Rahmane Idrissa

More than two-thirds​ of the Earth’s surface is covered in sea water. The gigantic archipelagos we call continents consist of 33 per cent desert, 25 per cent mountain and 30 per cent forest. The forested area has been much reduced over the last two thousand years, and in a matter of decades we have shown ourselves capable of melting polar and alpine glaciers and destroying marine...

Human history​, at least of the settled and sedentary, begins with the occupation of land. Animals are kept out or enclosed with fences. Plants and trees are cut back, dug up, selectively cultivated. Non-human occupants, spirits and resident deities are assuaged or tamed through ritual and consecration. In Latin, the words meaning to settle, to worship and to work the land all derive from...

When I visited​ Mali last summer, I noticed that a big roundabout in ACI 2000, a posh neighbourhood in the capital, Bamako, had been turned into a market for flags. Most of those on sale, maybe even all, were Russian or Malian. The day before I left, I went for a haircut, and the barber showed me a Russian flag he kept stowed behind his door, ready for an opportunity to parade his...

The coup​ in Burkina Faso on 24 January which forced the resignation of President Roch Kaboré led to some celebrations in Ouagadougou, but on the whole the response was measured. Burkina has a legalistic political culture. The popular insurrection that brought an end to the previous regime, in 2014, was driven by anger: President Blaise Compaoré had failed to prosecute anyone for...

Colonialism began​ as a mercantilist enterprise, with companies establishing trading posts along the ocean coastlines in the warm waters of the tropics. They used whichever medium of exchange was most expedient for trade. Both local currencies and commodities – shells, for instance, and doubloons – were acceptable tokens. All were trade currencies, not sovereign currencies, valid...