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Accompanying and following the revolutions in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States, an inspiring, intriguing and profound process kicked off in the Sahel region.

A group of organizers exchanging impressions on the social movement ecosystem worldwide noticed that in our contexts we have not been paying enough attention to this process.

We are aware of the debates about various aspects: the anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist core of the project, the anti-capitalist tendencies, the regional integration dynamics, grassroots involvement, the larger geopolitical context including armed Islamist groups as well as foreign involvement. Each of these are naturally complex, equivocal and uncertain.

We notice, however, that we have been taking this process as a mere curiosity, as part of international news. Our intuition is that many other groups and organizations share this weakness that we identified in us.

We acknowledge that the Alliance of Sahel States has to do with us. We must follow carefully what is happening, what our comrades in the region are doing and saying, and what all of that means for us and our praxis.

We call our comrades to discuss this topic

• within their organizations,
• within the movement networks they are part of, as well as
• with the larger social base they operate in.

We are fortunate that there are several groups within the larger movement ecosystem already made the ground work for us to build on.

So, this short note will have three simple parts. One, what aspects we found to be crucial for our own work. Two, a list of essential readings that can help us develop the debates. Three, how to proceed from here.

Note: In this short note, we are specifically not talking about solidarity with the Sahel states. (This we must do, and we should listen to comrades about how and to what extent.) We are tracing the reverse direction: the revolutionary processes are in solidarity with us, they raise political and strategic questions to our work, and we must (also) explore how that should influence what we do.

Why it matters?

Basic context: This is a region at the front lines of the climate crisis and chronic droughts, rich in uranium, gold and oil. The colonial legacy is very present, with the currency CFA Franc controlled by the French treasury, active military involvement of the French state in the region, as well as imperialist structures like IMF and World Bank, with their regional representative ECOWAS. On top of this, there are some twenty armed insurgency groups (including Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State) active in the region.

The Alliance of the Sahel States is comprised of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, following several coups and revolutions in the period of 2020-2023 in the Sahel region. What differentiates the Alliance from other coups in the region are the support and participation of popular organizations, the ideological orientation of the leadership, and the anti-colonialist policies and nationalizations. It was founded in 2023, and the countries officially left ECOWAS in early 2024.

The regional integration initiatives include

• coordinated industrial policy,
• joint energy infrastructure projects (October 2024),
• a joint military force to combat Islamist insurgencies (January 2025),
• export controls on grain towards the rest of ECOWAS,
• common tariff regimes (March 2025),
• harmonized energy security and renewable energy policies (May 2025),
• abolishing of roaming,
• a common passport,
• a common cultural policy,
• the Alliance of Sahel States Games (June 2025),
• a seed alliance (July 2025),
• a Confederal Investment and Development Bank (December 2025), as well as
• the creation of a joint television channel.

They are currently discussing monetary union, Judicial cooperation, regional courts, and a regional cereal agency.

To say the least, this is a lot for such a short period. And this is just the official side of the story: we have difficulty listing the numerous grassroots initiatives by social movements and local populations.

So, given that this is massive, what does it mean for the social movements in the rest of the world? There are also quite some questions and challenges that the Alliance is facing which have immediate significance for our own work. We identified at least three topics of discussion.

(1) In the context of globalization led by transnational corporations, regular elections and democratic participation became two completely separate topics; and the same can be seen in the decoupling of democratic elections from popular sovereignty.

The fact that there is an election doesn’t mean people can vote according to their will. The fact that people can vote doesn’t mean that people decide any policies. The fact that people can participate in the decisions doesn’t mean people have any power over what options are available or feasible. Moreover, there is less and less overlap between these different aspects. On the one hand, democracy has never been so purely performative. On the other hand, the ruling classes have more and more spaces to exercise participatory democracy for themselves to decide about our lives. In particular, for many decades now, elections have become handover ceremonies to shift policies already decided by capitalists.

Building people’s power and popular sovereignty will include political, economic and cultural resistance; and these will take the shape that we will give to them. For the revolutionary process in the Sahel region, our questions cannot be whether they fulfill some formal criterion set by the capitalist system. We have to see what is being built, what impacts that has in working people’s lives, and in which direction the power configuration is changing in class struggle.

Now, our observation is: These exact same questions apply to our own struggles and analyses.

(2) A renewed debate on imperialism is crucial. Corporate takeover of the capitalist state apparatus made this necessary a long time ago, but the recent developments make this more acute. The US is being presided over by a CEO, who put other CEOs and tech bros into political positions. (This is not a revolving door. They hold both tasks at the same time.) These people are not defending “US interests”. They are defending their own corporate interests. In a way, the Empires do not exist; as they are subservient to transnational interests. In other words, the Empires are the transnational corporations. These corporations are fighting each other, and they mobilize different parts of different State mechanisms for this purpose.

The above is the fight among the ruling classes. None is anti-imperialist in nature.

Our fight is against all of them. We build popular, working class powers against corporate, colonial powers.

None of the above is linear or exempt of contradictions. Many of our actions might benefit the interests of some of the imperial powers. Many of their actions might benefit us, as well.

Burkina Faso expelled French troops, then asked for support from Russia in combating insurgent groups. Both French state and the Russian state are tools of the imperialist system. In this particular case, the Russian support to the Burkina Faso government was an anti-imperialist instance. The Russian state has its own calculations, as do all actors involved in any process.

In the context of globalized capitalism, categorical conversations on imperialism (“Is X imperialist?”) are not useful for anybody. We have to pay attention to context, and we have to pay attention to the direction a specific strategy or tactic is leading us towards. This is what allows us to better measure the political costs involved in certain decisions without making us fall back on a standard of calculation that ends up reaffirming capitalist status quo.

(3) This brings us to the third point. We found ourselves talking about the revolutionary process in Sahel as a progressive attempt in a politically isolated, economically dependent context.

Many times, we underappreciate the achievements, the contradictions and the challenges.

The problem with this is that all contexts are like this now. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the political isolation and economic dependence became a given fact rather than an avoidable situation. So, all of their achievements are benchmarks for us, all their contradictions and challenges will be ours in as much as we succeed.

Because we operate under climate crisis, we cannot wait to face the same challenges, we must learn them now. We have a unique opportunity to make a sober reflection on how we could participate in a revolutionary movement, what we see ourselves capable of, and what capabilities we are missing.

These are the three main debates we would like to insist that the revolutionary movements around the world reflect on. The movements in the Alliance of Sahel States gives us a pretext and a concrete example for this purpose.

How to inform ourselves?

We diagnosed our common weakness: we don’t talk about this topic enough. Naturally, identifying we are not sufficiently engaged in something meant we needed to educate ourselves. We thought it would be useful to share what we found, for other comrades to start off discussions within their organizations and networks.

Below is a list of essential readings and supplementary readings. They are neither complete nor fully updated; they are not intended to be. They are, we think, useful.

We did this exercise in English, French, Portuguese. We keep all of them below, separated by language.

What now?

If you are reading this, then probably someone who agreed with this need reached out to you. The proposal then is to start off a debate within your organization, within spaces of movement coordination, as well as for the wider public.

There are no guidelines. You will know the best approach to a comradely relationship with the revolutionary processes in the Sahel region. You will know what is more relevant for your context. You will know the ways in which you can improve your analysis and praxis, through the experience of the movements in the Sahel region.

We do think that it might inspire others to know how others are exploring this task. So, in case you organize a discussion or publish a text (or if you plan to do so), please let us know by email (hello@all-in.now) and we’ll take note of it to share with others.