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

AfricAvenir invites you to a dialogue forum with the Pan-African political scientist and specialist for international relations Aziz Salmone Fall on Monday, 25 February, at 7 pm at GLS-Sprachenzentrum. Fall takes a closer look at the current French military intervention in Mali in order 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 and gives us a deeper insight into the causes of the crisis in this strategically vital region.n"Mali is just the latest tip of the iceberg when it comes to even more accentuated implementation of western geo-strategical and geopolitical interests. The belt of crisis spans from Afghanistan over Iran and Syria all the way to North Africa…" Aziz Fall nWar in being waged in Mali since the beginning of 2013. Once again France the old colonial power has intervened, after having already induced 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. Today the belt of crisis spans from Asia over 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 “restore” the peace.

In this dialogue forum the political scientist Aziz Salmone Fall will describe and analyze the current political situation, the challenges and resistances in North Africa and the Sahel region, especially in Mali. He will focus on the thwarting 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. Therefore the room for maneuvers of 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 GRILA (Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa), within which he is leading the first African international campaign against impunity – the campaign for the clarification of the Sankara-Affair as head of  a group of 21 lawyers and personalities. Please visit: www.grila.org & www.azizfall.comnLecture with Aziz Fall on the military intervention in Mali:nhttp://addax.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/conference-sur-le-mali-par-aziz-fall/n