Characterisations in international relations provide a false neatness to an untidy world. The term 'freedom fighter' can morph with effortless ease into rudderless 'militants' whose only purpose is to inflict terror. 'Dictatorships' become police authorities keeping an eye on 'fundamentalism'. 'Fundamentalists' in turn can be shape-changers. The use of such terms is strategic and tactical, and not merely a matter of semantics.
The violence in Algeria at the siege of the natural gas facility at In Aménas was deadly, resulting in the deaths of 37 individuals. Immediately, the demon word of post-9-11 was employed — al-Qaeda. The hand of this complex and international franchise was in it, exercised through the local group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb .
The Wall Street Journal on 21 January noted sources claiming the siege was affected by weapons 'pilfered from Libyan stockpiles'. Broad brushstroke terminology is employed: the hostage taking signalled 'an escalated threat of African terrorism against international targets that the US and other governments are struggling to neutralise'.
The imprecision of the language is unmistakable: 'African terrorism' threatens 'US' and non-African interests. Africa, as it has been in the history of colonial interests, is a projection; a dark, foreboding continent of interest to foreign powers, whose own interests come first. Strikingly, the instability that has resulted in Algeria and Mali can, to some extent, be attributed to the end of the Gaddafi regime, occasioned by Western intervention.
Pundits of international relations now find that singling out Gaddafi as the next cartoon gangster for removal was good propaganda but bad policy. No-fly zones initiated to protect civilians ended up assisting anti-Gaddafi forces who have proven unruly and poor in governance. At the behest of an Anglo-French-US operation, ill-understood fighters and factions have created a security vacuum that threatens considerable parts of the African continent.
It would be a mistake though to see the disturbances in Algeria and Mali as having a purely international dimension. Local specifics are ignored. As Patrick Cockburn, a long time student of Middle East and African affairs has pointed out, an organisation like al-Qaeda thrives on the false assumption that local disputes have international import. Provocations such as those in Algeria are 'presented as a threat to the rest