A wave of anti-imperialist sentiment is spreading across Africa as countries across the continent reject Western influence.
The latest indication of the trend came Thursday when US officials revealed the country would withdraw troops stationed in the northern African country of Chad. The transitional government there had called for the United States to end its military presence in the nation for some time, although US officials attempted to maintain troops there under the pretense of counterterrorism cooperation.
The Biden administration finally agreed to comply with the country’s request, hoping to revisit the issue after the country’s upcoming presidential elections early next month.
This week also brought news that the United States would be pulling troops out of the neighboring country of Niger, weeks after the government there had made similar requests. The US was thought to be even more reluctant to draw down there given the country has invested significant amounts of resources towards military and surveillance installations in Niger.
But the country’s government insisted on the United States’ exit while also expelling French troops, which historically held Niger as a colony.
“It’s, I think, a very positive move that countries are finally beginning to tell the United States they have to leave, they don't belong there anymore, they're not wanted, they're not needed there, and, to go,” said journalist Robert Fantina on Sputnik’s Political Misfits program Friday.
“When the United States and France... come in and say, ‘we're going to hire your people as we extract natural resources from your country,’ they have learned at this point that they'll get basically slave wages while people far away from them enrich themselves,” he added.
The United States has recently accused China of “debt trap diplomacy” as the country expands its economic influence across the world and throughout Africa, in particular. Former Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the Trump administration frequently employed the term against China, claiming Beijing locks African countries into unpayable loans.
China has rejected the charge, and African countries have increasingly strengthened ties with Beijing, seeing the rising world power as a model nation able to lift itself up from poverty. “We are inspired by China’s common prosperity strategy, and are encouraged that this includes improving the welfare and well-being of all countries of the Global South,” said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2023.
Several countries have come to view US warnings about China as a case of projection, seeing the country’s influence through institutions such as the IMF and World Bank as a continuation of historical patterns of colonial domination. Ghana’s former President Kwame Nkrumah coined the term “neocolonialsm” to describe the phenomenon, which was also cited by Burkino Faso's revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara.
“Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory,” said the former leader. “Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms: a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.”
Sankara’s influence has enjoyed a revival recently in both Burkina Faso and throughout the African continent. South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party has grown in prominence in recent years, citing Sankara as a primary influence.
“It's hard to talk about counterterrorism in the context of the United States since the United States is the largest terrorist organization in the world due to its constant overthrowing of governments, its bombing of countries and cities, its repression of people everywhere,” insisted Fantina.
“We have to look at who the terrorists in Africa have been,” he added. “It's been the United States, the French, and others who exploit the people horrifically and have for decades and decades.”
Namibia’s president underscored the point recently, issuing a scathing statement against Germany for its lockstep support of Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip. The country suggested Germany, and by extension the rest of the Western world, have yet to reflect on their destructive colonial legacy as they continue to exert influence around the globe.
“Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza,” read the statement. “Germany publicly took sides in the ICJ case with Israel on January 12, which marks 120 years of the beginning of what many Namibians call the German-Namibian war, which then resulted in the first genocide of the 20th century,” said Henning Melber from Nordic Africa Institute in Sweden.
“While Germany scored a lot of good points internationally in the way it engaged with the mass destruction of the Holocaust, it was in denial of the genocide committed [with Namibia] until 2015,” Melber emphasized.