Thirty-five souls snuffed out in a hail of gunfire at Niger’s Diori Hamani International Airport. The headlines scream but we have heard this all before. Another attack on another airport in another corner of the failing post-colonial world.
The news cycle will move on, but the rot is systemic. We are witnessing the slow-motion collapse of the Sahel, a region that was once the pride of French Africa, now a breeding ground for nihilistic violence. The Islamist insurgents, or whatever label we give these gunmen, are merely the symptom.
The disease is the vacuum left by Western retreat and the total absence of any coherent local statecraft. Niger’s government, propped up by foreign aid and empty promises, has been a paper tiger for years. And now the tiger has been shredded.
But do not mistake this for a local problem. This is the future of the periphery, and the core will soon feel the tremors. Compare it to the Barbarian invasions of Rome, if you will.
The frontier collapses, the legions withdraw, and then the marauders are at the gates of the capital. Niamey is not a world city, but the pattern is universal. The civilised world yawns, reads the headline, and moves on to the next scandal.
But history has a way of repeating itself, especially when we refuse to learn. The airport attack is not an isolated incident. It is a reminder that the empire of order is shrinking, and the new dark ages are dawning.
And we, the smug denizens of the West, are busy debating pronouns and watching our own civilisation unravel from within. The gunmen in Niger are just the first wave. The real battle is for the soul of the West, but we are too distracted to notice the flames licking at our own borders.
