In today’s Diário de Notícias (Lisbon)
Notes on Mali
Victor Angelo
Mali
is a fascinating country, diverse in its landscapes and cultures. It is home to
great singers and traditional musicians who play the korah, an ancestral
instrument made from a large gourd, the Dogon masks and statues, birthplace of
the city of Timbuktu, a unique historical reference in Islamic studies. For
four centuries, until 1670, Mali was the epicentre of a great empire in West
Africa, an empire recognized by Portuguese explorers, who traded extensively
with it across the Gambia River. I would also add that I had several Malian
colleagues at the UN who proved to be excellent professionals and held
important positions in the different multilateral organizations. I write this
to fight the summary opinions of those who are in the habit of arranging everything
African in a dark corner, in the shadow of the usual prejudices. I am sad, like
many others, when I see the country tearing itself apart and becoming insecure,
as it continues to do daily.
Mali
has made the news again in the last three weeks following the military coup of
August 18. It is, for the same reason, the subject of debate, including in
European circles. Moreover, some conspiracy theorists have seen Moscow's hand
behind the colonels who took power, a hypothesis I consider unlikely. But there
are other hands at work in Mali, from France to Saudi Arabia, and with vastly
different intentions.
Also,
at stake is the role of the United Nations, which has maintained a peace
mission in the country since 2013, with more than 15,000 elements. MINUSMA, as the
mission is called, has, over time, become a case study because it has not been
able to respond to the political and governance issues that are at the heart of
Mali's problems. The political direction of the mission resolved, to please the
French and out of strategic opportunism, to stick to the president that the
coup has now deposed. In New York, at the Security Council, no one had the
courage to correct this trajectory. Thus, credibility is lost, and the future
is mortgaged.
Returning
to the current debate, it should have emphasized that more than two thirds of
Mali's population is under 25 years of age. And that education and the economy
are unable to meet the challenges that such an age pyramid entails. When I was
in Mali for the first time in 1990, its total population was around eight and a
half million. Today, thirty years later, it is close to twenty million. The
same happens in the other countries of the region. They all have explosive age
pyramids. Demographic pressure has grown throughout the Sahel along with the
advance of desertification and poverty. Being young in the Sahel means looking
to the future and seeing only a multitude of arid politics, a desert of opportunities
and a chaotic and inhumane urban habitat. Thus, hope and social peace are hard
to achieve. All that remains is migration to Europe, or else adherence to armed
banditry and fanatical rebellions. Fanaticism has grown exponentially over the
past decade, thanks in particular to the proliferation of mosques, Wahabist koranic
schools and radical preachers, all financed by the Saudis and others of the
kind.
Those
who neither emigrate nor join the extremist groups, vegetate in the big cities,
where they can observe how social inequalities have become blatant, the fruit
of the corruption that prevails in political circles, in the security forces
and in the administration of justice. They also see that European countries and
other international actors turn a blind eye to the manipulations practiced by
the powerful. This is what happened in Mali. After months of popular protest against
the indifference of the president and the greed of his own circle of friends, a
group of senior officials decided to act. They have popular support, at least
for now. It is true that one should not support anti-constitutional coups. But
it is also true that one can no longer pretend that one does not see
corruption, ineptitude and the failure of territorial administration, with vast
areas of national space without any state presence. The mitigation of crises
begins with the promotion of probity and the restoration of local power, beyond
the treatment of youth issues. This is what we must remind the colonels, the
leaders of the region, the UN Security Council and the European partners of
Mali, Portugal included.
