Conflicted S5 E1: Africa: Africa Through Muslim Eyes

Speakers: Thomas Small & Aimen Dean

Thomas: Hello, dear listeners, Thomas Small and Aimen Dean are back with you for another episode and a brand-new season of Conflicted season five, to be precise. Aimen, you are here, you are still alive.

Aimen: Don't sound disappointed.

Thomas: Well, I mean, disappointed. Look, I'm sitting here in my pyjamas. Dear listener, we are recording this episode, so bloody early to suit Aimen's very hectic schedule. And I'm sitting here in my pyjamas.

Aimen: Yeah. Well, as I told you Thomas, I'm a man in demand, and some of my clients are already saying, “Well, once the cloning technology advance, we will make sure, we will have few copies of you.”

Thomas: Maybe you'll live forever, Aimen. There'll always be an Aimen Dean advising, whispering into the ears of the world's decision makers.

And 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?

Aimen: Yeah, I didn't expect that this marriage between us would last that long. I mean, I know we argue like married couple all the time, but nonetheless, we managed to keep it together. I must say I'm impressed.

Thomas: So far, so far. It's a long-distance relationship though. Maybe that's what does it.

Aimen: Yes. Yeah, definitely. I miss you, man.

Thomas: 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.

Aimen: Africa. Except, I have different definitions of Africa, but we'll come to this later, Thomas.

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 al-Shabaab. We're going to criss cross 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.

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Now, Aimen, 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, Aimen, 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, Aimen, did you ever visit Africa when you were in Al Qaeda?

Aimen: No. When I was in Al Qaeda, no. But in later life, I mean, I started visiting Africa quite regularly, and especially the eastern part of the continent, because that's where the business is, and that's where I go.

Thomas: Well, when you were in Al-Qaeda and then a double agent inside Al-Qaeda during your terrorism days. What was the jihadist perspective on Muslims in Africa, let's say? How did the jihadi movement think of Africa?

Aimen: Well, remember Thomas, that I joined the Jihadist movements just right after they left Sudan, and we'll 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 the 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 in Africa initially, because we were too trusting. You have to be brutal, and you have to suspect everything and everyone there.

Thomas: But sort of expanding our historical purview out a bit Aimen, in terms of Africa through Arab eyes, let's say, over the longue durée. 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?

Aimen: First of all, if you open the ancient books, let's say I'm reading Ahmad bin Hanbal, or I am reading even Ibn Taymiyya, they're not going to call Sub-Saharan Africa, Africa. I mean, Africa is reserved for North Africa. We're talking about west of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, that is Africa.

Thomas: But you mean the Sahara Desert as well? Sub-Saharan means below the Sahara and North Africa means above the Sahara. So, the Sahara, was that considered in Africa?

Aimen: No, the Sahara was considered to be its own region.

Thomas: I see.

Aimen: So, it used to be called the Sahel, you know, and so it means like, you know, basically the coast, even though the nearest coast is a thousand miles away, but they call it the coast because of the mirage.

By the way, it was just a derogatory, funny term in order to talk about, oh, this is the valley of life, or in fact it's a valley of death. Because there's nothing there, it's just being sarcastic.

But really if we want to talk about Africa, which is what we know as Black Africa, which is the Sub-Saharan Africa, most of the Arabs at the time, pre-Islam and the 600 years preceding Islam. And then in the 300 years post the start of Islam, whenever they, when I 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 in, 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 Arabia.

And also, at the same time dealing with the more primitive Africans who the Abyssinians enslaved from the neighbouring regions of South Sudan and Uganda. And they brought them into Arabia to be sold as commodity.

And still the Arabs couldn't distinguish between the two. They called everyone with a darker skin Abyssinian, Habashi.

Thomas: 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, maybe in surprising ways.

But also, Islamification. So, Islamification in Africa happened in waves. Africa's a vast continent, 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, Islam is a significant force on the continent. There are more Christians in Africa overall. But nonetheless, 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, in terms of Islam, Africa is very important.

Aimen: Actually, from the beginning, Africa was part of the Muslim conscience because the early Muslim community in Mecca who were persecuted before the Hijrat-e-Madinah, they went to actually first — in the first Hijrat happened not to Medina, but happened to Abyssinia, to Habesha.

Thomas: Abyssinia, Ethiopia.

Aimen: To seek shelter with their Christian king, being 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 and Islams rise across the region.

Thomas: But then, Aimen, 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, which the first human beings who left Africa to begin populating the rest of the world, they travelled 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, eastern African world, they are really one zone. Would you agree with that, Aimen?

Aimen: Yes, I would say so. Especially the African horn. The African horn has always been intertwined 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.

Thomas: And then when the Arabs did arrive carrying the Quran, did arrive with their new revelation. The process of Islamification of Africa began, as I said, in stages, obviously first Egypt.

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 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 roots began to plant Islam along that coast. And slowly, slowly, slowly, that part of Africa, that was Islamified, was Islamified.

Aimen: 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. There is a 2000 kilometre 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 there is gold, and there is spice and there is food, and there is water.

Thomas: And terrifying wild animals and horrible diseases that people succumb to in great numbers. I'm not sure paradise is the way I would describe that area of the world, but very green.

Aimen: Exactly. Very green. Therefore, the Arab Muslims really didn't know that there is a great African continent below the Sahara, and 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.

Thomas: Down the Nile River. Yeah.

Aimen: 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 happened really late 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.

Thomas: Yes, I'm glad you've brought it up. We can't talk about Islam and Africa without talking about slavery. I mean, frankly, these days the emphasis is often on slavery as an Anglo British imperial thing.

That is not entirely fair because 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, Aimen?

Aimen: Yes. But it wasn't just only black slaves, every colour. I mean, basically, I can call it the rainbow slavery, because basically every colour was represented 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.

Thomas: 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 a integral part of Islamic societies up really until the present in many ways. But Aimen, why was Africa the biggest source of slavery for Muslims?

Aimen: It's because there was a market, at the end of the day, as I stated earlier, that 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 them 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 Shunga Empire would actually enslave others, 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 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, and the Spanish and the English and others.

Thomas: And as a result of the slave trade, those African empires, Abyssinia and Ghana and others, they became very rich. There's no question about it.

That raises a question, though to me, Aimen, and it's a slightly tricky question, maybe. So, nowadays, especially 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? What is the Sharia's view on slavery?

Aimen: Well, I mean, it's one of those tricky questions because the Islamic law came not to abolish slavery, but to regulate it, and 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 practised 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. 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.

Thomas: And do you think that would this happen regularly? I mean, how would a slave have time to make money outside of his normal employment? It's sort of strange. It's hard for me to imagine that.

Aimen: And 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, “My master refusing to honour 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, “He was such a good man. He freed 700 slaves. He's such a good man. He used to collect money and raise money in order to free 3000 slaves. He was an amazing person.” So, yeah.

Thomas: How interesting. We talk about redemption in Christianity, redemption, which is a word that literally comes from freeing slaves. So, in Islam, in a way, you can redeem your soul by freeing slaves, by redeeming slaves.

Aimen: Exactly. If you go and you free a slave, this is considered to be the highest form of charity. Now, someone will say basically, “Why didn't Islam come and abolish slavery?”

I mean, come on, the world didn't come together and abolish slavery until 1300 years after Islam came. At the end of the day, just like Judaism, just like Christianity, 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 you'll 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.

Thomas: 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.

Aimen: Yeah. I mean, of course, look and I will say it out loud here, there were concubines and concubines was part of life from the days of Egypt and Somalia and Assyria and all of that. Even King David and King Solomon in the Bible famously had concubines, Jacob, Israel himself has concubines. Everyone did.

In fact, Muhammad himself basically had a Egyptian concubine, following the footsteps of his great ancestor Abraham, who had the Egyptian concubine, who gave birth to Ishmael, which is the father of the Arabs.

So, concubine were part of life there. Now, imagine that you have a concubine, which is a slave girl, and 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.

Thomas: So, she remains his slave, but he may no longer sleep with her.

Aimen: No, that's it. Because he gave her hand and marriage to another slave. But if he gives her to a free man, 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, St. John Philby or Abdullah Philby.

Thomas: St. John Philby, yeah.

Aimen: Yeah. The father of Kim Philby, he actually went to the slave market in Taif in 1946, bought a Baluch, a Iranian slave. So, you can see, 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 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, Aimen. What the hell 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.”

Thomas: 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 Aimen about the notorious, famous, world-shattering black slave rebellion of the Abbasid Empire, the Zanj Rebellion in the late ninth century. Why did the blacks rise up against their enlightened Arab masters, Aimen?

Aimen: Well, because the Arab masters were racist. I mean, simple as it is.

Thomas: Black lives mattered in the Abbasid Empire too.

Aimen: Yeah. Except basically it'll not be BLM, it'll be ZLM, Zanj Life Matter.

Thomas: Zanj Lives Matter.

Aimen: So, because it was known as Thawrat al-Zanj or the Zanj 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.

Thomas: Oh my God.

Aimen: 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, they were mistreated by the Persians and the Turks who were running the military affairs of the Abbasids Empire, and then they blamed the Arabs for it.

Thomas: Forgive me, Aimen, if I smile at this particular way of spinning the history, classic Arab blame shifting, but okay, I'll let it lie. It's actually the Turks and the Persians fault, never the Arabs.

Aimen: Yes. No, there was some Arab complicity. I agree.

Thomas: Some, a few, there's always a few rotten apples in the Arab barrel.

Aimen: Yeah. A few thousand Arab rotten apples here and there, but just only a few thousands 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 massacre women and girls and young female children in front of their men in order and to let the men live.

Thomas: Oh, my Lord.

Aimen: So, they know that they will never have children ever again who can oppress people.

Thomas: Aimen, this took a very dark turn. I was thinking of Spartacus here, but this did not happen in Spartacus. So, the Blacks rose up and they decided to wipe out all the Arab women and female children.

Aimen: No, no, no. It was not Spartacus, it was Sadacus in many sense. And al also like, you know, this is, gives rise to a very interesting anthropological historical theory 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 Shatt al-Arab of Al Ahwaz' in southern Iraq, the Delta. The convergence point of the Euphrates and the Tigris.

Thomas: 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.

Aimen: Exactly. So, now there comes the theory now that during that time, ironically 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.

Thomas: So, what do the Abbasids do about it?

Aimen: Okay. So, at the same time, by complete either coincidence or divine intervention, or both the Vikings through the Danube River went into the Black Sea and found the navigable rivers of Northern Anatolia that links into the Euphrates River.

And they thought, “Oh, finally we are going to go into the land of the thousand night and a night, we going to meet Sultans and kings and sheiks, and we will trade gold with them.”

Thomas: Belly dancers.

Aimen: Belly dancers, and all of that. Well, there were no belly dancers.

Thomas: There were no female bellies

Aimen: Exactly. So, they went in into the markets of Aleppo, of Anbar and of Baghdad and Samarra and all these places, and Mosul. “Guys, 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 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.

It's from the mine near Nasiriyah in Iraq, which is the city 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 redheads in the Euphrates basin from Aleppo all the way to Kuwait.

Thomas: Oh, my Lord. So, these Vikings were trading Irish lasses for Iraqi gold. My Lord.

Aimen: Exactly. So, a thousand years ago, and still, if you go to Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, Mosul, Baghdad.

Thomas: Yes, I've seen the redheads. They're all over the place.

Aimen: Yes. And you think, well, how the heck they came here? Well, you can thank the Vikings. They kidnapped 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 steps of Mongolia, where they started even getting more and more slaves.

Even the Crimea became a very famous slave market for the Arabs. So, the role of the African slaves started to decrease considerably after the Zanj Revolution. But that doesn't mean that it ended, it continued.

Thomas: Well, my God, Africa, through Arab eyes, is not necessarily the most edifying history in the world, Aimen. But very interesting.

Now Aimen, 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 political, 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 Aimen, 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, Aimen, 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, et cetera. What would you say characterises the security situation, the geopolitical situation of the horn of Africa today?

Aimen: 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.

Thomas: Oh gosh, let's see if I can guess. Promising potential. Maybe at one point, five years ago I would've 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.

Aimen: 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 pirate like Jack Sparrow. We are talking here about pirates basically who would take over a ship for a ransom.

Thomas: Like that wonderful movie with Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips. Did you see that, Aimen? That film?

Aimen: Yes. Oh my God.

Thomas: Fantastic movie.

Aimen: That was a very powerful film. Absolutely.

Thomas: Fantastic movie.

Aimen: I loved it so much. Or as the Irish say, “filum.” Anyway, so sorry. I couldn't resist.

Thomas: Not just the Irish, the Arabs often say it, “al filum.”

Aimen: Exactly. At least one common thing between the Irish and the Arab, “filum.”

Thomas: There's another common thing, Aimen. And I won't mention it, but it's terrorism. Never mind. Okay, so-

Aimen: Exactly, exactly. Our Irish brethren. Also, you have the situation that horn of Africa is famous for is terrorism. I mean, you have al-Shabaab and al-Shabaab being the menace, not only of Somalia. Many people don't understand that al-Shabaab carried out terrorist attacks in neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya.

Thomas: Dear listeners, I know you know, al-Shabaab are a terrorist organisation affiliated with Al-Qaeda at times, with ISIS at times, based in Somalia, with sort of Pan Horn of Africa ambitions.

Aimen: And this group in particular, has posed significant challenges to the stability of the Somali government of Mogadishu, has caused the continuous separatism that is taking place in the Somali land to the north of the country. We will talk about it in more details later, and why Somali land is separate from the rest of Somalia.

What does that have to do with Ethiopia? Ethiopia itself is already mired in several instances of ethnic strife within Ethiopia, the Amharis against the Oromo, against the Ogaden people.

And you have all of these different ethnicities such as the Amharis, the Tigres, the Oromo and others vying for control of Ethiopia. And although, 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.

Thomas: Let me see if I can guess, Aimen. Can I guess?

Aimen: Guess.

Thomas: 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?

Aimen: 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 Somali land.

While Djibouti just north of Somali land 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.

Thomas: Wow, fascinating. I cannot wait, Aimen, for our episodes on Ethiopia and Somalia, because 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.

Let's move on from the horn of Africa, Aimen, 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, Aimen?

Aimen: 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-i-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 radicalising and recruiting more and more young people. And because of local issues such as negligence by central governments. In Africa, it is normal that on the peripheries of these countries, on the border regions, it's always like this, neglected 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 to … 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, on the Indian Ocean, just between Mozambique and Tanzania.

And this is 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, the listener will find pretty much amusing was named after Sultan Mossa Al Bique.

So, Mossa Al Bique was a sultan of Oman in the 16th century, and the country was named after him. Mossa Al Bique became Mozambique

Thomas: Amazing. Well, when we think about East Africa, in addition to Mozambique, which is 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 terrorism, Islamist terrorism, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, et cetera.

But we mustn't forget that the very first big Al-Qaeda attack, Aimen, 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 theatre of jihadist war since the beginning, as long ago, as 1998.

Aimen: Exactly. And it's been a theatre for geopolitics and 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 there, as well as American oil companies such as ExxonMobil.

Thomas: 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, Aimen, 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–Russians Imperial grab in that area.

We're going to cover the whole story about France’s Shadow Empire in West Africa. The Vagner group's attempts to take control of West Africa for Russia and Russian interest. It's an amazing story.

Briefly though, now, Aimen, how would you situate West Africa? First in the security sort of framework, the security perspective?

Aimen: From the security perspective, we have a clusterfuck of considerable number of groups there vying for control. We have military governments, we have the Tuareg and the nomads people controlling the north of the 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, 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, 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 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 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. 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 jihadist like ISIS and AL Qaeda, we have organised crime, we have the Vagner, 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.

Thomas: It's the scramble for Africa in the 21st century. I swear to God, Aimen, 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?

Aimen: Well, Boko Haram is one of the most psychotic sadist terror groups that ever existed. It reminds me of-

Thomas: Honestly, Aimen. Stop holding back. Tell us what you really feel about Boko Haram.

Aimen: Okay. It is the most sadistic and blood thirsty 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. Once you encounter them, don't take prisoners as simple as that. You just have to eradicate.

Thomas: Moving our gaze northward, Aimen, from West Africa to what's known as the Sahel region. In the first half, you describe the Sahel region. It's really that area from the Nile River, from Khartoum in Sudan, 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 Aimen, what's going on in the Sahel region? I mean, it's a huge region. We 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, Aimen, where should we situate it at the moment?

Aimen: Well, all I can say is that like, you know, we need a new slogan, from the river to the sea. The Sahel will be free, but the Sahel here is need to be free of organised crime, of terrorism, of so many other 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, or sparsely inhabited landmass on earth that goes from Sudan to Chad, to Mali, to Mauritania.

And it cuts also, 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.

Thomas: If it's as big as Russia and like much of Russia uninhabitable, maybe this is why it's absolutely teaming with Russian mercenaries at the moment. Maybe Russians just feel drawn to the Sahel.

Aimen: I think just as the early Russian pioneers were drawn to Siberia, which is in itself desolate and uninhabitable place, because of the minerals that were there, including platinum, copper, gold, and of course later oil and gas.

Also is the same reason why a new breed of Russian pioneers, from the Vagner group went there. Because from Jabal `Amir 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.

Thomas: 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. Aimen, 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 will 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.

Aimen: 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 Giorgia Meloni, 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.

Thomas: Giorgia Meloni'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 repost 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.

Aimen: Absolutely. Although it is not as simple as, I mean the French extracting wealth, but it is really as simple as the French extracting wealth. Let's be honest. Especially when it come to Niger and its massive uranium.

Do you know in the uranium reserves of Niger was sold for the cheapest possible price, 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, politically speaking and humanely speaking as oil.

Thomas: So much for the perfidious French. What about the perfidious Americans, Aimen? 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?

Aimen: 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 American supported openly. His name was Mobutu Sese Seko.

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, was focusing mostly on North Africa, leaving the Sub-Saharan Africa to its fate. 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 ruing 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.

Thomas: It's amazing how shortsighted 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've 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?

Aimen: 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 Lucids of the world.

I'm talking about brands of electric cars; Africa's children are being actually sold into mining gangs in order to mine these minerals to actually respond to the thirst for renewable energy cars and for alternative EV cars that people in the West and the East are craving for.

Thomas: And I suppose by connecting Africa to the internet in the 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 organised crime groups, by Islamist groups. The internet is a mixed bag.

Aimen: Absolutely.

Thomas: So, you mentioned Aimen, 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, Aimen, what is the destiny of Africa in your view?

Aimen: In my opinion, I have a feeling that Africa is going to be the next battleground, 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 is going to be the new battleground of human greed.

Thomas: Oh, my Lord. Aimen, just off the bat, season five's beginning on a very depressing note. I have to agree really, Aimen.

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 centre 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. Aimen, do you agree?

Aimen: Totally agree with you a hundred percent.

Thomas: 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 mediaeval history all the way to today's forgotten conflict that has taken 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.