International Relations:Islamic State of West Africa, An Imposture

Cameroon_Tribune / George MBELLA 

Prof. Jean Emmanuel Pondi thought so while delivering a conference on the subject in Yaounde on December 11, 2015.

The appellation “Islamic State of West Africa, Ex-Boko Haram” is an imposture forced down the throats of Africans by the West through their mainstream media. This was the opinion of Professor Jean Emmanuel Pondi expressed during a conference on the issue at the International Relations Institute of Cameroon (IRIC), University of Yaounde II, on December 11, 2015 with students from all departments of the institution attending.

While introducing the subject, the moderator, Professor Alain Didier Olinga, noted the disturbing rapidity in the evolution of the Islamic State-related terrorist events as justification for the need of an African understanding of what is happening. To spur this understanding, Prof. Jean Emmanuel Pondi started by centering his discourse on three concerns, notably if the Islamic State entity met the criteria to call itself a State; whether it met the criteria to be recognised as such on the international scene and what could explain that the term “Islamic State” has been adopted and used internationally.

Using diplomatic parlance and examples, with the mastery for which he is reputed, Prof. Jean Emmanuel Pondi proved that the “Islamic State” met no criteria to be referred to as such and could have slipped under “Western radars” with its own concept of the State which represents a territory without boundaries called the Caliphate; a Muslim population wherever it is found and a invisible leader, the Caliph, who heads various departments. He said all western media, from the BBC to RFI, used the term “Islamic State” which to him was a tacit recognition of its existence, extended to Boko Haram by allegations of the latter’s allegiance to the Islamic State under the new name, “The Islamic State of West Africa – Ex-Boko Haram”. However, he emphasised, no Africa media uses the term except Jeune Afrique. Re-entering the diplomatic jargon, he wondered why the West did not denounce that appellation spontaneously and use available international relations tools to internationally reject the idea of an Islamic State. “There are mechanisms for rejection and denunciation that the world did not activate. So there is a tacit recognition of the Islamic State,” he affirmed. He wondered why the West claims it does not know what is happening. “There was a sort of tolerance but the situation has reached a stage where it could no longer be tolerated,” added the academician who is also head of IRIC’s International Relations Department.