What’s to love about Mali? Four things.

Posted on February 4, 2013 by

Several days ago, an American living in Bamako wrote the following account on his blog:

I was in a SOTRAMA (Mali’s take on the minibus, a green shell ringed with wooden benches, infinite division of space, unlimited passengers) the other day and I watched a guy scoop up a baby from the arms of a mother who was burdened with several bags and a large plastic bowl overflowing with toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste.

After she climbed into the SOTRAMA and arranged her merchandise, she did not ask for her baby back. Her baby remained in the arms of a stranger, who was now smiling and laughing with the woman’s daughter on his lap.

Two other women – strangers to each other – began a conversation that ended with reciprocal benedictions when they parted ways.

Everyone sucked their teeth in unison when a policeman stopped the SOTRAMA and asked to see IDs. But everyone quickly laughed when the prentike [the driver's apprentice] mocked the policeman and then dodged the outstretched hand intending to give him a playful slap on the head.

A Bamako SOTRAMA

At a time when Mali has become unjustly branded around the world as a den of violence, religious zealotry and ethnic strife, this anecdote helped me remember what it is about Mali that made me fall in love with the place years ago, and what it is that keeps me going back. I want to highlight four of what I consider the most admirable qualities of Malian society and culture, and reflect on how, if properly harnessed, they might help the country cope with the challenges now before it.

(Although I use terms from the dominant Bambara language, having lived in Senoufo and Soninke communities in Mali, I know the Bambara have no exclusive claim to these qualities, and that equivalent concepts exist in other Malian languages.)

1. Mɔgɔya. This is what’s evident in the SOTRAMA story above — a spontaneous familiarity found even among strangers, an eagerness to engage with other people socially in almost any situation. The Bambara word mɔgɔ means “person,” and you could translate mɔgɔya as “personhood,” but that wouldn’t tell the whole story. In Mali, as in much of Africa, the person is not reducible to the individual; mɔgɔya is expressed through social relations, which exist prior to the person. “It is only by means of social ties that one can achieve personhood,” writes anthropologist Saskia Brand in her ethnography of Bamako, Mediating Means and Fate. An individual human being does not necessarily qualify as a person because, as Brand notes, someone who is anti-social may not be considered a mɔgɔ.

I think of mɔgɔya as a parallel of social capital, something that constitutes a public good, and the decline of which in American society has been noted by social scientists like Robert Putnam. Whatever you call it, Mali has it in spades. For outsiders like me, everyday displays of mɔgɔya can lift the spirits. For Malians, mɔgɔya is what holds society together.

2. Danbe. This term can be equated with dignity, honor, and reputation. Danbe stems in large part from what anthropologists call “ascribed status” — that part of one’s reputation one inherits from one’s ancestors, closely linked to one’s place of origin, as described in my own book. Malians take great pride in their history, both at the level of the family and of the nation. A whole category of people (known as jeliw or “griots”) make their living reminding other people of their danbe. They make sure the memory of illustrious forebears, of legendary heroes and great leaders from Mali’s precolonial history stays fresh in the public mind.

Malian jeli women at work

Malian jeli women at work

Malians consequently tend to have a solid sense of who they are and where they came from. They exhibit comparatively little desire to mimic outsiders, whether it’s the French, the Americans or the Saudis. They have their own ideals to emulate, rooted in centuries of oral tradition and in their own understanding of their faith. “For us, danbe is at the center of everything,” a Malian man once told me. “It’s like water, you cannot live without it.”

3. Faso kanu. This term literally means “love of father’s house,” but a better translation would be “patriotism.” People unfamiliar with Mali might be tempted to dismiss the country as another African basket case built around arbitrary European-drawn borders  lumping together ethnic groups that ought to be separate. But all borders are arbitrary, and overall Malians coexist quite well within the borders they inherited (I’ll address a notable exception below). They relate to their nation-state in a way many other Africans don’t, in part because of the danbe complex of dignity, honor and historical memory that goes back to the 13th-century founding of the Mali Empire. Watching recent news footage from Timbuktu and elsewhere in newly liberated zones, I’ve been struck by the scenes of jubilant crowds greeting the troops and journalists, and by hordes of children chanting “MALI! MALI! MALI!” Even as the country has been at war, Malians have been transfixed by their national soccer team, les Aigles, who on Saturday battled their way past South Africa to reach the semi-finals in the African Cup of Nations. Don’t tell them their national identity is a meaningless colonial-era construction; they’ll think you’re stupid or crazy.

4. Senenkunya. Definitely the most idiosyncratic of the four, senenkunya is a system of joking relations that cross-cuts distinctions of ethnicity, caste, and clan. When two strangers in Mali meet, the first thing they do is ask each others’ jaamu or clan name. If for example one’s a Traoré and the other’s a Diarra, or one’s a Coulibaly and the other’s a Keita, or one’s a Fulani cattle herder and the other is a blacksmith (both statuses readily revealed by clan name), the second thing they will do is ritually insult one another. They will belittle each others’ intelligence, ancestry, and diet, often accusing each other of flatulence. And then they will get along like old friends.

Bizarre as it may appear, senenkunya is about a lot more than ritual insults (see a recent BBC article). It lays out a shared cultural blueprint to help people from all walks of life relate to one another. If two people in conflict learn that they are “joking cousins,” the conflict is immediately ended. Senenkunya is a system of alliances, some characterized by joking, others by deep respect and even avoidance. Like danbe, its origins can be traced to the earliest period of Mali’s precolonial history. If mɔgɔya is the glue that holds Malian society together, senenkunya is the grease that facilitates social relations and exchange.

(A couple of my colleagues in France, Etienne Smith and Cécile Canut, have questioned the utility of senenkunya and other African systems of joking relations, describing analyses like mine as outmoded functionalist irenicism. While I don’t know what irenicism is, I do consider their argument a fitting contribution from two dim-witted, flatulent eaters of donkey meat.)

Mali’s combination of strong social capital, concern for dignity, national identity, and joking relations described above can, I believe, help the country survive the conflict that now engulfs it. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, there’s nothing that’s wrong with Mali that can’t be fixed by what’s right with Mali. But Mali’s history since independence also suggests that these cultural assets have not extended evenly to all parts of the country. The Tuareg have no joking cousins, and as the BBC’s Tim Whewell puts it, “This is a bad time in Mali to be a people without cousins.” The “Tuareg problem” in the north is the one ethnic divide in contemporary Mali with political salience, and groups on both sides of this divide consider themselves the historical victims. Light-skinned Tuareg point to a history of periodic repression by the Malian state and its associated ethnic militias, while their darker-skinned neighbors point to a history of being enslaved and attacked by the Tuareg. Recent recriminations against Tuareg and Arabs in Timbuktu are rooted in this history.

For Mali to break the decades-long cycle of conflict in the north, two things must happen. One, Tuareg leaders must face up to the legacy of slavery and racism that marks their people’s relations with black Africans. Two, officials of the central government must face up to the pattern of neglect and abuse that marks their relations with the Tuareg. At a juncture when even some Europeans are calling for an independent Tuareg state, perhaps we should think instead about how Tuareg and non-Tuareg can forge new bonds of peace with each other. The inclusiveness of Malian society simply needs to be taken a step further. It is not so far-fetched to imagine that all citizens of Mali, regardless of ethnicity or skin tone, might someday soon unite behind a common national identity.

Allez les Aigles!

http://news.abidjan.net/photos/photos/Mali-Afrique-sud8.jpg

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Next, the hard bit

Posted on January 28, 2013 by

According to Al Jazeera, French forces have captured the airport a couple of kilometers outside Timbuktu. Footage from the network also shows a French column advancing northward near Niafunké being welcomed along the way.

But the Ahmed Baba Institute has apparently been burned: see video from Sky News.

320 kilometers to the east, the city of Gao was the scene of jubilation as French and Malian army vehicles rolled through the streets. Video from Channel 4 News and France24 shows public celebration as Malian troops entered the city.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Malian people are generally behind the French-led intervention. Add to the boisterous celebrations described above, and the fact that it’s now cooler to be French than American in Bamako (as reported by Peter Tinti), and a string of gushing editorials and comments in Malian state media, the recent proposal by a Malian politician (albeit a marginal one) to name one of the country’s military bases after French President François Hollande. Such pro-French expressions would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago.

I have yet to see data from opinion surveys carried out in Mali since Operation Serval began on 11 January, but newly released data (gathered well before the operation) show that most Malians have long been in favor of international military action to drive rebels out of northern Mali. Last week the research firm ORB International published results of a poll, conducted between late November and early December 2012 in all six regions of Mali not under rebel occupation, that asked about 1500 Malians for their views on foreign responses to Mali’s situation. (See a summary or view the complete response table.)

  • Asked “Do you support or oppose foreign countries using force to target AQIM in Northern Mali?“, 78% of respondents said they supported such action. The rate was nearly 90% in the Mopti region.
  • Asked “Concerning the situation in Mali which do you think should be the biggest focus for the international community right now?“, 67% chose Mali’s territorial integrity, ahead of the country’s humanitarian and political crises.

These results come on the heels of survey research conducted earlier in 2012 by political scientists Jaimie Bleck and Kristen Michelitch, in a rural part of the Mopti region then located in a no-man’s land between rebel and government lines. This research showed significant support for a military solution long before hostilities resumed this month.

  • Asked, “Is armed conflict worth it to reunify the country, or is it better to peacefully separate? “, 78% said it was worth the fight, 9% wanted to peacefully separate, and 23% were undecided.
  • When asked “What type of intervention should be launched?”, 50% of respondents mentioned negotiations, while 60% cited military intervention as important to restore territorial integrity.
  • Most respondents who felt that military intervention was necessary preferred exclusively domestic involvement by the Malian military (43% of all respondents).  Of those citing the need for foreign intervention, the US was the most popular of the potential allies (23% of respondents favored US intervention), followed by France (18%) and then ECOWAS (15%).

Of course France still has many Malian critics, even if their message is somewhat muted these days. SADI party leader Oumar Mariko, a vocal opponent of international military intervention, has blamed the international community’s response to the March coup (i.e., sanctions and threats) for weakening Mali’s armed forces, while also insisting that it is the Malian army, not the French, that has been bringing the fight to the rebels. He has also suggested that the French are hiding the ugly realities of their military campaign, telling Al Jazeera: “Their version of events is all that anyone will hear. But when this is over, Malians will talk to each other and quickly learn the truth.”

(Some Malian reporters complain of not getting access to the front lines, alleging that only journalists traveling with French troops have been able to cover recent developments in the north.)

In a sense, however, Operation Serval’s current popularity among Malians may not matter, because the greatest military and political challenges lie ahead. Practicing classic guerrilla tactics, the Islamist forces have withdrawn as their enemy advanced. They have now fallen back to remote desert strongholds. As Luke Harding of The Guardian writes, “it is uncertain whether France’s giddy military advance will deliver any kind of lasting peace. So far the ‘war’ in Mali has involved little fighting. Instead Islamist rebels have simply melted back into the civilian population, or disappeared. Refugees who fled the rebels’ advance believe it is only a matter of time before the jihadists come creeping back.” (See video from Harding in Sévaré.)

The only major town the Franco-Malian advance has not yet taken in northern Mali is Kidal, about 300 kilometers northeast of Gao. Kidal was the target of French airstrikes in recent days. Today secular nationalist Tuareg rebels belonging to the MNLA (Mouvement National pour la Liberation de l’Azawad) claim to have ousted their Islamist rivals from the town. Over the weekend one report suggested that Kidal was the scene of a pro-MNLA demonstration.

Retaking Kidal may prove much more complicated than retaking Gao and Timbuktu. But even if it’s quick and easy, the fact remains that the Islamists have yet to be militarily defeated. How long will the French be willing to help the weak central government maintain its presence in Mali’s far north, a zone where its control has always been tenuous? Can Malian security forces, already accused in both the Malian press and foreign media of engaging in “reprisals” against civilians, manage not to alienate the population of that zone?

“Destroying a couple of AQIM bases and driving the rebels from Mali’s northern cities is the easy bit,” writes Luke Harding. “The challenge will be holding on to the territory against a nebulous and cunning foe and, perhaps, somehow incorporating the rebels into a lasting political solution.”

Mali’s conflict must be resolved not only in the wastes of northern Mali but in the corridors of power in Bamako. The country’s political leaders must now get down to the difficult business of working out how Malians will coexist in a single republic, under a democracy worthy of the name. Recent history may be discouraging, but one hopes Malians will rise to the occasion.

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Lessons from Diabaly

Posted on January 23, 2013 by

After several days of contradictory reports, it’s now certain that the armed Islamist fighters who had taken over the town of Diabaly, in Mali’s central region of Segou, have departed. Events in Diabaly over the last two weeks offer useful clues about the abilities and qualities of the three armed forces involved — Islamist, Malian government, and French.

Charred pickup trucks destroyed by French airstrikes are seen in Diabaly, Mali, January 21, 2013. The town of Diabaly was retaken by French and Malian forces after al Qaeda-linked rebels took over the town a week ago. (REUTERS-Joe Penney)

This small town, population approximately 15,000, is located on the vast plain north of the Niger River, amid rice fields and irrigation canals dug during the French colonial era. Before dawn on January 14, as reported by Alan Boswell of McClatchy Newspapers, a column of several dozen Islamist vehicles moved toward Diabaly, entering not by the northern main road where Malian troops were waiting, but from the south, flanking the town and catching its defenders by surprise.

The Malian army collapsed quickly, some of its soldiers taking off their uniforms and running once the battle began. Their poor performance, in Diabaly as in Konna a few days prior, has cost the armed forces the confidence of the Malian people, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. Footage from France24 taken in the nearby town of Niono shows an army of exceedingly modest means, unable to feed itself and unprepared for the fierce determination of the Islamists.

Once the army was defeated, as many as 120 Islamist pickup trucks (the AP reports 30-40) occupied Diabaly, where they were parked under mango trees to conceal them from French aircraft. Under the command of an Algerian Arab known as Abou Zeid, the Islamist fighters occupied private homes, sometimes setting up gun emplacements on the roofs. Their ranks included some English-speaking Africans as well as others who “looked like Europeans,” according to witness accounts. They took no prisoners, executing the Malian soldiers left behind. Although some civilians were executed, in general the Islamists did not deal harshly with civilians, even seeking to win them over according to the Wall Street Journal. They even offered to pay rent to the owners of the homes they occupied. (The “hearts and minds” campaign carried out by these groups in northern Mali has been documented by Al Jazeera.) While they did try to keep women from going outside with their heads uncovered, they did not immediately attempt to impose the harsh interpretation of Islamic law that they had instituted in northern towns, where they had enacted it over a period of several weeks.

Islamist fighters laid mines outside homes in Diabaly, according to the WSJ and The Independent. They also vandalized the Sacre Coeur Catholic church, breaking the crucifix (see video from francetv) and beating up Christians. Note that, as elsewhere in Mali, Muslims in Diabaly always got along well with members of the town’s small Christian community in the past. These abuses were committed by outsiders, not town residents.

“I am angry at them. I studied Islam — so I know everything they know. Not one of the rebels came to my home or to the mosque to see me,” Diabaly’s chief imam told NPR’s Orfiebea Quist-Arcton. “If they were true Muslims, they should have looked for me, because I am the religious leader here.”

The French seem to have acquitted themselves rather well in their effort to drive the Islamists out of Diabaly. Over a week, they targeted enemy vehicles from the air, ultimately forcing the occupiers to flee the town on foot. Some reports suggest they headed east; most of them seem to have melted away. The town’s civilian population was apparently spared: the only report of civilian casualties I have seen so far is of one child wounded by French shrapnel, reported by the BBC. The people of Diabaly, by all accounts, welcomed the Islamists’ departure.

“The only thing that prevented the French planes from annihilating these people is that they were hiding in our homes. The French did everything to avoid civilian casualties,” a resident told Rukmini Callimachi of the Associated Press. “That’s why it took so long to liberate Diabaly.”

Yet the Malian army has warned of difficulties caused by enemy sympathizers. “The war against the Islamists is not at all easy and there’s a very small part of the population which is helping their cause,” Col. Seydou Sogoba, the Malian commander in the Niono, told the Associated Press. “That is what is making the fight against them tough.”

What does all this augur for the next phase of Mali’s armed conflict? The Islamists easily overpowered their Malian army adversaries, who were not expecting the enemy to be so heavily armed. Some commentators think the Islamists’ cunning has been exaggerated: David Blair of the Daily Telegraph, for instance, casts doubt on the Islamists’ strategic thinking, arguing that they made a terrible mistake by trying to push into southern Mali earlier this month. But Andy Morgan contends they’ve still got plenty up their sleeve, and will be much harder to fight in the desert, their home turf.

Perhaps the most pressing concern for the Malian military pertains to human rights violations. Members of Mali’s security forces have allegedly committed atrocities against Tuareg and Arab civilians elsewhere (see also a report from The Guardian). France2 television reported on 22 January that 10 to 20 suspected Islamists had been executed by Malian soldiers near the town of Mopti, their bodies dumped in a well. The FIDH claims army troops have engaged in a pattern of abuses against civilians in the Segou and Mopti regions.

Well

Screencap of 22 Jan. news broadcast on France2, showing a bloodstained well in the town of Sévaré where the bodies of civilians executed by Malian security forces were allegedly buried

The Malian army’s Chief of Staff Gen. Ibrahima Dahirou, in an interview with RFI, denied his troops had committed any wrongdoing and said their training had stressed protecting the rights of civilians. Yet such allegations appear to have touched a nerve. Mali’s prime minister’s office today felt compelled to issue a communique: “The government reiterates the instructions given by the Interim President of the Republic to the security forces regarding strict respect for human rights. The army must be above reproach and there can be no question of us tolerating acts we decry from the terrorists,” it read in part. The entire statement was read on state TV’s evening news on 23 January, followed by a statement from the army chief of staff emphasizing his forces’ commitment to protecting civilians and “scrupulously respecting” all relevant human rights conventions.

Malian troops are not only the weakest link in the French-led military campaign, they may prove to be its greatest liability. Their lack of discipline and apparent willingness to carry out harsh “reprisals” against unarmed civilians will surely complicate the Malian government’s efforts to win back the territory it lost last year. Various civilian militias formed by the Malian government have a history of targeting Tuareg and Arab civilians. In the weeks and months to come, French military commanders may find that they must protect the people of northern Mali not only against Islamists, who are all too willing to use them as human shields, but against members of Mali’s own armed forces.

Postscript, Jan. 26: See an LA Times story on Diabaly, focusing on the way Abou Zeid’s Islamists interacted with the local populace.

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Malian voices united (mostly)

Posted on January 21, 2013 by

For outsiders, among the most remarkable aspects of life in Mali is the music, the first of many things I fell in love with while living there in the late 1990s. Western journalists writing about the country’s worsening conflict this month have sometimes gone out of their way to mention the country’s world-renowned musicians. And it’s true that these artists, especially the jeliw — members of the caste generally known in Western languages as “griots” — occupy a special place in Malian society.

Barely two weeks before the French military intervention began in Mali, reggae singer Tiken Jah Fakoly released a single urging Malians to mobilize against the rebel threat. A few days later, rapper Master Soumy released a song along similar lines entitled “Sini ye kɛlɛ ye” (tomorrow is a fight). More recently, both these artists joined several well-known Malian musicians under the name Voices United for Mali to record a song “Mali-ko” responding to the country’s conflict. These musicians hail from every part of Mali, and sing (or rap) in a broad range of styles. The “Mali-ko” video below is followed by my translation of and commentary on the lyrics, the message of which is less straightforward than may first appear.

Ensemble: It’s time to speak up about Mali / Artists must speak up about what’s happening to Mali

Khaïra Harby (from Timbuktu): Men and women of Mali, let’s stand together, our country is not warlike

Fatoumata Diawara (from Bougouni): What’s happening in Mali? People are in conflict, betraying each other, the fighting doesn’t end / We’re all of the same blood, the same mother / Let’s stand together to make Africa stronger

Amkoullel (from Mopti): Let’s unite, Malians, and stand strong / Once we do, Maliba [greater Mali], nobody can touch you

Doussou Bakayoko (from Bougouni): Mali doesn’t belong to those people / The great fatherland will never crumble

Kasse Mady Diabaté (from Kita): Let’s show the whole world that Maliba is not a country of war / We all share the same father, the same mother

Sadio Sidibé (from Wassoulou): Mali, Maliba my beautiful country, what’s become of you?

Baba Salah (from Gao): You were the sun lighting the four corners of the world / Our Mali, dry your tears, we love you

Soumaila Kanouté (from Kayes): I’ve never seen such a shocking, catastrophic situation / They want to take what doesn’t belong to them / Go tell them that Mali is indivisible, unchangeable

Master Soumy (from Kayes): Yesterday Mali was like a cigarette butt to be tossed away / We all cried, we all worried / Each day we watch shocking news, it’s unacceptable / We Malians must react or we’ll be the laughingstock of the world

M’baou Tounkara (from Kita): Mali used to be a sweet country / Since the conflict began, Malians have suffered so

Oumou Sangaré (from Wassoulou): Listen well! If we don’t get ready, our grandchildren will be ashamed tomorrow / They will suffer tomorrow

Koko Dembélé (from Mopti): As long as there’s life, there’s hope / Children of Mali, rise up!

Babani Koné (from Segou): [...] What future will the women and children have in this country? I’m worried, afraid / Let’s not kill one another, we share the same blood

Afel Bocoum (from Timbuktu): The only way out of this crisis is the path of understanding

Iba One (from Mopti): Malians let’s unite, that’s how our country will advance / War cannot resolve anything [...]

Tiken Jah (from Côte d’Ivoire): Mali all united, Mali indivisible / Peace is priceless

Fati Kouyaté (from Kayes): War doesn’t distinguish between men, women and children / War only knows regret / We are not accustomed to war

Kisto Dem (from Bamako): Who could have imagined our fatherland Mali turning out this way? Just when Malians were getting it together, others brought us war / In the north, the children are hungry and thirsty, our women have become chattel / Living under the rule of force / Now it’s just about survival

Mamadou Diabaté a.k.a. « 21 DG » (from Kayes): Maliba, as our ancestors called you, don’t stay on your knees, rise up and fight to honor your ancestors

Mariam Doumbia (from Bougouni): If we stand together, enemies can’t hurt us, other countries won’t laugh at us

Ahmed Ag Kaedi (from Kidal): Mali is like a great tree, there’s room for all of us in its shade

Oumou Sangaré: If we don’t get ready we’ll lose our country / If we don’t get it together we will live in shame / I’m talking to our politicians, to our soldiers

Habib Koité (from Kayes): Malians, unity makes us strong! / We can’t let our great land slip away from us / This land of great men

Djeneba Seck (from Bamako): Africa, Europe, Mali / Let’s unite, have mercy on one another, act in unison / That is what is best about Maliba

Vieux Farka Touré (from Timbuktu): Wake up! We’re one family, let’s stand together

Mylmo (from Nioro du Sahel): We’re so respected around the world, why fight amongst ourselves in front of everyone? / Sunjata Keita and our country’s heroes left us their values, we mustn’t abandon them

Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia (from Bougouni): Let’s work together, war is bad, conflict is an ugly thing / If we stand together, life will be better, friendship will be better / Let’s help each other out

Nahawa Doumbia (from Bougouni): We want peace, peace / Peace in Mali / Peace in Africa / In the whole world, peace

(Most of the above lyrics are sung in the Bambara language, but those by Arby, Salah, and Vieux Farka are in Sonrai, while Diabaté speaks in Soninké and Ag Keidi sings in Tamachek. Le Nouvel Observateur has written about the project and posted a French version of these lyrics, from which I translated the non-Bambara verses, but that version contains important omissions.)

Fatoumata Diawara at the Voices United for Mali press conference on Thursday, 17 January 2013. Photograph by Moustapha Diallo, from the website of The Guardian [UK])

On the surface, this looks like an anti-war song. The lyrics repeat the notion that Malians constitute one family, sharing the same blood, the same mother and father. Kinship is the strongest idiom governing social relations in Mali, and rhetorical appeals to kinship have great power to end conflict.

Yet this song also carries a message of defiance. Even as some artists decry war (as Kouyaté points out, Malians really aren’t used to it), others exhort their audience to set aside their differences and mobilize in defense of the fatherland (faso). Tiken Jah and Master Soumy are not alone in urging Malians to get ready for war. Ethnomusicologist Ryan Skinner of Ohio State University tells me the verse by griot singer Babani Koné begins with

a dramatic “sow wèlè,” or “calling of the horses.” This staple form of the griot verbal art… connotes the gathering of forces in preparation for conflict, for war. [Koné] calls on the horses (“sow“) and their “great warrior princes” (“sukèlèmansadenw“) to converge. This suggests that the Malians she calls on (literally) may not like war, but they are not unprepared for it.

A bit later, Oumou Sangaré sings “N’an m’an cɛ siri Maliba bɛ bɔ an bɔlɔ dɛ,” which I translate above as “If we don’t get ready, Maliba will slip away from us.” The verb k’i cɛ siri literally means to tie one’s waist –  like girding one’s loins to prepare for a fight. When they sing about standing together, I suspect the message is directed more at Bamako’s still-divided political class than at their rebellious northern compatriots. These Malians want the world to know that while they hate war, they’re now facing an enemy that does not share their disposition to dialogue and compromise. They will do what’s necessary to defend their country.

The multiethnic, multilingual display of artistry in “Mali-ko” is an inspiring reminder of another thing I’ve come to love about Malian society: its long history of peaceful conflict resolution and inter-group harmony. Yet the absence of the country’s best-known Tuareg musicians from this project is conspicuous. The project’s lone participant of Tuareg ethnicity is Ahmed Ag Kaedi, leader of the group Amanar. I can’t avoid wondering if he was only pressed into service after Mali’s more famous Tuareg artists (Tinariwen, Tartit, Takamba Super Onze) either espoused the separatist cause or had to flee Mali fearing for their safety. Many Tuareg viewing this video are probably wondering the same thing.

Nonetheless, the most important message from the artists behind “Mali-ko” is that the Malian people are ready and willing to stand up to the threat before them. The Malian armed forces, still reeling from a string of battlefield defeats, badly need to hear this message. Mali is a place where words can conjure victory even in the darkest hour.

 

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Situation report for Friday, 18 January

Posted on January 18, 2013 by

Today’s post offers no analysis, just some pointers and recommendations for more reading into the most recent developments in Mali. The English-language press having stepped up its coverage, most of the links below are from anglophone sources.

  • The International Criminal Court in the Hague has opened an investigation into war crimes committed in Mali since the beginning of 2012.
  • On Thursday, Malian troops were said to have deployed to the Banamba area, some 150 km by road northeast of Bamako, to counter a possible incursion of Islamists from Diabaly. The Malian press reported on Friday that this was a false alarm, but I’ve heard an unconfirmed report that three men were arrested there for attempting to bribe a soldier to let them pass through a checkpoint. The fear is that they were they gathering intelligence for the Islamists.
  • In the Segou region, unconfirmed reports carried by the BBC and AFP claim that French and Malian troops have retaken the small town of Diabaly, occupied by Islamist forces since Monday. These reports have been contradicted by the French defense minister. For an insight into Islamist tactics, I strongly advise reading Alan Boswell’s reporting on how the Islamists took Diabaly in the first place. Camilla Toulmin’s reflections on her time near Diabaly over the years offer an historical counterpoint.
  • Andy Morgan analyzes historical tensions in northern Mali on CNN.com, and has posted an excerpt of his forthcoming book, entitled “Guns, cigarettes & Salafi dreams: the roots of AQIM,” to his blog.
  • What do Malians living in the contested territory between Islamist and government forces think about how their country should be governed? Political scientists Jaimie Bleck and Kristin Michelitch provide fascinating answers in the results of their survey in the Mopti region, conducted both before and after last year’s military coup (the most recent data were collected in July 2012).
  • “Looking Ahead in Mali,” by Scott Straus and Leif Brottem, is among the best reflections I’ve yet seen in print about how Mali got to this point and how it might get out.

The graphic below is from the website of The Atlantic, adapted from one created by France24 on 16 January.

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Behind Mali’s conflict: myths, realities & unknowns

Posted on January 16, 2013 by

Since the French military intervention in Mali, known as Operation Serval, began last week, the internet has been buzzing with talk about its motives. Is France really only trying to contain a terrorist threat, as it claims? Or do major world powers have other, more sinister interests at stake? At its root, what is the conflict in Mali about?

This discourse, generated largely by journalists, analysts and activists unfamiliar with Mali, has been far too speculative for my tastes. Let’s consider what we do and don’t know about the causes and effects of international interest in Mali.

1. Mineral rights

Many sources say that the main reason France, and Western countries more broadly, are getting involved in Mali is that these major world powers covet the country’s mineral resources. The website globalresearch.ca expresses this view bluntly: “the goal of this new war is no other than stripping yet another country of its natural resources by securing the access of international corporations to do it.” Mali’s subsoil has been reported to contain abundant precious metals, oil and gas. But the truth of Mali’s “mineral riches” is rather murky.

Where oil and gas are concerned, talk of Mali’s “oil wealth” is premature: while Mali has potential reserves, it has zero proven reserves, and despite its government allocating 700,000 square kilometers for drilling since 2005, no wells have been drilled yet (see Jeune Afrique). No major multinational energy companies have even bought drilling rights in Mali: the only companies who have are Italy’s ENI, Algeria’s SONATRACH, Canada’s Selier Energy, and a few other minor players with high risk tolerance. Even before the present conflict began a year ago, the Malian Sahara’s remoteness and chronic insecurity made it a no-go zone for most investors. Military intervention will not change that for the better.

As for uranium in Mali, the only current mining operation of which I’m aware is in Falea, close to the country’s southwestern border with Guinea, carried out by the Canadian company Rockland. This operation has had its own social and environmental problems, but it’s nowhere near the conflict zone. Despite rumors of uranium in northern Mali, no evidence has been made public, so we cannot take it as a given that the area is “uranium rich.”

Aerial view of the Syama gold mine in southern Mali

Mali is among Africa’s top gold producers, exporting between 36 and 60 metric tons annually over the last decade; gold is a key source of revenue for the Malian government. Mining operations are carried out in southern and western Mali by a handful of multinational companies (Randgold, AngloGold Ashanti, and Iamgold among others).

Given what we don’t know about what lies beneath Malian soil, we can’t rule out the possibility that natural resources are a factor behind foreign intervention. But starting a war is hardly necessary to get cheap access to Mali’s gold or other minerals. Successive Malian governments, aware that they lack the capital and human resources to develop these deposits themselves, have cut very generous deals with mining companies and imposed minimal regulations on their activities. What’s the point of carrying out a risky jewelry store heist when the owners are practically giving away their merchandise?

2. Blowback from US military training

A primary reason for the defeat of Malian government forces at the hands of northern rebels last year, writes Barry Lando in the Huffington Post, was “the defection to the rebels of several key Malian officers, who had been trained by the Americans.” This unintended consequence of the US military’s ill-advised training program in the Sahel region helped turn the tide in the rebels’ favor, this argument goes.

This would make sense if most of the US-trained officers in Mali’s armed forces had defected to the rebels. But that’s not the case: Pentagon-sponsored training was provided to a broad cross-section of officers and NCOs in the Malian military, of which the defectors (most of them Tuareg) made up a minority. US-trained personnel fought on both sides of the conflict: at best the effects of their training were canceled out, at worst they were negligible. The problem with the US military’s training program wasn’t that it benefited the wrong people, it’s that it didn’t work. Following exercises in 2009, detailed in Wikileaks, even one of the Malian army’s most elite units got poor evaluations despite lengthy collaboration with US trainers. Whatever “advantage” such collaboration may have provided, it was the last thing the Tuareg — experienced desert fighters — needed to defeat Malian government forces.

(The “Democracy Now” television news program yesterday managed to combine the  blowback and uranium fallacies in a single headline: “Admin Aids French Bombing of Mali After U.S.-Trained Forces Join Rebels in Uranium-Rich Region.“)

3. Neocolonialism

By sending troops and jets to Mali, is France merely reasserting its bygone role as the country’s colonial master? Yes, says the World Federation of Trade Unions, which claims that “France continues to use the military bases it maintains in Africa in order to strengthen its role in the inter-imperialist competition and to serve the interests of its monopoly groups who are plundering the wealth-producing resources (gold, uranium etc.).” One Russian analyst argues that Operation Serval represents an attempt to “recolonize Africa.” Despite Malians’ warm reception for the French, similar interpretations continue to appear in the Malian press.

It would be difficult to prove or disprove allegations of neocolonial or imperialist motivations in French foreign policy. Surely a great many French citizens and leaders harbor paternalistic sentiments toward their former African colonies, and surely there are economic interests at stake. But we do know that for over a year, the French government (under Presidents Sarkozy and Hollande) was extremely reluctant to intervene in Mali’s conflict, preferring instead to lend logistic and financial support to a West African regional operation. The imminent collapse of the Malian military last week at the hands of Islamist forces in the Mopti region rendered that option moot. “La Françafrique” isn’t dead, but times have changed: by all indications, Operation Serval was a last resort, whereas a few years ago it would have been the default option.

4. Mali’s “strategic importance”

All of a sudden the word “strategic” keeps cropping up with reference to Mali. When you see the word associated with dusty hamlets like Konna or Diabaly, you know something’s amiss.

How about this claim by a U.S.-based activist group: “Mali is strategically located between the Arab African north and the Black African south. This largely Muslim country borders seven other countries…. This makes Mali of interest to the U.S., which seeks to counter the growing Chinese economic presence in Africa.”

A process of reverse reasoning appears to be at work here: If a conflict involving Western military forces is occurring somewhere, that somewhere must, by definition, be “strategic.” But let’s be honest: in and of itself, Mali has no strategic value. Discussing the fallout of intervention in Libya, Ross Douthat got it right last July when he wrote, “Mali is neither oil-rich nor strategically important. It is the kind of place whose politics is covered briefly in the back pages of foreign policy magazines, in between capsule book reviews and want ads for Kissinger Associates.” It is the recent successes of armed Islamist groups on its soil that have made Mali matter to the rest of the world.

5. Islam and Mali

Protestors in London, 12 Jan. (AFP)

Protestors in London, 12 Jan. (AFP)

Proponents of the “clash of civilizations” thesis (a group that includes both neo-conservatives and radical jihadists, believe it or not) see Mali as the new front line in the war between Islam and the West. But at least 9 out of 10 Malians are Muslim, they are grateful for the French intervention, and they want no part of the intolerant, totalitarian project reserved for them by the coalition of Islamist groups now controlling Mali’s north. At its core, the conflict in Mali is not between Muslims and non-Muslims; it’s between Muslims with different visions of Islam, and religion is by no means the most important issue at stake. One of the reasons the French government was so hesitant to get involved, and now insists that it’s fighting “terrorists, not Islamists” (sparking accusations in the French media of  “political correctness”), is that it doesn’t want to play into the hands of those who portray what’s happening in Mali as “Islam vs. the West.”

Moreover, I’m not sure how accurate it is to call the forces fighting against the French “Malian rebels” or to describe the conflict as a “civil war“–the command structures of AQIM and MOJWA in particular are dominated by Algerians and Mauritanians. Malians widely perceive these groups as foreign invaders, motivated by racism and greed as well as a perverted, even ignorant view of their faith.

We cannot say that the war in Mali is primarily about natural resources, Western meddling, or religion. We can say, however, that it is a direct consequence of state failure, which as I have argued elsewhere came about largely due to factors internal to Mali. My experience as an anthropologist has made me suspicious of reductionist theories and grand narratives of history, from Marxism to dependency theory to modernization theory. The notion that what’s today playing out in Mali is the product of a “great game” between major powers ignores the realities on the ground there. Those are precisely the realities that anthropology has trained me to appreciate.

*********************************

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:

For years I’ve been trying to persuade the Times to adopt an “all Mali, all the time” format. They’re finally listening.

And one from Peter Tinti: “France gets deeper in Mali war: Are they ready?” Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 16

Postscript (Jan. 23): The training blowback fallacy is still getting traction in the Huffington Post, while minerals feature in speculation about Western interests in Mali by Seumas Milne in The Guardian.

Postscript (Feb. 25): An activist with EarthFirst! claims that what’s really behind Operation Serval is Mali’s abundant irrigated rice fields, which the French want to control to maintain food security for Libya (?).

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Merci François !

Posted on January 13, 2013 by

The military intervention launched in Mali by French President François Hollande, known as Operation Serval, began Thursday, 10 January. Its stated mission is to push back the advance of Islamist forces and assure the security of France’s 6000 citizens in the country. On Sunday 13 January, French planes struck Islamist militia targets in Gao and Léré, as well as a fuel and arms depot in Aghabo, 50 km from Kidal (see map below). Maliweb has reported that Islamist forces are withdrawing from all major towns formerly under their control, and regrouping near Tessalit, in Mali’s far north near the Algerian border. But the facts remain extremely uncertain and are likely to remain so for some time yet.

Source: Lefigaro.fr

But some Islamists forces continue pushing south. In the Segou region, north of the Niger River, they have taken the small town of Diabaly, located in the Segou region, about 80 km south of the Mauritanian border and 30 km north of Niono (see below).

Segou region, showing Diabaly

Segou region, showing Diabaly

In Mopti, a city stricken by panic during last week’s Islamist offensive, calm has been restored and people are going about their daily routines, according to the regional governor interviewed by phone on state television (ORTM) Sunday.

Most of the French troops (400 of the 550 in Mali, according to the New York Times) are being deployed to Bamako, ostensibly to protect French citizens there, but probably also to safeguard Mali’s weak state apparatus against terrorist threats. Bamako is full of soft targets since security precautions, even at key government installations, are often lax. ORTM’s Saturday broadcast showed footage of the arrival of French forces at the Bamako airport, as well as the arrival of a delegation of Nigerian officers who will command an incoming multinational West African force. The government of Interim President Dioncounda Traoré declared a state of emergency on Friday, 11 January. This condition gives Mali’s military and police additional powers, including the ability to detain suspects without charge and ban public demonstrations. No curfew has yet been announced.

The state of emergency comes on the heels of protests in Bamako and Kati on 9 January,  fomented by the radical opposition coalition MP22, which (as it’s been doing since the coup last March) is demanding a sovereign national conference, known as les concertations nationales, to establish a new system of government. In response to these demonstrations, schools in Bamako and Kati were ordered closed. MP22 is still demanding immediate concertations nationales (as reported Saturday by ORTM). Nonetheless, on Saturday the government announced that schools would reopen Monday.

In a televised address to the nation on Saturday (below), Dioncounda appeared to address his MP22 critics when he called upon “every Malian to renounce petty quarrels and put away their personal agendas, which uselessly weaken us, and confront in a patriotic manner the war that our enemies are imposing upon us.” He stated emphatically that every Malian must now consider him/herself “un soldat de la patrie” (a soldier of the fatherland).

Not all reactions to French military engagement in Mali have been positive. The Algerian press is particularly critical, and plenty of conspiracy theories have circulated, both in France and in Mali, about the French government’s “neocolonial” motives. French naysayers include a few prominent figures, most notably former foreign minister Dominique de Villepin. Nonetheless, Le Point reports broad political support at home for Hollande’s step.

In Bamako, the public’s reaction thus far has been overwhelmingly positive (see Jeune Afrique of 12 January, or Le Figaro or ORTM of 13 January). Newspaper editor Adam Thiam, under normal circumstances no fan of French policy, has published a gushing editorial in Le Républicain entitled “Hollande le Malien.” On state TV Sunday, one Bamako resident described Serval as France’s repayment of the sacrifices made by African colonial troops during the Second World War. Malians online express heartfelt gratitude to Hollande (still well liked in Mali’s capital for having ousted Nicolas Sarkozy, probably the least popular head of state among Bamakois in recent memory). Some are even taking up a collection to benefit the family of the French helicopter pilot killed in action on Friday.

The false air of normalcy that had prevailed for months in Bamako seems finally to have lifted. On Tuesday, 8 January, as battles raged in and around Konna, an astonished Bamako resident wrote on Malilink, “Since 6 p.m. I’ve been listening to Channel 2 [state radio]; they’re playing R&B and love songs while the country’s at war!” Following the state of emergency, however, government media have sought to mobilize the public, even urging Malians to wire money to a government bank account set up to accept private donations to the armed forces. After a blood drive was announced, ORTM reported on Sunday that over 1000 people showed up at one Bamako health center to donate. Such mass mobilizations, however, have exposed the incapacity of the Malian state: the national blood bank apparently could accommodate just 113 donors per day.

Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo (right) greets the troops in Sévaré, 12 January

Capt. Sanogo (right) greets the troops in Sévaré, 12 January

Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, head of Mali’s military reform commission but more importantly leader of the still-powerful junta, was shown on state TV over the weekend visiting wounded soldiers in hospitals in Bamako and Kati (the Malian military says its forces suffered 11 dead and 60 wounded during last week’s fighting), and reviewing the troops in Sévaré. The captain is still carrying his magic baton (and is that mudcloth beneath his combat blouse?), but has added a new fashion accessory — an automatic pistol strapped to his thigh. Sunday’s TV news showed him dispensing battlefield promotions, not usually the prerogative of a junior officer. Given the captain’s obdurate opposition to any foreign military presence in Mali, his compatriots’ warm embrace of Operation Serval puts him in a delicate position. Sanogo has expressed thanks to France but, as Thomas Hofnung recently wrote in Libération, he would have loved to get credit for ousting the Islamists with his own men, so the arrival of French and West African forces on Malian soil complicates his political ambitions.

Given the disaster that Hollande’s initiative managed to avert this past week, it’s hard not to be swept up by the wave of relief and optimism in Bamako. Yet many dangers lie ahead as foreign military forces step up their campaign in Mali. As Dominique de Villepin warns in an op-ed,

Wars never build up a solid and democratic state; on the contrary, they foster separatism, failed states, and the iron law of armed militias. Wars never offer a means to wipe out the terrorists swarming the region; on the contrary, they legitimize the most radical. Wars never bring about regional peace; on the contrary, western intervention enables everyone to discard their responsibilities.

One decade ago, de Villepin pointed out the risks and likely ill effects of George W. Bush’s proposed invasion of Iraq. That war solved one problem, only to create a thousand new ones. What’s the end game? What’s the exit strategy? How will mission success be defined? How can a stable state emerge from this process? Recent international military actions (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia) offer few encouraging answers to such questions. Here’s hoping the international community’s latest war somehow bucks this grim trend.

Further recommended reading:

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Barbarians at the gates

Posted on January 8, 2013 by

Mali has been swirling with rumors of an Islamist offensive since Sunday 6 January, when panicked posts on Facebook reported dozens of pickups full of heavily armed militants advancing on the town of Mopti, and contended that nearby Sévaré (home of the Malian army’s forward HQ) was being “quietly encircled” and infiltrated. The next day a Malian newspaper claimed that Islamists were also threatening the towns of Koro, Diabaly and Nara. Let’s recall that similar panics have occurred in Mopti before and proved to be unwarranted. This much is sure: Islamist forces are reinforcing at least some of their positions over a front line stretching nearly 500 km, from the Mauritanian border to the border with Burkina.

Some limited skirmishes also have taken place. Various international news outlets have reported that the Malian army from its outpost in Konna (60 km from Mopti) fired artillery toward rebel positions (described as “warning shots”) near a village called Gnimignama, 30 km away. (For folks in broadcast journalism, please note that latter name is pronounced “Nyee-mee-nya-ma.”) Today Malijet reported that the Malian army has launched a counter-offensive toward the town of Douentza, and Al Jazeera claimed that rebels captured a dozen Malian troops near Konna. Neither of these last two accounts has been confirmed as of Tuesday afternoon, and the Defense Ministry in Bamako has issued a communique denying that any of its forces were captured.

In light of these developments, I want to reflect on what these Islamists represent to the West, and how we Westerners talk about them. Mali has garnered considerable attention from the U.S. media lately, particularly regarding the application of harsh “Sharia” punishments in the Islamist-controlled north. And it seems like the only adjective we can think of to describe these punishments is “barbaric.” In the course of her 35-minute interview with The New York Times‘ Adam Nossiter about the situation in Mali, broadcast on 3 January, “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross used the word “barbaric” six times, according to NPR’s transcript. (It was seven times if you include the show’s lead-in, which wasn’t transcribed.) Nossiter had recently written about these punishments, although he did not use the term “barbaric” either in that article or during his “Fresh Air” interview.

Stoning and amputation as forms of punishment have been condemned around the world, and the vast majority of Malians (including their most prominent Islamic leaders) are opposed to such brutal measures. But I have to sound a note of caution regarding the preeminence of this term “barbaric” in recent journalism about Mali (a Google search for the terms “Mali” and “barbaric” yields nearly 360,000 results), given the adjective’s long and problematic history. The English word “Barbarian” goes back to ancient Greece, where its root signified the opposite of a citizen. Romans and later Arabs adopted the term to designate anyone outside the limits of their respective empires. In fact, this is how the Berbers of North Africa got their name (though they prefer to call themselves Amazigh). Fast-forward two millennia and we’re still using “barbaric” to describe people in that part of the world — many of whom happen to be Berbers.

“Mauritania denounces ‘barbaric massacre’ by Mali troops” (AFP)

The trouble with this adjective is that it precludes analysis. Once you label something as barbaric, you make it clear that you require no further understanding or context on the matter. Yet confronting the application in northern Mali of what are known in Arabic as hudud punishments demands both. The close association between these punishments and the word “barbaric” raises the question of why other brutal acts — such as the killing of 15 unarmed preachers by Malian troops, or the routine practice of lynching suspected thieves in Bamako — don’t generate similar international attention and outrage. Could it be because they’re not perpetrated in the name of Islam? (Given a choice between facing accusations of theft in government-held Bamako or in Islamist-held Gao, I’d take Gao, thank you very much.)

And the “barbarian” blade cuts both ways. Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, shortly after being kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in December 2008, was subjected to jihadist propaganda videos (shown on a laptop computer perched atop a stack of spare tires at a remote desert camp). For Fowler and fellow captive Louis Guay, the worst part of viewing them was not their footage of the 9/11 attacks, or of US troops being shot and blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Fowler writes in his 2011 memoir A Season in Hell,

the scenes that elicited the strongest emotion were the all too familiar images of the black-hooded, orange-clad figures, chained hand and foot, shuffling around those tiny cages in Guantanamo…. [This] was the intimate and almost palpable proof of our side’s methodically applied, officially sanctioned, and so casually administered barbarity, parsed into the bureaucratic banalities and legal niceties of officially sanctioned abuse and torture, that was hard to absorb. (pp. 56-67)

Later, his Al Qaeda captors challenged his notions of justice: “How, they would ask, over and over again, could we find the reasonable application of the Shari’a-sanctioned punishment (stonings and amputations) so barbaric compared to the atrocities and indignities that occurred in bloated Western prisons?” (p. 156). [The above underlining is mine.]

Notably, these are the only two occurrences in Fowler’s 360-page text of any word in the “barbaric” family. Yet nobody who’s read the book can accuse Fowler of having latent sympathies for his kidnappers, or of being “soft on Islam.” (His selected bibliography includes works by Nonie Darwish and Robert Spencer, both of whom I place in the category of frothing-at-the-mouth Islamophobes.) What his account shows is that the perceived barbarity of the West is a primary motivating factor among hardcore Islamists today. Let’s keep that in mind as we contemplate the next chapter in what used to be called the “global war on terror.” (In today’s Globe and Mail, Fowler himself advocates Canadian participation in a military intervention in Mali; Prime Minister Stephen Harper is having none of it. Meanwhile, African Union chairman Boni Yayi is calling for NATO intervention; NATO says such an operation is not on its agenda.)

As an anthropologist, I’m guided by a professional stance of cultural relativism — the principle that we must seek to understand another culture on its own terms, not our own.  When it comes to taking a moral or ethical position on a question, I can do that on my own time, but my job is to inform and explain, not to pass judgment. I’m starting to wonder whether the same applies to many journalists covering Mali these days.

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An ka wili

Posted on January 1, 2013 by

Tiken Jah Fakoly, a well-known reggae artist who’s been based in Bamako’s Niamakoro neighborhood for the past several years, just released a single entitled “An ka wili” or “Let us rise up,” urging Malians to unite against the Islamists who have taken over the north of their country.

True to form, Tiken Jah grounds his call to action in Mali’s precolonial history. Below is my own translation of the lyrics to “An ka wili”:

Mali will slip away from us [Mali bè na taa k'an to] / Kidal will slip away from us / Timbuktu will slip away from us

Chorus: Let us rise up, let us rise up, if we don’t rise up, Mali will slip away from us

Where have the descendants of Tieba gone? / Where have the descendants of Samory gone?

Where have the descendants of Sunjata gone? Where have the descendants of Da Monzon gone?

Let the descendants of Sumaoro rise up! Let the descendants of Sunjata rise up! Let the descendants of Sonni Ali Ber rise up!

We cannot tell our children, “Kidal once was ours”

We cannot tell our children, “Timbuktu once was ours”

What will we tell our children, that Gao once was ours?

What will we tell our children, that Timbuktu once was ours?

Sonni Ali Ber, died in 1492, the greatest hero and legend of the Songhai empire / A brilliant strategist, authentic military genius / He led 32 wars over 26 years, and won them all, Mali!

Samory Touré, great African warrior, synonymous with resistance against the colonizers, Mali!

Sunjata Keita, King of Mandé, who brought the peoples together, founder of the Mandé empire, Mali!

Babemba, fierce opponent of colonization, Mali!

Rise up! The day has come!

Tiken Jah Fakoly, Pan-Africanist icon

There’s nothing unusual about these lyrics’ heavy historical content: in my previous post, and in a recent scholarly article, I’ve referred to the role that Mali’s legendary precolonial rulers and heroes continue to play in the nation’s political imagination. What may appear unusual, at least to outsiders, is that Tiken Jah is not Malian: he was born and raised in Odienné, in northwestern Côte d’Ivoire. He only left his native country in 2003, after his outspoken criticism of the nativist doctrine called ivoirité earned him death threats from the supporters of then-president Laurent Gbagbo.

In other settings it would probably be strange to see a non-citizen leading calls for nationalist mobilization. (Could “God Bless the USA” have been recorded by Michael Bublé or Celine Dion? Could “The Rising” have been written by Bruce Cockburn instead of Bruce Springsteen?) But the collective sentiments to which Tiken Jah’s lyrics appeal don’t correspond neatly to the modern Malian nation-state: they cite the names of kings and warriors — Sunjata, Samory, Sumaoro and others — who ruled over territories  encompassing much of present-day Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Burkina Faso; notably, they also cite Sonni Ali, who conquered areas stretching from Senegal to northern Nigeria, and whose capital was Gao, the largest city occupied by Islamist militias today.

(Bamakois have embraced Tiken Jah as one of their own, but his activism on behalf of Mali’s national unity only gives ammunition to his critics in Côte d’Ivoire, who claim he’s not a true Ivoirian anyway. As Sasha Newell demonstrates in his new book about “nouchi” youth culture in Abidjan, a large number of urban Ivoirians regard anyone wearing a boubou as unfit for citizenship in their country.)

Another reference to bygone heroes: the cover of Tiken Jah’s 2010 release “African Revolution”

When Tiken Jah sings “Let us rise up,” he’s primarily addressing citizens of modern Mali; his video was produced in Bamako, after all, and it is Malian people of various walks of life (laborers, soldiers, seamstresses, civil servants, youths, street vendors) who appear in it. But the singer is also framing himself as a descendant of those illustrious forebears who united the populations of many ethnicities and localities, and who led opposition to foreign domination. (Note that in Bamako, the Islamists are widely perceived to be non-Malians, and indeed many of the leaders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its offshoot MUJAO are from Algeria and Mauritania.)

Tiken Jah’s secondary audience might be citizens of neighboring countries who take their inspiration from some of the same founding figures, and whose governments could support a multinational military offensive to take back the Malian regions now under Islamist control. The “An ka wili” video is also replete with Pan-Africanist symbolism, from the red, green and gold colors to the outline of the continent. It speaks to a broad range of loyalties to unite listeners in opposition to the Islamist threat.

“I’m calling for a general mobilization,” the singer told the AFP. “Mali has known great men, great empires and it is unimaginable to leave the country divided as it is today. Malians must count first on their own strengths.”

Tiken Jah’s message is in line with the public mood in Bamako (on which I reported in my previous post), where people are fed up with waiting for outside assistance to reunify their country. I doubt that any attempt to mobilize the Malian people can succeed without making reference to the kinds of historical imagery presented in “An ka wili.” Interim President Dioncounda Traoré and his speechwriters should take note.

*********

Following the example of journalist and fellow Mali RPCV Peter Tinti, below I suggest a few notable English-language press items on the situation in Mali:

Also, the National Public Radio show “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” devoted its Thursday, 3 January broadcast to the crisis in northern Mali, with Adam Nossiter as guest. And I was hoping Terry would invite me….

Postscript, Jan. 12: Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on Tiken Jah’s song.

Postscript, Jan. 19: A group of Malian artists calling themselves “Voices United for Mali” has released a song “Mali-ko/Peace” (see the video). The group includes Tiken Jah, Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré, Bassekou Kouyaté, Vieux Farka Touré, Djelimady Tounkara, Toumani Diabaté, Khaira Arby, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Baba Salah, Afel Bocoum, Amkoullel and Habib Koité among many others. Meanwhile, Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on a new single by rapper Master Soumy, of Sofas de la Republique fame, entitled “Sini  yé kêléyé” (Tomorrow is a fight), which he calls “a song dedicated to the Malian army, dedicated to mobilizing the people behind their army.”

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Impatient for action

Posted on December 15, 2012 by

The growing consensus regarding international military intervention to address the emergency in Mali is that it is now inevitable. But that doesn’t mean it’s imminent.  Hervé Ladsous, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping and Romano Prodi, the UN’s Special Envoy to the Sahel, have both described an internationally sanctioned operation as unlikely before September 2013. That’s right — nine months from now, and a full 18 months since the scope of Mali’s troubles first gained global media attention.

Demonstrators in Bamako call for UN intervention, Dec. 8; the sign at upper left reads "Mali cannot be divided."

Demonstrators in Bamako call for UN intervention, Dec. 8; the sign at upper left reads “Mali cannot be divided.” The sign at right demands Chapter 7 or peace enforcement under the UN Charter. (Photo: AFP)

There are voices pressing for a swifter approach. France and the African Union are advocating a mission that can begin in early 2013. But there are reservations: U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice recently characterized the French/AU plan as “crap.” The U.S. government wants to see an elected government in Bamako before any effort to retake Mali’s Islamist-held north can begin. Important regional powers, most notably Algeria, are still reluctant to commit to any action.

What do people in Bamako want? A poll conducted last month of 384 Bamako residents (funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, linked to Germany’s Social Democratic Party) found that 92% want elections only after the “liberation of the north.” And there’s evidence that a growing number of Bamakois don’t want to wait for September. Among the signs of impatience: 2000 demonstrators recently rallied to call for immediate military action, according to the AP (although the AFP put the figure at only 1000). Recent TV5 reportage also suggests public opinion in Bamako supports action to retake the north sooner, not later. “We want war, very much,” a female displaced northerner tells the camera. The same video, however, also features some voices of those in favor of negotiation.

What does the Malian army want? For months army representatives (particularly Captain Sanogo) have been claiming that they have sufficient men, skills and morale to take on the Islamists; all they lacked was equipment. They have been demanding that the government of Guinea release a shipment of weapons, ordered by the Malian government before the March coup and shipped from Bulgaria, which had been seized (apparently under ECOWAS orders) at the port of Conakry. Earlier this month, that shipment finally arrived in Kati (the garrison town where political power these days truly lies).

Sanogo says the army won’t wait for next September, and that with or without international assistance, they will act soon. He claims that Mali’s army is ready to launch its liberation war.

But there is some skepticism among Malians that their troops are willing to fight. Last week I discovered what I suspect to be the first-ever “Downfall parody” video dealing with the Mali crisis. (For those unfamiliar, this parody genre, which inserts new subtitles into a scene from the 2004 German film “Downfall,” is a meme unto itself; the genre even has a dedicated YouTube channel.)

“They all fled dèèè,” an officer tells Hitler, seemingly briefing him on events in northern Mali last March. “Sanogo even left his shoes behind.” “The Malian army, fleeing like women!” Hitler responds, before beginning a rant that lambastes the Islamists, Mali’s interim leaders, its soldiers and even soldiers’ wives. “And what bugs me most,” the dictator fumes, “is that Sanogo has tasted money, and once a soldier gets a taste of money he will never return to the battlefield…. He just comes and shoots everywhere, scaring civilians, when he should be up north fighting the MNLA!” I don’t know who wrote this skewering of the army’s alleged incompetence and cowardice, but judging from the wording and its street-wise mix of French and Bambara (call it framanankan), it can only be the work of a Malian.

The army was recently called out from a different source: a couple of months ago, a pop-music singer who goes by “Roberto Magic Sapeur” (real name Harouna Sylla), released a song chastising every branch of the security forces (army, air force, gendarmes, police, customs officers, even firemen and game wardens) for “running away” from the enemy.  The singer has subsequently faced threats and accusations that he’d accepted money to sully the reputation of the Malian army. But he defends his musical intervention as more of a pep talk than an insult. His lyrics exhort Mali’s soldiers that there is no shame in death, and he recites the names of great military leaders from Mali’s history. “In Segou, Da Monzon didn’t run away,” he sings. “In Sikasso, Tieba didn’t run away. The Mande emperor Sunjata didn’t run away.”

Abroad, there are doubts that Mali’s armed forces have what it takes to reunify the country. American government sources I’ve spoken with believe the Malian army is still too weak. Consider the France5 news footage below. A few minutes into the video,  troops on maneuvers near Sévaré apparently lack the ammunition for live-fire exercises, so they pretend to fire their weapons and provide their own sound effects. Members of the Ganda Iso militia in Sevare are subsequently shown: they have no equipment and are fed just once per day. Logistics and air support capacities are almost nonexistent.

The last several months have brought disturbing signs that Mali’s army is broken, undisciplined and increasingly brutal. In July Amnesty International issued a report alleging a pattern of enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings carried out by the Kati-based junta; a video of torture committed by troops in Kati has even been posted on the web. September saw the massacre of 16 unarmed civilians by soldiers outside the town of Diabaly; despite thorough, courageous reporting on this incident by the AP’s Rukmini Callimachi, the crime remains unpunished, and authorities in Bamako have completely hushed it up.

Is the army up to the task ahead of it? Will deteriorating conditions on the ground force the international community to intervene before it’s ready? Will the tenuous political alliances in the south or the north break apart, leading to chaos? The BBC has posted an excellent analysis of possible scenarios for Mali in 2013. I doubt anyone can predict which way this thing will break. But we know that the status quo can’t hold indefinitely. Mali’s economy is far too weak, and state coffers, deprived of foreign aid, are depleting rapidly.

I suspect we will all be hearing a lot more about Mali in the months to come. And I’m afraid the news won’t be good. Here’s what I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. Is Bamako today in a situation like that of Freetown in 1999, with tough days but a brighter long-term ahead? Or is it more like Mogadishu in 1991, at the beginning of a long downward spiral that may never be fully reversed?

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