In the last few years, incidents of military coups have increased in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan and Guinea. Long-dormant military rule has returned to African politics.
The coup leaders have suppressed opposition, silenced the media, and shed the blood of scores of civilians in the name of public safety. They claim to protect their people from both internal and external enemies – some invented to justify their takeover and others very real (while military rule has made violent extremism worse, they have not Made).
The generals fight with each other as well as their enemies, resulting in a duel in Burkina Faso and a full-scale civil war in Sudan.
In West Africa, troops have shaken up the geopolitical order, pushing France and the United States away, while drawing the Russian Federation (or more accurately, Russia-funded mercenaries) closer. .
External observers and a large number of insiders were taken by surprise by these events. This is because military rule, with its drab aesthetics and Cold War trappings, seemed like a relic of the past. Explanations for its withdrawal mostly focus on outsiders, particularly Russia. Others emphasize the inherent ills of African states – weaknesses that existed from the beginning of independence, including poverty and corruption, which left people disillusioned with democracy.
I am a military historian, and over the past few years I watched with concern as the history I was writing about military dictatorships in the 1980s became current events. The roots of military rule run deep, as my open-access book Soldiers’ Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire argues. The coups of the past few years are a return to one of independent Africa’s most important political traditions: militarism.
Militarism, or rule by troops, is a form of government where military objectives blur into politics, and the values of the armed forces largely become the values of the state.
The recent coups in West Africa can only be understood in the longer perspective of post-colonial history. The military regimes of the past were extremely innovative. They created new rules, new institutions, and new standards for how people should interact. He promised to make Africa an orderly and prosperous paradise. He was unsuccessful, but his promises were popular.
Africa’s military regimes
Senas ruled by force, not by consensus, but many people liked his disciplinarian attitude. Slamming the masses, sometimes literally, was a genuine appeal to those who felt the world had become too out of control. Freedom doesn’t always mean freedom, and the soldiers’ harsh views shaped colonialism in ways we are just beginning to understand.
Long submerged in more optimistic ideological currents, militarism is now rising back to the surface of African politics. My book explains where militarism came from and why it lasted so long.
petty and crazy
There were approximately 80 successful coups, 108 failed coups, and 139 conspiracies across Africa south of the Sahara between 1956 and 2001. Some countries have had multiple coups (Sudan has had the most coups, with 18 known attempts since 1950) while others have had no coups (such as Botswana). But even in places where the military was not in charge, the threat of military takeover shaped the way civilians governed.
Successful coups led to military regimes that were remarkably durable. Their leaders promised that their rule would be “transitional” or “custodial” and that they would hand power back to civilians as quickly as possible.
Some did so, and in some countries military rule lasted for decades. This may include graveyard-like stability where the same soldier-king ruled for an entire generation (such as Burkina Faso), or frequent turmoil as one junta gave way to another (such as Nigeria). Military governments were petty and paranoid – every officer knew that behind him there was a line of rivals waiting for their time.
In these “revolutions”, as the coup plotters called their takeover, a new ideology emerged. Militarism was a consistent and relatively coherent approach to society, even though not all military regimes were alike. It had its own political values (obedience, discipline), morality (honor, bravery, respect for position), and an economic logic (order, which they promised would bring prosperity).
It had a distinct aesthetic and a vision for what Africa should look and feel like. The internal principles of the army largely became the rules of politics. Officials became convinced that the training they used to turn civilians into soldiers could transform their countries from the ground up. The irony is that some people began to believe that only strict discipline would bring true freedom.
The military officers who took power tried to remodel their societies on military lines. He had utopian plans and his ideology could not be limited to the big ideas of his time like capitalism and communism. There were military regimes of the left, right and centre; fundamentalists and conservatives; Natives and internationalists.
Militarism was an independent ideology, not merely American liberalism, Soviet socialism, or uniformed European neocolonialism. Powerful outsiders pulled some, but not all, barriers to African politics, and officials took pride in following no one’s orders but their own.
military atrocities
Part of the appeal of militarism was its perceived independence, and military regimes endeared themselves to the public by cutting ties with unpopular foreigners, as Niger and Burkina Faso did with France in 2023.
Soldiers ran their countries as if they were fighting wars. War was his metaphor for politics. His goal was to win – and he accepted that people would get hurt along the way.
But what does “winning” look like when the enemy is your own people? He declared a war on indiscipline, drugs and crime. For civilians, it was hard to separate all this from tyranny, and military rule felt like a long, brutal occupation.
No military dictatorship succeeded in creating the martial utopia that the soldiers promised. Other parts of the government opposed the army’s plans, and African judiciaries proved to be particularly formidable opponents. Civil society groups fought them staunchly, and challenges came from abroad, especially from the African diaspora.
Like most revolutions that do not succeed, militarists blamed the masses for not committing to their vision and blamed outsiders for destroying them. They do this even today.
Today’s military regimes do not appear to have the same long-term vision as their predecessors, but the longer they remain in power the more likely they will start making plans. Despite all their promises to return to the barracks, they don’t seem to be going back any time soon.
If we are trying to predict what the continent’s military regimes might do next, it is worth taking a look at the past. At the end of the 20th century, military regimes promised to make Africa a “soldier’s paradise.” That promise is part of his strategy today.
,Author: Samuel Fury Childs Daly, Associate Professor of History, University of Chicago)
,disclosure statement: Samuel Fury Child’s Daily does not work for, consult to, hold shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has not received any relevant information beyond his academic appointment. Affiliation not disclosed)
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