Art is always created for art’s sake. Every artist, whether a painter, sculptor, novelist or film director, is passionate about their art. When does art cross over into propaganda? When discussing this question, we immediately think about Soviet Russia, China, Iran or other non-democratic societies. Art with a political agenda may be motivated by political agendas – that does not make it any less effective as a work of art.

It is naive in the extreme to think that our artistic practices are completely divorced from propagandistic purposes. In fact, the British empire was an exemplar of how art was deployed as propaganda. In this case, artwork became a way of expanding and solidifying a transnational British identity, unifying its colonies through cultural imperialism.

In the Art Gallery of NSW, there is an imposing, longstanding painting by Alphonse de Neuville entitled The Defence of Rorke’s Drift. Exhibited in 1880 in Sydney – when NSW was still a penal colony of Britain – the painting propagandises the role of the British army at the battle of Rorke’s drift during the Anglo-Zulu war. The battle, a victory for Britain, inaugurated a wave of imperial patriotism.

The British soldiers, rather than being portrayed as white colonisers making incursions into Zulu territory, are seen as heroic, resourceful defenders. The Zulus by contrast, are relegated as barely discernible, anonymous individuals enmeshed into one amorphous mass. The oil on canvas painting by De Neuville is an early, and typical, example of art as imperial propaganda. The painting contributed to establishing an identity of transnational and racialised British patriotism.

In another wing of the NSW Art Gallery hang the paintings of the Flemish artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640). A giant of Baroque painting, he combined Flemish realism with ideas from the Italian Renaissance, and became an enthusiastic student of the artistic resurgence known as the Northern Renaissance.

Was Rubens an exceptional painter? Emphatically, yes. Was he a propagandist? Yes, he was that also. In what way? Ruben’s’ works, involving religious themes, fall into the tradition of the Counter Reformation. The latter was a resurgence of traditional Catholic dogma against what was the Protestant European Reformation. In fact, while Rubens’ works were commissioned by the Catholic authorities, a number of his contemporaries – who fell foul of the Catholic Church in Flanders – went into exile.

The southern part of Flanders, which eventually became the nation of Belgium, saw the successful reintroduction of Spanish Catholic feudalism. In the north, in what became the Dutch Republic, the nascent capitalist and artisanal class fought against the heavy repression of the Spanish monarchy. Calvinist and aspiring to independence, the Netherlands held out against attempts at reconquest. In the midst of this epic class struggle, Rubens brush became a cultural sword of counterrevolution.

While his contemporaries died in poverty, Rubens became a wealthy man, honoured by the monarchies of England, France and Spain. His artwork was part of the Catholic church’s conscious mobilisation of art as a cultural weapon in the fight against the Reformation. His paintings are remarkable – they are also examples of ideologically driven propaganda.

Religious art is beautiful, haunting, awe-inspiring and remarkable. Mosques are wondrous displays of architectural imagination and impressive engineering. Architectural Digest lists, among other things, the world’s most beautiful mosques. One does not need any supernatural deities, or gods, or immaterial beings, to experience a sense of connection, community and compassion. All we need is our empathy based on our common humanity.

Subjecting art to the commercial imperative is at the source of its corruption into corporatist propaganda, an enterprise we call public relations and advertising. It is easy to point accusatory fingers at politically motivated iconographic art – ubiquitous portraits of Stalin in the USSR, or Mao’s ever-present gaze in Maoist China. Art helped Maoism go global. Socialist realism gave us idealised pictures of peasants and collective farms.

We can easily see the artistic practices, and their perversion, in societies other than our own. The Iranian Ayatollahs have deployed art to reinforce their theocratic rule, and public murals display motifs suitable to their post-revolution rule.

Murals throughout Iran celebrate Karbala, martyrdom and political Islam. They also tell the story of Iran’s subjection to foreign powers, and the Iranian people’s struggle for self-determination. Political iconography is not the sum total of Iranian public art. It also tells of their resistance, and their ability to see through the scurrilous plans of the imperialist powers to re-subjugate the nation.

Art is the important bridge between the mind and spiritual uplift. If you want to believe in a supernatural realm, that is up to you. Art is not the exclusive province of one or another religion or spiritual outlook, but a deeply human, cultural production that makes us realise that we are more than the sum of our parts. As Larry Culliford writes:

The foremost reason that artists create, and the rest of us value their art, is because art forms a priceless living bridge between the everyday psychology of our minds and the universal spirit of humanity.

Denouncing the deployment of crude political iconography is a pastime of art commentators in the West. Yes, we can see how the Iraqi Ba’athist party, in the 1980s, elevated its leader Saddam Hussein to a heroic, larger than life figure in its propaganda. Standing beside Saladin and Nebuchadnezzar, Hussein combined Islamic motifs with pre-Islamic Babylonian history.

However, let’s also remember the words of Culliford, from whose article we quoted above. Making a strict distinction between art and merchandise, Culliford writes that art is contaminated by the drive for profit, status, wealth and success. Instead, true art conveys human emotions of compassion, creativity, patience and discernment.

It is not beyond the capacity of our modern capitalist institutions to utilise art for propaganda purposes. Let’s be honest with ourselves, and stop accusing other nations of crude cultural practices which we implement in more sophisticated ways in our own societies. Art is an expression of individual genius – that much is for certain. Let’s also be aware that art can express a collective imagination for political purposes.

There are anniversaries which mark events that help us in understanding the world we live in today. This month – August 19 to be exact – marks 70 years since the US-UK instigated coup d’état in Iran, toppling the nationalist government of Mohammed Mossadegh. The coup, orchestrated with the help of British and American intelligence, not only ushered in decades of savagely repressive rule for Iranians, but also restored crucial oil industry concessions for Western oil corporations.

Why is all this important? The 1953 coup d’état demonstrated the underhanded and criminal lengths to which oil and energy companies will go, assisted by the London-Washington political axis, in reversing measures by democratically elected, nationalist governments to confront their power and oil wealth. The 1953 indicates the falsity of claims by Whitehall (and the Pentagon) to be exemplars of democracy – they employ predatory and undemocratic methods to protect their class privileges.

Since the turn of the 19th-20th century, Persia, as Iran was then known, had been a British colony. No, there was never a formal declaration to that effect. However, through a network of political connections, coercion, economic agreements and concessions, the British came to dominate economic and political processes in Persia. The discovery of oil – large, commercially viable reservoirs of it – made Iran a target of imperialist interests. London was the first to push into Iran, and through its Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), dominated the oil trade in Persia.

Business friendly Iranian politicians in Tehran, backed up by an informal network of British intelligence operatives and oil consultants, ensured that legislation was conciliatory towards Britain’s energy demands. No laws which restricted the outflow of profits, amounting to millions of pounds, would be tolerated by the largely supine political class in Iran. The Shah, indecisive and vacillating by nature, gave an air of imperial legitimacy to a ramshackle and corrupt regime.

The AIOC – formally known as Anglo-Persian Oil Company prior to 1935 – had a majority shareholder, the British government. Ironically, it was basically a nationalised oil company. I say ironically, because with the rise to power of Mohammed Mossadegh, he nationalised the AIOC assets, on the basis that the profits generated by Iranian oil should be shared by the Iranian people.

How were the Iranian oil workers treated? For an insight into how British-owned AIOC operated, we need look no further than its operational flagship refinery at Abadan. Workers laboured away in dangerous conditions, and child labourers were not unknown. While the oil company raked in the profits, people in Abadan existed on starvation wages, and the distended bellies of children attested to the existence of malnutrition. Not for nothing did the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, describe the city as ‘puking Abadan.’ Environmental and health-safety regulations were non-existent.

Iranian nationalist forces, part of a mosaic of Iranian political parties, came to power in 1951 in the shape of President Mohammed Mossadegh. Promptly nationalising the AIOC, Mossadegh struck down the crown jewel of British imperialism in Iran. Panic set in inside the corridors of power in London and Washington. The latter had their own reasons for wishing to see Mossadegh defeated, and the Americans swiftly began drawing up plans for Mossadegh’s removal – by hook or by crook.

The British government of Clement Attlee, (Labour) incensed at this display of rebellion by the uppity Iranians, moved into action. Using its network of sympathetic monarchist politicians, newspaper editors, British Petroleum (BP) oil executives and intelligence agents, London mobilised anti-nationalist Iranians for street rallies, sabotage and raising tensions inside Iran. The Shah, ever the coward, was leaned on by his British backers to acquiesce to Mossadegh’s removal.

By the way, BP is the rebranded image of the original AIOC.

The British relied on a collection of anti-Mossadegh Iranian forces – Islamic fundamentalists, monarchist military officers, pro-British street thugs and Iranian neo-Nazis. Yes, you read that correctly – Iranian racist neo-Nazi groups. The latter, while small, had a presence in Iran. Indeed, changing the nation’s nation’s name from Persia to Iran back in the 1930s, was a cynical manoeuvre by the then-Shah to curry favour with Nazi Germany. Iran means ‘land of the Aryans.’

The myth of Aryanism, its seemingly archaeological and esoteric ‘legitimacy’, was exploited by London to mobilise public hostility against the nationalist Mossadegh. The latter, in British and American propaganda, was routinely identified with the USSR and Communism. Initially, Britain’s plans went awry – Mossadegh was able to hang on to power. London’s tension strategy was not working. Masses of people, including from the rival but nationalist-friendly Iranian Communist Tudeh party, held off the weakling anti-nationalist forces.

To avoid a brewing civil war, Mossadegh relented and resigned office on August 19, 1953. The coup plotters were jubilant, and the Shah ruled with an iron hand from then on. The monarchist regime in Iran became one of the most savagely repressive governments in the world, and its Israeli-trained secret police, SAVAK, became notorious for its brutality. As for AIOC, now known as BP, the Iranian government negotiated a new concession, granting 40 percent ownership of Iran’s oil consortium. Britain’s power was diminished.

Another consequence of the 1953 coup should be noted here. Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, London and Washington have incessantly screamed about the dangers of the ‘mad ayatollahs’ in Tehran developing nuclear weapons. Whether the ayatollahs are mad or not I do not know. What is clear is that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were started and cultivated by the United States.

In the 1950s, US President Dwight Eisenhower initiated the Atoms for Peace initiative, which seeded nuclear ambitions for the Shah’s pro-American regime. The Shah, ever eager, wanted nuclear power, and sought out various vendors to build nuclear reactors. Tying his nation’s nuclear programme to Washington, numerous Iranian students studied the basics of nuclear engineering at MIT. The monarchy’s nuclear ambitions wedded it to an axis of pro-American regimes in the region.

Whenever we listen to the professed claims of concerns about human rights by Washington – and London’s – inside Iran, we must be skeptical. Former US President Trump may have committed numerous domestic crimes for which he has been indicted, but his main crime has gone unpunished – his war plans against Iran. It is not Iran’s theocratic practices that enrage the UK-US axis, but its political disobedience to Anglo-American dictates.

We must reorient our understanding of Iran, moving beyond the stereotypes of mad mullahs and domesticated hijab-wearing women, and examine the hypocrisies of our policies towards that rich and multicultural nation.

An old idea has been recycled, and making the rounds, in discussions about the anti war movement. In the face of the escalating Moscow-Kyiv confrontation, numerous organisations have asked why cannot the political Left join forces with the ultranationalist far right – at least with those ultrarightist politicians who have expressed anti war sentiments. Surely, the Trump-style MAGA Republicans, while holding obnoxious views, are to be commended when critiquing America’s predatory overseas wars?

No, MAGA Republicans are not anti war allies. Trump was never an anti war president. Oh yes, Tucker Carlson, the ultrarightist screaming shill, barked criticisms of the pro-war directions of the Obama and Biden administrations – attacking the covert US support for rebel antigovernment organisations in Syria, for instance. No, Carlson is definitely not an ally of the anti war movement.

Sam Carliner, writing in Counterpunch magazine, correctly observes that when MAGA conservatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene, criticise the Biden administration for escalating the NATO proxy war against Russia, they are doing so on the basis of anti-immigrant antipathy and isolationism. The ultranationalist Right, when expressing opposing to predatory wars, does so not because foreigners are being used as cannon fodder such as in Ukraine. It is because their xenophobic nationalism motivates them to denounce any kind of international outreach as inimical to US interests.

The isolationist tendency in conservative American politics, traces its lineage to the America First movement. Trump was certainly not the first to use that slogan. Based in racism, the claims of America First devalue non-American lives, and reject international cooperation and participation as unnecessary and unacceptable wastage of resources on foreign issues. While it is commendable to look after your own nation, that goal cannot be pursued in isolation from the rest of the world.

The MAGA Right, such as pseudo-populist and former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, advocate economic policies which favour big business, impoverish workers and promote racist sentiments which underscore rampant imperialism and militarism. While Carlson, who became a minor celebrity on the Fox News circuit, made moderate criticisms of the Obama administration’s pivot on Syria, he has been at one with the bipartisan consensus on the buildup for war with China.

The Democrat party, in a cynical and calculated way, exploited Carlson’s occasional deviations from pro-war orthodoxy by presenting him as a stooge for the Russians. This way of smearing any opponent of the war drive against Russia – and the current NATO proxy war supported by US imperialism – is a tried and tested tactic of the Democrat party. It serves to undermine critical examinations of imperialist war policies by maligning any critic as a potentially treasonous suspect.

Carlson has his dispute with his previous employer, and that is that. I am not taking sides with him nor with Fox News. What is relevant to point out is that Carlson, when he had a national platform, cheered on the American invasion of Iraq, and once called Iraqis ‘semiliterate primitive monkeys.’ These sentiments have no place in an anti war movement based on international solidarity.

Indeed, the MAGA ultranationalists do not understand that recessionary pressures and increased military spending go hand in hand. It is crucial to remember the connection between harsh neoliberal austerity at home, and escalating financial support for military intervention overseas. Why? The vision motivating the libertarian ultranationalist Right is precisely the philosophy that underpins reckless imperialist wars overseas.

Emphasising the above point is required, because there have been practical attempts to unite the Left (at least some particular groups on the broad Left), with the ultraliberatarian Right. I am referring to a specific event in the United States – the Rage Against the War Machine rally in February this year. Purportedly uniting disparate political forces on a common anti war platform, the rally in Washington DC, it turned out to be a bit of a freak show.

Organised jointly by the Libertarian party, and the supposedly leftist People’s party, the protest rally was better at marketing than actual attendance or political perspective. Uniting the far right and conspiracist groups of the ultranationalist Right, including the remnants of the Lyndon LaRouche far right cultist movement, the rally failed to live up to its promise of ‘raging’ against the US military financial complex.

The Libertarian party, advocating for a hyper-deregulated laissez-faire capitalism, is committed to the philosophy of Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises. His Ayn Randian vision would see society stripped bare of any type of government regulation. The Mises Caucus, the dominant group within the Libertarian party and co-organiser of the rally, is not only a hyper-capitalist in its orientation, but also neo-Confederate, basing themselves on a perverse and self-serving notion of individual liberty. It is not unusual to see Libertarian groups distinctly orient to far right militia and antisemitic forces.

While the media janissaries of the far right may posture as pro-worker advocates, in reality the policies of the MAGA Right have always been big business friendly. Tucker Carlson, throughout his stint as a media figure, consistently lined up with the policies of monopolies, proposing measures to make life harder for the working class. Not once did he speak up for public health and Medicare, or for environmental regulations to reduce pollution – he has been a populist for the 1 percent. The late English politician and racist, Enoch Powell, was cut from the same political cloth.

Surely the sign of maturity, both emotional and political, is to cooperate on momentously important and common issues with people and groups with whom we might otherwise disagree? That is true – not everyone can agree on everything one hundred percent of the time. We must also have the maturity to recognise that a dead end political strategy has been tried multiple times before, and failed. Broadening the scope and magnitude of the anti war movement is urgently needed; uniting with the MAGA Right is only allowing a poisonous weed space to grow.

Police procedural dramas on TV are very exciting, well-scripted and acted thrillers. The Law and Order franchise, The Closer and its follow up series Major Crimes, the old Columbo series featuring everyone’s favourite rumpled, brilliant detective – these are very entertaining programmes. They are also examples of the ubiquitous phenomenon known as copaganda – unrealistically positive and heroised versions of police officers on TV.

The TV networks are saturated with police dramas. They feature a range of characters and intricate storylines. Whether they are semi-comical goofy characters, or hard-nosed ethically upright partisans of the law, police and detective portrayals on TV and in film are a ubiquitous feature of our pop culture. They are very entertaining, but also misleading us in the way the police and justice system works.

The job of policing can be dangerous and stressful. Catching violent offenders is a perilous business; solving gruesome homicides can be traumatic for the officers involved. The killings of police officers at Wieambilla, Queensland, by vicious and fanatical ultrarightist survivalists was very saddening. Police dramas on TV however, are more about public relations and promoting a positive view of police forces in general.

Why raise the topic of copaganda? Adam Johnson, writing in AlterNet magazine, explains it this way:

Media critics spend a lot of time discussing how our military industry manipulates the press into war and bloated defense budgets. Far less time, however, is spent discussing how our local police departments plays the media to suit their ends. The reason for this mostly has to do with the fragmented nature of localized propaganda, combined with a prejudice that police aren’t very savvy.

Increasing funding for the police is easily achieved when a population is hooked on the appealing diet of copaganda. If the corporate media, fed by stories from the police PR departments, that street crime is on the rise, surely the solution is more police and prisons? This distracts us from two observations; first, that police funding has increased exponentially over the years, and second, that the problem street crime is wildly exaggerated, while corporate malfeasance and tax evasion reach unprecedented levels.

Corporate crime, while involving billions of dollars and tainting our financial institutions, makes for boring TV. Police procedural programmes are soap opera dramas, full of excitement, car chases, shootouts, forensic investigations featuring dedicated coroners, handsome David Caruso clashing with his fellow officers regarding some crucial piece of DNA evidence; what drama is there in tax evasion, which robs workers of their wages?

An Australian Senate Committee, in 2019/20, investigated the sustained, systematic and shocking magnitude of wage theft in Australia. The ABC summarised the findings of these investigations, and stated that billions of dollars in unpaid wages and superannuation was uncovered. Hospitality, universities and cleaning were just some of the industries where wage theft was rife.

Uncovering and prosecuting such systematic malfeasance takes persistence, poring through financial records, analysing the application of fiduciary obligations and identifying the areas of accounting deception – all very necessary, but hardly corresponding to the image of the heroic detectives waging a relentless war on crime we see on TV and in film. No car chases, no gunfights, no serial killers – but there are serial offenders in business suits.

Enforcing environmental regulations is necessary to protect human and animal life. Water pollution by large corporations leads to the deaths of people from various diseases and medical conditions, including cancer. Lives lost and marred by pollutants is a huge criminal problem, requiring the enforcement of clean air and water regulations. This requires the cooperation of victims, medical personnel, as well as police and law enforcement. Companies which pollute the environment hardly make the headlines.

Air pollution, while a serious and criminal cause of death and disease for thousands of Australians each year, barely registers headlines in the evening news. Where are the CSI teams of detectives, performing forensic analyses of air quality, determining the impact of pollutants on human health, and tracking down the culprits who caused the resultant deaths?

By emphasising the role that police play in taking down individual felons and street crime, particularly targeting people of colour and from ethnic minorities, copaganda builds upon a stereotype of ethnic crime. Racialised opinion pieces in the corporate media promote a vision of ethnic groups as abysmal swamps of crime. This skews our perception of police conduct, in particular, the violence of militarised police against ethnic communities.

Breonna Taylor, an African American emergency medical technician, was shot dead by police in her home while she slept. She was 26 years old in 2020. Police entered her home under the no-knock policy implemented by officers in Louisville, Kentucky. That means they were not required to identify themselves as police officers. Plain clothes officers used a battering ram to forcibly enter her premises.

Claiming that they were under fire from occupants in the house, the officers fired off multiple rounds, killing Taylor in her sleep. Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend who was present at the shooting, is a licensed firearms holder. He believed he was confronting home invaders. He survived the incident, and gave his account to the police.

None of the officers involved in the Taylor homicide were charged with murder. Her case is not unusual; there has been a spate of police killings in the US, targeting the African American community. Police departments and their vast arsenal of PR have swung into action, promoting images of officers taking a knee, holding black children for safety and solidarity. Once the cameras are gone, protesters and black communities have borne the brunt of police violence. Kneeling with anti-police brutality protesters one minute, beating the crap out of them the next.

But surely there are just a few bad apples? You know, a few rotten fruit must not be allowed to spoil the entire barrel? I understand the sentiment, because it originates with our culturally pervasive, heavily fictionalised background portrayal of police as essentially positive upstanding stars doing a difficult job in stressful circumstances. That argument of a ‘few bad apples’ is irrelevant. Airline pilots, surgeons, construction workers, paramedics, firefighters – all have difficult and stressful jobs. Any corruption or incompetence on their part would be met with the full force of the law, no excuses.

The esteemed Sir Stephen House, formerly the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police in Britain, admitted that the problems of corruption and abuse of power by UK police is not a question of just a few ‘bad apples’. He dismissed such folksy, simple slogans and demanded concrete solutions. Be that as it may, the argument of ‘bad apples’ frames the conversation about police on the basis of our fictionalised copaganda stereotype.

If you want to enjoy police procedural dramas on TV and in film, please do so. Just be mindful that the cheery, Heartbeat-style officer you see on the TV screen has more to do with copaganda than reality. Let’s be more aware of how pervasive copaganda influences our conversations around law enforcement.

The nation of Niger, located in west Africa, is under military rule. A coup d’état by a group of officers ousted the civilian president, Mohamed Bazoum, and installed General Abdourahmane Tchiani as leader of the country. The coup took place in late July this year. A former French colony, Niger gained independence in 1960, and currently has a population of 24 million people.

Let’s go into a bit of relevant background, so we can better understanding this coup in Niger. Why is Niger important to the Western nations? Why the focus on the Sahel?

France – former colonial power in the Sahel

Niger is located in the Sahel; the latter is not a country. A bio-geographic, eco-climatic region stretching in a band across Africa, it is the region below the Sahara where the desert conditions transition to savannah grassland. Niger, along with Mali and other west African nations, form a group of states economically and linguistically ties to France, the former colonial power.

For its part, France has maintained a web of intricate political and economic networks in the Sahel, intent on sustaining its predominant position in west Africa since decolonisation in the 1960s. Since the era of De Gaulle, the French ruling class has sought to aggrandise its international role, and kept west Africa as a network of clientele states – a policy of Francafrique.

Niger possesses extensive mineral resources, including uranium, diamonds, cobalt and platinum. Niger provides the uranium which powers the French nuclear and electricity industries.

French troops, since 2014, has been fighting Islamist and nationalist rebels in Niger, Mali, and other Sahel nations. Under the pretext of counterterrorism, Paris has deployed French troops and special forces in its former West African colonies. In 2020, no less a media outlet than the highly esteemed New York Times published an extensive article on the French military expedition in the Sahel.

The NY Times noted that the Sahel was becoming France’s forever war; a quagmire into which French imperialism has poured dollars and soldiers. In 2014, the French authorities promised that the deployment to the Sahel, and combat against Islamist extremism, would only last a few weeks. Seven years later, the French forces were still fighting. It is interesting to note how rival imperialist states are very effective at highlighting the crimes and misdeeds of their opponents.

The European Union (EU) nations have spent billions of dollars over the course of decades, outsourcing the policing and detention of migrants and refugees to sub-Saharan African countries. Niger, a mineral-resource rich nation in the Sahel, has served as a crucial lynchpin of this EU policy. Successive Nigerien governments have had formal partnerships with the EU to detain and corral would-be asylum seekers, preventing them from reaching Libya and Tunisia. The latter nations have served as embarkation points for refugees seeking asylum in Europe.

The US role

The United States, utilising its well worn rationale of a ‘war on terror’, constructed the largest, most expensive drone base in the world, in Niger. Located 5 kilometres south east of Agadez, Niger Air Base 201 cost millions of dollars to build, and requires millions each year for its upkeep. A hub of intelligence operations in the Sahel, the base is part of the expanding US military footprint in Africa. Since the recent coup, the base is unusable, and American military personnel are restricted to its premises.

American special forces have been active in Niger, with the permission of the previous Nigerien authorities. Elite units of American troops have been killed in engagements with Islamist militants, part of a covert war in the Sahel. The US deployment to Niger over the last twenty years has hardly been marginal or tangential to US interests. Not to be outdone, Germany has deployed contingents of troops Niger and Mali. The Bundeswehr, since 2018, has been training Nigerien troops in their fight against Islamist groups.

Not a Conradian ‘heart of darkness’

It is too simplistic, and woefully inaccurate, to dismiss the Nigerien coup as simply the work of power-hungry military officers. African politics is usually interpreted – if at all – by the corporate-controlled media as involving corrupt despots, power-mad generals and tribal warfare. This viewpoint reinforces our view of independent African nations unable or too incompetent to govern themselves.

The Nigerien military coup leaders did not decide to carry out their putsch on a whim. They did not seize power in a fit of semi-libidinous excitement for more authority. Niger is the fourth nation in west Africa to experience an anti-western coup by nationalist military officers. Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea have, since 2020, undergone coups by military officers who objected to the deployment of foreign troops (namely French and American) on their soil.

The leaders of Burkina Faso and Mali have explicitly stood by their fellow officers in Niger, denouncing suggestions by European governments to intervene militarily if ousted president Bazoum is not reinstated.

It is no wonder that numerous Western governments have watched the unfolding events in Niger with alarm. The role of Russia, if any, is still unclear at this time. The would-be putschist and mercenary Russian braggart Yezhgeny Prigozhin welcomed the Nigerien coup. Moscow’s attitude is more circumspect; however, given the recent high level Russia-Africa Summit, Moscow is making a strong push into African affairs.

Most of the corporate media are portraying the events in Niger as a worrying loss for the West in the fight against Islamist extremism. They are correct up to a point – however, the Nigerien generals are fully committed to combating religiously extremist groups. The ascent of nationalist officers to power in Niger – along with Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea – is, in a way, the revenge of Gaddafi. The latter was a Libyan patriotic officer who overthrew a weak, imperialist-backed proxy regime in that northern Arab-African nation in 1969.

Since the 2011 demise of the Gaddafi regime, Islamist organisations have spread throughout the Sahel, including in Niger. Rather than a Conradian ‘heart of darkness’ to which African nations are condemned by pro-imperialist writers, the darkness is not in the skin colour of the Africans, but in the imperialist project itself.