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National Post
05-07-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Geoff Russ: Race socialism is coming to the West. It will start in New York
Article content The Africa Report, an award-winning quarterly focusing on the continent's current affairs, reported in June that the Mamdanis were awash with 'diasporic intellectualism, where ideas about justice, decolonization and identity were household conversations.' Article content How exactly did decolonization play out in Africa following the collapse of European rule? There was great enthusiasm for wealth redistribution and the scapegoating of ethnic minorities, led by charismatic figures like Uganda's Idi Amin and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. Article content Following the British departure in 1962, Idi Amin demonized and purged the country's mostly South Asian merchant class in the 1970s, Mamdani's father among them. Their businesses were expropriated, and their assets confiscated. Article content In the 1980s in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe seized the lands of the remaining white farmers in an attempt to loot and redistribute the wealth associated with it. Article content Concurrent to that, Mugabe began a violent repression of the country's sizable Ndebele minority, whom he accused of subversion and sabotage. It resulted in the deaths of up to 30,000 Zimbabwean citizens. Article content The Ndebele remember it as a time when their people were singled out and slaughtered. Mahmood Mamdani described this period as one of 'massive social change,' in which 'very little turmoil' took place. For those who champion decolonization, the violent cleansing of certain ethnic groups is immaterial if it furthers the cause. Article content According to Africa Report, his son Zohran would be 'the first to carry the intellectual legacy of postcolonial Africa into the political heart of the West.' Article content Right now, the West's cultural zeitgeist is perfectly aligned for the arrival of this sort of decolonial race socialism in New York City. Article content It is impossible to ignore the newly emerged, constructed narrative of the 'colonizers' and the 'colonized.' Resentment and the assignment of ancestral guilt are at the core of it, and it has spread throughout the English-speaking world. Article content Statues of explorers, monarchs and historical business and political leaders are common targets for radicals who despise the countries they helped to found. They have been toppled, smashed or vandalized in Victoria, Hamilton, and Melbourne, usually without legal repercussions. Article content Article content This fabricated Indigenous-colonizer conflict is not only permissible, but given space in respectable society across Australia, Canada and even Britain. The hustlers are given prime- time television slots or academic tenure to vent, and usually receive polite nods from the presenters in return. Article content In America, Zohran Mamdani's rise to political stardom is where this wave of racial politics meets the socialist revival spearheaded by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have wholeheartedly endorsed him. Article content The politics of the English-speaking world have always been connected, and the United States is its most powerful engine for driving new narratives. Mamdani's team are artful practitioners of social media, and his presence is felt well beyond the U.S. Article content Already, Canadian NDP politicians like Marit Stiles and MP Leah Gazan are falling over each other trying to heap praise upon him. Article content Gazan, a leading voice for radical decolonial, anti-Western politics in Ottawa, posted on X: 'Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York is an inspiring example for how progressives can stand up to establishment liberals or authoritarians like Trump.' Article content
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nigeria's president declares emergency in oil-rich state
Nigeria is facing an escalating political crisis after President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency in the oil-rich Rivers state and suspended the governor, his deputy and all lawmakers in the state parliament for six months. In a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday evening Tinubu said he had received "disturbing security reports detailing incidents of vandalisation of pipelines by some militants without the governor taking any action to curtail them". He added that he could not allow the "grave situation" to continue. But lawyers and opposition politicians are questioning the legality of the president's decision. Tinubu made the announcement after one of the country's highest producing crude oil pipelines, the Trans-Niger Pipeline, suffered significant damage due to a blast. Attacks on pipelines have in the past been carried out by criminal gangs or militants, halting production and exports. At current prices, the oil flowing through the affected pipeline fetches around $14m (£11m) a day, according to the online publication Africa Report. But against the backdrop of the blast, there has been a political rift in Rivers state that has reached boiling point. Governor Siminalayi Fubara is a member of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) which has been plagued by reports of in-fighting. At a national level, the PDP is the main party opposed to the president's All Progressives Congress. Tinubu said that politicians have not been able to work together effectively because of the ongoing turmoil. He alleged that allies of Fubara had threatened "fire and brimstone" against the governor's enemies and that had had not "disowned" these comments. Rivers state lawmakers had threatened to impeach the governor and his deputy, according to Reuters news agency. Tinubu said this political crisis has left Rivers state at a "standstill" adding that this latest measure is based on the need to restore peace and order to the state. The state of emergency will allow the government to run the state in the interim and send security forces if needed. But many groups see Tinubu's action as draconian. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said it was "unconstitutional" to remove an elected governor, deputy governor, or members of a state's legislature. The PDP rejected the emergency rule, calling it an attempt at "state capture". It accused Tinubu of trying to turn Nigeria into a one-party country. "It is the climax of a well-oiled plot to forcefully take over Rivers state," it said. Peter Obi, a former presidential candidate for the Labour Party, criticised the move which he described as "reckless" on X. This is not the first time a state of emergency has been declared in Nigeria. Former presidents resorted to the action in a bid to curb insurgency and instability in different parts of the country. Additional reporting by Nkechi Ogbonna Nigerian deportees: 'All we insist on is that they are returned with dignity' Regrets, executions and coups: Four takeaways from former Nigerian military ruler's book Tinubu ex-ally criticises Nigeria reforms Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Africa Daily Focus on Africa
Reuters
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Ethiopia and Eritrea on path to war, Tigray officials warn
NAIROBI, March 13 (Reuters) - Longtime foes Ethiopia and Eritrea could be headed towards war, officials in a restive Ethiopian region at the centre of the tensions have warned, risking another humanitarian disaster in the Horn of Africa. Direct clashes between two of Africa's largest armies would signal the death blow for a historic rapprochement for which Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 and could draw in other regional powers, analysts said. It would also likely create another crisis in a region where aid cuts have complicated efforts to assist millions affected by internal conflicts in Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. "At any moment war between Ethiopia and Eritrea could break out," General Tsadkan Gebretensae, a vice president in the interim administration in Ethiopia's Tigray region, wrote in Africa-focused magazine the Africa Report on Monday. A 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Ethiopia's central government killed hundreds of thousands of people. Fears of a new conflict are linked to the TPLF's split last year into a faction that now administers Tigray with the blessing of Ethiopia's federal government and another that opposes it. On Tuesday, the dissident faction, which Tsadkan accused of seeking an alliance with Eritrea, seized control of the northern town of Adigrat. Getachew Reda, the head of Tigray's interim administration, in turn asked the government for support against the dissidents, who deny ties to Eritrea. "There is clear antagonism between Ethiopia and Eritrea," Getachew told a news conference on Monday. "What concerns me is that the Tigray people may once again become victims of a war they don't believe in." 'DRY TINDER WAITING FOR A MATCH' Ethiopia's federal government has not commented on the tensions. Eritrea's information minister dismissed Tsadkan's warnings as "war-mongering psychosis". However, Eritrea ordered a nationwide military mobilisation in mid-February, according to UK-based Human Rights Concern - Eritrea. And Ethiopia deployed troops toward the Eritrean border this month, two diplomatic sources and two Tigrayan officials told Reuters, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation. Reuters could not independently verify these developments. Eritrean and Ethiopian government spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. Payton Knopf and Alexander Rondos, the former U.S. and EU envoys to the region, say the prospects of a new war are real. "The deterioration of the political and security situation in Tigray is dry tinder waiting for a match," they wrote in an essay for U.S. publication Foreign Policy on Wednesday. Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have long been fraught. Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year fight for independence. The neighbours then fought a 1998-2000 border war. They remained formally at war until 2018, when Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki agreed to normalise ties. Eritrean troops even supported Ethiopian federal forces against TPLF-led rebels during the Tigray civil war. But the exclusion of Eritrea from subsequent peace negotiations once again chilled relations. Eritrean officials have bristled at repeated public declarations by Abiy since 2023 that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access, comments some analysts view as an implicit threat of military action against Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea. Last October, Eritrea, an authoritarian and insular state, signed a security pact with Egypt and Somalia that was widely seen as aimed at countering Ethiopia's potential expansionist ambitions.
