User talk:Alfred Chodaton

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Hello, Alfred Chodaton, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Ruby  Murray  17:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
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March 2014
I initially wrote the page in French and wanted to write another in English that I will link to the French one. But, I could not. I also wanted to change the headline into "Twenty-first African geopolitics".

Hello, I'm Jim1138. I noticed that you recently removed all content from Template:Translation sidebar, with this edit, without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, I restored the page's content. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Jim1138 (talk) 07:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Template:Translation sidebar with this edit, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you. Jim1138 (talk) 07:52, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Géopolitique Africaine


The article Géopolitique Africaine has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Unreferenced essay of editor's personal political opinion; WP:No original research and WP:NOTESSAY.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Ruby  Murray  09:34, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Twenty-first African geopolitics
After enduring centuries of Slave Trade and colonization and having failed to achieve her Pan-African dream and economic integration, Africa continues to look up to the West to find her way.

Failure of Pan-African dream
During the Cold War era, the emerging African countries dreamed of taking their place in the world. African figures among whom the nationalists who fought for independence such as Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), Patrice Emery Lumumba (1925-1961) and revolutionaries such as Mathieu Kerekou, Jerry Rawlings, Thomas Sankara (1949-1987) believed that Africa should seek the path of self-determination.

But since the end of the Cold War, the Pan-African dream, the ideal, that Africa should find her own way, has died. Today, African leaders choose to embrace the former colonial and imperialist powers to find solutions to the economic problems of their countries. The African Union and other regional integration bodies, despite the numerous and successive declarations, have not changed much in the lives of Africans.

European Union and United States of America took advantage of the vacuum created by the collapse of the Eastern bloc to expand their influence in Africa and in the Middle East.

Increasing Western hegemony
During the first decade of the 21st century, United States believed they could obtain geopolitical gains by launching two wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, by pushing the expansion of NATO in Central Europe and in Asia to encircle Russia and China. The fall of the Soviet Union should eventually lead to the disintegration of Russia, allowing the Western access to huge resources of oil and gas which the largest country in the world has. This was the era of endless glory for the Western capitalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The European Union has embarked on isolating Russia. For this, Russia has never received a Marshall Plan that should enable her to boost her economy. Instead, Western advisers and experts who were supposed to help Russia in restructuring her economy have contributed to her plunder and the rise of oligarchs whose assets were sent to tax havens in the West. In Central Europe, the Orange Revolution has toppled leaders of strategic countries to Russian influence and replaced them with by pro-Western leaders.

In the Russian Caucasus, the Chechen independence movement, inspired by Sunni insurgency and supported by the emirates of the Persian Gulf, were threatening the very existence of Russia.

Resumption of strategic rivalries
But this Western policy has not prevented Russia from recover. Not only Russia, with Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, has managed to stabilize its economy, suppress secessionist movements in the Caucasus and reposition herself as one of the most important economic partners of the European Union and political partners of United States. Russia defeats the American plan to redraw the political map of North Africa and the Middle East. Russia opposes the so-called Arab revolution by supporting Bashar Al-Assad in Syria and ensuring her support to Egypt in case United States tries to isolate the new Egyptian regime because of its harsh crackdown on political Islamism. Russia has been always a reliable ally of Iran against the military intervention of the United States.

In Europe, war between Russia and Georgia in 2008, the Russian opposition to the expansion of NATO and to the one of the European Union, its role in the Ukrainian crisis show her return on the international scene as a power.

As for China, far from sharing Soviet Union’s, it has become the engine of world economic growth. The revolt of students and secessionist movements were suppressed successfully by the Chinese authorities. Now, with its status of economic power, China is seeking to assert itself militarily in Asia. Territorial disputes with its neighbors including India and Japan are illustrative.

Russia-China alliance with the alignment other emerging countries like Brazil, India, and South Africa will be one of the determinant factors in the history of 21st century.

Africa’s place in a changing world
Despite all these changes, there is a fact that remains constant: the current world order is not based on a concept of justice but the law of the jungle where the strongest dictates its law to the weakest. Africa by refusing her own unit has agreed to play indefinitely a negligible role on the world stage.

Africa continues to be victim of civil wars, corrupt dictatorships, poverty, bad governance caused by the hegemonic struggles. Whether in Benin, Gabon, Togo, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Libya, DRC, Mali and many other African countries, the interference of foreign powers has always caused turmoil. Despite the richness of its soil and subsoil, Africa continues to be the poorest part of the world.

Regimes that last in Africa, does manage to cling on to power by giving up the assets and the economic resources of their country. The same powers who denounce the malpractices plaguing the continent are the same to encourage corruption and human rights violations in exchange for easy access to the resources of African countries. However, African leaders who dare to show some tendency to emancipate do not last long in power.

But we are not at the end of the history of mankind. We talk here about history as the result of class struggle.

Ukrainian crisis
European Union is seeking to emerge from an unprecedented crisis of capitalism. This crisis comes after the euphoria that followed the fall of communism and which should have opened a new era for economic liberalism. The solution to this crisis is access to new markets and natural resources. The Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics offer these two opportunities. Ukraine has about 45 million inhabitants and is the second largest country in Europe after Russia. It shares borders with seven countries Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Russia, and Belarus.

Over 30% of Ukrainian exports are destined for the Russian market and most of the industries of Ukraine located in the east of the country, in the Russian-speaking region, are installed by Russian investors.

Integration of Ukraine in the EU will lead to the closure of these industries that cannot compete with industries of EU countries particularly ones of Germany. Moreover, because of the close economic relations between Ukraine and Russia, the Russian industries will also be threatened. It is currently the fate of the countries of southern Europe, including Spain, Greece and Italy. Their industries are unable to compete with those of Germany. Unemployment caused by the closure of factories causes migration of the labor force to other EU countries such as Germany, France and Britain that offer better prospects.

As for the United States, they cannot continue indefinitely to live in debt. Their interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan did not allow them to make a substantial economic benefit. Similar military adventure seems less tempting as it was, there a few years ago.

But the United States uses her "soft power" to still assert herself. For United States, the tilting of the Ukraine in the West must allow the weakening of Russia strategically and militarily as it may later access to NATO. In addition, the Ukrainian revolution can be emulated by opponents of Putin.

Therefore, the Ukrainian crisis is a geopolitical crisis where powers are seeking to expand or maintain their area of political and economic influence. How this old rivalry repenting a new form will affect Africa? Can the return of Russia and the emergence of China serve the cause of the peoples of Africa? These are questions that should draw the attention of Africans. Many Africans do not understand the meaning of these rivalries. But they will dictate the future of the world.