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This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Desert Flashpoint: Crisis in the Sahel

This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.91.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A crisis in Africa is supercharging the Far Right in Europe – and Russian mercenaries are fighting to make it worse. After Western interventions drove the failing states of the Sahel region into ruin, extremists from Islamic State to Boko Haram stepped into the power vacuum. Civil wars and climate change rendering vast areas of the Sahel uninhabitable have created a refugee crisis which European demagogues can feast upon. And now Putin’s proxies are involved. Arthur Snell finds out how the misery of the Sahel people is generating hard right policy in Britain, neo-fascism in Italy… and a dangerous spin in the global destabilisation game. Support Doomsday Watch on Patreon and get every episode a week early and ad-free, plus much more: www.doomsdaywatch.co.uk “This is a region on Europe’s borders in deep crisis – and most people know nothing about it.” – Arthur Snell “What the radical right populists did in Britain was scare the Conservatives so much over immigration that the Tories shifted right.”– Tarik Abou-Chadi “The beneficiaries are the far right politicians in Europe and the cynical opportunists in Moscow.” – Arthur Snell “One thing you learn quickly is that pressures on one part Europe’s borders rapidly become pressures on other parts.” – Alex Clarkson Photograph: Getty Images Written and presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Assistant producer: Jacob Archbold. Original music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com . Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Doomsday Watch is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

As we're fond of saying on this podcast, everything is connected.

0:06.8

And the one place on Earth where this plays out more than any other is the Sahel region of

0:12.0

Africa.

0:20.0

In 2011, Nikola Sapuzi and David Cameron strode into Benghazi like a pair of middle-age

0:32.4

pop stars, celebrating the defeat of their enemy, Ma'am Mar Gaddafi.

0:39.3

Now, just a decade later, it's a region in ruins on Europe's doorstep.

0:45.4

We see countries in economic collapse as a result of the climate crisis, with extremist groups

0:50.7

from Al Qaeda to Islamic State to Boko Haran stepping in to take advantage of the power

0:56.3

vacuums.

1:05.1

And the fear, if not the reality, of dislocated populations emigrating to Europe, is driving

1:11.4

far-right politics in this continent.

1:21.0

This is crisis in the Sahel.

1:26.8

I'm Arthur Snow. I was a diplomat in some of the most troubled places on planet Earth,

1:46.3

and now I'm here to investigate the threats of today and warn you about the dangers of tomorrow.

1:52.6

This is Doomsday Watch.

1:59.1

First off, what is the Sahel? It's the band of African countries bordering the southern

2:05.5

fringes of the Sahara Desert, from Senegal and Mauritania on the Atlantic coast to Eritrea

2:12.0

and Sudan on the Red Sea. These lands have long been at risk from drought, desertification

2:18.6

and famine. But in the past 10 years, these factors have been exacerbated by violent conflict

2:25.0

and extreme climate change, leading to a governance crisis. The countries of the Sahel are rapidly

2:31.9

becoming failed states. It's a region on Europe's borders in deep crisis, which most people

2:38.8

know nothing about. I'm Dr. Nyegele Bagayoukou. Presently, I am sharing the African security

...

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