Disagreeing With Samir on Mali

Samir's Amin has come out with a defence of French intervention in Mali, which has surprised many of his admirers and friends.

Samir is a thinker I deeply respect and therefore any disagreement with his views must take into account why he has reacted so differently to France's Mali intervention than in the earlier one in Libya.

His response to the French intervention is not so much that the Islamists in Mali were running a brutal and a thuggish rule and the need for a humanitarian intervention, but the French intervention marks a split between the French and the US-led block of imperialism and Islamists. Samir also hopes that as a corollary, France will break with the NATO-Islamist alliance that is currently fighting the Bashr al-Assad government in Syria.

Samir states, “Nor should we be astonished that the “allies of France” – the United States, Great Britain, Germany, not to mention Saudi Arabia and Qatar – are in reality hostile to this intervention, which they only barely accepted because they were confronted with a fait accompli – F. Hollande’s decision.”

Unfortunately for Samir and his thesis of a break within the imperialist block, the US Vice-President Joe Biden has already congratulated Hollande on France's initiative in Mali, making clear that in French Africa, France will henceforth be the leader of the NATO forces. This is in line with the US position in Libya, where also it played a supporting role to Sarkozy and France.

I am not going to take the position that under no circumstances should external forces ever intervene in another country. Under exceptional circumstances, such an intervention may be necessary. It may also be that France and the US – with the World Bank and the IMF support – having systematically weakened all the newly independent countries of the region, Mali had no other option but calling in the French. But then let us call it for what it is – a lesser of the two evils and demand a quick exit of France from Mali once order is restored. To see in it a beginning of France playing a completely different role than it has played in Africa so far is to create a myth of inter imperialist contradiction where none exists. Or none that we can see.

The key issue on which Samir has staked his considerable reputation is that the US and the Islamists want to revive France's old imperial dream of a Sahelistan – a large desert region with very sparse population and rich mineral resources. The Islamists would be given a free reign here as long as they remain true to their masters interests – handing over the region's resources. This is the kind of alliance that imperial powers have built with the Gulf monarchies. According to Samir, the French intervention in Mali is as much against this plan of a Sahelistan, even though he concedes that France has its own imperial interests to defend in French Africa.

It is difficult to read such a discontinuity in France's imperial policies in Mali. Social democracy in France has been very much a part of the colonial and neo-colonial projects in Africa. It intervened in Cot d'Ivoire to “select” who had won the elections there. It allied with Islamists forces in Libya and is backing to the hilt the alliance between NATO and Islamists in Syria. It controls the currencies of 14 former colonies via the CFA. These countries not only do not control their currencies, but have to deposit 50% of their currency reserves in the French Central Bank. Even the devaluation of their currencies is a French decision.

The former French President François Mitterand had said, "Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century," which former French foreign minister Jacques Godfrain confirmed when he said: "A little country [France], with a small amount of strength, we can move a planet because [of our]...relations with 15 or 20 African countries..."

France has asserted a far more hegemonic influence over French Africa than any other former colonial power. The British passed on the baton in their former colonies to the US, therefore the enduring “special relationship” between the US and UK.

Is it true that Hollande and French socialists have had a different policy with respect to French Africa? The answer is of course a resounding no.

All this is well known to Samir, who in fact has been one of the sternest critics of imperialism, may be it of any variety in Africa and indeed, the world. So why should he of all people endorse France in its intervention?

I think that in this case his hatred of “political Islam” and the fact that Malian or other African forces seemed unable to put together any military opposition in northern Mali has swayed him in supporting the French intervention. If this were indeed so, he should have also called for a quick exit of the French and a multi-national force from the region as the alternative. Asking the French to stay on and rebuild a democratic Mali is asking imperialism to change its spots.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick