Niger coup d'etat

[Kimstu]

@Cisco

In fact, I seem to recall Niger coming in 1st place in some world happiness study awhile back.

No, you’re thinking of Nigeria.

A new [2003] study of more than 65 countries published in the UK’s New Scientist magazine suggests that the happiest people in the world live in Nigeria - and the least happy, in Romania.

AFAICT Niger wasn’t included in that study. In the 2008 Satisfaction with Life Index survey, Niger ranked 161st out of 180 countries, not a very happy result (although interestingly, in this survey Nigeria ranked only 120th instead of in the top 10).

[Mr.Excellent]

@Kimstu

But didn’t Benin have somewhat more political/cultural coherence than Niger even before the colonial period? IIRC, Benin is more or less what used to be the kingdom of Dahomey, which AFAIK existed since at least the 15th century or so.

D’oh! Yah, I think you’re right - and of course, that makes a difference.

[wmfellows]

@Chief_Pedant

An unfortunate consequence of being too incompetent to draw your own map?

Competence doesn’t bloody enter into it. It is the unfortunate consequence of being in a shitty bloody geography and then having some Europeans with guns and a queer disregard for your race and culture come in and draw random lines for administrative districts, that then get foisted off as national boundaries.

In any case the one bennie of “colonial map-drawing” is that it’s one more external excuse that can be trotted out for failure.

Only a “bennie” if one knows fuck-all about the history and stops at superficial trivialities.

[ruadh]

@BrainGlutton

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said

Actually the best US Government quote on the subject came from William Fitzgerald, Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs:

Well, it’s very disappointing on the one hand, because we never countenance the violent overthrow of any government.

My reading that caused my co-worker to rush into my office wondering what was sending me into paroxysms of uncontrollable hysterical laughter.

[even_sven]

I thought this map of countries depicting their Human Development Index levels was interesting. Notice Niger is a big black hole right in the center of the world. This is the sort of place that could look at Afghanistan as a model of improvement. Nigeriens can only dream that one day they can live a life as good as that in Bangladesh.

Niger is like the leftovers, except with nothing leftover. It’s populated by the fringes of a number of very different ethnic groups- half of people are Hausa (an ethnic group largely based in Nigeria) or Songhai (based in Mali.) 20% of the population consists of the nomadic groups that move across the Sahel, each of which has it’s own culture, political issues, and land-use conflicts with each other. 8% of the population is enslaved.

Before colonialism, most of it were part of four fairly developed, relatively sophisticated, and often warring countries (a couple of those nations date back thousands of years)- kind of like going in at the end of WWI, taking a chunk of France, Britain, Germany and Spain and trying to get them to act like a country.

Only 15% of the land is arable (and even that is pretty much only suitable for growing sorghum- the lucky ones get some peanuts, too), and this is all concentrated in one region, which makes land-use conflict almost inevitable. This somewhat fertile area is growing smaller and smaller every year. The rest is largely desert wasteland. The place is as landlocked as it gets, and has lots of touchy and often unstable neighbors to boot.

Then, they have the bad luck to have a couple of Uranium mines, which means that foreign countries will never leave them alone, and whoever can grab power stands to make a lot of money.

I don’t know what it’d take for Niger to have a chance, but unless there is something massive…something as massive as the Chinese revolution or whatever (which is unlikely, since there is no historical or cultural unity) I honestly don’t see it happening this century.

[Mr.Excellent]

@even_sven

I thought this map of countries depicting their Human Development Index levels was interesting. Notice Niger is a big black hole right in the center of the world. This is the sort of place that could look at Afghanistan as a model of improvement. Nigeriens can only dream that one day they can live a life as good as that in Bangladesh.

Niger is like the leftovers, except with nothing leftover. It’s populated by the fringes of a number of very different ethnic groups- half of people are Hausa (an ethnic group largely based in Nigeria) or Songhai (based in Mali.) 20% of the population consists of the nomadic groups that move across the Sahel, each of which has it’s own culture, political issues, and land-use conflicts with each other. 8% of the population is enslaved.

Before colonialism, most of it were part of four fairly developed, relatively sophisticated, and often warring countries (a couple of those nations date back thousands of years)- kind of like going in at the end of WWI, taking a chunk of France, Britain, Germany and Spain and trying to get them to act like a country.

Only 15% of the land is arable (and even that is pretty much only suitable for growing sorghum- the lucky ones get some peanuts, too), and this is all concentrated in one region, which makes land-use conflict almost inevitable. This somewhat fertile area is growing smaller and smaller every year. The rest is largely desert wasteland. The place is as landlocked as it gets, and has lots of touchy and often unstable neighbors to boot.

Then, they have the bad luck to have a couple of Uranium mines, which means that foreign countries will never leave them alone, and whoever can grab power stands to make a lot of money.

I don’t know what it’d take for Niger to have a chance, but unless there is something massive…something as massive as the Chinese revolution or whatever (which is unlikely, since there is no historical or cultural unity) I honestly don’t see it happening this century.

Yeesh. I hadn’t realized how unrelentingly grim Niger’s situation was. That’s … pretty bad.