Episodes
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In an unprecedented election year, more voters than ever in recorded history will have headed to the polls by the end of 2024—in at least 64 countries, with over half of the world’s population involved. In the last six months alone, pivotal elections have occurred in India, South Africa, Mexico, the UK, France, and the European Parliament. In two weeks, the US heads to the polls for a historic presidential election.
On this episode of Just Us Under A Tree, Tanveer Jeewa and Dan Mafora host Civil and Political Rights expert Mudzuli Rakhivhane to unpack the recent threats to challenge the outcome of the May 29 national elections in South Africa. What does it mean to have free and fair elections? Dan and Mudzuli, who were on the ground on election day, share their observations of various irregularities, as the three discuss whether they were indeed “so egregious as to vitiate the entire elections,” as has been alleged on many occasions. Tanveer is a constitutional law and property law lecturer, and Dan is a lawyer in Cape Town and the author of Capture in the Court (Tafelberg, 2023).
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Despite being one of the world's major crude oil producers, Nigeria has depended for decades on imports of refined petroleum products to meet its domestic energy needs. While Nigeria exports “Bonny Light,” a variant of “Light sweet crude oil” considered more desirable due to its low sulfur content, the refined petroleum Nigeria imports from Europe is more polluting and toxic than “black market fuel made from stolen oil in rudimentary “bush” refineries hidden deep in the creeks and swamps of the Niger delta,” as the Guardian put it. As far as absurd examples of dependency theory go, this is difficult to beat.
In light of this, it is understandable that some applause accompanied the announcement about a decade ago that Aliko Dangote, Nigeria’s billionaire cement magnate, and Africa’s richest man, had broken ground on a new mega-project to construct the continent’s largest crude oil refinery in Lagos.
Fast-forward to the present day. Following the government’s removal of petrol subsidies in mid-2023 and the intensification of an economic crisis that has left Nigerians reeling in the aftermath, many hoped that a reduction in energy costs would swiftly follow the announcement in mid-September that the first trucks laden with refined petrol had started leaving the Dangote Refinery.
Now, nearly a month later, fuel costs have not only remained high but continued to rise––amid a highly public spat between Dangote and Nigerian government officials––prompting confusion, conspiracy, and much questioning about why the Dangote Refinery has not saved Nigeria.
This episode, recorded amid the madness, attempts to make sense of the facts and fiction surrounding the refinery, the ever-spiraling price of petrol products, and the interaction between indigenous capitalist classes and the post-colonial state in Nigeria.
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Episodes manquant?
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On September 7, 2024, Algeria’s incumbent president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, was re-elected for a second five-year presidential term with 94.65 percent of the vote. Tebboune came into power in 2019, replacing Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who ruled the country for 20 years and planned on running for a fifth term until widespread protests for radical change ended his rule.
Data from Algeria’s National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE) suggest that just 23 percent of the population voted for a candidate. Only three regime-approved candidates contested, with Tebboune's main challengers being conservative Abdelaali Hassani Cherif and socialist Youcef Aouchiche, who received 3 percent and 2.1 percent of the vote, respectively.
The widespread disaffection reflects the legacy of 2019’s Hirak movement—whose complaint was not just against Bouteflika but the entire Algerian political system—and many activists from this generation have been forced into exile or detained while numerous associations and media outlets have shuttered. Tebboune has managed discontent through social spending to improve quality of life, while his foreign policy has focused on key geopolitical questions around Palestine, Western Sahara, the Sahel, and Libya. Algiers-based AIAC contributing editor Maher Mezahi joins the podcast to discuss what the elections mean for Algeria’s future and its role in the region.
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On July 7, France heads to the polls in the second round of a legislative election widely viewed as a referendum on the country's future. The results of the first round boasted a strong showing for the far-right party, Rassemblement National (National Rally), which won 33% of the popular vote. The leftist alliance, Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front), won 28% and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc Ensemble (Together) came third with 21%.
Macron called the elections in early June after elections for the European Parliament resulted in a big swing to the right across the continent. Of the 81 seats designated for France in the 720-member body (the second-largest allocation of any member state after Germany), the National Rally won the most—30 to be exact. Faced with an uncertain parliamentary mandate, Macron seemingly called the elections to test the national mood, a gambit that many commentators say has backfired.
Joining the podcast to discuss these elections, is AIAC’s Francophone regional editor, Shamira Ibrahim. Why are these elections significant? Why is Macron so popular, and how come it's the once-fringe right-wing benefitting, rather than the left? What might the normalization of anti-migrant policies mean for black and brown people in France, as well as the more than two million people who live in France’s overseas territories? In addition to being our Francophone regional editor, Shamira is a Brooklyn-based writer by way of Harlem, Canada, and the Comoros, who explores identity, cultural production, and technology.
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Over the last two weeks, Kenya has been rocked by widespread protests against a controversial law that aims to raise taxes. The 2024 Finance Bill sought to amass at least $2.7 billion in funds, primarily for the purpose of repaying creditors and stabilizing the country’s ballooning budget deficit, with public debt standing at 68 percent of GDP—which exceeds the 55 percent that the IMF and World Bank have recommended.
Initially, the bill proposed controversial tax hikes on basic commodities such as bread and cooking oil, which were dropped on June 19 after the first wave of protests the day before. Nonetheless, Kenya’s parliament passed the bill, which still included provisions on a 16 percent tax on goods and services to be used to equip specialized hospitals with over 50 beds, which some worried would increase the cost of health care.
After protests continued, President William Ruto announced on June 26 that he would not sign the bill, conceding that the “people have spoken.” The day before, however, he called some actions of protesters—particularly, the storming of parliament after police shot at demonstrators with live ammunition—an “unprecedented attack on democracy.” Meanwhile, security forces have killed at least 22 people, with witness reports suggesting that the death toll could be significantly higher.
Why are these protests significant? Writing this week in Africa Is a Country, Kari Mugo observed that “this historic week marks a new era after many years of discontent and political apathy. A renewed desire for political engagement has ignited in Kenya.” The protests have wide demographic appeal but have been led primarily by Gen Z, who in Kenya is a group that largely did not participate in the 2022 general elections. And although the bill has been put on hold, protestors are still taking to the streets demanding Ruto’s outright resignation. Ruto—who came to power in a 2022 election after narrowly defeating Raila Odinga—is widely viewed as out of touch, despite styling himself as an “everyman hustler.”
His time in office has been marked by deepening austerity that is worsening an escalating cost-of-living crisis. It is in this context that Ruto has regularly told Kenyans to tighten their belts. But in one of many examples of “do as I say, not as I do,” Ruto angered many when last month he chartered a private jet, instead of using the presidential carrier, to visit Joe Biden in Washington—the first visit by an African leader in sixteen years.
So, to talk about these protests and what lies ahead for Kenya, I am joined by Wangui Kimari, who is our East Africa regional editor. Wangui is also an anthropologist based at the American University Nairobi Center and participatory action research coordinator for the Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC), a community-based organization in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Nigeria has a corruption problem—this is hardly breaking news. Less often acknowledged, however, is the fact that Nigeria has long had a vibrant and sometimes powerful anti-corruption movement. What are the origins of this movement? What has it achieved? Can it be rescued from the perennial limitations of anti-corruption (anti-)politics identified elsewhere in Africa and across the world? This episode examines these questions through the prism of the rise and fall of the politics of anti-corruption in Nigeria.
Sa’eed Husaini is a research fellow at the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja, and a regional editor for Africa Is a Country. OAG is a food security management postgraduate with a passion for revolutionary politics and discourse. He lives in Hull, UK. Emeka Ugwu is a Lagos-based book critic/co-founder of Wawa Book Review. He is also a data analyst.
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On this episode of Just Us Under A Tree, Dan Mafora, Elisha Kunene, and Tanveer Jeewa discuss the recent slew of litigation and controversial matters relating to South Africa’s 2024 elections. In particular, they unpack the latest Constitutional Court judgment that disqualified former President Jacob Zuma from contesting the elections with the M.K party (uMkhonto weSizwe, named after the A.N.C.’s former military wing).
They also touch on the recent ruling of the International Court of Justice on South Africa’s request for amending the provisional orders against Israel under the Genocide Convention. Tanveer is a constitutional law and property law lecturer, Dan is a lawyer in Cape Town and the author of Capture in the Court (Tafelberg, 2023), and Elisha teaches law and politics in Cape Town.
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Africa is a Country is happy to announce our new collaboration with The Nigerian Scam podcast, which focuses on examining how episodic iterations of audacious fraud in Nigerian history and contemporary politics intertwine with the ongoing struggle for African independence in the intricate web of global capitalism.
In the first syndicated episode, Sa’eed Husaini, OAG, and Emeka Ugwu consider the uses and abuses of centering “the scam” as a tool for understanding the failures of independence and the emergence of capitalism in Nigeria. Why did Nigeria come to be associated with the classic internet scam, a.k.a. “yahoo-yahoo” (among other fraudulent activities)? To what extent can the phenomenon of fraud in Nigeria be neatly separated from “legitimate” forms of capital accumulation, such as in the oil sector, the music industry, or Nollywood? Is Nigeria’s case really unique, or is it a slight variation of the failures of petty bourgeois-led independence movements in Africa?
Sa’eed is a research fellow at the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja, and a regional editor for Africa Is a Country. OAG is a food security management postgraduate with a passion for revolutionary politics and discourse who lives in Hull, UK, and Emeka is a Lagos-based book critic/co-founder of Wawa Book Review. He is also a data analyst.
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Africa Is a Country is proud to present a new collaboration with the South African podcast Just Us Under a Tree. Once a month we will host an episode of the podcast, which is (mostly) about the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Returning from a long hiatus, its goal is to make it easier to talk about the law and read the news.
On this episode, Tanveer Jeewa, Dan Mafora, Johan Lorenzen, and Elisha Kunene host International Human Rights Law and Children’s Rights expert, Bryony Fox, to unpack the recent ruling of the International Court of Justice on South Africa’s request for provisional orders against Israel under the Genocide Convention. Tanveer is a constitutional law and property law lecturer, Dan is a lawyer in Cape Town and the author of Capture in the Court (Tafelberg, 2023), Johan works for Richard Spoor suing companies who injure indigenous communities, workers, and consumers, and Elisha teaches law and politics in Cape Town.
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In late September, Egypt’s Electoral Commission announced that the country will hold presidential elections in mid-December of this year. On Monday, October 3, incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced that he would run for a third term. A constitutional referendum in 2019 changed presidential term lengths from four years to six years, and handed Sisi a clean slate, permitting him to run for two additional terms under the new arrangement. Sisi could be in power until 2034.
Sisi took power in 2013 through a popular military takeover that deposed Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi. Since then, his regime has cracked down on dissent, with tens of thousands of his political opponents (like Alaa Abd el-Fattah) jailed. Economically, Sisi handed the levers of the economy to his comrades in the junta, ballooning the country’s public debt by building scores of grandiose, white elephant projects. For ordinary people, the price of basic commodities has soared as economic restructuring by the IMF looms.
The election in December is expected to be a foregone conclusion in favor of Sisi. In early October when he announced his candidacy, Sisi addressed the dire economic situation by exclaiming, “By God almighty, if the price of the nation’s progressing and prospering is that it doesn’t eat and drink as others do, then we won’t eat and drink.” This angered Egyptians and in some parts of the country (like Marsa Matrouh), spontaneous protests broke out.
Is Egypt on the verge of another uprising? What space is there for dissidents, both on the street and on the ballot box? Do Sisi’s challengers—like Ahmed Tantawi—have any chance of rallying opposition against him? Joining us on the podcast to discuss all this is Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist and scholar-activist, currently based in Germany. Hossam has written for various outlets, including the Guardian, New York Times, Jacobin, Middle East Eye, New Arab, Al-Jazeer, and others. He also maintains a regular newsletter on Egyptian politics on Substack.
Image credit Simon Matzinger CC BY 2.0 Deed.
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Last week, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced the hosts for the 2025 and 2027 African Cup of Nations. Morocco won the right to host the 2025 tournament, while the triumvirate of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda will host the 2027 edition. Meanwhile, the 2023 edition of the biennial competition, was originally meant to happen in June/July of this year in Côte d'Ivoire but was postponed to January 2024 to avoid adverse weather conditions brought on by the host nation’s rainy season.
This was an unpopular decision in some quarters, especially in Europe’s Top Five leagues which have long complained about key African players being unavailable at a pivotal stage of the football season. Last week, the footballing world was left puzzled when Italian club Napoli uploaded videos to TikTok mocking their star Nigerian striker, Victor Osimhen. Speculation ran wild, and tellingly, one popular explanation was that Napoli's president Aurelio De Laurentiis was trying to force Osimhen out of the club, due to his expected absence given AFCON duty (Osimhen missed out on the 2021 tournament, and the Super Eagles are strong favorites for next year’s contest). In 2022, De Laurentiis controversially said Napoli wouldn’t sign African players unless they backed out of AFCON.
Joining us on the podcast to discuss the politics and spectacle of AFCON, is football journalist Maher Mezehi. What can we expect from the tournament in 2024? And what political motives are behind the successful 2025 and 2027 bids, especially with Morocco outbidding Algeria, with both countries resorting to sports diplomacy in their geopolitical rivalry? Notwithstanding the constant consternation from Europe, why is AFCON a tournament that African players treasure above all?
Maher Mezahi is an independent football journalist based in Algiers. He covers North African football extensively, and his work has been published in the international media including the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, ESPN FC, and Al Jazeera English.
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Sierra Leone will elect a president and parliament on June 24, its fifth election since a devastating 10-year civil war ended in 2002. Incumbent Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is seeking re-election in a two-horse race against Samura Kamara of the All People’s Congress (APC). The contest is a re-match of the 2018 vote, when Bio won 51.81% of the vote to Kamara’s 48.19%.
Like the rest of the continent, the country is facing a cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by global economic shocks. In August 2022, protests in this regard in Freetown, Makeni, and Kamakwie triggered a crackdown from the state, and 20 people were killed. When Bio came to power in 2018, having succeeded APC president Ernest Koroma, he promised to undo the legacy of heavy-handedness and intolerance to criticism that Koroma’s presidency became associated with. Now, many Sierra Leoneans are seeing more of the same.
Ahead of the elections, restrictions on gatherings have been enforced, as well as a change to the voting system which is causing confusion. Kamara is also facing corruption charges originating from his time as foreign minister under Koroma, and the glacial pace that the case is moving through the courts has resulted in suspicions that Bio is weaponizing the state apparatus to frustrate Kamara’s candidacy.
This week on the podcast, we are joined from Freetown by Sierra Leonean and American author Ishmael Beah to discuss the elections. Does Kamara represent much of a difference to Bio? How strong are Sierra Leone’s ethnic divisions, which inform most voting preferences? And, what of the youth who led the country’s cost-of-living protests? Ishmael, is the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Radiance of Tomorrow, A Novel, and Little Family released in 2020. AIAC director of operations, Boima Tucker, also joins as a special guest.
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For nearly two months, fighting has continued in Sudan between two factions of the country’s military government—the Sudanese Armed Forces, headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Lt General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.. Fighting has been concentrated in the capital Khartoum and Sudan’s Darfur region, with more than 1,500 people killed.
The conflict originated in Sudan’s 2019 revolution, when Omar al-Bashir, the country’s military despot, was ousted after 30 years. Thereafter, the military agreed to a power-sharing deal and transition to civilian rule (after massacring protestors in Khartoum in June 2019). But in October 2021, the SAF and RSF joined forces to depose Sudan’s interim civilian leader, Abdallah Hamdok.
The proximate causes of today’s fighting stem from a dispute over integrating the RSF into Sudan’s security apparatus. Fundamentally, both sides see the other as an existential threat, a possible foil to their control of vast economic interests, such as gold and gum Arabic. The international community—with its own interests in the Sudanese economy—is also to blame, being overcommitted to the military factions as elite brokers of the transitional process. Excluded in all this are the Sudanese people. Joining the podcast to discuss the roots of the crisis and how ordinary Sudanese people are proving resilient, is Mahder Serekberhan. Mahder Serekberhan is a political science PhD student at Syracuse University. She is the vice chairperson of the Global Pan-African Movement, North America Delegation.
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Across the world, renewed social unrest—from public sector wage strikes in the United Kingdom, to protests against pension reform in France—are being read as a repudiation of austerity. The inflationary crisis afflicting the global North has had the knock-on effect of precipitating a debt crisis in the global South as the cost of servicing debt increases. “Repayments on public debt owed to non-residents for a group of 91 of the world’s poorest countries will take up an average of more than 16 per cent of government revenues in 2023,” the Financial Times recently reported. To make repayments possible, government’s usually resort to austerity, cutting social spending on healthcare, education, and social security.
This is how we usually understand austerity, as caused by some kind of economic shock. But what if that is not the case? What if rather than being exceptional to modern capitalism, austerity is in fact inherent to its stability? This is what Clara Mattei argues in The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (University of Chicago Press, 2022). Rather than painful medicine states are forced to administer in times of crisis, austerity is a fundamental tool for stabilizing class relations and increasing market dependence. But if austerity is intrinsic to capitalism, what does this mean for the anti-austerity agenda that has captured the global left? Can we resist austerity without dismantling capitalism? This week on the podcast we explore these questions with Mattei, an assistant professor of economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
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In December, one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history came to power. Led by Benjamin Netenyahu—who serves as Prime Minister for the sixth time—the coalition includes figures such as Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, a settler and one time supporter of the terrorist group Kach (Ben Gvir is also known to have hung a portrait of Baruch Goldstein in his living room. Goldstein, also a supporter of Kach, massacred 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron in 1994.)
The government has proposed a set of sweeping judicial reforms that, in the main, would drastically restrict the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down laws passed by parliament deemed unconstitutional. The move has prompted mass demonstrations across Israel's major urban centers, such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, with many calling these reforms a threat to Israel’s democracy.
However, as Jewish American commentator Peter Beinart wrote in the New York Times, “The principle that Mr. Netanyahu’s liberal Zionist critics say he threatens—a Jewish and democratic state—is in reality a contradiction.” The contradiction is expressed in the reality of apartheid in which five million Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem are under direct Israeli control but are denied basic rights and freedoms. These mass demonstrations are happening amidst an escalation of violence—Israeli forces have killed 65 Palestinians since the start of the year, while 11 Israeli civilians have been killed. Earlier this month, settlers from the Occupied West Bank (illegal settlements in the West Bank number close to 500,000) carried out a violent pogrom in the village of Huwara near Nablus, torching homes and businesses. Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, subsequently made comments calling for the government to “wipe out” the village.
On this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Peter Beinart to discuss the political instability in Israel, the trajectories of ethno-nationalism, and whether there are any ways out of the impasse. Could the vision of a secular, democratic state for Palestianians and Jews between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea gain traction? Is this vision compatible with Zionism? And what of the role of the US, the Israeli’s state’s most ardent international backer?
Peter Beinart is editor-at-large of Jewish Currents. He is also Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York and author of The Beinart Notebook, a weekly newsletter.
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South Africa is currently being gripped by a devastating energy crisis with homes and businesses suffering blackouts for up to sixteen hours a day. The failure of the country’s national power utility—Eskom—to meet electricity demand has been ongoing since 2007, and is now in its worst period. Many reasons are proffered for how this predicament arose, prominent among them being the widespread corruption connected to the ruling African National Congress’ system of patronage.
Successive leaders have been brought in to steer the sinking ship ashore, and all of them have veered adrift. The latest failure is Andre De Ruyter’s, who resigned from Eskom in December last year, and then stepped down with immediate effect after conducting an explosive interview on South African television that revealed the extent of looting at the organization. De Ruyter—whose beginnings were in the private sector—was widely viewed as a steady hand at the wheel. During his tenure, a consensus rose in favor of Eskom’s complete privatization. This would finalize a process inaugurated in 1983 when the apartheid government corporatized Eskom.
But, is this the only way? Can there be a public pathway towards rebuilding Eskom’s capacity and decarbonizing South Africa’s energy sector? On the podcast this week, Will chats to Andile Zulu, a writer and regular contributor to Africa Is A Country, who is also the energy democracy officer at the Alternative Information Development Centre in Cape Town, South Africa.
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On February 25, Africa’s largest democracy and economy will elect its president and parliamentary representatives. This will be Nigeria’s seventh electoral cycle since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999. In its fourth republic, the People's Democratic Party has won every multi-party contest until 2015, when the All Progressives Congress led by incumbent Muhammdu Buhari clinched two successive terms. Now bearing the party flag is Bola Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos state. The PDP’s candidate is Atiku Abubaker, who served as Olusegun Obasanjo’s vice president from 1999 until 2007.
But it’s not these veterans who are captivating hearts and minds. Instead, it is Peter Obi, a wealthy businessman and ex-governor of Anambra state, who is causing a stir. Initially, Obi intended to compete for the PDP nomination but crossed the floor to the Labour Party after being frustrated with the PDP’s primary process. His move to the Labour Party—a hitherto relatively unknown, social-democratic platform—is viewed by many as a bold, anti-establishment move. Young Nigerians are attracted to his seeming “outsider” image, his good governance politics, and his entrepreneurial background, which exemplifies the dream of upward mobility that evades many young Nigerians. Obi has cultivated a cult following, with many of his fans dubbing themselves “Obidients.”
Obi’s hype, along with an endorsement from Obasanjo, makes him look like the natural frontrunner. But can Obi really transform Nigeria’s political and economic system, marred by staggering inequality, regional and ethno-religious divides, and corruption? Or is his politics vacuous and empty, based on vague promises to “turn things around?” And how does the Left feature in all of this? What of the initiatives born from the mass mobilizations of the mid-2010s, such as #OccupyNigeria and the Take It Back Movement? And above all, #EndSARS?
This week, Will is joined by the hosts of an exciting new podcast on Nigerian politics, the Nigerian Scam, to discuss the upcoming election and its possible outcomes. Sa'eed Husaini is a contributing editor at Africa Is a Country, who lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria, wrapping up a fellowship at the University of Lagos, and O.A.G has a postgraduate degree in food security, and is a political commentator with great interest in revolutionary thought in and out of the African continent.
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Last year, left-wing veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated right-wing Jair Bolsonaro in an historic election for Brazil. The victory was slim—Lula amassed 50.9% to Bolsonaro’s 49.1%. Bolsonarismo—the term used to describe adherence to Bolsonaro’s crackpot ideology which blends neofascism, evangelical Christianity, and neoliberalism—was far from repudiated. And, lo and behold, a week after Lula’s inauguration (for which Bolsonaro was absent, on top of failing to concede defeat in the first place), on the 8th of January Bolsonaristas stormed the country’s main federal buildings in the capital Brasilia, in what many are calling a coup attempt akin to the US Capitol riots.
Bolsonaro, for now, remains in self-imposed exile in Florida, while Lula’s government proceeds with arrests of those who bear responsibility for the failed putsch. Just how much of a threat to Brazil’s democracy is Bolsonarismo, and how can its wide, cross-class appeal be explained? And will Lula be able to govern in spite of the country’s ongoing legitimation crisis, the contradictions of his own, broad coalition, and the pressing challenges the country faces such as food insecurity and climate change? As Sabrina Fernandes wrote before Lula’s victory in Africa Is A Country, “The challenge, then, is at least threefold: to elect a progressive government and maintain power, to fix recent losses in a short amount of time, and to propose more ambitious politics that can win the people over.” Sabrina joins will to discuss the prospects and challenges for Lula’s third term, and whether Lula can lead a strengthened effort for progressive, Third World internationalism.
Sabrina Fernandes is a sociologist, ecosocialist organizer and communicator from Brazil. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow with CALAS at the University of Guadalajara working on just transitions from the margins, and is also the person behind the radical left education project Tese Onze.
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After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a multi-polar order started taking shape. Determined to impose economic costs on Putin’s regime for its aggression, the West quickly and unilaterally undertook to sanction and isolate it. But these decisions were not without ramifications for other countries in the world, especially large swathes of the Global South, who are dependent on Russian imports, particularly energy and wheat. Feeling the economic pain of the West’s economic war and keen to capitalize on their need for support, countries in the global South have adopted a strategic neutral stance for better leverage.
As Tim Sahay argues, “Countries like China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have refused to sacrifice their national interests to punish Russia. Most importantly, they believe their bargaining power in the new Cold War will result in sweeter trade, technology, and weapons deals from the West.” Although the old non-alignment was rooted in moral and political principles, today’s one is driven by pragmatism. Tim joins Will to discuss the future of non-alignment in the era of great power competition between the West and the China-Russia axis. Will non-aligned countries mount a co-ordinated response to global challenges such as energy and security? And, how will they respond to the coming debt crisis precipitated by the West’s monetary policy tightening to contain inflation?
Tim Sahay is currently the senior policy manager at Green New Deal Network, a coalition of labor, climate and environmental justice organizations growing a movement to pass national and international green policies.
Articles referenced:
Tim Sahay, ‘A New Non-Alignment,’ Phenomenal World https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/non-alignment-brics/
Rana Foroohar, ‘A new world energy order is taking shape,’ Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/d34dfd79-113c-4ac7-814b-a41086c922fa
Dylan Riley & Robert Brenner, ‘Seven Theses on American Politics,’ New Left Review https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/articles/dylan-riley-robert-brenner-seven-theses-on-american-politics
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On December 7, 2022, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was impeached. Castillo ascended to the job in a watershed election in 2021, carrying the hopes of Peru’s poor, downtrodden and marginalized despite facing a hostile, right-wing Congress. This was the third impeachment attempt by the legislative body, and it came after Castillo first tried to avoid removal by dissolving Congress and announcing a “government of national emergency.” Castillo was unsuccessful, and despite attempting to flee the country, was arrested and imprisoned. His deputy president, Dina Boluarte, broke ranks with Castillo and has since become the country’s president.
These events have triggered a nation-wide backlash, with protests in the capital, Lima, as well as Peru’s rural highlands. Protestors are calling for Boluarte to step down, and for elections to take place immediately. Others are calling for Castillo’s reinstatement, and others still, for the wholesale secession from Lima province, given Peru’s stark regional divide between the metropole and the rest of the country. So far, the military repression has been intense, and more than forty people have been killed by security forces.
What comes next for Peru? Will these protests generate momentum for a new constitution to correct Peru’s deep inequalities? Or are they the beginnings of another democratic backslide? This week, Will is joined by Nicolas Allen and José Miguel Munive Vargas to discuss. Nicolas is a graduate student in Latin American history, commissioning editor at (US) Jacobin Magazine and managing editor at Jacobin America Latina. José Miguel is a Peruvian PhD student in Latin American history at Stony Brook University with interests in Andean history (particularly Peru); race, gender, and nationalism.
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