An Architecture of Complexity: the Challenges of Radicalization of Islam and Islamization of Radicalism in Western Sahel

African Journal of Terrorism and Insurgency Research (AJoTIR) ISSN: 2732-4990(Print) ISSN: 2732-5008(Online) Volume 1, Number 1, April 2020 Pp 33 -56 An Architecture of Complexity: The Challenges of Radicalization of Islam and Islamization of Radicalism in Western Sahel Prof Marcel Kitissou Cornell University E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Violent extremism and Jihadism in Western Sahel are the result of interlocking conflicts. Civil strife and regional (or global) conflict form a nexus. Conflict becomes intractable. And the inability of government to resolve normal social tensions, let alone the challenges caused by the effects of climate change, youth unemployment, poverty and food insecurity, make them open to intervention by outside players motivated more by geopolitical calculations than local concerns. Foreign players can be divided in two main categories. Firstly, Jihadists, by exploiting local situations, can make civil strife more deadly than their own actions. Secondly, global powers use Africa as a surrogate terrain for their global power play. As this paper argues, this architecture of complexity leads to the conclusion that there is no one terrorism in the Sahel but many and each requires a different approach. By the same token, the theoretical debate about whether we are witnessing a radicalization of Islam or an Islamization of Radicalism is irrelevant. This paper argues that there a continuum between the two extremes. Key words: Terrorism, Violent extremism, Jihadism, Foreign Intervention. 33 An Architecture of Complexity … Introduction There is an ongoing debate about whether Jihadism is the result of a radicalization of Islam or the result of an Islamization of radicalism. This debate was featured in an article by Bonelli and Carrié in Le Monde Diplomatique of Mars, 2020: ‘Fausses évidences sur the jihadism.’ In the political scientist Gilles Kepel’s theory, Jihadism is the result of a radicalization of Islam. But the researcher Olivier Roy’s theory asserts that Jihadism is the result of the Islamization of radicalism.1 This paper is a response to the ongoing debate and proposes the view that radicalization of Islam or Islamization of radicalism is a false dilemma. Jihadism in Western Sahel combines both phenomena at various degrees to create a situation of increasing instability, political violence, intractable civil strife, and interlocking conflicts. There are two embedded conflicts going on in the region: one is international (global Jihadism) and the other is local (local grievances). This paper looks at how the intersection of these two interlocking struggles, the radicalization of Islam and the Islamization of radicalism, merge to produce an explosive mixture. It is at this nexus of the global and the local that Roy’s and Kepel’s views can be reconciled. Expert in development policies, Serge Michailof wrote a book titled Africanistan: Development or Jihad (2018). For him, political violence cannot be dissociated from absence of development. His conclusions, in many ways, join that of Nick Turse’s book, Tomorrow’s Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa (2015). Focusing on external intervention, Turse asserted that Africa is the next (if not already the current) battle space of the war on terror while, Michailof, basing his analysis on domestic issues, concludes that all the conditions that have created a semi-permanent war situation in Afghanistan are now present in Africa, particularly in the ‘Sahelistan.’ The difference is only in magnitude: Afghanistan is a country. The Sahel is a region. The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the architecture of complexity created by the nexus where the local and the global meet and where the radicalization of Islam and the Islamization of radicalism are combined at various degrees at different locations. 1 Laurent Bonelli and Fabien Carrié, ‘Fausses évidences sur the djihadisme,’ Le Monde Diplomatique, Mars 2020, p. 19. 34 Marcel Kitissou (AJoTIR) Volume 1, Number 1, April 2020, Pp 33-56 Current security situation in the Sahara-Sahel A panoramic view of the Sahel shows an image that can be compared to the trajectory of a bullet traversing the northern half of the African continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, or the bed of a gigantic dry river with 10 riparian states. ‘These 10 countries span over 7 million square kilometers and have close to 135 million inhabitants’ as wrote John F. May in 2015.2 Its population is growing fast. It is estimated to reach 200 million by 2050. More than half of that population will live the three countries that constitute the epicenter of Jihadist activities, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Meanwhile, the region experiences recurrent drought. Water is scarce. Due to a combination of drought, political instability, and rising food prices, an estimated 18 million people are currently facing food insecurity.3 ‘All of these factors contribute to a cycle in which the climate worsens human conditions and resulting human behaviors worsen the climate.’4 Outbreaks of diseases such as dengue fever and cholera are not uncommon and are likely to increase as the population grows while agriculture becomes more difficult. The following map shows the shape of the Sahel. 2 John F. May, ‘Demographic Challenges of the Sahel,’ January 14, 2015, available at https://www.prb.org/sahel-demographics/. Accessed on April 29, 2020. 3 Map sahel.jpg - Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org 4 Marcel Kitissou, ‘The Sahel in its complexity,’ Sahel Consortium website at http://sanelconsortium.com 35 An Architecture of Complexity … An article titled ‘The Sahel in Flames: Key dates for the Sahel’s spreading militancy’ published by The New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN News) on May 31, 2019, describes some of the consequences of Jihadists’ violent actions in the region with these disturbing statistics: • 1.8 million people facing food insecurity • 5.1 million people requiring humanitarian assistance • 157 men, women, and children killed in March (2019) in one attack in Mali • In past months (Spring 2019), a surge in violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – three Sahelian countries with shared borders and common problems – has left more than 440,000 people displaced and 5,000 dead, as militants, some with links to al-Qaeda and Islamic State, have extended their grip across the region. • Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands are left unable to have access to education and healthcare. The map below shows areas of food insecurity in the Sahel. The darkest colors indicate the most affected areas. 36 Marcel Kitissou (AJoTIR) Volume 1, Number 1, April 2020, Pp 33-56 There are several actors that are the sources of the acts of violence noted above. We will only discuss the principal ones. Main Jihadi actors The rapid escalation of violent activities by militant Islamist groups in the Sahel since 2016 has been primarily driven by three groups: . The Macina Liberation Front focusing its activities around the Mopti- Segou region of central Mali The Ansaroul Islam, concentrated around the Djibo municipality of northern Burkina Faso The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) ISGS has been distinctive for the geographic expansiveness of its activity. Its actions extend to some 800 km along the eastern 37 An Architecture of Complexity … Mali/western Niger border area as well as roughly 600 km down Burkina Faso’s eastern border with Niger. Roughly 90 percent of ISGS attacks have occurred within 100 km of one of these borders.5 Jihadist activities are progressively expanding beyond these areas in the Sahel and can, if not stopped, destabilize the northern regions of coastal states in the near future such as Togo, Benin and Ghana. With regards to coastal states of West Africa, because of the multi-faceted challenges confronted by the Sahelian population and severe effects of climate change, many Sahelians are migrating to coastal states. Furthermore, from Nigeria to Somalia and from Mali to Mozambique, Jihadism is becoming a pan-African issue overlapping local threats. Therefore, it is becoming clear that there is no one terrorism but many, requiring different approaches even if there are opportunistic external connections. A street vendor from the Sahel in Lomé-Togo. A mejira is a generic name for street vendors from the Sahel in Lomé, Togo and is a common phenomenon on the coast of West Africa. They go door-to-door to offer all kinds of merchandise as the picture shows. Often illiterate but extremely smart, they offer products at prices local customers can afford. In Lomé, they live in specific neighborhoods (Bassadji, Biossé, Togbato, Ablogamé, Anfamé) and in the area around 5 Pauline Le Roux, ‘Exploiting Borders in the Sahel: The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara,’ Africa Center for Strategic Studies, June 10, 2019. 38 Marcel Kitissou (AJoTIR) Volume 1, Number 1, April 2020, Pp 33-56 the Port and others. As years pass, they integrate the local populations and speak, with a foreign accent, Mina, the language spoken in Lomé. This type of street vendor can also be found, here and there, in towns of the interior.6 One can find established Sahelian communities in almost every town in West Africa. Potentially, this can provide either a network for Jihadist militants, if one is pessimistic, or a source of information for security personnel, if one is optimistic. The best source of information is not necessarily the person who speaks good English or good French. The smart policy will be to welcome them. These ethnic translocations lead us to interrogate the modus operandi of the Jihadist groups in the region. Modes of operation There are several ways in which Jihadist groups operate in Western Sahel. Some of them are salient enough to create a pattern. They manipulate inter-communal conflicts by exploiting ethnic tensions. By doing so, like in central Mali, they can make ethnic conflicts deadlier than their own direct actions.

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