Dialogue forum with Aziz Salmone Fall

The French military intervention in Mali and the political situation in North Africa and in the Sahel region from a Pan-African point of view (English)

Monday, 25 February 2013, 7:00 pm, GLS-Sprachenzentrum.

AfricAvenir is hosting a dialogue forum with the Pan-African political scientist and specialist for international relations Aziz Salmone Fall on Monday, 25February, at 7:00 pm at the GLS-Sprachenzentrum. Fall is prompted by the current French military intervention in Mali to analyze the political and geo-strategic situation in North Africa and in the Sahel region from a Pan-African point of view and to enable us a deeper insight into the causes of the crisis in this strategically ever important region.

War has been raging in Mali since the beginning of this year 2013. One more time France the old colonial master intervenes, after having already caused violent regime changes in the Ivory Coast and Libya in 2011. Alongside this development, the revolutionary processes initiated by peoples’ uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have slowed down. In the meantime the tale of trouble spots spans from Asia to the Middle East all the way to Africa.In all these places an alleged “Responsibility to Protect”is used as a pretext for (western) military interventions to keep the so-called peace.

In this dialogue forum the political scientist Aziz Salmone Fall will describe and analyze the current political situation, the challenges and resistance in North Africa and the Sahel region, especially in Mali. He will thereby focus on thethwarting of the revolutionary progress in North Africa, the instrumentalization of religious political powers, the inner-imperialistic contradictions, and the installation of a predatory transnational system to destabilize Africa. He conceives Pan-Africanism as a way out of this dire situation. However in the presence of political dissent, de-politicization through technocratic forms of government as well as the sowing of discord and fragmentation into insular states, an authentic Pan-Africanism capable of concerted actions cannot evolve. This way the room for maneuvers for the working masses and the youth is heavily restricted. Their re-politicization and mobilization are urgently required.

Aziz Salmone Fall

The Egypt-Senegalese political scientist Aziz Salmone Fall teaches political science, anthropology and international relations at the McGill University and at the Université du Québec in Montreal, Canada. He describes himself as an inter-nationalistic Pan-Africanist and has developed the concept of „Panafricentrage”for this purpose. Aziz Fall was coordinator of the Anti-Apartheid Network in Québec, is president of the Aubing Foundation, Chairperson of the Ryerson-Centre for Progressive Research, and a founding member of the movement for an institutionalized dialogue among leftists forces in Senegal. He is a member of GRILLA (Research and Action Group for Freeing Africa), within which framework he is leading the first African international campaign against impunity-The Campaign for the Clarification of the Sankara-Affair in conjunction with a group of 21 lawyers and personalities.
Please visit: www.grila.org & www.azizfall.com

Lecture with Aziz Fall on the military intervention in Mali (french):

http://addax.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/conference-sur-le-mali-par-aziz-fall/