Radio War Nerd EP #497 — Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel, feat. Rob Ashlar

Check out his new podcast Turbulence (w/ Seamus )

Ashlar = 🐐

loved this guest!

https://youtu.be/JSHd5mm7qNI?si=MfcywnTuDIxgTyz8 Local flavor

"As usual, the blame lies with France." *goes on to explain that all of the dynamics underlying the conflict are local and precolonial in origin*

Randomly: did y’all ever read the old sci fi dystopia “Merchant Planet” and especially its sequel “The Merchants’ War”? I read it ages ago and I dunno how well all of it holds up but “War” explicitly makes a jihadi Saharan insurgency the heroes (or the heroes’ allies) in the revolution against the planet wide capitalist dystopia. (NOT against the USSR, tho “War” was written about the same time James Bond was schmoozing with the Taliban…) Pretty shocking stuff for my oblivious teenage self reading it in the ‘80s!

AQ sounds like a jihadist venture capital fund

I don’t think you guys realize that conflict has been going on in the Sahel for millennia. It’s just always going to be at war

Thanks, fascinating episode.

Mark’s thanks to John Brennan at the end was an odd note. But I’m sure he factors into all this stuff.

Okay so israel is bad, so now Islamic state are just leftist without a cause. I just can't make that jump these guys are bad dudes and they should be stamped out.

Fantastic episode. I find the jihad in the Sahel almost hypnotically fascinating, but you really do need someone capable of some 'vulgar' Marxism at the very least to cast any light on the actual underlying dynamics. Rob does it one better. I half disagree about this particular kind of jihadi sensibility being a post nineteenth century phenomenon (though maybe Rob meant just in the Sahel and I misunderstood him). Salafi global jihad is certainly a new and weird vintage. But this basic phenomenon—Maghrebi pastoralist grievance getting metabolized into reformist/takfiri jihad—is super old. Even way before Dan Fodio and the Fula jihads, you can see the dynamic play out north of the Sahara like half a dozen times—Fatimids, Almoravids, Almohads. This is actually the precedent that Ibn Khaldun (and I half-suspect Frank Herbert) had in mind when sketching out the dynamics of the prototypical mahdist tribal revolt. Even the pattern of up-to-date theology from the eastern Islamic heartlands being used to mobilize local tribal grievance is really old. The comment about 'our sheikhs telling us what Islam is actually all about' reminds me really strongly of Ibn Tumart, who was born among the Sanhaja in the Atlas mountains but did a ten year study abroad in Mecca, Syria, and maybe Baghdad. He's supposed to have studied with al-Ghazali and when he came back he had this wild hyper-rationalist theology bolted onto his declaration of himself as the Mahdi, and he raised the cry of revolt against the Almoravids because they were 'anthropomorphizers' of God as well as because their men wore the veil. Supposedly the Sanhaja liked his theology, and that's why they joined his revolt. But the Almoravids had also been building fortresses for a while at the inlets and outlets to the Atlas mountains, which I bet you $20 controlled access to grazing territories on the plain below and disrupted normal transhumance patterns. I've also found some stories in medieval Arabic sources about Almoravid tax collectors coming up into the mountains and supposedly cuckolding the local men (maybe when they were out grazing?) So again there's an old pattern for Maghrebi pastoralists or semi-pastoralists discovering the true meaning of Islam right about the time that they are being newly subjected to fiscality.

Hail Mauritania!

Togo exporting gold despite not having it reminds me of how Rwanda has been exporting cobalt despite not having that. An M23 episode would be cool. Thank you guys for actually talking about Africa!

I think medieval forestry laws in France and England are an interesting parallel to those forestry laws imposed on people in their future colonies. They are absolutely tools for social control and not concerned with the biome of whichever forest is concerned . In fact “forest” law in the Middle Ages could apply to towns. It was the legal justification to remove people from their land.

John sounds better and more coherent with every episode he spends in Italy. So glad he was able to put down roots and share more of his big brain with us

Yes!! Love the Ashlar eps! The Iraq insurgency one was excellent.

please do a show about congo - specifically the context of rwanda's support for the rebels and the rwandan genocide. most people (esp on the left) seem to consider rwanda to be solely interested in minerals and ignore (as they have for thirty years) the hutu genocidaires camping out in the congo.

Let’s goooooo

Started Erdogan Pizza. Any further info on what the deal as with Mark Juba?

the king returns.

LFG !! My requests have come true