Norris McDonald | Faye, Senegal and France’s vicious cycle of oppression
Published:Wednesday | April 3, 2024 | 12:06 AM
“We want France to leave us alone!”
“Africa belongs to African,” Senegal’s President Diomaye Faye said, as he basked in his recent earth-shattering triumph over the corrupt, Western-backed Macky Sall government.
Bassirou Faye is Africa’s youngest president. He is a Muslim and practising polygamist who will have two first ladies in the presidential palace.
During the presidential campaign both his politically active wives were by his side.
MORAL AND POLITICAL DILEMMA
This is clearly a revolutionary change in the cultural and religious dynamics that further challenge the imposition of the norms, values and other aspects of the Western way of live.
But it is not just in terms of political culture that President Faye represents a break with the past. His political economic doctrine appears to be along the lines of the same radical Pan-Africanism that we have seen in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.
President Faye now joins the rank of emerging radical Pan-African social revolutionaries who seek to break with Africa’s colonial past.
But unlike the leaders of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali, he thinks it’s possible to bring about progressive changes, while remaining a member of ECOWAS.
In outlining his future in a post-election speech, President Faye has said that “he will do all in his powers to get Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali to return to the ECOWAS”.
This may pose challenges for him in the future.
Why do I say this?
President Faye may be making the same mistake as many other Black predecessors, who assume that they will be treated as equals in the white Anglo-Saxon world.
While it may appear to him as an ideal dream to bring the disunited West African countries back together, the question is this: Is it easier to be united on the international plantation under some imperial overlord, or is it better to escape and find your own existence?
This is a serious moral and political dilemma facing President Faye.
The problem is that ECOWAS, acting as the political stooge for foreign powers, worsened political, economic and military tensions in West Africa. This now makes it appear impossible for countries who desire their political economic independence to trust the bloc.
President Faye may run the risk, in my opinion, of making the same mistake as his predecessor Leopold Senghor.
Senghor became so imbued as a Francophile that he assumed that he could build his ‘African Socialism’ – and this would be acceptable – within the domain of the French empire in Africa.
Africa still bears the scars of political murders of African leaders who did not suck up to the ‘gods on earth’ in the Western imperialist world and sought to forge a new path for the people.
FRANCE’S VICIOUS CYCLE OF OPPRESSION
Senegal is a heavily indebted West African country with an extreme form of poverty, low life expectancy at birth, poor educational, and inhumane forms of social existence.
Despite years of being dominated by France, the poverty-stricken Senegal appears to have been left behind in the evolution of modern society.
Just over 50 per cent of the population are regarded as literate, the economic data site Macrotrends reports. This sad fact plays out in what the World Bank says is the prevalence of “low productivity” and “limited human capital”.
Senegal’s lack of social, cultural and economic development must be seen in the context of the viciousness of French imperialist and neocolonial dominance over West Africa.
As President Bassirou Diomaye Faye explains: “Centuries of misery have led to untold suffering for our people.” It is therefore time, he said, “to put an end to this circle of oppression”.
This vicious ‘circle of oppression’ can be explained by the extremely high rate of money movements out of Africa to France, and elsewhere, which is then replaced by economic debt slavery.
France plundered Senegal and West Africa with the use of the West African CFA franc and the colonial tax. Both political economic devices were used to extract the very lifeblood out of Black African labour.
Over US$500 billion has been sucked out of West Africa by France under the French colonial tax imposed on Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.
Under this West African CFA franc monetary regime, the former French colonies ended up paying up to 80 per cent of their national income to the French Central Bank.
France then used this money to make exorbitant profits on the capitalist world money market.
Haiti, too, suffered the same fate, whereby, in today’s money, they paid over US$30 billion to France as colonial indemnity for their political independence.
SENEGAL’S FUTURE CHALLENGES
My dear friends, given this political reality, we can only hope that President Faye succeeds.
But I believe it may be extremely political naïve for him to plan a radical programme of social transformation, while, at the same time, expecting that this is possible within the reactionary Western-supported ECOWAS bloc.
If he thinks that he can drag Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger back onto the imperialist plantation and everyone sing Kumbaya, then it is clear, in my opinion, that he has not fully thought out the political consequences and risks he will face.
Do you really believe that the Western powers will not give him a political fight, as they have done to all social reformers?
What do you think?
Senegal is now poised to potentially free her people from the destructive legacies of French neocolonialism. This is the political mandate President Faye campaigned on and was given a landslide victory.
His political fight and challenges may well become extremely difficult.
One cannot rule out the risks of political sabotage from France, America and ECOWAS.
President Faye’s best chance to bring political transformation to Senegal, in my opinion, may be to break with ECOWAS and join Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as a member of the new progressive Alliance of Sahel States.
That is just the ‘bitta’ truth!
- Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.