On France, Russia, and Africa [Note: Content Warning - links to reports on oppression/bigotry/hate, violence/abuse/war. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

From this week’s coming news post: 

• “Why France is Actually Preparing for War With Russia”   https://youtu.be/fiD24uEvY1U?si=R4Rnw7AR9ZeLOhuC   24^th March, 2024   I’m not convinced (yet) that these problems will lead to war, but the video is worth viewing and thinking about - and, if direct and overt France-Russia conflict does occur in Africa, it would be a major risk of a wider war. Increasing Russian influence has been identified by others as a problem (especially for human rights and state capture [and Russia’s quest for money] - see links below), and the Caspian Report   https://www.youtube.com/@CaspianReport   has also done videos on France’s currency control (see “France secretly owns 14 countries”   https://youtu.be/_-u1Pjce4Lg?si=vtpUvlxpJeGCI1N2   “Using the #CFA franc system, #France controls the #monetary sovereignty of 14 nations, making up nearly 200 million people”   listed as posted “one year ago”) and language-based ambitions (“Is France the next superpower?”   https://youtu.be/k7Kph52MfRo?si=4MNXVWY6orEQboEi   “How President Macron plans to capture Africa's demographic wave by using the French language, with the ultimate goal to cement French hegemony worldwide”   listed as posted “4 years ago”).         Links on Russian influence/abuses in Africa:         “Russia in Africa”   https://africacenter.org/in-focus/russia-in-africa/   Accessed 24^th March, 2024         “Architects of Terror: The Wagner Group’s Blueprint for State Capture in the Central African Republic”   https://africacenter.org/security-article/architects-of-terror-the-wagner-groups-blueprint-for-state-capture-in-the-central-african-republic/   21^st November, 2023         “Central African Republic: Abuses by Russia-Linked Forces”   https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/03/central-african-republic-abuses-russia-linked-forces   3^rd May, 2022         “Russian mercenaries are Putin’s ‘coercive tool’ in Africa”   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/23/russia-putin-wagner-group-mercenaries-africa   “Russia has deployed the Wagner Group in military operations across at least half a dozen African nations”   23^rd April, 2022         “What Is Russia’s Wagner Group Doing in Africa?”   https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa   23^rd May, 2023         “Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, commercial concessions, rights violations, and counterinsurgency failure”   https://www.brookings.edu/articles/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-influence-commercial-concessions-rights-violations-and-counterinsurgency-failure/   8^th February, 2022         “Russia's Wagner Group in Africa: More than mercenaries”   https://www.dw.com/en/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-more-than-mercenaries/a-64822234   24^th June, 2023         “Russia secretly in war in Africa”   https://youtu.be/ydH39HjuFZs?si=SA8xRGpfJg_eJUvT   listed as posted “9 months ago”    

• “Climate Crisis could drive 200 million Africans to Extreme Hunger by 2050”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/03/climate-million-africans.html  
  

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/