The media has always been a powerful tool in shaping public opinion and disseminating information. But what happens when it becomes a weapon for advancing foreign policy and neocolonial interests? In recent years, Western governments have been pouring millions into expanding their media presence in Africa. The highlight was BBC’s record-breaking funding to launch 11 new language services across Africa. Why is that?

The Power of the Media

In the age of the empire, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte spoke of the printing press as “the seventh great power”. He would go on to leverage it throughout his domestic reign and foreign exploits. The press would especially prove most significant at the beginning of the French Revolution and throughout the 19th century.

Napoleon, Emperor of France from 1804 to 1814 and again in 1815, recognized and leveraged the printing press to shape public opinion and influence the course of French history. Today, one can scarcely explain the historical events between 1800 and 1900 without considering the powerful influence of the printing press.

Later during the second world war, German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, along with the Nazi party, recognized the power of the radio. Goebbels who described it as the “eighth great power”, would later harness the radio to marshal blind domestic support for Germany’s foreign wars of conquest.

Through the radio, Goebbels was able to convince an entire German nation to fight a total war. And more than that, to hold out to the very destructive end. Such was the great influence of the radio. Again, like the Printing Press during the 19th century, one can scarcely explain the events of the 20th century without considering the great influence of the radio.

Fast forward to the 21st century, the media has certainly evolved, but the West’s use of it has not. Digital media is proving to be, to the twenty-first century, what the radio was for the twentieth century, and the printing press for the nineteenth century. One can rightly describe it as the ninth great power! Its influence as a tool for shaping domestic and foreign public opinion, influencing global events, and advancing the interest of the West worldwide is unmatched. The West has used it to start wars, sustain wars, and impose its interests worldwide.

Western Media Expansion in Africa

As before, the West has weaponized the media to advance its foreign policy and neocolonial interests. In recent years, Western governments have been pouring millions into expanding their media presence in Africa. The West’s goal is to reach specific regions and ethnicities. The question is why? Were one to ask this question in 2015 when their expansion accelerated, the answer would have been merely speculative. But today, with the benefit of hindsight, we can answer this question with proof: It is to destabilize those regions.

In June 2015 the French State resolved to give €80 million to Radio France by 2019 to help “balance its account”. This included €55 million in capital funding and €25 million increase in the contribution to public broadcasting. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) also received a funding boost in March 2016. then, the Canadian government announced that it would provide the broadcaster with $150 million in new annual funding.

In the same year, Australia’s two public broadcasters also received boosts to their core funding. ABC received $3.1 billion over three years, and SBS an additional $9.7 million in 2016-17. Among other reasons, the major aim of these funding boosts was to facilitate their expansion to specific regions of the world, particularly Africa.

But perhaps the most notable funding boost was the one to the BBC. Within the same period of 2015/2016, the British government hiked its funding of the BBC World Service by £85m per year. This hike was announced in its document: the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. In Chapter 5 – Project Our Global Influence, Page 49, the Document reads:

“We will invest £85 million each year by 2017/18 in the BBC’s digital, TV, and radio services around the world to build the global reach of the World Service and increase access to news and information.”

NSSSDSR

Only recently, BBC received additional funding to improve its digital services. In boosting BBC funding, the UK government was targeting audiences in specific areas, namely:  Russia, North Korea, the Middle East, and Africa.

BBC Language Services Expansion in Africa

As expected, later in 2016, the BBC World Service announced its biggest expansion since the 1940s. It launched 11 new language services spoken by audiences in areas that the British government wanted to reach. These languages were Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Tigrinya, Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Punjabi, and Korean. The first six of these languages are spoken in Africa, and the latter five are spoken in Asia. For this article, it is the expansion to Africa that concerns us.

Ethiopia and Eritrea targetted

The introduction of BBC language services in Amharic, Afaan Oromo, and Tigrinya in 2016 was aimed at Ethiopian and Eritrean audiences. Afaan Oromo is spoken by the Oromo, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, and Amharic is Ethiopia’s official language. Tigrinya is the main working language of Eritrea and is also predominantly spoken in Northern Ethiopia.

After BBC introduced those languages, a secessionist war by US-backed TPLF rebels broke out in Northern Ethiopia where Tigrinya is spoken four years later. No one can forget how passionately the Western media, including BBC and CNN, cheered TPLF. At the same time, in the Oromia region, home to Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group where Afaan Oromo is spoken, the OLA rebels got emboldened. They increased their hostility towards the federal government. As we speak, they are carrying on with destabilizing Ethiopia, from where TPLF has paused.

Nigeria targeted

The introduction of Igbo was targeted at Nigerian audiences in the South Eastern region where Igbo is predominantly spoken. Its introduction was preceded by an increase in secessionist movements in the region, seeking to disintegrate Nigeria. BBC was predictably a major actor. Its role in fueling and promoting pro-rebel sentiment in 2017, to disintegrate Nigeria was unmistakably pronounced.

It was during that period that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a rebel group now designated as terrorists by the Nigerian government, increased its agitation for an independent state of Biafra. BBC gave this group unprecedented coverage. It infamously crowned their secessionist attempt as “just”. It would go on to promote sentiments that sympathized with the disintegration of Africa’s most populous nation.

The strategic goal of the imperial West is to keep Africa dependent on them. That is why a country like Eritrea, which pursues self-reliance policies is demonized and sanctioned. Already, several African leaders who sought the paths of self-reliance for their countries have either been ousted or assassinated. For example, the West deposed Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah for actively trying to unite Africa. The West also murdered Libya’s Ghaddafi for working to realize a single African currency.

In pursuit of its vile imperial goal, the West seeks, first to keep Africa divided. This includes further disintegrating its most populous countries. Secondly, it seeks to keep Africa in a vicious cycle of conflict, including by stirring ethnic rivalries and arming insurgent groups. To do so, the West needs the cooperation of the people in targeted African countries. And that cooperation can only be elicited by influencing them through the media. That explains why Western media continues to expand throughout Africa, seeking to reach local audiences.

Next targets for Western-backed conflict:

Mainstream Western Media expanding its language service to your country is a red flag for the next phase of conflict overtly and covertly sponsored by the West. So, what countries should be wary?

Uganda

In East Africa, In 2019, Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) significantly expanded its presence in Uganda. It signed several agreements with private and state-run broadcasters in Kampala, including Next Media Services, and its NBS Television, arguably Uganda’s most widely watched television. DW also signed a contract with Uganda’s public broadcaster, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC). Today, NBS and UBC broadcast DW’s premium content.

The Ugandan public, like most others across Africa, is mostly pro-Russia in the ongoing war between NATO-backed Ukraine and Russia. The West recently sought to leverage its partnership with Uganda’s NBS to deliberately turn public opinion in Uganda and the region, against Russia. As part of DW’s partnership, NBS was funded to send a correspondent to Ukraine, to regurgitate anti-Russia propaganda.

Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast

In Mali, West Africa, Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts began in 2012/2013 as part of VOA’s French-to-Africa language service programming. Within the same period, Mali had a coup. Was that a coincidence? Perhaps! Well, VOA expanded its presence in 2021, launching the Bambara language service. Mali has had two coups in the same period, one in 2020 and another in 2021. Are those also coincidences?

The 2021 expansion and introduction of an exclusive Bambara service programming marks an escalation of VOA’s presence that should raise eyebrows. According to VOA, this separate Bambara service targets Bambara-speaking communities in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Those are clearly the next targets for escalation of US-led West-sponsored instability.