By Takura Zhangazha*

The beleaguered Presidents of Mali and Central African
Republic (CAR) in the last two months asked their former colonial power, France,
to come to their aide in order to prevent or at least stop a hostile takeover
of their respective countries by insurgent armies.  With the recent bombardment of Northern Mali
by the French air force and the deployment of its troops to Bamako, one of them
managed to get  the ear and action of
French President Hollande. The reasons  that have been given by the French Ministry of Defense for acting on Mali were not similar to those that led to the rejection
of the request made by the CAR, but it would not be remiss to  assume that for Captain Sonogo, the de facto
leader of Mali,  his wish has been
granted.

Even though in reality, the intentions of the assistance are
not as noble as the Malian government expects. 
In assisting Mali, the French government initially cited the threat
posed by the northern militants to European and its own national security and that of French civilians resident in Bamako.  

Eventually the same country’s ambassador to the United
Nations was to also issue a statement citing the threat posed by what he
referred to as Al Qaeda linked militants to the entirety of West African
security. And this in order to also get ECOWAS to commit troops to help quell
the escalating conflict. Either way, there is now great commitment by France to
stop the takeover of  Mali by the
separatist forces and it is likely ECOWAS member states will offer support,
while the African Union will be guided in large part by the decisions of the
latter.  

Because the decision by France on intervening in Mali would
be the third such decision made in as many years by a former colonial/western
state to intervene militarily in an African state, it is important that we do
not lose track of newfound trends around liberal interventionism in Africa and how it is
beginning to inform global superpowers policies toward the continent.   

In doing so, the initial point that must be made is that the
recent and ongoing intervention by France in Mali (even with the approval of
the beleaguered government) is a continuation of an undemocratic and selective
liberal interventionist narrative that began particularly with the invasion of Libya.  It is now apparent that where the West feels it can
intervene militarily in an African crisis and with a modicum of United Nations
Security Council or host country’s government approval,  it will do so.

Secondly, the regional and continental bodies of the African
Union are no longer as important players in the continental order of things particularly
after UN Resolution 1973 that led to the bombardment of Libya.  And Africa, at least in the North,  has entered an age of occupation,
particularly so because of Libya, now Mali and the precariousness of the CAR,
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 
 

This new occupation is a direct result of both the rush for African
resources by the West and the naïve complicity of African leadership in not
only accepting political economic models that are written in Western capitals
but also perpetuating colonial era relationships with former and current
empires (east or west).  In the same
vein, our African leaders, upon assuming office have had the unfortunate tendency
to misread the international political economy as well as the intentions of
global superpowers toward the continent. Ditto  UN resolution
1973 on Libya which is now generally viewed as the progenitor of the crisis in the Sahel. 

There are however some exceptions to this as seen in the African Union mediation of the South Sudan/Sudan conflict but that too remains
delicate. In Southern Africa, SADC has been firmer in how it deals with
regional crisis and though progress has been slow, at least it has not culminated in western warships docking off the coasts of Mozambique, Angola or
South Africa. 

This however does not mean such a state of affairs is not
possible. Given the laxity in understanding global issues and Africa’s
placement in them as demonstrated by our regional hegemon, South Africa, we may
unfortunately eventually bear witness to such a development. 

It is within such a context that the primary lesson from the tragedy that is Mali for Africa
is that the days of African unity based on  liberation struggles from colonialism are
fast fading into an ambiguous history.   And this is a development that flies in the face of the sterling efforts to restructure the African Union by former South African and Nigerian Presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo respectively.

And
this history is now being overrun by a new-found impetus of neo-colonialism
grounded in the Western conceived but very real and ongoing ‘war on terror’.  It is a war that not only connotes physical
re-conquest and occupation of African territories such as northern Mali, but
one that has as its pre-requisite, the reinvention of the African in the image
of our Western others via the globalization of consumerism without production, neo-liberal ideological frameworks and the ‘othering’ of persons of Muslim persuasion.

As has happened in the Middle East, the French military
intervention in Mali is likely to be viewed by some as an act of benevolence. Others
still may blame the AU and ECOWAS for their ineptitude and inability to come to
that country’s aide, conveniently forgetting how  Africa’s balkanisation and extractive
placement  in the global economy has made
the continent fertile ground for mimic leadership and continued exploitation by
global superpowers and transnational corporations.   

The reality of the matter is that ‘interventions’ such as the one we see in Mali are now a direct result of
the re-emergence of an attitude of entitlement to the African continent by Western
powers such as France.  It is an attitude
that was most ably demonstrated via the Nato intervention in Libya and  whose multiple offshoots include the current Malian conflict.  Admittedly, the course of
history is generally determined more by those that possess physical/military power and not so much the moral authority to define it.  But
in the case of the new phase of neo-colonial occupation that is visiting the
African continent, unless African leaders and African societies shift from an
ambivalent attitude to power for its enchantment and without historical and democratic liberatory values, the new occupation will become permanent. 

* Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)