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Tag Archives: France
How France lost Mali… and the Sahel
“The French military, suffused with colonial ideology and stuck in obsolete schemas of the ‘War on Terror,’ is incapable of correctly analyzing the situation. Caught between French decision-makers unwilling to lose face and African leaders shirking their responsibilities, it is … Continue reading
Betting big on sovereignty
In ordering French troops to quit Malian soil “without delay,” Mali’s transitional authorities are making a high-stakes wager. Their bet seems to be that whatever price the evacuation of Operation Barkhane imposes on Malians in the short term, it will … Continue reading
Making Mali great again?
Or, The Mali that can say “No” A dramatic shift has been taking shape in Mali, and two recent events suggest that it is now irreversible. One: the massive rallies in Bamako and dozens of other cities and towns throughout … Continue reading
Cherchez la France: Mali’s complex postcolonial identity
There’s an old French expression cherchez la femme–literally, “look for the woman.” In the 1850s, novelist Alexandre Dumas used this phrase to convey his sense that whatever tensions or conflicts arose between people, somewhere at the root of them would … Continue reading
In search of Mali’s Russia connection
If you follow press coverage of public events in Mali, particularly street demonstrations, you may have noticed a pattern over the last few years: alongside expressions of anti-French sentiment, which I’ve written about extensively on this blog, are frequently expressions … Continue reading
Sounding the alarm
I received a 15-minute audio clip from a friend via WhatsApp in which an unnamed man, apparently a Malian, discusses Mali’s political situation in a tone of utter desperation and indignation at the fact that seven years of foreign intervention … Continue reading
Mali’s existential threat: Jihadism, or the French?
I have tremendous admiration for Salif Keita, who for decades has reigned as the Malian singer best known to Western ears. His recordings, concerts, and activism have made him famous all over the world. With a career dating back to … Continue reading
How did Mali get here? (Part 5: Institutional explanations)
In this final installment of the series we consider the role of Mali’s political institutions in generating the wave of instability and political violence that has engulfed the country since 2012. Institutionalist analysis ascribes a country’s success–or lack thereof–to the … Continue reading
How did Mali get here? (Part 4: Geopolitical explanations)
In seeking to understand the long-term sources of instability in Mali, analytical perspectives centered on geopolitics emphasize competition among states, including the Malian government, its Sahelian neighbors, and extra-regional players, in shaping events there. These perspectives pit the Malian state’s … Continue reading
How did Mali get here? (Part 1: Echoes of decolonization)
Introduction: Recently I’ve been drafting a brief overview of Mali’s modern history and present trajectory. The aim is to excavate the long-term political, economic, and historical underpinnings of Mali’s ongoing instability. This post is the first in a series on … Continue reading
Bridges from Bamako 