In Might, pro-independence demonstrations unfold throughout New Caledonia, a small Pacific island territory that has been dominated by France since 1853. Waving the flags of the Indigenous Kanak individuals in addition to the flag of the pro-independence Socialist Nationwide Liberation Entrance, demonstrators took to the streets to protest voting reform measures that may give higher political energy to lately arrived Europeans.
Curiously, nonetheless, in addition they waved one other flag—that of Azerbaijan. Though the same colours of the New Caledonian and Azerbaijani flags led some to invest whether or not the demonstrators had inadvertently acquired the unsuitable flag, different observers considered the presence of the Azerbaijani flag as a sign of ideological help from Baku.
It seems, the Azerbaijani flags weren’t mistaken. Since March 2023, Baku has strategically cultivated help for the New Caledonian independence motion beneath the guise of anti-colonial solidarity. As payback for French diplomatic backing of Armenia after Azerbaijan’s 2020 invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku has disseminated anti-French disinformation associated to New Caledonia. Following the outbreak of protests this Might, France publicly accused Azerbaijan of doing so.
Baku’s affect marketing campaign efficiently infected long-simmering hostilities towards French descendants in New Caledonia, culminating in violent demonstrations and riots, which triggered a go to by French President Emmanuel Macron—in addition to French police forces—despite the fact that Macron finally issued a de facto suspension of the reforms.
The incident in New Caledonia is hardly an remoted one. Anti-colonialism, which rose as a robust ideological drive in the course of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies, is having a resurgence, and its philosophical underpinnings proceed to form a few of the largest geopolitical crises of the day, from Gaza to Ukraine. However in contrast to the decolonization actions of the Chilly Battle period, this wave is being pushed by opportunistic intolerant regimes that exploit anti-colonial rhetoric to advance their very own geopolitical agendas—and, paradoxically, their very own colonial-style land grabs.
The essential goals of the decolonization motion in the course of the Chilly Battle had been twofold: securing nationwide independence for international locations colonized by the West and preserving sovereignty for postcolonial international locations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, whether or not by means of armed wrestle or ideological diplomacy. Centered on ending the Vietnam Battle and preventing white minority rule in southern Africa, the motion shortly turned the trigger célèbre of the worldwide left.
Regardless of divergent views on financial and social points, the motion’s proponents coalesced round a central perception that Western imperialism, notably the U.S. variant, singlehandedly held again the development and improvement of what was then often known as the third world—ignoring the truth that many anti-colonial actions usually had their very own inside points of graft and corruption. Disheartened by the West’s historical past of imperialism, many on the left even embraced authoritarian leaders, akin to Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial freedom fighter-turned-despot Robert Mugabe and even former North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung.
Immediately, the anti-colonial motion is much less about securing independence for the few remaining colonial outposts or debating the correct developmental pathway for international locations within the world south. Bolstered by highly effective state-backed media firms within the capitals of authoritarian states, the present motion is essentially a Computer virus for the development of worldwide illiberalism and a revision of the worldwide rules-based order.
Authoritarian governments in Eurasia have taken their affect operations to social media, the place they hope to inflame grievances—probably into precise conflicts—to divert the eye of Washington and its allies from areas of strategic significance. That is the case for not solely Azerbaijan, but in addition for China in sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to Iran, which offers monetary help to anti-Israel protest teams in the US.
However greater than some other nation, it’s Russia that’s trying to experience the resurgent anti-colonial wave and place itself as a number one voice of the worldwide south. Russian management describes itself because the vanguard of the “world majority” and claims to be main “the target strategy of constructing a extra simply multipolar world.”
After his go to to Pyongyang in June, Putin wrote in North Korea’s fundamental newspaper that the US seeks to impose a “world neo-colonial dictatorship” on the world. Within the United States, a number of Russians alleged by prosecutors to be intelligence brokers have been accused of funneling monetary help to an anti-colonial Black socialist group to advertise pro-Russian narratives and justify Russia’s unlawful navy actions in Ukraine. And in regard to New Caledonia, Russian International Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova fanned the flames when she stated in Might that the tensions there stemmed “from the shortage of finality within the strategy of its decolonization.”
Moscow’s major stage to challenge itself because the spearhead of a brand new world anti-colonial motion is Africa. Throughout the Chilly Battle, the Soviet Union offered ideological and navy help to quite a few nationwide liberation actions and anti-colonial struggles in sub-Saharan Africa on the grounds of proletarian internationalism and socialist solidarity. In accordance with a declassified 1981 CIA report, Namibia’s SWAPO guerilla group acquired practically all of its arms from the Soviet Union, and Soviet navy personnel skilled South African anti-apartheid guerrillas in Angola-based coaching camps. Moscow additionally skilled and educated numerous African independence fighters and anti-colonial rebels at Communist Social gathering faculties and navy institutes again within the Soviet Union.
This legacy of Soviet internationalism and socialist goodwill generated lingering sympathy for the Kremlin, and Russia continues to be extensively perceived as a torchbearer of anti-colonial justice and nationwide independence on the continent, notably within the Francophone Sahel area. Earlier than his dying in August 2023, former Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin blamed instability within the Sahel on Western interventionism, saying, “The previous colonizers are attempting to maintain the individuals of African international locations in examine. So as to maintain them in examine, the previous colonizers are filling these international locations with terrorists and varied bandit formations. Thus making a colossal safety disaster.”
Regardless of Moscow’s personal imperialist legacy and its present warfare of recolonization in Ukraine, Russia is more and more seen as an anti-Western stalwart within the Sahel and a key supporter of anti-French political actions. Kremlin-backed mercenaries from the Wagner Group’s successor, Africa Corps, have supplanted French safety providers as the first counterinsurgency drive for fragile West African governments. And along with the counter-insurgency operations, Russian mercenaries have offered private safety for key African navy and authorities leaders.
However the shift from French to Russian interventionism within the Sahel raises the query of simply how a lot nationwide sovereignty the governments within the affected international locations have.
Army juntas in West Africa exploit anti-French sentiments among the many normal public with the intention to obscure the truth that they’re merely counting on a distinct overseas state for regime safety, successfully buying and selling one colonialist energy for an additional. Most significantly for the juntas, in contrast to the French, the Russian safety forces have no qualms about violently cracking down on political dissent and committing warfare crimes. For instance, in late March 2022, Russian mercenaries assisted the Malian navy in summarily executing round 300 civilians within the Malian city of Moura, in response to Human Rights Watch.
With its colonial baggage, France has struggled to penetrate pro-Russian propaganda in its former African colonies. As an illustration, Afrique Média, an more and more in style Cameroon-based tv community, usually echoes the Kremlin’s positions on worldwide occasions. In April 2022, Afrique Média promoted a Russia-produced propaganda video that depicted a Russian mercenary escaping his African jihadi captors after which revealing U.S, and French flags behind an Islamic State flag, suggesting that these Western international locations are supporting spiritual extremists.
Russia’s anti-colonial campaign belies its efforts to advance its personal political and financial pursuits. Moscow’s efforts in Africa are borne from a want to undercut Western affect within the area; shore up diplomatic help for itself in multilateral boards, such because the United Nations; and reinstate Russia’s status as a worldwide superpower. Moscow may additionally search to safe entry to Africa’s huge pure assets, together with criterial minerals, and benefit from illicit networks, akin to unlawful gold mining, to avoid worldwide sanctions and fund its warfare in Ukraine.
Authoritarian regimes, together with these in Russia, China, and Azerbaijan, wouldn’t exploit anti-colonial rhetoric if it didn’t proceed to resonate within the world south. Lengthy-standing financial disparities with the worldwide north and painful histories of Western interventionism, particularly the post-9/11 U.S. wars within the Center East, have fostered sympathy for revisionist authoritarian regimes. The present humanitarian disaster in Gaza has heightened emotions of Western hypocrisy amongst some commentators and public figures within the world south.
As Kenyan journalist Rasna Warah explains, “There’s deep sympathy and help [in the West] for Ukrainians who’re being bombed and made homeless by Russia however Palestinians being killed and being denied meals and water are seen as deserving of their destiny.”
Due to this fact, it’s essential for Western governments to acknowledge the shortcomings of the present worldwide liberal order to governments within the world south, reasonably than trying to gaslight them into believing that it’s equitable and simply. The Western-led worldwide order has an extended historical past of violence and instability within the creating world. The trauma of Western imperialism and colonialism shouldn’t be forgotten however reasonably reworked into developmental applications that assist to construct sturdy establishments and infrastructure within the world south.
For instance, Germany’s joint declaration with Namibia in 2021, which acknowledged the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples between 1904 and 1908, dedicated $1.2 billion over the following 30 years to funding assist initiatives in Namibia, which usually tend to have a long-lasting optimistic impact on the event of Namibian establishments than particular person monetary handouts to descendants of colonial-era violence.
Within the close to time period, the US and its Western allies ought to actively counter propaganda from Baku, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing that seeks to painting these nations as free from interventionist pasts. Exposing their disinformation campaigns within the world south—beginning with labeling social media accounts linked to state-run media—may assist to alert the general public to the presence of bad-faith actors, who exploit real anti-colonial grievances for their very own political and financial objectives.
Whereas the Soviets had been actually no saints, there was a real internationalist and collectivist spirit of their interactions with the Chilly Battle anti-colonial motion. The identical can’t be stated for Russia right now.
