This disastrous campaign in Mali is a recent ordeal, but it originates in longstanding conflicts and injustices. The clash between traditional and modern ways of life, encapsulated in the Tuareg community’s relationship with the government, has combined with other grievances to ignite this recent escalation in violence. Tensions arose from an imbalance between the authority of the presidency and that of the Tuareg tribal chiefs, as well as the legacy of a European colonialism, which mishandled Mali’s delicate multicultural atmosphere by geographically displacing the Tuareg and threatening their political autonomy. The Tuareg assert essentially one major grievance to justify their uprising: decades of exclusion and discrimination from political and economic spheres by the Bamakobased government.
Europe’s Folly
To understand the ethnic roots of the conflict, “it’s useful to go back to the colonial period,” Amadou Sy, a senior fellow in the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told the HPR. At the Berlin Conference of 1884-5, imperialist European powers carved up north African territory, creating a variety of artificial territories before forcing the indigenous populations into labor. When the Europeans departed in the mid 20th century, they left certain families or ethnic groups in charge of the governments. Tensions between different peoples as a result of colonialism were an important cause of bloody conflicts like the Rwandan genocide and the present-day Mali conflict. “For societies where there is a great deal [of ethnic diversity], there is no threat of dominance. But in places where there are a few groups that rival each other, the threats they pose to each other or at least one to the others can be severe,” writes Steve Saideman, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University, regarding the conflict.
Additionally, the borders created by the Europeans were left intact, too. Whereas pre-1880s tribes would freely migrate from region to region, due to war or famine, post-European imperialism tribes could not. “When Mali became independent, you had nomadic tribes [namely the Tuareg] who were really by nature not residents of one particular region; they were migrating from one country to another,” adds Sy. Thus, in Mali, the Tuareg were politically excluded, and their nomadic lifestyle was threatened by the dictates of the post-imperialist borders.
The Tuareg’s rebellion was successful, not so much due to the strength of the rebels as to the weakness of the presiding government. But in order for the rebellion to be a sustained effort, the Tuareg, like any recalcitrant group, “need[ed] a civilian population in order to obtain operational assets such as manpower, combat service support and, most importantly, the freedom and willingness to act,” Juan- Camilo Castillo of Toronto-based geopolitical analysis firm Global Power told the HPR. Conflicts gain momentum once the population starts to support a militant group, which can then obtain the operational and political momentum needed to achieve its desired goals. Because the Tuareg were initially successful in rebelling against the government, they gained the confidence of more people, fueling further success. This human “battlespace,” as Castillo called it, is necessary for the achievement of a group’s goals, but also imperative for its survival as a unit. For the Tuareg, the battlespace is the vast desert of northern Mali.
What About the Others?
Although it is true that ethnic groups have an obvious presence in the Malian conflict, a common explanation for the instability is the involvement of extremists. Religious groups have merely complicated the situation between the Tuareg and the weakened state. But what exactly attracted and allowed these newer extremist groups to thrive? “An unstable post-independence period led to the informalization of state institutions by corrupt elites to serve their vested interests,” said Francis. The influx of extremist groups is in many ways a product of the power vacuum produced by the conflict between the Tuareg and the Malian government in the North, which in turn is largely a result of post-colonial instability. In fact, the Tuareg have previously taken up arms against the government in rebellions during the 1960s, 1990s, and 2000s. Although the government signed many treaties and ceasefire agreements after each one, it made the mistake of dismissing the long-term issues that the Tuareg had, which included more political power and autonomy.