The True Faith
How matters are interconnected are brought home to realization sometimes in the most unexpected ways. Muammar Ghadafi is no longer the tyrant of Libya, but his legacy in many ways lives on. He had taken nomadic Tuaregs under his wing, as an oppressed people. Finding sympathy with their plight in agitating for a homeland of their own. As Muslims, they traditionally practised a more relaxed version of Islam.An insurgency has grown in northern Mali, with Taureg tribesmen who had been trained and served in Libya's military under Ghadafi, having left the conflict there with the downfall of the Ghadafi regime, taking with them weaponry that they seized from weapons depots that were not adequately protected by the later-defeated military.
The Tuareg took advantage of a poorly equipped Malian army which itself staged a political coup unseating their president. The disorganized coup increased the frailness of the situation and the rebels, making common cause with Islamists ousted government forces. Now the area has become a base for al-Qaeda affiliates and other Islamists, particularly one led by Tuareg leader Iyad Ag Ghaly.
The Islamists managed to acquire and hide the heavy weapons the Tuareg had brought from Libya. In the north-eastern mountains of Mali where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is established. The Islamists have gained the sympathy of the various tribes living there, playing on their anti-government consciousness to have them support the Islamists.
Women have now been ordered to wear the veil. Thieves are informed their hands will be cut off. Smoking is banned, and those caught smoking, whipped. Although a majority of the population in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao are moderate, shariah will be imposed. "Shariah does not require a majority vote. It's not democracy. It's the divine law that was set out by god to be followed by his slaves. One hundred percent of the north of Mali is Muslim, and even if they don't want this, they need to go along with it."
And the radical Islamist, Ag Ghaley, a Tuareg warrior initially, now clasping the "true faith" and radicalized, states "I am not for independence, I want shariah for my people. All who are not on the path of Allah are infidels ... our struggle is reform. Our enemies are miscreants and polytheists. We must fight all who oppose the development of Islam. We must eliminate them."
And they have started by destroying the ancient shrines at which Muslims have always worshipped, shrines dedicated to their Saints and to their own sectarian version of Islam, versions that mark them now as apostates, and to save themselves they will now be forced to embrace the Islam of the fanatics surrounding them....
Labels: Africa, Conflict, Human Relations, Islamism
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 03, 2012
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