The Colonized and the Colonizer
The United Nations, viewing the destabilization of one of North Africa's most successful democratic regimes with an Islamist onslaught that succeeded in subduing the Malian military and taking northern Mali, including Timbuktu where the Islamists set about destroying world heritage sites defining them as insults to Islam reflective of the destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, called on African Forces to unite and join the Malian army to route the Islamists.African states are loath and slow to respond to such emergencies. France beat them to it by a wide margin of time and activity, once it became obvious that the Islamists were no longer content with their fiefdom in the north and were intent on marching on to the country's capital. At the present time the French military is 2,400-strong in the desert country. And finally, a combined force from Togo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Senegal, Niger and Chad numbering 1,750 in total have arrived to assist.
Together with the Malian military - itself a bit of a rogue construct, having a year earlier conducted a coup, unseating the democratically elected president of the country and installing a hard-line but still ineffective-against-Islamist-threats candidate of their own choosing - the French military has succeeded in freeing a few towns taken by the Islamists. And they are intent on marching on to free Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The revenge raid against the French by a Malian extremist group which infiltrated then attacked the remote Algerian gas plant in In Amenas several weeks ago where 37 foreign workers died is simply yet another indication of how well armed, trained and inspired the Islamists are in confronting opposition. Their goal is to firmly establish a wide network of like-minded Islamists affiliated with al-Qaeda, dedicated to Sharia.
France has called now for African nations to become more heavily involved in asserting their authority in their own region. To take the lead in protecting themselves against the incursion of Islamists intent on challenging the current governments of Islamic countries to better reflect their own fanatical view of pure Islam absent any of the add-ons courtesy of contact with the West.
Although Algeria is clearly one of those countries where Islamists will attempt to overthrow the government, and where Algerians maintain a tight control of the Islamists within, it is not responding to France's appeal, despite its close proximity to Mali, the shared Saharan desert, and the act of terror it has just experienced from the overflow of Islamist activity in Mali, filtered through its neighbour.
This lack of interest in becoming involved is a reflection of the toxic relationship that exists between the once-colonial power and its colonialist country, white-hot with resentment at the carnage that ensued between the two during Algeria's vicious fight for independence from France when neither side took prisoners and both took part in bloody atrocities.
That the Malian forces have been accused of brutality committed against civilians who they believe to be in sympathy with the Islamists is merely a reflection of life as it is lived in Africa, in socially backward, politically tribal and sectarian-divided loyalties throughout the continent and in the Middle East and the near East.
Human nature at its finest.
Labels: Africa, Colonialism, Conflict, France, Islamism, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 27, 2013
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