Terror in Africa

Africa, which was colonised by the European powers, continues to experience challenges. The continent is struggling from years of coups d’état, civil wars, and now terrorism. Africa’s problems are not unconnected with decades of internal misrule and external interference. Regardless of the way imperialism is viewed, it is aimed at exploitation. Although Africa has suffered […]

Africa, which was colonised by the European powers, continues to experience challenges. The continent is struggling from years of coups d’état, civil wars, and now terrorism. Africa’s problems are not unconnected with decades of internal misrule and external interference. Regardless of the way imperialism is viewed, it is aimed at exploitation. Although Africa has suffered conquest and exploitation, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has provided an unprecedented excuse to re-invade the continent. Jeremy Keenan aptly presents today’s upheavals in Africa within the context of the GWOT being spearheaded by the US. The Dying Sahara: US Imperialism and Terror in Africa should be read by all people concerned with the need to make our world truly safer.
Keenan’s findings enable readers to see the role being played by the US in the ‘militarisation of Africa’. To him, Washington is using ‘downright lies in portraying this new terrorist threat’ (p.2). This is not to say that other world powers are not complicit in the orchestrated game. Indeed, the author lays bare intricacies in the wave of crises in Algeria, Niger, Mali, Chad and other African countries. Keenan offers hints to help us understand this ‘deceptive strategy’ (p. 10). He laments that people are dying ‘fighting something which they never really understood,’ just for, ‘imperial designs’. Here, Keenan’s opinion cannot be faulted looking at the negative repercussions of ‘state terrorism’ (pp. 12-13). The slippery-slope effect is that it becomes hard to trust any global initiative to combat insecurity. Is this not the reason why the War on Terror proves unwinnable at both the global and regional levels?
No one could deny the existence of misguided elements in Africa and elsewhere. Senseless killings must be abhorred, but global citizens shouldn’t support operations where civilians are caught in the crossfire under a ‘false flag’ in order to get ‘greater military access rights’ (p.15). Of course, there is the scramble for raw materials by Europe’s corporations (p. 23) and the African dictators’ ploy to ‘eliminate opposition’ (p. 29). In Africa, the locals, surprisingly, have started connecting bombings and sectarian conflicts to ‘political agendas’ (p. 47), even though there has never been a ‘full investigation’ (p. 57).
What Keenan explores about Africa are not isolated events. There are groups fighting against ‘exploitative practices’ (p. 94), and he appeals to readers to open their eyes towards the ‘duplicity’ that characterises global politics (p. 127). Although Keenan’s book doesn’t provide any in-depth coverage of ‘fabricated’ terror in sub-Saharan Africa (p. 126), Nonetheless it is a significant contribution to understanding the ‘Long War’ from behind the scenes (p. 282).
This review was first published by the University of Nottingham’s Political Studies Review: 2015.