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Algeria denies French military aircraft passage to Niger (www.newarab.com)

submitted 1 year ago by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml

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[–] GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] spectre@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

Any long-term solution to Niger's issues has to come from within the people of Niger, of course.

I expect that a status quo change is likely only on a geopolitical scale and that once the excitement of a change in government dies down the military will run into and perpetuate much the same issues.

I only really trust China to be able to invest and trade with the Global South without being exploitative (even if they aren't doing so out of altruism).

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Could be two or more global powers in one of Niger locks down uranium exports for long enough – or even just racks up the price. Geopolitically, bringing Nigerien uranium into China's orbit at the same time as bringing Afghan lithium into China's orbit is going to have a ripple effect eventually. Hard to predict more than that.