Podcast : BAOBIZZ English

Beyond the simple extraction of resources, settler colonialism is distinguished by a radical ambition to transform territory itself. It is not merely about economic or military domination, but about permanently refounding conquered space through demographic transplantation, institutional redesign and legal reordering.

For the first time in human history, one generation is passing on to the next a deliberately degraded world. This is not an accident. It is the balance sheet of a model. Where earlier generations handed down cultivated land, living languages, standing institutions, and accumulated knowledge, the legacy now taking shape is something altogether different: an unprecedented planetary liability.

We are living through a profound contradiction. Never before has humanity had access to such levels of wealth, technological tools, communication systems, and collective organizational capacity. Yet, in the most advanced societies, phenomena that were expected to decline with progress are instead intensifying: depression, loneliness, anxiety, existential fatigue, and a growing loss of meaning.

The ISDS mechanism rests on a fundamental asymmetry: the foreign private investor has a direct right of action against the State outside national courts, while the State cannot symmetrically invoke before the arbitral tribunal the investor’s social, environmental or tax-related failures.

Africa is often portrayed as a naturally entrepreneurial continent, yet this apparent vibrancy hides a fragile reality: many businesses disappear long before they can truly mature.

In contemporary conflicts, war no longer unfolds solely on battlefields. It also takes place in the realm of minds and perceptions. Armies still confront one another on the ground, but governments, intelligence services and communication apparatuses are also locked in struggle within another strategic arena: information itself.

In the shadow of contemporary conflicts, an implacable machine has started running again: military budgets are exploding, factories are operating at full capacity, and algorithms are learning to kill from a distance.

Western powers, and the United States in particular, often present themselves as guardians of democracy, human rights and the international order, while many of the regimes they condemn today were once supported, armed or tolerated by them.

For several years, Senegal has repeatedly entered a cycle in which a “morals” issue becomes a brutal stress-test for the entire social system: religion and the State, collective emotion, media dynamics, opinion leaders, political reflexes, and the ability of institutions to balance public order with human dignity.

Why, despite decades of “cooperation” and billions injected, does Africa still seem trapped in an endless cycle of underdevelopment? This episode exposes the often invisible mechanisms linking everyday life in Senegal to decisions made at the IMF and the World Bank.