Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 11/29/2024
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
Last week’s links are here.
General
Jaan Islam for Ummatics Institute: “Divergent Statecrafts: Between Islamic Governance and Modern State Power.” An excerpt from the abstract:
Modern states, characterized by centralized power, vast surveillance, bureaucracy, and coercive control, fundamentally differ from Islamic governance models, which prioritize decentralized, community-based frameworks. Drawing on critiques of Islamic movements’ reliance on state power, the paper contends that the modern state’s secular, coercive nature precludes the organic development of an Islamic technology of the self, or a model of self-governance that fosters moral accountability.
Martín Abregú, Crystal Simeoni, and Ndongo Samba Sylla at Foreign Affairs: “Shaking Off the Shackles of Sovereign Debt.”
Sahel and West Africa
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu traveled to France on November 28 for a state visit. French President Emmanuel Macron’s outreach even included tweeting in Nigerian Pidgin, stressing his longstanding connection to Nigeria from his time as an intern. Macron and Tinubu also published an op-ed together, dubbing the France-Nigeria relationship “a Partnership Between Equals Supporting Our Strategic Autonomy.” AFP reports on the wider significance of the visit for both France and Nigeria, and at Nigeria’s Premium Times, two guest contributors from the business sector praise the visit and offer some background on the relationship.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot is visiting Chad, Ethiopia, and Senegal.
Senegalese President Diomaye Faye wants French troops out of his country.
Chad declares an end to its own defense cooperation accord with France.
Some fighters from small rebel groups in Niger are laying down arms.
Reuters: “Resolute Mining Forks out Further $50 Million to Mali for Detained Employees.”
Mali’s military authorities fired their civilian prime minister earlier this month - I wrote here about the incident and about the functions of civilian prime ministers in the region more broadly. Meanwhile, Mali’s new prime minister is (at least ostensibly) tasked with generating an election timetable.
Amnesty International has a new report about the crackdown on the #EndBadGovernance protests in Nigeria last August.
A refinery in Port Harcourt, Nigeria has restarted operations - “but price of fuel go come down?”
North Africa
Amnesty International: “Libya: ‘Every Day We Die a Thousand Times’: Impunity for Crimes Against Humanity in Tarhouna.”
Tel Quel’s Elmehdi El Azhary reflects on a remark from Morocco’s Minister of Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq to the effect that Morocco is a secular country.
Chahrazade Douah at New Lines Magazine: “The French Soldiers Who Disobeyed Orders in Algeria.”
At OrientXXI, Hannah Taieb writes about Tunisian identity, Arabic, and Arab-ness.
Hicham Alaoui joins RFI to discuss his new book, Islam et démocratie - Comment changer la face du monde arabe (Islam and Democracy: How to Change the Face of the Arab World.)
Greater Horn of Africa
An anonymous journalist reports from El Fasher, Sudan for The New Humanitarian:
The RSF [Rapid Support Forces] has imposed a siege on the city and controls most of its neighbourhoods. Some reports suggest it will soon seize full control, though sources in the army and aligned local armed groups said they will continue fighting no matter the cost.
El Fasher residents described a humanitarian emergency that is among the worst in Sudan, with hospitals being repeatedly targeted even as hundreds (or thousands) of people are being killed by artillery shelling and airstrikes, and many more are dying from starvation and disease.
Michael Jones at RUSI: “Has Sudan’s Conflict Reached a Turning Point?”
Adam Leventhal at the New York Times’ The Athletic: “Sudan, Football and the ‘Worst Humanitarian Crisis on Earth’.”
Olivier Caslin in Jeune Afrique on Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh, “mediator in chief in the Horn of Africa.”
Reuters: “Somalia's federal government and the country's Jubbaland region have issued reciprocal arrest warrants for their respective leaders in an escalating dispute over the conduct of elections in Jubbaland.”
Mashriq
In Syria:
Insurgents breached Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo after blowing up two car bombs on Friday and were clashing with government forces on the city’s western edge, according to a Syria war monitor and fighters.
[…]
This week’s advances were one of the largest by opposition factions, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and comes after weeks of low simmering violence. It is most intense fighting in northwestern Syria since 2020, when government forces seized areas previously controlled by opposition fighters.
Orwa Ajjoub offers some thoughts on the HTS operation.
U.S. President Joe Biden, November 26:
Today, I have some good news to report from the Middle East. I just spoke with the prime minister of Israel and Lebanon, and I’m pleased to announce that their governments have accepted the United States’ proposal to end the devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
And I want to thank President Macron of France for his partnership in reaching this moment.
Some reactions to the ceasefire:
Maryam Jamshidi has a thread on the asymmetry of the deal.
Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous at Dropsite News: “The ‘Ceasefire’ in Lebanon is a Ticking Bomb.”
Derek Davison, at Foreign Exchanges, gives context on the ceasefire and writes: “Based on what’s been reported so far I think we have to conclude that the Israelis have gotten much of what they wanted out of this conflict. In the main they got Hezbollah to break its ‘Axis of Resistance’ ties to Hamas and agree to a ceasefire that has nothing to do with Gaza.”
The Financial Times: “Lebanon Braces for a Power Struggle After the Ceasefire.”
Raja Abdulrahim and Azmat Khan at the New York Times: “In West Bank Raids, Palestinians See Echoes of Israel’s Gaza War.” This may sound familiar.
Iraq’s new census puts the country’s population at over 45 million. As Nancy Ezzeddine writes at Amwaj Media, demographic estimates in Iraq - as elsewhere - are a fundamentally political question:
While sect and ethnicity provide the basis for Iraq’s informal ethno-sectarian political apportionment system, its provisions are not constitutionally enshrined. Except for minority and women quotas, political representation is distributed according to estimates of the size of each group’s constituency. As such, the relative populations of Iraq’s various ethnic and sectarian groups remain contentious, and matter a great deal for political representation.
Hamzeh Hadad at the European Council on Foreign Relations: “Avoiding the Next Front: Iraq’s Fight to Stay out of the Israel-Iran Conflict.”
Samia Nakhoul and Pesha Magid at Reuters: “Saudi Arabia Abandons Pursuit of US Defence Treaty over Israel Stalemate.”