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Algeria denies French military aircraft passage to Niger
(www.newarab.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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In all earnestness, as someone who isn't too aware of Nigerian politics - why shouldn't the elected government be helped back into power? What reasons do we have to believe that the junta has the best interests of the Nigerian working class more than the previous regime?
I'm not super well read on it, but to summarize:
Of course. I took that for granted that a former European colonizer wouldn't.
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.
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.
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).
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.