crisis started manifesting itself, it coincided with the neoliberal ascendancy, which itself emerged from a crisis of over-accumulation in the West. It was a global economic crisis now known as stagflation. And the Western capitalist countries and the powerful class formations within those societies were also trying to not only displace that crisis onto their working classes, but also globally onto developing countries. We know the story of neoliberalism. But this coincided also with the textual tone, with the cultural tone, where cultural studies, but also everything about post-structuralism and post-modernism emerged with a different kind of questioning modernity and the stability, stable conceptions of politics, of nations, and all of this. I am not saying that neoliberalism and post-structuralism bedfellows in the sense that one has a causal relationship with the other, but they reinforce each other. Because if neoliberalism is saying, your governments have failed, your economies have failed because... You have mismanaged yourself. The nation state is inadequate to bring in development. And then there is a critique also of the nation state project in post-colonial or post-structuralist. Then it reinforces the neoliberal argument. Basically, the state does not need to do anything anymore. Here is the point, right? In fact, in the 60s at independence, the state was known as the primary institution for pursuing national development. Even in the West. So you had, for lack of, not to be, to like give or take, the developmental state was in the developing countries and the welfare state was in the advanced capitalist countries. But Keynesian economics was the basis on which they functioned. And the welfare state basically understood that you can't let capitalism just go amok. But there has to be actually a class compromise between labor and capital. And then labor unions were allowed to form in which through taxation and tax policy, the government also intervened to provide social welfare provisioning for their citizens and all of that. When the crisis happened, started from stagflation from the late 60s, The wealthy classes who wanted out of this class compromise started blaming labor as being responsible. And they were like, oh, capital can't grow anymore. Oh, the government has invested too much. The government should not be involved in. There's too much non-discretionary spending in government. There is too much money flow. And all of this, this is what they were saying, right? So they were running against their own working class populations at the same time constructing a global project that was also going against the global south and any country that had a particular kind of ideology that had national redistributive politics. So the thing then is that when neoliberalism was going against these countries and saying it is the structure of the state and the policies that you undertake that is responsible for the problem, post-structuralism and post-modern interventions also were questioning any possibility of stable conceptions of government and identity. Identity is fluid, and that's why we discovered all of this hybridity and metisization and all of this, right, in a very particular way. So post-colonial theory then emerged and displaced Marxist-inspired theories like world systems and independencia out of the way and then assumed the mantle of radical critique. But the critique about post-colonial theory is that it is incapable of actually fashioning the kind of politics that the anti-colonial movements had been based on. Building a state because they were criticizing the state. Or it's the failures of the state. It's because of A, B, C. They were mimicking the Western state. There are all of these critiques imposed. So that's the second period. The fourth period, the anti-colonial period. The second period then, post-colonial challenges then got diverted into textual activism. It got diverted into not the material aspect was displaced. The stable conceptions of politics and identity that is necessary for staging any form of oppositional politics was displaced. I mean, Homi Bhabha even says that resistance cannot be reduced to every act of oppositional act of political intention. It has to be based on the ambivalence that emerges within the structure of colonial discourse. And therefore, the implication of that is, if you are saying, oh, is there ambivalence? Then the resistance is already present, whether you act or not. And if that is the case, then you don't need to engage in any anti-colonial struggle because the system itself already would destroy itself. This is why Spiva at some point when basically was like, no, we need strategic essentialism. We need to be able to have movement. She will call it a shifting base, but we still need to be able to articulate a politics at some point that we are able to stand on a solid ground, even though that ground is moving. Because the idea then was that every form of politics was impossible when it was not based on the hybrid or metisization or something of that nature. And it is precisely, so that's the second moment. The first moment, anti-colonial, is very clear. We know what politics is. We know what decolonization is. We know what the state is. We know all of this. The second, no, we don't know. All of this are shifting. And the decolonial moment, what I now understand as the decolonial moment, is then the return of that anti-colonial politics to say, no, it is actually possible to have a stable conception of politics, a stable identity. But the problem is they emptied it of its materialist content and it just becomes cultural politics. and epistemic. So that is the problem. So then in the current moment, the only thing that when we hear about decolonization, it's not the fact that we have to fight the imperialist structures that exist. It's just about, oh, I'm culture. Oh, it's about epistemic. How do you produce knowledge about yourself? The point though is that neoliberalism actually likes difference. Have you gone to the grocery store and seen halal section and the chickens and meat section? Neoliberalism like difference because it targets those populations that are different because that's how it is also able to expand capitalist consumerism. Oh, we could all consume as long as you are a consumerist. So decolonization without a grounded radical politics of materiality and sovereignty leads to the same liberal multicultural politics of inclusivity. And that is the problem. And I'll end on this. Fanon in Blasking White Mask It's like the people of Indochina are not fighting because they have discovered a politics of culture of their own. He's actually doing this in response to negritude, right? They are not doing it. They are fighting because for more than one reason, They can't breathe. They have found it impossible to breathe. The colonial system is standing on their necks. They can't breathe. That's why they are fighting. And I'll end on this. Take China. Why we don't like China? Why we don't like Iran or Venezuela under Maldoro or Chavez? It's precisely because these are countries that are very, very, they advance a politics of national sovereignty that is based on the protection of their resources. but it's also a very materialist project. So if you take China, everywhere in North America that you go, there is a Chinese restaurant. So Chinese culture is not the problem. The problem that people have with China, it's because China has been able to advance its material basis and productive forces, marshal it in a way that it is now at the cusp of becoming the main global power, a global hegemon. And that is what people are scared of. So when we're thinking about, to end this long explanation, when we're thinking about the anti-colonial period to the period of decolonization, there are three, for me, there are three different moments that we have to consider. The anti-colonial moment, the sovereignty, independence, state sovereignty development, but it was also materialist and cultural. The post-colonial moment that basically went against that and said we don't need any of those things and reduced everything to textual activism and even laced in colonizing societies into colonizing structures. And then finally, the decolonial moment that rejects post-colonialism but keeps its textual and epistemic sensibilities, right? And finally, if we are talking about pan-Africanism within this context, a pan-African vision always has to be based on, has to return to that first moment, the ideological, the political, the sovereigntist sensibilities of anti-colonial rising.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that elaborate answer. Christian?

Christian Joseph: Yeah, I guess as you're laying out that history, kind of arriving at where we're at now, I guess in order to properly revive that sovereignist politics, you know, that materialist tradition, what do you think some of the tools to do that are? I think of the recent, there's a recent UN resolution, you know, acknowledging trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. a continuation of the work done in Durban for the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, where the transatlantic slave trade was declared a crime against humanity whose roots were economic. And this recent resolution was voted on at the UN, and only there were three countries that voted against it, United States, Israel, and Argentina. While most European countries abstained, and all of Africa and Asia voted for it. And I guess the point that was made was structurally, you know, it was acknowledged that slavery laid the basis or foundation for the modern world, and it laid out that history. But I guess I wonder, you know, what do you think of that resolution? What do you think of the U.N.? or some of these different, you know, supranational organizing bodies as tools to realize this sovereignty-centered materialist politic you speak of?

Zubairu Wai: I mean, it's kind of, I think, I have, I'm on two minds on that resolution, because I think we need reparation. We need to recognize Atlantic slavery as... a crime against humanity. I don't know why it has to take so long for us to even consider that. So that's not even something that I... But at the same time, the Ghanaian government, Mahama, he considers himself an incrementalist. The Ghanaian government that led this resolution is the same Ghanaian government that is hosting a U.S. base. Or at least it's in conversation. No, there is a U.S. base there. And actually, there were people like, OK, can you actually try to clarify what the nature of this base is?

Speaker 2: Sorry, Uncle, just to add as well, recently Ghana, I think around the same time as the resolution, they signed a new security pact with the EU.

Zubairu Wai: That's exactly. So again, and Mahama, he will say, oh, the base, I didn't bring the base, the base was there and all of that, right? But the point that I'm making is that if Ghana is leading this so this goes back to the rhetoric of liberation versus the actual pan-african project what exactly does it mean right so so the question then is that what do we because i don't want to dwell on that it's very the the contradiction between the action of muhammad It just speaks to itself. But that's a contradiction that we have across the continent. On the one hand, we are speaking pan-Africanism and radical sovereignty. And on the other hand, we are hosting bases and going to all of the shady agreements with the governments that we know do not like us and that we know could only use us. They are only creating this basis in order to be able to surveillance us. And eventually, what the U.S. has been doing, they have actually been circling. They have been circling China in Africa. Wherever China is bringing has a good infrastructure development, the U.S. is creating military bases because they know that eventually the U.S. has a declining power. It has not declined yet. to the point where it is on life support. No, it's not on life support yet, but you could tell that it is a wobbly power right now. And that's why it is lashing out in order to be able to reinforce its dominance. And it does that, historically, it has done that two ways. One, It's basically its military might. And two, it's its economic might. Although there is also a third aspect that we don't really talk about that much, which is like the very aspect of enslavement, which is a historical wrong against Africans. It's also one of the cultural assets of the United States because all of its pop culture, the people that we see and all of that. I remember when I was growing up in Sierra Leone, I was little, when Trilla, Michael Jackson's Trilla came out. All of us wanted a Trilla jacket. So the U.S. culture, popular culture and the way it produces it and exports it to the world is also one of its cultural exports. And that makes, at least in relation to Africa, when we see Black people who may not have the same kind of politics that we have, but we just limit it to seeing, oh my God, they are like us. Then you want to engage with it. You want to copy them and all of that. That's how the U.S., but basically military. And the military in Africa, the U.S. is not keeping a military there just because it wants to save Africa. I don't know of any country that the U.S. has gone to that has been stabilized, but they keep there because eventually when they get to their interest, they will protect it militarily. And they have been circling China. Wherever China has economic relations, the U.S. will station troops a military nearby, a base nearby in order to... And that was one of the reasons Gaddafi was overthrown, actually. Gaddafi, when he was alive, no African country dared to accept to host the headquarters of AFRICOM. The moment he died... Every country was now like, oh, we could host it, we could host it. Because Gaddafi carried so much clout on the continent and he had so much resources that he was able to negotiate. If you wanted to host it, right? And so that is it. But so let's come back now to the question. The issue of Pan-Africanism cannot be reduced to just culture. It cannot be reduced to rhetoric, right? But how do we move then? Pan-Africanism, how do we make it operative rather than aspirational? How do we move beyond rhetoric and actually create an infrastructure of lived practices that manifest itself, not only in the way in which Africa and the diaspora, I mean, show up for each other, but the way in which even our governments function, right? And so the focus then should be on the shift from talking about unity as an idea and actually moving to the domain of unity as a system of practice, right? And so I would want to, before we start going into this, go back to Malcolm X. This is the Malcolm effect, right? So let's go to Malcolm X, even if briefly. We had noted in an earlier, in one of the two episodes that we did, Malcolm became dangerous. He was always dangerous, but the United States government and everybody saw him now as, okay, we have to get rid of this guy. when he transcended the limitation of his Black Muslim politics and actually started speaking about Afro-American unity and Pan-African unity. That's when he became dangerous. That's when they were like, we have to get rid of this guy. When he started talking about, it's like, if you are Christian or Muslim, it doesn't matter. As long as you are Black, the police will bust your head the same way. So let's forget about the petty differences that we have in terms of what denomination and actually come together As black people. So when he started talking like that, it was like, oh, he has found his calling. And then he started talking about pan-African unity. He came to Africa after, I mean, went to Ghana, like all of these places. Right. But then he's like, let's internationalize the struggle against racism and colonialism, racism in the United States and colonialism in Africa. That internationalization, those three strands, Afro-American unity, Pan-African unity, internationalization of the struggle was what made Malcolm dangerous. So in the United States, he framed it in terms of Afro-nationalism, but he was taking his inspiration from the continent. Say, look at Africa, what is happening? They were all under all forms of colonization, but when they were united to wage the anti-colonial struggle, irrespective of what ethnicity that you are or what religious denomination, they were able to win their independence. And so in the U.S., we also have to build Afro-nationalism and forget about the factional difference that exists, whether you are Muslim or Christian or Baptist or Methodist and stuff, right? And so in Malcolm then, we can't just look at Malcolm as a symbol, but we have to look at him as a strategist. He understood why he gets just towards, especially after he came back from Hajj, 1964, was an alignment, right? which basically was diplomatic, economic, ideological, and basically transnational. He understood that unity will not emerge spontaneously. It had to be organized across scales. It had to be organized locally. It has to be organized nationally. It has to be organized continentally, diasporically, and ultimately internationally. And if we are thinking of making pan-Africanism and everyday reality. That's how we have to consider it, right? So then the first step will be, we have to coordinate. I mean, first we have to win national sovereignty. It has to be ideological. So the anti-colonial struggle And the sovereignty project that it had has to be returned. But this time, the state cannot be stronger than the people. Even Nkrumah failed in that regard. But again, I understand. Because once you espouse... Once you espouse... a sovereignty politics, the gaze of the imperialists are going to be on your back. Nkrumah did not become dangerous. He was talking about pan-Africanism all the while. He was not dangerous. The moment neocolonialism came out, that's when the MI6 and the US was like, okay, let's kill him or let's get rid of him. There are actually debates between MI6 And the CIA, should we kill him or should we exile him? They were like, oh, well, the British actually did not underestimate Nkrumah. They were so afraid of him. They were like, let's kill him. Let's assassinate him when he's going, when he's entering the plane. The Americans were like, don't worry. When he's away, and they made sure that he was far away, where he wouldn't have been able to return in time to stop the coup, that... They struck. Why did they strike? Because he published neocolonialism. And part of it was that. Because that's when they said, okay, we can now deal with this guy. Because he understood. But even with Nkrumah, the state was stronger than the people. And I think it's not, we have to have a sovereignty state that protects itself ideologically and politically, that has a political project of making itself as the bulwark against imperialism. But at the same time, like Fanon taught us, it has to be a state that emerges in negotiation. We have to go to the countryside. Fanon, there are three major aspects of the revolutionary imperative, right? There is the urban imperative. in intelligentsia. There is the urban lumpen, which is the urban spearhead of the revolution. And then there is the rural peasantry. And we have to be able to have dialogue in terms of organizing and going in people's lives, make the Pan-African idea a governing ideology of African states and Black organizations in the diaspora. That's where it has to start. And then move that at the So, for instance, let's talk about concrete, right? What are the logistic corridors? How do we make, what are the payment systems? What are the industrial policies of coordination, for instance, right? Farmers in Accra are able to access goods that are produced in near and away Nigeria, for instance. Can somebody in Nairobi be able to move their goods easily across the border to Sierra Leone? Like what kind of infrastructure in terms of trade, in terms of politics, government coordination, but also locally in terms of what kind of politics is on the ground in terms of how the state is engaging with the constituent populations, the peasantry, the civic organizations in the city, the lumpen, who are like basically disenfranchised, living in the urban ghettos? What kind of politics? And then finally, there has to be an ideological and knowledge infrastructure, right? What kind of, how do we think about African history? What kind of knowledge are we, who produces knowledge about Africa? This is not, I think the colonial people, they get this question right. The only thing that is missing is that it's just like the knowledge who just gets you out of knoll. There has to be a concerted political project that is based on national sovereignty. The materialist question has to be central to it. Like Cabral taught us, do not think that people are fighting for what is in your head. They are really fighting to make sure that their lives go forward, right? And they're able to take care of their kids and live in peace and all of that. So the material structure. But the colonial people, the question, bringing back the knowledge question is important. But I don't think the knowledge question only has to be epistemic. It has to be ideological. What kind of ideology and the Pan-African ideology that is informing the kind of knowledge that we are producing, who is producing knowledge. And the problem with Africa actually is that we are never allowed to speak about ourselves. We are never allowed to speak about ourselves. Always, always there is some white guy sitting someplace who maybe has monies from... the State Department or the CIA, and they have all the resources in the world and they are interpreting our reality. And we have to struggle. And they control all of the journals, like all of this. And we have to play their game to produce knowledge based on the standards that they want to set and all of that. And this is why, for instance, after independence, the African University was significant. The fact that world systems theory came from Dar es Salaam, tells you that there was a lot of thinking that was taking place on the continent, that the continent has been capable. And if you read the pantheon of decolonizationist ideas that emerged during that period of the 60s up to the 80s, you'll be fascinated because the political leaders that we had were theorists in their own right. If you read Sekou Touré, for instance, he was writing about what later became known as dependencia in those times. This is why when people are like, oh, dependency is Latin America, I'm like a particular version of dependency is Latin America. Because Gondar Frank and Cardoso, they made it like they systematized it into a theory. But our logic or the theory of the structure of the global economy and how it was exploiting colonial, that's not one particular region. It was something that emerged spontaneously looking at different experiences that was going on in different places. And so in as much as we don't want to be too straitjacketed by a particular theory that does not allow us to look at the nuances that exist, but we have to go back, mix the epistemic question, the knowledge question with the ideological question, with the material question, with the sovereignty question. And then we try to see how that plays itself out as a governing ideology. and how it plays itself out in terms of actually how the government then relates to different populations and how those governments relate to each other in order to be able to create this pan-African vision. So there are multiple things, Christian, going back to your question to round up. The adoption of naming slavery as slavery A crime against humanity is not something that I am against. I think it's long overdue. But how is it being done? Is it just something, we're just seeing this in vacuum? Or are we, like, really going to have a politics? Like, is Mahama going to get rid of the British, sorry, the American base in Ghana? And can we have, I don't know. So that is where we are. It cannot be about symbolic gestures. It has to be real, concrete, political, material, ideological programming processes and practices in Africa and in the diaspora.

Speaker 2: Yes. Thank you. Go ahead, Christian.

Christian Joseph: Right, right. No, no, absolutely. I think it is something that has to be taken a step further. But I think the interesting part about it is to your point about who is, you know, contributing ideologically, who's establishing certain things epistemologically, and also who's writing certain histories is something as well. So I I guess I was also interested in that resolution in terms of the history that it establishes as a counter-narrative to prevailing histories about modernity. But I guess I wanted to really focus in on the question you had or the thing you raised about the relationship between the state and the masses of people. And you talked about Nkrumah and his project in Ghana. And I guess I wonder if you find that to be, you know, this idea of the state being dominant to the people, something particular to Ghana? Or is this something that has to be analyzed within the particular context of different state projects on the continent? So I guess, for example, I was watching a video recently of an interview of a farmer in Zimbabwe. talking of leading one of the land back processes and talking about how ZANU-PF kind of helped facilitate that. And so I guess I just, and to your point even earlier about Libya, and I think it's, you know, there's a lot of utility to be had about rebels carrying out his sodomization and killing. in terms of the legitimization of imperial violence has often rested on premise and argument that there is overt repression, dictatorial regime over said people. And so I guess I wonder about that. Yeah, when we talk about these new paradigms of the relationship between the state and the people, and we're talking about historically, are these different within different contexts? And are we even in the era? Because, right, a powerful state has its utility in terms of defending against imperialism.

Zubairu Wai: I mean, but this is the point, right? Like, take Cuba. Let's leave Africa for one minute. I mean, Cuba also is part of the Pan-African pantheon. had Castro not defeated the apartheid army at the Battle of Cuito Calavalle, one of the major defeats, basically the myth of apartheid invincibility was dealt a major blow at the Battle of Cuito Calavalle. And who were there? The Cubans, right? This is why when Mandela basically came to Castro, he's like, my president, before we say anything, when are you coming back? When are you coming to South Africa? Everybody who did not support us have been there. But you, who was very front and central in helping our struggle, have not visited. When Castro went, they were like, Castro. There are videos of that. You could see, right? But take Cuba. Has Cuba ever been able or allowed, not able, has ever been allowed to actually implant the vision, the revolutionary vision, to implement it and put it in practice the way it wanted. No, there has always been a blockade to the point that, but even then, Cuba was able to achieve mass literacy. Like basically, I mean, Cuba, export doctors whenever there is a crisis and stuff, even though there has been blockade. And this is whenever you come up with a project, you are never allowed when you come with a project that stands against expulses that are independent. Part of the problem that we have with Iran is basically that as well. Why can't you become one of us? It's like, no, we want to have a different way of existing, not fighting with anybody, but just let's have... And they were like, no, we can't have that. You are not allowed. They put sanctions on you. And sanctions have become like kind of a weapon that destroys so that the very project that you are putting into effect automatically is already delegitimated because it produces a particular... They never allow you to be able to do the things that you want to do, right? So that is one. The second thing is our societies, every society is fractured. Every society... Canada, for instance, there are different ideas that exist. There are different group populations. There are different ways. In the United States, every society is fractured. The problem that we have is that we are never allowed to develop a politics and a project that is able to resolve those contradictions because we always have to look behind our shoulders. There is always somebody willing to swoop in and kind of exploit those divisions that is the that is the problem so when you say oh well this person is a dictator well every society you have like for instance are cops not killing black kids on the street in the us do black people have the same relationship with the state of the united states with the United States and other groups. So every society has a fissures, right? But in our societies, we are never allowed to resolve the problem, the contradictions that exist in our societies, because there is always an external factor, the imperialistic factor that wants to control the situation and manipulate it into their own interest. And finally, on the question of the state, I still think that you need a strong state as a bulwark against Western imperialism. You need a strong state. The problem, though, is that sometimes because the state becomes strong and then you have an external faction of force that is trying to manipulate the divisions that exist. And so it is very easy for those kinds of states to also turn authoritarian. You are never allowed, right? Because now you have to, like, for instance, let's take Guinea under Sekou Touré. They were like, oh, Sekou Touré was a dictator and then he put people in prison. I mean, some of that was exaggerated after he died because the regime that took over wanted to legitimate themselves and said, oh, we needed to overthrow this bunch because this was what they were doing. I'm not saying that Sekou Touré did not jail people. He did. But why was he jailing people? Because, again, there was a particular... I mean, the Portuguese invaded Guinea. And it was also in collaboration with some of those people. So he became paranoid. And this is normally what happens. They make you become crazy. This is why Thomas Sankara, God bless his soul, when he was informed that they were your friend, he knew about the coup. And he was like, I am not going to start killing people for coups. Well, the first thing is that you don't betray friendship, which I think is a mistake. Yes, you don't have to betray friendship. So it's like, I'm not going to move first. If I start arresting him, people are going to blame me and say, oh, you betrayed your friend. He's my friend. I'm not going to move against him. But the second thing is that it's like, if I start arresting people for coups, I'll be paranoid. I'll never stop looking over my shoulder. But even with Sankara, as revolutionary as he was, there was a moment when the teachers went on strike. He was so frustrated with them that he decided in anger to sack all of the teachers. So there are moments like that. But does that take away from the politics of Sankara? No, because for him, it was like, oh, we are doing this together. Why are you guys now trying to create? And he was like, well, maybe the teacher union is in cahoots with foreign governments and all of that, right? So if you guys are not going to go to class, then this is the action that I'm going to take. Sometimes we have those, but some of it comes not because we just have dictators. Take Kwame Nkrumah. By the time Nkrumah was overthrown, there was a plot on his life almost every month to the point that his bodyguard, his number one aide, It had gotten to the point where they were like, you are the security for Nkrumah. You are the security. Why didn't you take that credit? It's like, oh, we have been informed that there was going to be a coup. But there have been so much coups that we decided that this one is just another rumor. And indeed, when he left, right? And so that's the point. So imperialism itself, and I'm not saying that you do not have those leaders who just want to be in control of everything. But I'm saying in every situation where there is a good leader that actually has a revolutionary program and wants to put in place a different alternative architecture of state. Sometimes the so-called authoritarian politics emerges precisely because of the target that is placed on your back. Now you have to look within your own society to arrest those. Let's take Iran. If somebody were to shoot the police dead on the streets in the US because they are protesting, what do you think will happen to them? But what people want, that 200 police officers are killed in Iran and there's no response, if anything, oh, the Iranian government is killing its own people. Well, now we know that the United States actually, the president of the United States said, we send them arms. Of course, we know this. I don't ever look at protests in our societies that turn violent out of just frustration or anger of people. There is always, especially when it is a society that has violence, a sovereignty mentality, there is always a foreign element attached to it. So it is a difficult thing. And this is why I was telling you earlier that Nkrumah's problem was he was trying to unify the continent from the top. The problem with that is that You have to do it in such a way that the system survives you. Like, let's go to the countryside. Let's build a revolutionary project that involves everyday people. Let those people be the bulwark against the external intervention. There will always going to be an imperialistic mark on our backs. how we counter. And they want to put the target on your back and they expect you to respond according to the parameters that they have set, which they themselves do not follow. That is the problem. So I'm not defending authoritarian governments, but as a political scientist and as a historian, I do know that For some of the situations on our continent, they actually emerge out of the crisis and the manipulation of the divisions that exist in our societies from outside. And then that makes the government then become very paranoid and then they go into this authoritarian mode. and mind what that later end up manifesting itself in our societies. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: So recently, the Western media got their hair in a twist when Ibrahim Torore said, we have to wait for democracy. The plan is not democracy right now. And again, we have to, again, he's also saying that we are in a revolutionary phase of development before we can think about democracy. So I want to kind of get your thoughts on that statement and perhaps a bit more of your thoughts on what you're thinking of the alliance of Sahelian states.

Zubairu Wai: What state has ever developed as a democracy? Facts. What state? guys are talking, okay, South Korea is the one that they like to, South Korea has the dictatorship that actually laid the foundation of the, like, what are people talking about? Again, I'm not saying that we should throw away democracy, right? But what kind of democracy, even liberal democracy is just an instrument that gives you a procedural form of, I mean, these guys, I was just listening to Gagame, and he's like, these same people who want to teach us democracy will come and say, this person and this person are not qualified to be president. So what democracy are you talking about? I'm not saying that Tuareg is right or wrong. I don't care about, but when people get in their feelings, and I'll end on this. In Sierra Leone, we had one party state from 1978 up to 1992 when that government was overthrown. During the one-party state, Shaka Stevens, who had led the government for like 16, 17 years, decided that he was going to retire. And so he handpicked the head of the army to succeed him. And they had to go through, he resigned from the army, and then he became a civilian, and then they elected him through the party structures, and he became the sole candidate and stuff. I was a kid when Joseph Momo, this process was unfolding. I understand it now, but I didn't understand it then. But I still remember the excitement in the country about this guy. Imagine the excitement about a Trump talk process. They are taking the military, somebody from the military, and making him head of state. And everybody was excited because the issue in Sierra Leone was not about the form of government that you have. It was whether... People were able to feed their kids. Again, Cabral's injunction. Are we going to have living wages? Is the economic problem going to disappear? Are you going to make life livable for us? They were excited that because it's a military person and he is disciplined, then he probably basically will be able to change that. Six months later, after he took over, the economy crashed and all of this, and people started making fun of him and they wanted him out. 92, the military who are fighting a civil war started in 91 and 92. Those fighting the civil war in the front came to Freetown and overthrew his government. You will have loved to see people on the streets of Freetown dancing for the military. These are young boys. Strasser was 26 when he was head of state. And everybody, when a democratization process was on, they suspended it. Nobody complained. They were like, we don't care about that. We want somebody that will end the war and you guys, right? It's people only started talking about, let's go back to democracy when the military also failed to deliver on their economic and whatever security promises that they had made. The point here is that most of the time they talk about democracy or the way liberal democracy, I'm not saying it's not useful, but most of the time people only put their faith in liberal democracy because they think that it is going to bring the kind of material changes in their lives. And I'm speaking here at least from the perspective of what I know. So the issue here is that for me, personally in Africa, we have to, and this is the point that I was making, we are never allowed to be able to design systems of government. We're never allowed to experiment a field. We are never, like all of this, right? Because there is always somebody from the back who is telling us, this is what you do, this is what you don't do. But I think if we are allowed to deal with the internal contradictions that exist in our own society, South Korea eventually became a democracy and has become one of the most stable democracies in Asia. But that's because there was a level of economic development that society had experienced under the military dictatorship of Park. And then finally, by 1990, that's when South Korea and Taiwan and all of these places were getting democracies. I'm not saying that therefore there has to be authoritarian. No, I'm saying that there has to be a level of economic process. And in every state, the thing that works for them, that will be able to actually respect the lives of people and put food on their table. Like Cabral said, make their kids live in peace and all of that. That, for me, a government that is attuned to the expectations and the wishes of the people is more important to me than a facile democracy that serves as basically the staging post of imperialist exploitation of the societies.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Great. And until next time, everyone, take good care. Thank you.

Zubairu Wai: Okay. Take care. Bye.