Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello, dear listeners. Thomas Small and Eamon Dean are back with you for another episode and a brand new season of Conflicted, Season 5 to be precise.
Eamon, you're here, you're still alive. Don't sound disappointed. Well, I mean, disappointed. Look, I'm sitting here in my pajamas. Dear listener, we are recording this episode so bloody early to suit Eamon's very hectic schedule, and I'm sitting here in my pajamas. Yeah, well, as I told you, Thomas Luckin, I'm a man in demand, you know, and some of my clients are already saying, you know, well...
Once the cloning technology advances, we will make sure we will have a few copies of you. Maybe you'll live forever, Eamon. There'll always be an Eamon Dean advising, whispering into the ears of the world's decision makers. When we started doing this show back in 2019, did you think we'd still be blathering on about the Middle East?
about Islam and everything in between five years later? Yeah, I didn't expect that, you know, this...
marriage between us would last that long. I mean, I know we argue like married couple all the time, but, you know, nonetheless, like, you know, I mean, we managed to keep it together. I must say, like, you know, I'm impressed. So far, so far. It's a long distance relationship, though. Maybe that's what does it. Yes. Yeah, definitely. I miss you, man.
Well, dear listeners, in all of that time, if you've been listening closely, you'll know that there is a part of the world with an enormous Islamic heritage, which we haven't really studied in any depth so far, which is odd given just how consequential a region it is, both in the history of Islam and also in the geopolitics of the world today.
and for sure its future. And I'm talking, of course, about Africa. Oh, Africa. Except, you know, I have different definitions of Africa, but we will come to this later, Thomas. Well, dear listeners, in this season we are doing Africa, from Sudan to Morocco, from Ethiopia to Mali. We're covering Boko Haram. We're covering a Shabab. We're going to crisscross the Sahara to give you the context and insight you need to understand how Islam has shaped this continent,
and what the continent of Africa means for all of us today.
Season five will be coming to you every two weeks. But dear listeners, if you want more Conflicted, please do sign up to our Conflicted community. You'll have heard us going on about it, but it will give you your Conflicted fix with bonus episodes and so much more. Now, Eamon, in this first episode, what better way to start than with an African overview? The history, the geopolitics, the future, all the things we love here on Conflicted. Let's jump right in.
So Eamon, Africa, I mean, where the hell do we start? It's a pretty huge place. And today, as we'll find out, immensely consequential, which is why we're spending a whole season on it. I mean, in terms of demography,
in terms of its development, in terms of the natural resources that it is rich in, in terms of geopolitics, there's a new scramble for Africa going on. All of this means that Africa needs to be covered by conflicted.
But to make it personal at the outset, Ayman, did you ever visit Africa when you were in Al-Qaeda? No. When I was in Al-Qaeda, no. But in later life, I mean, I started visiting Africa quite regularly, and especially, like, in, I mean, the eastern part of the continent, because that's
That's where the business is. And that's where I go. Well, when you were, you know, in Al Qaeda and then a double agent inside Al Qaeda during your terrorism days, you know, what was the jihadist perspective on Muslims in Africa? Let's say, how did the jihadi movement think of Africa?
Well, remember, Thomas, that I joined the jihadist movements just right after they left Sudan. And we will be talking about Sudan a lot later. So their experience with Africa was a little bit mixed. If you ask me, whenever I talk to people from Al-Qaeda at that time, in 1997, 1998, 1999, they will tell you that
Look, Africa is a land that if you are not a hyena, you will be eaten by them. So therefore, you have to be a hyena in Africa. In other words, it is survival of the fittest. It is the typical jungle. And that is why for them, they say that we didn't survive Africa.
You know, in Africa initially, because we were too trusting. You have to be brutal and you have to suspect everything and everyone there. But sort of expanding our historical purview out a bit, Ayman, in terms of like Africa through Arab eyes, let's say, over the long jury, we're talking from the beginning of Islam.
When we're talking about Africa, what are we really talking about in terms of what the Arabs traditionally have thought of Africa? First of all, if you open the ancient books, let's say like I'm reading Ahmed bin Hanbal or I am reading, you know, even Ibn Taymiyyah, they're not going to call sub-Saharan Africa, Africa.
I mean, Africa is reserved for North Africa. We're talking about, you know, west of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania. That is Africa. But you mean the Sahara Desert as well?
Sub-Saharan means below the Saharan, and North Africa means above the Sahara. So the Sahara, was that considered in Africa? No, the Sahara was considered to be its own region. I see. So it used to be called the Sahel, you know, and so it means like basically the coast, even though the nearest coast is a thousand miles away, but they call it the coast because of the mirage, you know,
By the way, it was just a derogatory, funny term in order to talk about, oh, this is the valley of life, and in fact, it's the valley of death. So, because there's nothing there. It's just being sarcastic. But really, if you want to talk about...
Africa, you know, which is what we know as Black Africa, which is the sub-Saharan Africa, most of the Arabs at that time, you know, pre-Islam and the 600 years preceding Islam and then in the 300 years post the start of Islam,
Whenever they want to refer to someone as black African, they say Habashi, Abyssinian, because that's where the source of slaves, even though most of the slaves used to come from the tribes of South Sudan and Uganda. So the Arabs' interaction with Africans, actually we're talking about black Africans, came in two forms.
One strong hegemonic form, you know, in the form of the Ethiopian kings, the Abyssinian kings, who occupied Yemen for several hundred years and, you know, they were really powerful in south of Arabia.
And also at the same time, dealing with the more primitive Africans who the Abyssinians enslaved from the neighboring regions of South Sudan and Uganda, and they brought them into Arabia to be sold as commodity.
And that's still, still the Arabs couldn't distinguish between the two. They called everyone with a darker skin Abyssinian, Habashi. One of the themes of this season, especially in the earlier episodes, will certainly be slavery.
Slavery is often in everyone's minds these days for various reasons. So we've got to cover it. And I think, you know, maybe in some surprising ways, but also Islamification. So Islamification in Africa happened in waves. Africa is a vast continent. You know, it's so big. We reduce it to one word these days, Africa, but it's so big. And Islam came in waves. Although now, you know, Islam is a significant force on the continent. There are more Christians worldwide.
in Africa overall. But nonetheless, you know, in a continent of 1.216 billion people, a huge number of people, there are half a billion Muslims, 500 million Muslims in Africa, about one third of the world's total live in Africa. So, you know, in terms of Islam, Africa is very important.
Actually, from the beginning, Africa was part of the Muslim conscience because the early Muslim community in Mecca who were persecuted before the Hijra to Medina, they went to actually first, in the first Hijra, happened not to Medina, but happened to where? To Abyssinia, to Habesha. Abyssinia, yeah, Ethiopia. To seek shelter with their Christian king, you know, being, you know, people of the book and all of that. So I think...
It is important to understand that the Horn of Africa from the beginning played an important role in Islam's rise across the region. But then, Eamon, if we widen our historical frame of reference out even further, I mean, we're talking thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. Africa and the Arab world have long had a relationship. I mean, human migration itself is
Which, you know, the first human beings who left Africa to begin populating the rest of the world, they traveled via the Middle East. They crossed over probably across the Horn of Africa into South Arabia, into what is now Yemen. That's what scholars think was probably the first path of humans spreading out of Africa. And since then, forever, there has been communications between the two sides of the Red Sea.
And so though we think now of Africa as a separate place, really, it's important to remember that that's not really the case, that the Middle East, the Arab world and the African world, especially the north, you know, eastern African world, they are really one zone. Would you agree with that, Eamon? Yes, I would say so, especially the African horn. The African horn has always been intertwined with...
with Arabia more than the surrounding regions, I would say. The surrounding regions for them were places to raid, while Arabia was a place to trade. And then when the Arabs did arrive, carrying the Quran, you know, did arrive with their new revelation, the process of Islamification of Africa began, as I said, in stages. Obviously, first Egypt arrived,
Egypt became a base from which the conquest of the rest of North Africa occurred. And that itself took 75, 85 years. I suppose it's right that from that point on, there were waves of Arab migration, Islamic Arab migration from the Middle East into Africa in waves, tribal migrations really across into and across the Sahara Desert.
which strengthened, sometimes established new Saharan trade routes. So communications between the world of Islam and the African world outside of Islam became very close, which spread Islam further. And at the same time, along the east coast of Africa, naval trade routes began to plant Islam along that coast. And slowly, slowly, slowly,
that part of Africa that was Islamified was Islamified. Look, the reason why sub-Saharan Africa was Islamified much later than North Africa is mainly because of the Sahara, really. The Sahara just was difficult to pass. You know, there is a 2,000 kilometer between the beginning of the Sahara from the north to the other side of the Sahara to the south. And not many people understood that beyond the Sahara,
there is actually lush, green, tropical paradise. Starting from the Niger River and going all the way down to Nigeria, to Ghana, there were empires there, like the Empire of Ghana, and that there is gold and there is spice and there is food and there is water. Therefore, the Arab Muslims really didn't know that there is a great African continent below the Sahara and that there is something amazing.
So really there were only two gates, really, by land into Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the Egyptian-Nubian gap.
Which will take you all the way to South Sudan. Down the Nile River. Exactly. So we can call it the Nile Gap. And then there is the Western Sahara Gap. That way into Mauritania, which is today known as Mauritania and the Gambia River. So these are the two gates. And that happens...
happened really late, like in the 12th century, 13th century, when they started to go deeper and deeper into West Africa, into the Gambia River Basin. But before that...
really, they didn't pay much attention to sub-Saharan Africa. The Horn of Africa is another story because there is a third gate, which is, as you alluded to, Thomas, the naval trade. And, unfortunately with it, the slave trade. Yes, I'm glad you've brought it up. We can't talk about Islam and Africa without talking about slavery. I mean, blah,
black slavery or the enslavement of black Africans is about as old as time itself. And certainly, the trade in black slaves played a huge role in Islam. Isn't that right, Eamon? Oh, yes. But it wasn't just only black slaves. Every color. I mean, basically, I can call it the rainbow slavery because basically every color was represented in
And during the Arab Empire of the Umayyads, Abbasids, and even during the Turkish Ottomans. So I would say, no, every almost race was enslaved according to the history records. And we're talking not just about the Middle Ages here until very recently this was the case.
In Saudi Arabia, I have encountered Sudanese gentlemen now in their 70s and 80s who were slaves there because slavery wasn't outlawed in Saudi Arabia until the 1960s. So slavery has been an integral part of Islamic societies up really until the present in many ways. But Ayman, why was Africa the biggest source of slavery for Muslims? It's because there was a market.
At the end of the day, as I stated earlier, what did the Abyssinians trade with the Arabs? I mean, the Abyssinians got the Arab gold in exchange for what? Slaves. And these slaves were not Abyssinians because the Abyssinians were far more sophisticated. They were an empire, but they were raiding
the more primitive tribes across the south of Sudan and Uganda and the north of the Congo, and they would enslave them and then bring them to the slave markets in Arabia and sell them there. So it wasn't like
really Arabs invading Africa and taking slaves from there. It was Africans enslaving Africans and then bringing them into Arabia to sell. And what happened actually in East Africa from the first century AD onward, all the way to the 12th and 13th, is exactly what was replicated in West Africa.
where the Ghanaian Empire and later the Sungai Empire would actually enslave other than, and then sell them to the Portuguese, and then to the Spanish, and then, of course, to the French and the English. So it's really all about the, what I call it, the oceanic slave trade, which happened at both East and West Africa. There was an African empire which enslaved other Africans around them,
sold them to global trading empires like the Arabs, the Portuguese, you know, and the Spanish and the English and others. And as a result of the slave trade, those African empires, Abyssinia and Ghana and others, they became very rich. Oh, yes. There's no question about it. That raises a question, though, to me, Eamon, and it's a slightly tricky question, maybe. So, you know, nowadays, especially in
in the West, but globally, slavery is considered just a simply abhorrent human practice. We find it to be the worst imaginable crime against humanity, really. And yet it has always existed. And the Sharia law of Islam technically allows it.
So how are we to understand that today? You know, what is the Sharia's view on slavery? Well, I mean, it's one of those tricky questions because the Islamic law came not to abolish slavery, but to regulate it and, you know, to leave it up to society, like, you know, what to do with it.
The reality is Islam didn't come and invent slavery. Slavery was there, as a matter of fact, and it was a practice by all humans since the dawn of humanity. So how to deal with it? How do you get, first of all, slaves to have greater freedoms and the ability to have rights of self-purchase, as we call it?
So this is when Islam started to legislate, one, the right to self-purchase. And this is important. So it's the first time ever that there is a codified law which says that
A slave can buy their own freedom if they work extra outside of the working hours in order to earn money to buy their own freedom from the slave master at the price that he paid. And do you think this happened regularly? I mean, how would a slave have time to make money outside of his work?
of his normal employment. It's sort of strange. It's hard for me to imagine that. It used to happen. It's called mukataba. And if the slave owner refused the mukataba, which is the self-purchase right, the slave can go to the judge of the town and says, you know, my master refusing to honor the Islamic principle of mukataba. And therefore, the judge will force the mukataba on the slave owner. That's one. Two,
Islam indicated that many sins cannot be washed away
without freeing a slave. So freeing a slave is an important way for penance. So, for example, you will find in the books when they write obituaries of noticeable Muslims, oh, he was such a good man, he freed 700 slaves. Oh, he's such a good man, he used to collect money and raise money in order to free 3,000 slaves. Oh, he was an amazing person. So, yeah.
How interesting. You know, we talk about redemption in Christianity, redemption, which is a word that literally comes from freeing slaves. So in Islam, you can redeem your soul by freeing slaves, by redeeming slaves. Exactly. If you go and you free a slave, this is considered to be the highest reward.
form of charity. Now, someone will say, basically, why didn't Islam come and abolish slavery? I mean, come on, it's rich. I mean, the world didn't come together and abolish slavery until 1300 years after Islam came. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, just like Judaism, just like Christianity, I mean, you come in
and you find that there is a system and the question is, what do you do about it? It is the natural order of things at that time.
and trying to disrupt it immediately would have caused even more troubles and you would have more people starving in the desert and especially in a desert society. What do you expect these slaves to go and do exactly? Yes, you free them, but what do you do after that with them? And this is, I think, where the Sharia more or less gave the right of self-purchase
also gave the right to the slaves who are married to each other not to be separated and not to be separated also from their children. Oh, that's very illuminating. So unlike in the terrible chattel slavery of the American South, for example, slaves had the right to family life and their family life was protected by the Sharia. Yeah. I mean, of course, look,
And I will say it out loud here, there were concubines. And concubines was part of life, you know, from the days of Egypt and Samaria and Assyria and all of that. Even King David and King Solomon in the Bible famously, like, you know, had concubines. Jacob, you know, Israel himself has concubines. Everyone did.
In fact, like, you know, basically, like, you know, Muhammad himself, like, you know, basically had an Egyptian concubine, you know, following the footsteps of his great ancestor, Abraham, who had an Egyptian concubine who gave birth to Ishmael, which is the father of the Arabs. So concubines were part of life there. Now, imagine that you have a concubine, which is a slave girl.
And, you know, the master has the right of bed with her. However, if he gives her into marriage to another slave, then that right to bedding is suspended immediately, stops. That's it. So she remains his slave, but he may no longer sleep with her. No, that's it. Because he gave her hand in marriage.
to another slave. But if he gives her to a free man, you know, as a gift, then she's remaining a slave. However, he can free her and then marry her. And freeing and marrying slaves is something of a habit across the Arab world. In fact, do you remember, dear listeners, we talked about a very important personality in Saudi history, Sinjan Filby or Abdul
Abdullah Filby. Sinjin Filby, yeah. Yeah, the father of Kim Filby. He actually went to the slave market in Taif in 1946, bought a baluch, you know, Iranian slave,
So you can see that basically not all slaves were black. Freed her, married her, and his current descendants in Saudi Arabia are from that slave girl who he bought and freed immediately on the spot and proposed to her. So you can see this good English heart there beating in an Arabian slave market in 1946. But all I can say is that
Many listeners would be squirming in their seats thinking, oh my God, Eamon, what the hell are you talking about? And I tell them, take a time machine, go back 150 years ago, and someone will tell you, yeah, that's normal. Okay, so the Sharia relatively enlightened when it comes to regulating slavery, an institution which already existed, as you've explained. I think that's really interesting. But...
Clearly, being a slave and maybe especially a black slave in Islam in the early centuries, at least, wasn't always great because you were telling me, Eamon, about the notorious, famous, world-shattering black slave rebellion of the Abbasid Empire, the Zanj rebellion in the late 9th century.
Why did the blacks rise up against their enlightened Arab masters, Ayman? Ah, well, because the Arab masters were racist. I mean, simple as it is. Black lives mattered in the Abbasid Empire, too. Yeah, except basically it will not be BLM, it will be ZLM.
Zinj lives matter. Zinj lives matter. Because it was known as Thawrat Zinj, or the Zinj rebellion, the Black African slaves rebellion. So they rebelled against the Abbasids, and it was a rebellion that lasted almost 11, 13 years. And
It was bloody. Hundreds of thousands of people died in that rebellion. Oh, my God. Yes, because why? They felt that they were mistreated. And in fact, the irony is, the irony, they were mistreated not mostly by the Arabs, but
They were mistreated by the Persians and the Turks who were running the military affairs of the Abbasid Empire. And then they blamed the Arabs for it. Forgive me, Eamon, if I smile at this particular way of spinning the history. Classic Arab blame shifting. But OK, I'll let it lie. It's actually the Turks and the Persians' fault, never the Arabs. Yes. Sorry.
No, there was some Arab complicity. I agree with it. There's always a few rotten apples in the Arab barrel. Yeah, a few thousand Arab people
written apples here and there. But, you know, just only a few thousands, like, you know, basically, what are a few thousands in the grand scheme of things? But anyway, so what happened is the African slaves were so angry against the Arab masters that they swore that the Arab masters will never have any posterity. They will never have descendants. So during the attacks on the caravans, the raids on the towns and the cities, these slave armies would
women and girls and young female children in front of their men in order and to let the men live. Oh, my Lord. So they know that they will never have children ever again who can oppress people. Eamon, this took a very dark turn. I was thinking of Spartacus here, but this did not happen in Spartacus. Ah,
So the blacks rose up and they decided to wipe out all the Arab women and female children. No, no, no. It was not Spartacus. It was, you know, Sadicus, like, you know, basically, like, I mean, in many sense. And also, like, you know, this gives rise to a very interesting anthropological historical theory, you know, of what really happened afterwards. So, of course, the Abbasids
gathered more Turks from Central Asia, paid them in order to come and finally put down to the slaughter the last African slave in Iraq. And the last battle was really in the marshlands of the Shabt al-Arab of Al-Ahwaz.
you know, in southern Iraq, you know, the delta, the convergence point of the Euphrates and the Tigris. So this is, so basically the Abbasids had managed through the use of Turkish soldiers to corral the black slave rebellion into the marshlands of southern Iraq where they were going to put an end to the uprising once and for all. Exactly. So,
Now, there comes the theory now that during that time, ironically, you know, when the Arab population was trying to recover from the slave revolt and the aftermath of the slave revolt and the fact that there is a massive discrepancy now between the number of men and women. There were, I think, four men for each woman. So what do the Abbasids do about it? OK, so at the same time, by complete...
either coincidence or divine intervention or both, the Vikings, you know, through the Danube River went into the Black Sea and found the navigable rivers, you know, of northern Anatolia that links into the Euphrates River.
And they thought, oh, finally, we're going to go into the land of the thousand night and a night. We're going to meet sultans and kings and sheikhs, you know, and we will trade gold with them. Belly dancers. Belly dancers and all of that. Well, there were no belly dancers. There were no female bellies. Exactly. So they went in into the markets of Aleppo, you know, of Ambar and of Baghdad and Samar and all these places and Mosul.
Guys, you know, we want to sell you something because we heard that you have lots and lots of gold. So what can we exchange for gold? So they looked at them and they said, women. And they said, really, women? Is that all you want? Yeah. Okay. Just can you wait just a few years? Okay. No problem at all. So the Vikings went and sacked the coasts of Ireland, Scotland and England.
and over the space of 30 years kidnapped 110,000 women and young girls and they brought them all back to that same Euphrates Basin to get Abbasid gold. And this is why, according to a BBC documentary I watched many, many years ago, there was this mystery which they couldn't solve. How could it be that until now all the discovered Viking gold
50% of it so far, half of the Viking gold discovered so far comes from one mine in southern Iraq. Wow. It's from the mine near Nasuria in Iraq, which is the city of Ur, the ancient city of Ur. So it's mind-boggling. How could that gold from south of Iraq near the Kuwaiti border end up in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden? And the answer is,
Why then also do we have the largest concentration of ginger heads and red heads in the Euphrates Basin from Aleppo all the way to Kuwait? Oh, my Lord. So these Vikings were trading Irish lasses for Iraqi gold. My.
My lord. Exactly. So a thousand years ago, and still, if you go to Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, Mosul, Baghdad. Oh yes, I've seen the redheads there all over the place. Yes, and you think, well, how the heck they came here? Well, you can thank the Vikings. They could
not all of these women and they brought them there. And this is, I think when the relationship between let's say African slaves and Arabs were altered forever, and that brought doom, not only to Europe, because that's where the Arabs started to enslave
People from, but also to Central Asia, to Kazakhstan, to the steppes of Mongolia, where they started even getting more and more slaves. Even the Crimea became a very famous slave market, you know, for the Arabs. So the role of the African slaves started to decrease considerably after the Zinj revolution. But that doesn't mean that it ended.
It continued. Well, my God, Africa through Arab eyes is not necessarily the most edifying history in the world, Eamon, but very interesting. Now, Eamon, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will go back to talking about Africa, specifically Africa today. We'll be talking about the security and the geopolitical situation there. Stay tuned.
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Welcome back, dear listeners, to our overview of Africa. We're laying the groundwork in this episode for our new season, all about that huge, diverse, fascinating, and still little-known continent. Now, Eamon, we now have a sense of the history of Africa, especially of Islam in Africa. But how about what's going on today in Africa?
So let's move on briefly to give the listeners a sense of the security situation on the ground across the region. So when we begin our journey in earnest with the next episode, people have a better sense of what's going on now, of the place we're dealing with. And if you don't mind, Eamon, I'd like to start off with the Horn of Africa, that place which you talked about so much in the first half, which we hear about so much, the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, etc.,
What would you say characterizes the security situation, the geopolitical situation of the Horn of Africa today? Just like the rest of Africa, Thomas, I think the Horn of Africa is a macrocosm of really the rest of Africa. When you see the Horn of Africa, whatever happens there really mirrors what's happening in the rest of Africa, which is the two parallel paths. One path of promising potential,
and one path of tragic conflicts. Oh, gosh. Let's see if I can guess. Promising potential? Maybe at one point, you know, five years ago, I would have said definitely Ethiopia, though, of course, Ethiopia is mired in its own tragic conflicts.
Certainly, let's say Somalia. That's the kind of poster child for tragic conflicts. Absolutely. And if you look at the region of the African Horn, it is famous around the world for the wrong reasons. I mean, mostly because of piracy. That's the first thing that people always remember. Of course, we're not talking here about glamorous pirates like Jack Sparrow. We are talking here about pirates basically who would take over a ship for a ransom.
Like that wonderful movie with Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips. Did you see that, Eamon? Yes. Oh, my God. That was a very powerful film. Absolutely. Absolutely. Loved it so much.
or as the Irish say, philm. Anyway, so, sorry. I couldn't resist. Not just the Irish. The Arabs often say it, al-philm. Exactly. At least one common thing between the Irish and the Arab, philm. Oh, there's another common thing, Eamon, and I won't mention it, but it's terrorism. Never mind. Exactly, exactly.
Our Irish brethren. Okay, so also you have, you know, the situation that is, you know, what Horn of Africa is famous for is terrorism. I mean, you have a Shabab, and a Shabab being the menace, not only of Somalia, many people don't understand that a Shabab carried out
you know, terrorist attacks in neighboring countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya. Dear listeners, I know you know Al-Shabaab are a terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda at times, with ISIS at times, based in Somalia with sort of pan-Horn of Africa ambitions. And this group in particular has posed significant challenges to the stability of the Somali government of Mogadishu, has caused the continuous attacks
separatism that is taking place in the Somaliland to the north of the country, we will talk about it in more details later, and why Somaliland is separate from the rest of Somalia, what does that have to do with Ethiopia? Ethiopia itself is already mired in
in several instances of ethnic strife within Ethiopia, the Amharis against the Oromo, against the Ugandan people. And you have all these different ethnicities such as the Amharis, the Tigrays, the Oromo and others vying for control of Ethiopia.
Although, I mean, Ethiopia is far more stable now in 2024 than it was, for example, in 2022, 2023. This is mostly due to the more or less steady leadership of Abiy Ahmed, the current Ethiopian prime minister. Now, there is another reason why the Horn of Africa is also extremely important in the geopolitics of the globe. Let me see if I can guess, Ayman. Can I guess? Yes. Okay.
My guess is it's all to do with minerals under the ground and the scramble for the mineral rights to the African horn, especially the Chinese scramble for it. Is that right? Exactly. China. The key word here is China. China is investing so heavily in the African horn. The African horn now have, in particular,
Four powers in almost three regional and one global power competing on it. You have China, you have the UAE, you have Saudi Arabia, and you have a surprising contender here,
Turkey. Erdogan's Turkey is making a play for Somalia while the UAE is making a play for Somaliland. While Djibouti, just north of Somaliland, next to Ethiopia, there is a play by the Saudis there. And of course, the Saudis are investing heavily along with the UAE in both Kenya and Ethiopia with the Qataris.
to some extent also investing in Kenya and Uganda. Fascinating. I cannot wait, Eamon, for our episodes on Ethiopia and Somalia because, you know, dear listener, when we're talking about the Horn of Africa, we're talking about the most ancient place really on the planet Earth, Ethiopia, Abyssinia, the great Christian kingdoms of Abyssinia, the Islamic trading that happened along the coast there, and then in the modern period, the Italian colonial period, the English were there. It's incredible. I can't wait to tell that story again.
Let's move on from the Horn of Africa, Ayman, to East Africa. I'm thinking Tanzania, Mozambique, countries like that, which have seen some ISIS activity in the last few years. What's going on in East Africa, Ayman? This is weird. The troubles that are plaguing the region, the border regions between Tanzania and Mozambique, south of Tanzania, north of Mozambique,
All of this is happening due to the fact that there were dozens of individuals who were raised there, and some of them were graduates from some of the, they call them the Salafi Ahl al-Hadith schools, and they went to Syria in the 2010s in order to fight for ISIS there. And some of them also went to join Boko Haram in West Africa, including in Nigeria.
And then they came back and they started the process of radicalizing and recruiting more and more young people. And because of local issues such as, you know, negligence by central governments, you know, in Africa, like, you know, it is normal that on the peripheries of these countries, you know, on the border regions, it's always like this, neglected people.
communities looking for a way to get back at the central government. So they join whatever revolutionary radical movement they can put their hands on. And especially with financing coming to these groups, especially from Turkey. I'm not talking about Turkey, the government. I'm talking about Turkey as in ISIS in Turkey, where their cash still is around. So they send them the money. They recruit more people. So now there is an estimated...
1500 to about 2000 strong contingent of Isis in the weirdest of places, you know, on the Indian Ocean, just between Mozambique and Tanzania. And this is like, you know, also funny, the fact that
The irony is that this entire coast in the past used to be part of the Omani Maritime Empire. And in fact, the country Mozambique, you know, the listener will find it pretty much amusing, was named after Sultan Musa al-Biqi.
So, Musa al-Biqi was a sultan of Oman in the 16th century, and the country was named after him. Musa al-Biqi became Mozambique. Amazing. Well, you know, when we think about East Africa, in addition to Mozambique, which is, you know, southern East Africa, if you like, and Tanzania, which is right there in the middle, it includes countries like Uganda and Kenya, and people don't associate it often with, you know, terrorism, Islamist terrorism, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc. But, we
We mustn't forget that the very first big al-Qaeda attack, Eamon, as you very well know, were the bombings of the East African embassies in 1998. The very attack which began to work on your conscience, which led you to leave al-Qaeda and become a double agent inside al-Qaeda for MI6.
So East Africa has actually been a theater of jihadist war since the beginning, as long ago as 1998. Exactly. And it's been a theater for geopolitics and in a global race towards the control of resources. In fact, in Mozambique and Tanzania, what is the common denominator there in the border area between Mozambique and Tanzania? Oil.
That's why ISIS is there. Wherever there is oil, ISIS, you can see it there, as well as American oil companies such as ExxonMobil. Well, so East Africa is definitely on the rise, and we will be covering it in this season of Conflicted. What about West Africa? Frankly, Eamon...
I'm really looking forward to our series on West Africa. I think of all the places in Africa, West Africa is the littlest known, particularly in the Anglophone world. For example, how many people know that actually...
There's a French empire in West Africa. And in fact, that French empire is currently being contested and undermined by pseudo Russian imperial grab in that area. We're going to cover the whole story about France's shadow empire in West Africa. The Wagner group's attempts to take control of West Africa for Russia and Russian interests. It's an amazing story.
Briefly, though, now, Eamon, how would you situate West Africa first in the security sort of framework, the security perspective? From the security perspective, we have a clusterfuck of considerable number of groups there vying for control. We have military governments. We have governments.
the Tawarig and the nomads people controlling the north of West Africa, the Sahara, the Sahel. But this is also having an impact on the rest of West Africa because of the illegal trade, illicit trade, the narcotics, the guns, the weapons, you know, the smuggled gold, all of that.
You have to understand that West Africa is exceptionally important to global politics. Why? Because it's the land of gold. That's one. Two, it is the land of uranium. That's two. You know, it's the land of oil and gas in Nigeria and other places. But also, above all, for me, especially for me, it is the land of the cocoa beans.
Most of the world chocolate come from there, man. You know, you can't survive without chocolate. You can survive without oil. You can survive without gold, but you can't survive without chocolate. Ghana, the Ivory Coast, all of these places are like the place of chocolate.
And number five after cocoa is copper, which is extremely important for the new energy transition phase that the world is going through. And currently, there is not enough production of copper to meet the global demand.
You know, we are only producing every year 85% of what we need in copper. Can you believe it? So we need to plug the gap. And places like Mali, Burkina Faso, and all the other countries there, including Senegal, the north of the Ivory Coast, the north of Nigeria, are full of copper, and people want to go and extract it. So we have jihadists like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. We have
organized crime. We have the Wagner. We have militaries who are switching between being supported by France to being supported by Russia. I mean, it is absolute clusterfuck of geopolitical chaos.
It's the scramble for Africa in the 21st century. I swear to God, you know, Amen, history just repeats itself over and over again. Now, most listeners might associate West Africa with that group you mentioned about 10 minutes ago, Boko Haram. Do you want to say briefly something about Boko Haram before we move on? Well,
Boko Haram is one of the most psychotic, sadist terror groups that ever existed. It reminds me of... Honestly, Eamon, stop holding back. Tell us what you really feel about Boko Haram. Okay. It is the most sadistic and bloodthirsty group that ever existed.
I mean, it combines sadism with really the rule of the jungle. I mean, absolute primitives in their way of waging holy war while living an unholy life. I mean, I think this is the best I could describe them. You know, once you encounter them, don't take prisoners. As simple as that.
You just have to eradicate. Moving our gaze northward, Eamon, from West Africa to what's known as the Sahel region. In the first half, you described the Sahel region. It's really that area from the Nile River, from Khartoum in Sudan. All
All the way to the Atlantic, across that vast desert, the Sahara. So south of North Africa, north of tropical Africa, that entire desert region from the Nile to the Atlantic, from the river to the sea, as it were. Oh, dear. I'm not sure if we should say that exactly. But so, Eamon, what...
What's going on in the Sahel region? I mean, it's a huge region. I could sort of say, what's going on in the Sahel? That's like saying, what's going on in Europe? But still, the Sahel region, geopolitically, Eamon, where should we situate it at the moment? Well, all I can say is that we need a new slogan. From the river to the sea, the Sahel will be free. But the Sahel here needs to be free of organized crime, of terrorism, of so many other things.
things happening there. But to describe to you, it is a body of desert, almost the size of Russia. Imagine all of Russia as a desert. So you put it there in the middle and basically it is the largest uninhabited
you know, our sparsely inhabited landmass on Earth. It goes from Sudan to Tchad to Niger to Mali to Mauritania. And it cuts also, you know, from other countries, Algeria, Libya, and parts of Egypt are also considered to be part of the Sahara. So really the Sahara is big, huge, but they don't touch the Mediterranean at all.
If it's as big as Russia and like much of Russia, uninhabitable, maybe this is why it's absolutely teeming with Russian mercenaries at the moment. Maybe Russians just feel drawn to the Sahel. I think just as the early Russian pioneers were drawn to Siberia, which is in itself like, you know, desolate, uninhabitable place, you know, because of the minerals that were there, including platinum, copper, gold, and of course, later oil and gas.
Also, it's the same reason why a new breed of Russian pioneers from the Wagner Group went there because from Jabal Amr in eastern Sudan all the way to the Niger River and beyond, there are the valleys of gold. There are mountains hiding beneath them, huge amount of gold, copper, silver, nickel, chromium, and many other minerals.
Amazing. Goodness gracious. You see, dear listener, why we're doing a whole season on Africa. Africa is the place to be paying attention to. We're not paying attention to it, but here in Conflicted, we will be doing so. Okay, Eamon, so we've covered East Africa, we've covered West Africa, we've covered the Sahel. That, broadly speaking, is the region that this season we'll be talking about. In terms of some topics to throw around now, briefly, I mentioned the French shadow empire in West Africa.
It is true that France's imperial holdings in Africa never really went away. They've just managed to duck and dive and maintain a certain hegemonic control of West Africa all these decades. Long ago, the British Empire completely disintegrated. Long ago, it was replaced by an American empire, which is a slightly different kettle of fish based on a network of alliances more or less subject to international law.
But all this time, France has maintained, particularly in the commercial financial currency sphere, hold over West Africa. What explains that and the fact that no one really knows it?
Actually, anyone who works in banking knows that about a dozen Francophone West African nations were always relying on the French to print their currencies, to control their central banks and to dictate their monetary policies. That was actually one of the gripes in a very famous clip.
of Georgia Maloney, the current prime minister of Italy, when she was in opposition, when she absolutely slaughtered Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, about how France continued to exploit West Africa and Francophone Africa for its benefit for many, many, many decades post-colonial era.
Georgia Maloney's diatribe against the French is extremely entertaining. I think it was in 2019 she launched it. It has to be admitted that the day after Le Monde, the famous French newspaper, published a detailed riposte explaining how she had rather simplified the situation. It's not so straightforward that the French are just colonial overlords in West Africa, simply extracting wealth.
from the region. As everything, it's more complicated, but it's a funny clip. You should Google it, dear listener, and watch it on YouTube. Absolutely. Although it is not as simple as the French extracting wealth, but it is really as simple as the French extracting wealth, let's be honest, especially when it comes to Niger and its massive uranium. Do you know that the uranium reserves of Niger were sold for the cheapest possible price in
you know, sometime really, really dirt cheap to France over 40 years period in order to not only enhance France's nuclear weapons arsenal, but also to power 70% of the homes of France just by using the nuclear power that France is using. So who said that nuclear is clean?
It's as dirty, you know, politically speaking and humanely speaking as oil. So much for the perfidious French. What about the perfidious Americans, Eamon? What sort of influence has America got in these African regions, East Africa, the Sahel, West Africa?
America's Africa policy, the way in which America projects its power in Africa, is not very clear to me. Is it on the wane for sure? Do you know why it's not clear to you? Because really, after Somalia in 1993, America abandoned Africa almost entirely because of the fact that the Cold War is over. America's interest in Africa during the Cold War between the Soviets and the Americans was about to prevent Africa from going communist.
So that's why they supported the coup against Patrice Lumumba in Congo, which was later named Zaire. And in fact, they supported the coup against Patrice Lumumba in the 1960s in the Congo, which led to the arrival of a brutal dictator who the Americans supported openly. His name was Mobutu Susisiku.
And then after that, it's all about the Cold War. As soon as the Cold War was over, America just packed up its bags and left. You know, was focusing mostly on North Africa, leaving the sub-Saharan Africa to its fate. You know, we don't care. It's just a piece of dirt. We don't care about it. But who cared?
China cared. And this is where America now is really ruining the day that they left Africa to its own devices, because China found in Africa, along with Russia, an important source of minerals, wealth, influence, and above all, a way to control the future.
It's amazing how short-sighted that policy move was on the part of the Americans. You really think given the wealth of Africa and given the low level of material development, which is to say, given its ripeness for economic growth, you would have thought precisely after the Cold War, when the neoliberal moment arrived in its glory and America decided to go big on GDP growth internationally, why didn't they look towards Africa?
Yeah, and this is why, unbelievably, only one single American, one single American, whose footprint in Africa is mainly positive.
And that is Elon Musk. And that is due to the Starlink internet access through satellites that he is providing. Because of that, many African communities now, as they start to come online, they are thriving in terms of e-commerce, in terms of learning, in terms of remote education through remote schools from France and from Britain and from India and from Brazil and other places in which they can learn online through screens
and relying on the reliable, fast-speed internet that Starlink is providing. However, his other footprint isn't exactly very friendly because of Tesla, because of the thirst for lithium and for copper and for cobalt and other minerals that is needed for the Teslas and the BYDs and the, you know, Lucids of the world. You know, I'm talking about brands of
electric cars, you know, Africa's children are being actually sold into mining gangs in order to mine these minerals to actually respond to the thirst, you know, for renewable energy cars and for alternative EV cars that people in the West and the East are craving for. And I suppose by connecting Africa to the Internet in a way that Starlink is doing, it opens Africa up
As much as for economic growth and sort of, let's say, positive trade, it opens Africa up for greater coordination by organized crime groups, by Islamist groups. You know, the Internet is a mixed bag. So you mentioned, Eamon, that because America dropped the ball in Africa three decades ago, it opened up Africa to mainly Russian and Chinese geopolitical influence.
And for that reason, you say Russia and China have the future in their hands. So what do you mean by that? As we come to the end of this first overview episode of season five, Eamon, what is the destiny of Africa in your view? In my opinion, I have a feeling that Africa is going to be the next battleground country.
more ferocious than Ukraine war. And it's already proving that because there are several ongoing conflicts where Russian, Chinese, American and many other regional powers are actually clashing head to head. This is why I believe that Africa
While I want to desperately believe that it's going to go into a prosperous new future, no, I think it's going to be the new battleground of human greed. Oh, my Lord, Eamon. Just off the bat, season five is beginning on a very depressing note. I have to agree, really, Eamon. I mean, the truth about Africa is that state building there was rather arrested in the mid-20th century when the colonial empires
to various degrees withdrew. And then after the Cold War, America in its eternal naivete assumed that state building was essentially or could be a peaceful process. But history shows that states emerge from war.
And so if Africa has arrived and it's time for Africa to take its place firmly at the center of world events and for African states finally to reach proper levels of sophisticated development, well, I'm afraid that means there will be war. At least that's my view. Eamon, do you agree? Totally agree with you 100%.
Well, that is all for this first episode of our fifth season. I hope, dear listeners, that you are primed and ready for a series that will take us traversing across this fascinating continent. We will be back with the second episode in two weeks, where we will be starting a series on Sudan, from the country's ancient roots, its surprising Christian medieval history, all the way to today's forgotten conflict that has taken place
perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives and left millions displaced. This will be coming in two weeks. But if you can't get enough of Conflicted, well then it's time, dear listener, to join the Conflicted community. For those who haven't heard about this new offering yet, this is a paid-for community for our dearest Conflicted listeners.
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production. It was produced and edited by Harry Stott. The music is by Matt Huxley and Tom Biddle.