Good day comrades. Those of you who watched news recently surely heard about a “coup” in the Republic of Niger. Apparently Westerners are very mad because I am hearing of the west cutting diplomatic ties and thinking of imposing sanctions.
Now, as you know, Western news sources are not reliable when it comes to the happenings in other countries - especially in those that are either not west-friendly or part of the Global South. My question is, can anybody here explain to me what exactly happened in the Republic of Niger and if possible, provide a Marxist estimate of the situation? Is the “coup” (I’ll use the term for now because of a lack of better knowledge about the situation) good or bad for the working class of the Republic of Niger? Is it good for the global working class movement? I have seen pictures of protestors waving the Russian flag and some Western media is already claiming this somehow benefits Russia. What is going on?
Thanks in advance.
For some historical context, remember that there have been a number of progressive (i.e. socialist inclined) governments which were brought to power by military coups, for instance in Lybia 1969, Afghanistan 1978, and Burkina Faso 1983 as a result of a desire for national liberation among certain segments of the military.
And even if this particular military government is not an explicitly progressive one but merely a nationalist one suffering from many contradictions and possibly even some reactionary tendencies…well, as Stalin points out in “Foundations of Leninism”, even these kinds of regimes when pushing back against conditions of colonial-imperialist subjugation can still serve a progressive world-historic role.
Every step toward liberation from Western neo-colonialism is also a step toward socialism. And every domino that falls, no matter how small, matters as it contributes to the overall building of an unstoppable momentum against the US dominated unipolar hegemony.
The more countries flip the more others will see it is possible and will also flip to the side of the multipolar world and will no longer be paralyzed by the fear of US military or economic retribution. Instead they will start to participate in China’s global development initiatives which will lift all of the global south up from the underdevelopment that the West’s colonial yoke has imposed on them, which in turn will deprive the imperial core of the ability to exploit the global south for the resources they need to stave off revolution in their own countries.
I mean, Niger has a literacy rate of 37% and the worst HDI of any country in the world, It doesn’t take much for them to be progressive.
Phrased differently we can say there is a lot of potential for improvement. And since things have not been improving under the previous civilian government that was just doing France’s bidding siphoning off Niger’s resources to Europe while its own people lived in poverty, we should at least give the new military/military-installed government a chance to see if they can do better.