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Hi CSPAM. I figured we had a bunch of threads for different regions of the world and Africa seems like a big blindspot for me and for most of us here. My main sources I've used for Africa are allafrica.com and Derek Davison's own fx.substack.com. Admittedly however I almost never bother to check them. For my own edification I'm going to start doing that maybe. As most of us here are Marxists or Marx-ish I think people will probably talk a lot about China's newfound role in the region or about how awesome Sankara (RIP) was but I want this thread to be all encompassing. I don't want it to be too much about wars either, although the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict seems pretty pertinent right now.
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Jun 26, 2021 11:09
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You should be ashamed for letting D&D have primacy on this subject and all affiliated material for so long you spineless loving trollop
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Jun 26, 2021 11:10
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https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3846193&goto=lastpost already exists.
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Jun 26, 2021 11:33
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i can't believe you would try and corral us into a thread with ME nerds and try to do so straight with a link to blinken's needly mug
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Jun 26, 2021 11:37
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Office Pig posted:i can't believe you would try and corral us into a thread with ME nerds and try to do so straight with a link to blinken's needly mug We tried having a separate Africa thread and there simply wasn't enough traffic.
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Jun 26, 2021 11:44
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Jun 26, 2021 11:49
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it was the intention of the imperialist powers to scourge all history of Africa from the cultural memory of the world, and tho we've gotten away from the Victorian era's effect on our view of the past and the world, it still makes it hard to causally learn things about Africa. you really do have to make a deliberate effort to do your own research. and im a lazy poo poo so I don't know enough to really talk about it 
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Jun 26, 2021 12:14
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Tiler Kiwi posted:it was the intention of the imperialist powers to scourge all history of Africa from the cultural memory of the world, and tho we've gotten away from the Victorian era's effect on our view of the past and the world, it still makes it hard to causally learn things about Africa. you really do have to make a deliberate effort to do your own research. and im a lazy poo poo so I don't know enough to really talk about it I want to do something productive with my life as opposed to buying coins promoted by the scum of the earth for quick money so I'll try to do the heavy lifting
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Jun 26, 2021 12:55
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There are ecoterrorists in Nigeria calling themselves the Niger Delta Avengers and attacking oil installations. https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260133.html Per wikipedia there is a splinter group called "Reformed Niger Delta Avengers" and also their actions have caused Nigeria to become a smaller oil producer than Angola. Yossarian-22 has issued a correction as of 05:45 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 05:42
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Yossarian-22 posted:There are ecoterrorists in Nigeria calling themselves the Niger Delta Avengers and attacking oil installations. https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260133.html i gathered that they seemed to have some kind of economic impact the first time around but that seems a lot more noteworthy than you would assume from the deafening silence. perhaps low exposure is half the point for petro interests, but you would think there'd be more of a concerted interest in stamping out this kind of insurgency within a country nominally built upon oil and gas
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Jun 27, 2021 05:54
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shout out to John Bolton's one good policy position https://twitter.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1338973465395785733?s=20
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Jun 27, 2021 06:22
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Atrocious Joe posted:shout out to John Bolton's one good policy position I know about Western Sahara because one of my STEM friends freaks out about how the world will eventually run out of phosphate and fight over each other's reserves, and the region contains over 70% of the world's phosphate that's still in the soil I just looked for an article and found out that New Zealand has been buying "blood phosphate" from the Moroccan government https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/19-11-2020/how-blood-phosphate-has-made-new-zealand-complicit-in-a-foreign-war/
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Jun 27, 2021 09:37
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the top gear africa episode had really good music and wagons are cool
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Jun 27, 2021 15:04
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Tiler Kiwi posted:it was the intention of the imperialist powers to scourge all history of Africa from the cultural memory of the world, and tho we've gotten away from the Victorian era's effect on our view of the past and the world, it still makes it hard to causally learn things about Africa. you really do have to make a deliberate effort to do your own research. and im a lazy poo poo so I don't know enough to really talk about it like you take nomadic pastoralists and tell them okay we found you in this desert so now you live here and you don't ever go to that green pasture over there, good luck. then they starve and you're all "what the hell is wrong with these people why can't they figure this out" tanzania has mount kilimanjaro because wilhelm wanted a mountain and queen victoria thought it would be nice to let him have a mountain. if you look at the southern border of kenya you'll see a weird little blip in the line, that's kilimanjaro, and that should tell you everything you need to know about how african countries were set up by colonial powers
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Jun 27, 2021 15:17
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Black Alliance for Peace condemns U.S. intervention in Ethiopia and warns that it shouldn't become another Libya situation. https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260057.html "In Ethiopia and Eritrea, the U.S. interests are: to control or have undue influence over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint critical to securing global energy, to challenge the robust presence of China, and to impose AFRICOM in the only country left in Africa that has evaded its control, Eritrea."
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Jun 27, 2021 21:40
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Tons of Saudi oil is apparently transported through the strait as it links the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea. 
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Jun 27, 2021 21:44
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Yossarian-22 posted:Black Alliance for Peace condemns U.S. intervention in Ethiopia and warns that it shouldn't become another Libya situation. https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260057.html based on poo poo in the other thread eritrea isnt doing so hot in this entire situation themselves. not that blinken should add to the genocideathon by randomly droning everyone in a situation that is pretty chaotic.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:45
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Yossarian-22 posted:Black Alliance for Peace condemns U.S. intervention in Ethiopia and warns that it shouldn't become another Libya situation. https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260057.html
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Jun 27, 2021 21:48
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you can just read the BAP statement for yourselfquote:Don’t Allow Another U.S.-NATO Libya in the Horn of Africa: A Statement by BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network and Horn of Africa Pan-Africans for Liberation and Solidarity
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Jun 27, 2021 22:10
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Atrocious Joe posted:you can just read the BAP statement for yourself now this is bappin’. the all africa version doesnt do this statement justice by cutting out most of it.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:19
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Seems Eritrea has highly protectionist investment climate that the West doesn't like so I could see why they would jump at the chance to bark about Eritrean atrocities and impose sanctions. Not that the atrocities aren't real, mind you. There is also a conflict over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Ethiopia is trying to build between them, Sudan, and Egypt. U.S. sides with Egypt afaik, or at least Trump sided with them based on my tiny bit of research. Ofc the president of Ethiopia is a huge neoliberal who has opened up tons of land for privatization which was probably secretly part of why he won the Nobel and much of the reason why the U.S. is far more upset at Eritrean than Ethiopian atrocities (that being said, U.S. seems like they preferred things when the TPLF were in charge of the country). Hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans and other minorities have been displaced as a result of Abiy Ahmed's policies. Yossarian-22 has issued a correction as of 22:25 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 22:22
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SADC countries now intervening militarily to fight Al-Shabab in Mozambique despite the president being reluctant to allow it https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00078484.html
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Jun 28, 2021 00:46
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Some good news: Britain and Germany are returning Kingdom of Benin era bronzes to Nigeria and there will be a commemorative museum. https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00078473.html Undoubtedly Europe is going on an apology tour to keep China from becoming even more of an ally to African countries though.
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Jun 28, 2021 00:53
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multilateral military intervention is certainly not going to put down the insurgency in mozambique but it might prevent something like palma from getting taken over again. total is probably never going back but eni is still working on bringing their stuff online (and i think total was leading a consortium, no idea what the status of that project is). someone who knows more about oil and gas feel free to weigh in, but what might end up dooming these lng megaprojects is that lng actually doesn't make money and is bad? i think?
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Jun 28, 2021 01:25
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Yossarian-22 posted:Tons of Saudi oil is apparently transported through the strait as it links the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea. The US wants Africa so bad. I like this tidbit from AFRICOM regarding the Chinese PLAN base in Djibouti https://news.usni.org/2021/04/20/africom-chinese-naval-base-in-africa-set-to-support-aircraft-carriers quote:The U.S. and French also have installations in the vicinity of the Chinese base. The U.S. Camp Lemonnier is an easy drive from the expanding Chinese base, and troops have complained of harassment from the Chinese, including lasers directed at U.S. aircraft. [
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Jun 28, 2021 02:08
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i remember the early spin i heard where china was being maleficent cuz it was building infrastructure for Non Democracies or what have you lol
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Jun 28, 2021 02:11
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what are good places to learn about the political history of africa if you are an absolute moron american? kind of like the idea of an africa-specific thread, as ME can very much be its own busy place.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:12
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Tiler Kiwi posted:i remember the early spin i heard where china was being maleficent cuz it was building infrastructure for Non Democracies or what have you it's so pathetic lol, they can't keep getting away with this!!
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Jun 28, 2021 02:12
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lol the english will return every other plundered artifact before they return the marblesFleetwood posted:The US wants Africa so bad. I like this tidbit from AFRICOM regarding the Chinese PLAN base in Djibouti bagging eritrea must have a jackpot at the state department or something. every few years a small wave of articles comes out along the lines of “Africas North Korea!”
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Jun 28, 2021 02:16
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Djobouti is interesting because it has like four major military bases from four different countries. It hosts AFRICOM central command and also a Chinese base (the only Chinese military base in the world) right near the capital. Lease payments to the country from the base-owning countries make up 5% of Djibouti's GDP
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Jun 28, 2021 02:21
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Fleetwood posted:The US wants Africa so bad. My family have some history in central Africa and consequentially I have done a lot of reading on the Congo Crisis. If you haven't read the story of Che's visit to the Simbas its really worth it. Speaking of Congo, has Mount Nyiragongo, north of Goma, quieted down any? Haven't heard about it since the initial eruption.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:27
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To populate the thread with recent good news: Benin bronzes to be repatriated by Germany. The Brit still says no.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:30
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nevermind
Dolphin has issued a correction as of 02:37 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 02:31
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Insanite posted:what are good places to learn about the political history of africa if you are an absolute moron american? You have to work at it I have found, but resources are out there. For example, during the Congo crisis there were joint US-French-Belgian operations to air evacuate western hostages from various factions termed the "Dragon" operations (iirc Red Dragon, Black Dragon) and reports on these have been declassified and are available on the web. The history of early colonial expansion into Africa, with a Congolese focus but it covers the rest of Europe catching up with Belgium) is covered by the entirely too depressing book King Leopold's Ghost. Its brilliant, but its also a gut wrenching read. A more recent take that looks good (I have it but have not read it yet, having been more occupied in recent years by exploring issues of colonialism in North America) from post colonialism to more or less current times (Congo specific) is Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. An excellent travel book that doubles as an overview of the history of the Rwandan genocide and subsequent recovery that I can recommend is Road Trip Rwanda. For an account of such a heavy subject it is at times hilariously funny and I think its a very worth while read to cut through our western perceptions of what Africa is. I would also be interested in recommendations for more general accounts of other regions, as well as good histories of pre colonial Africa.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:42
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books grabbed. ty!
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Jun 28, 2021 03:45
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Yossarian-22 posted:Djobouti is interesting because it has like four major military bases from four different countries. It hosts AFRICOM central command and also a Chinese base (the only Chinese military base in the world) right near the capital. Lease payments to the country from the base-owning countries make up 5% of Djibouti's GDP didn't do much for them during their civil war, or the war with Eritrea.
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Jun 28, 2021 04:07
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I had a coworker from Eritrea who taught me a little about the wars and politicking in Eastern Africa but he mostly talked about how he was worried about his mom who was still over there and in fragile health. We were both working security at a hospital. He decided that it was bullshit and quit to start a restaurant and tax preparation business with his cousin. Restaurant closed while I was out of town for a few years but he was a smart dude so he's probably doing fine.
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Jun 28, 2021 06:27
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https://twitter.com/ChrisCoons/status/1408832935185338370?s=20 https://twitter.com/ChrisCoons/status/1408380708977008640?s=20 coons is Biden's go to guy for Africa, so it looks like the US is backing a new country in East Africa to me
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Jun 28, 2021 07:11
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how europe underdeveloped africa and the wretched of the earth are both very good books for understanding africa albeit dated (in the sense of being older, not in the sense of being obsolete)
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Jun 28, 2021 11:54
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how much history did europe wreck down there anyways? or was the scale of that effort hidden when the brits intentionally burned all their own documents detailing their colonizer crimes
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Jun 28, 2021 12:00
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