Posts Tagged ‘Segou’
Western Africa, Rep. of Mali, Azawat, Tuareg, South Sahara Al Qaeda (Sahel)…What’s going on?
Posted on: April 9, 2012
Western Africa, Rep. of Mali, Azawat, South Sahara Al Qaeda…What’s going on?
What of the Niger River? Looking at the map of western Africa (former French colonial region and still under French economic dominion), the Niger River starts on the borders of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and progress northward, crosses Bamako (capital of rep. of Mali), Segou, Tombouctou, Gao, and slant down toward Menaka (splitting Mali in half).
And the river resumes its descent to the State of Niger, all the way to Nigeria and flows into the Delta in Nigeria (the Niger Delta, rich in oil production, particularly offshore).
The recent news reveal that the Tuareg independentists, men wearing “blue”, (planning for an independent Azawat State in north Mali) have captured the main towns and cities in north Mali, north of the Niger River, such as Gao, Kidal, Menaka…
And that the Tuareg Islamic extremists and others from Mauritania and especially from Algeria (wrapped under the veil of Al Qaeda) have captured the historic city of Tombouctou and starting the process of imposing Islamic Sharia (gone the good time of music, dance and bare women faces…)
Minor officers in the army of Mali grabbed on the excuse of the army failure to confronting the advances of the militias up north by carrying on a military coup d’etat.
No States in Africa was pleased with this sudden coup and the rebellious officers had to bow down and promise to restitute power to the civilians. The head of the parliament of Mali is to take over as interim President in order to organize the election in its due time by the end of Mai.
Azawat State?
This desert region would constitute 65% of the area of Mali and populated with only 10% of the total of 14 million citizens.
The Tuareg tribes are estimated to be about 3 million people and criss-crossing a desert the size of Europe, sending caravans from and to Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, Niger, Tchad, and even to Sudan (the Darfur region)
What’s the story?
After the disintegration of Qadhafi Libya, around 400 veteran Tuareg soldiers had to return “Home”, and Algeria was happy to let its radical Islamists cross the border to north Mali (Algeria military was in constant battle with the Algerian Islamists for three decades after they won the election and the military refused to acknowledge the radical Islamists “democratic” victory).
What do you expect soldiers and people carrying arms to do in a desert region that no investments were done in schools, dispensary, hospitals, or any kind of infrastructure…?
The successive central governments of the poor State of Mali in natural resources had invested in the most populous region, the south, and let the vast north goes to hell…
The Tuareg were demanding investment in their region for the last 5 decades, but France failed to contribute any major assistance…
First, the Tuareg started taking hostages, European NGO and tourists, and it was a lucrative and brisk business…
After hell broke loose, the region lacked in tourists and in any financial aid, and conquering power was at hand…
Second, there are no military alternatives in these vast desert region…at most a few drone attacks, just to implicitly tell the rebels that the de-facto on the ground status will not be checked, but negotiations are needed that would satisfy Europe and the US economic future interest in oil and rare mineral exploitation and production.
(The later French military intervention didn’t bring tourists, safety and security. In fact, the new elected President of Mali didn’t dare yet visit the northern parts. And the virulent factions have spread and disseminated eastward toward northern Nigeria (Boko Haram connections), Cameroun, and Central Africa)
Third, most Western Africa Sates have artificial borders drawn by France, Spain and Italy, and the people on the borders come and go at will.
For example, Mali has an 800-kilometre border with Mauritania, and about 1,200 kilometres with Algeria, and as many with Niger...
Time to let minority people live in peace and enjoy their own language and life-style: A few million can go a long way in peace time, for basic necessity of survival…and basic preventive health care…
Note 1: This week, Jan. 12, 2013, France decided to come to the “rescue” of the government and army of Mali as the extremist jihadists advanced and captured a strategic city close to Mobti (key city separating north from south mali).
France is bombing the extremist jihadists and willing to send in 2,500 troops to aid the West African States military contingents.
Fact is, unless serious resources are secured to north Mali and political reforms are done in Mali, all of west Africa is liable to fall to the extremist Moslem jihadists.
Note 2: Take a look at this map of where resources are coming from to help France prosecute its war in north Mali. Is it a WW3 on Moslem Jihadists?
The house in Beit-Chabab, (continue 8)
My grand dad had a house in Beit-Chabab but it was been rented for over 30 years, and the house was rundown and needed major repairs. After the death of Dad’s father Antoun, and the definitive return of my family to Lebanon in 1961, and the children about to join universities, my father had to start a lengthy legal ejection proceeding.
Father spent plenty of money to repairing this crumbling house. We enjoyed barely two summer vacations in it, before dad’s mother and his younger brother Jean decided to return to Lebanon and stay in it.
I used to watch one of my grandmother’s father Toufic (about 80 of age) plowing the large garden, but mother never encouraged me to walk and care for it because of probable snakes and other insects that she was terribly scared of: Mother had close encounters with snakes in the house in Africa.
Yes, extra safety is not complementary to happiness and natural development. When Jean and then grandmother died ten years later, one of dad’s sisters decided to return to Lebanon and she stayed in the house. The whole lot cannot be sold because of the many inheritance problems with a large extended family; two of dad’s sisters are still alive and they are refusing to dispose of the property when we are in great need of financial support.
Something about our childhood, my brother Ghassan, sister Raymonde, and I
I read auto-biographical accounts of Edward Said and Carlos Ghosn and I found similarity in our upbringing and I said: “why not?” I was born in Bamako, the Capital of Mali that was then under French mandate or colony, and mother breast-fed me for at least 3 years and mother never let me off her sight.
I started schooling in Africa (Sikasso) when I was five, with the French White Brethren for 3 months and I was doing great and mother told me that I had memorized the multiplication tables in such a short period. The deaf black boy used to take me on his bicycle to school.
Shortly after, I suffered from Typhoid fever in 1954 and almost died. The French commander (Mali was still a French colony) flew me and mother to the Capital Bamako and I stayed for weeks in a refrigerated chamber. When I got up from bed I had to re-learn how to walk and talk.
My parents decided to whisk me to Lebanon where the climate is more favorable. My 3-year old brother Ghassan, three years younger than I, and I were enrolled in an intern school (boarding school) in Beit-Chabab belonging to the Christian Maronite brethren.
I didn’t know a single word of Arabic and it was a completely new world for me who lived at home for the last 6 years. In the same year of 1956 Lebanon experienced a major earthquake and I remember someone carrying me in his arms at night and depositing me in the open parking lot where everyone converged. Dad once lambasted the government for exacting the “earthquake tax” for over 20 years.
It seems that I was bright, but mostly I was much older than my classmates, and the next year the school decided that I could skip a year and that was my downfall. In Lebanon, most kids start schooling at the age of three. I cannot remember a thing of my first year in Lebanon; maybe I was too traumatized and my brain decided that burying my memory of this year is beneficial for my mental health.
My parents used to visit us every two years during summer and we had to re-learn that they were indeed our folks. We used to flee the rented summer-house and walk up two miles to school, taking shortcuts.
School used to take us on walking trips on Sundays and when we passed my grandfather Toufic shop in Haret Al Ta7tat (the lower part of Beit Chabab), I used to stop at the shop and I was handed a handful of sweets and “kdameh” (dried cabanza beans).
My much younger sister (6 years younger) joined us in Beit Chabab and was “incarcerated” in the nuns’ boarding school of Sacred Hearts. My sister had a rough time there…
My early years (Continue 7)
I don’t remember much of my first five years in Africa; maybe the trauma of my typhoid disease erased most of my early memory. Mother BREAST FED ME FOR THREE years, as she did with my brother later, and she was very protective and kept a close watch over her first-born child. I had a hard birth and the physician didn’t expect me to live more than two days; I would not breast feed and in desperation, mother forced milk into my mouth. Mother told me that I was made to spend my days on the counter top of the shop and I used to drill holes in the Nestle milk cans. I tend to corroborate Amelie Nothomb hypothesis that lack of palate sugar voluptuousness is a main factor for slow brain development. Most probably, mother didn’t indulge me with chocolate or sweet condiments; thus, I took my revenge destroying valuables or maybe to licking the sugary Nestle.
On the other front of verbal development I had a “boubou” or a very young African mute as personal friend or “body-guard”. I have a picture with Boubou sitting on his heels while I am riding a small tricycle. It is natural for babies to learn easily all languages, including sign and eye languages; I assume that I communicated well with “boubou” and we had great friendship and affection since maybe my first fully developed language was the mute related language. I can assume that verbal communication in three other languages simultaneously might have been very hard; Lebanese/Arabic, French and “Bambara” (the main language in Mali). Not that comprehending multiple languages is difficult for babies but the people are difficult to understand for the contradictory meanings they convey. Not that homonym and synonyms and all the “yms” in languages are serious obstacles to a baby’s flexible mind, but the minds and emotions of mature talking people are insurmountable barriers for clear directions. I guess that I have set the grounds for plausible sources of my verbal unintelligible adventure. I went to school at the french Brethren for only three months before I fell dangerously ill and managed to learn the multiplication tables. An African helper would take me on his bicycle to school.
Why my parents decided to leave Africa?
My parents had a very prosperous business and were very liked in Sikassou; they had to sell their business and house in 1961for cheap after the Independence of Mali from the colonial power France: Dad was too afraid to end up in prison if he were caught smuggling out his hard-earned money. They sold their properties to the White French Brethren who paid the money but my folks never received a dime. It seems one of my “uncles” who received the money on behalf of my dad invested the money for his own benefit and lost his money again.
The English language uses “uncle” to represent any older relation to the family but Arabic has special names to discriminate the sort and relative side in the relations. For example, my mother has five sisters “khalaat” and their husbands are called “3adeel” (the number 3 is used in Arabic internet to represent a special Arabic vocal close to aa); dad has five sisters “3amaat” and their husbands are “sohor”. Thus in Arabic specific names differentiate among these uncles; even the real close uncles, from the mother and father sides, have words of their own.
All of us, kids, were born in Mali and were transferred to Lebanon in order not to be exposed to the numerous tropical diseases. In actuality, we were not saved physically or emotionally or mentally from other kinds of diseases that plagued our development and we had to suffer the consequences of hard decisions that our folks were faced with.
When dad opened a shop in Lebanon then he had to close it within three years because clients would not repay their accounts. Mother used to go with her sister Therese to Downtown Beirut to shop for dad and she enjoyed that part in the business very much.
Introspection (continue 6)
My parent’s love affair
Dad fell in love with my mother in his tender youth and mother eventually followed him to Mali when she was about 19 with her younger sisters Montaha and Marie to join their family in Segou. An older friend of dad, Jeryes Chebabi, once joked that when they were passing by mother’s house he told dad that her aunt, across the street, is keeping a tight watch on him and suggested that he removes his shoes; dad obeyed and walked bare feet on the main street.
Mother left with her younger sisters by boat to Marseille and then to Senegal and then by land. My mother Julie told us that the captain of the boat said that she won’t make it to Marseille because she was sea-sick all the time and barely could eat anything. Montaha and mother had to wait in Marseille, France, for several months to locate a boat heading to Africa because the war had disturbed all travels and communications. They finally and reluctantly had to fly to Senegal on a horrific loud small plane and then take ancient trains to Bamako. In all, the trip to Segou lasted more than two months.
My parents got married against all odds because their parents were competitors in business in the city of Segou. The first village my folks opened shop in was Koutiala. There was a river to cross when going to Segou and my parents had to load their car on a makeshift ferry. By the time I was to be born the shop in Koutiala was completely robbed along with the saved money.
My parents worked together for over 15 years in the poorest villages of Mali and settled in Sikasso, a village on the border with Ivory Coast. They moved to three other shops in Sikasso before they bought a house, in cash as usual, from a French family. There were about four Lebanese families in Sikasso and few others joined them later on; Khalil Nakhleh came from Bamako and opened a shop next to dad for better competition but my parents were the best in the business because of their honesty and readiness to trust selling on loans.
Mother says that she had to leave dad alone for periods of a month to have her teeth done in Bamako. My parents were the first family to generate private electricity in that poor and desolate region. My folks were robbed several times of everything; the first time when I was about to be born.
Business was brisk in Sikasso and mother ordered clothing from Paris through fashion catalogues and fashioned some dresses too. Mother used to give a “trousseau” as gift for every mother who had a new-born. They were honest and hard-working people and not fit for business in Lebanon.
Financial troubles
Dad is free with his money and does not refuse any financial requests; he is now penniless. My parents had a successful commercial business in Sikasso until Mali obtained its independence in 1961 and dad was frightened that he might be jailed if discovered exporting his saved money; thus, they decided to leave Africa for good. Mother purchased her merchandize out of catalogues from France and sewed fancy clothes and offered free “trousseaux” for the newly born. Dad gets scared easily and instead of taking a summer vacation to rethink his decision to staying permanently in Lebanon he sold everything hastily and for cheap. He could not do any business in Lebanon because people would not pay back their accounts.
My folks lost every penny during the civil war that started in 1975 and lasted 15 years. In 1980, I warned dad from Nigeria to change his Lebanese pounds into Sterling pounds but he never listened to my suggestions, out of laziness most probably; or maybe, he had nothing much left to exchange. The Lebanese pound devalued to nothing and mother had to pawn her jewelry in order to survive and pay the militias.
My parents had to sell the apartment in Furn el Chebak when they realized that I didn’t save much at my return from the USA. Dad got around $45,000; this sum lasted 6 years. Dad gave a flat for Raymonde when she got married in 1979, and another flat for my married brother Ghassan. Instead of renting to them to keep a flow of money coming to him monthly, he just gave them the above flats in the building that he used to rent.
I remember that dad gave me $5,000 in 1975 when I first left for the USA and when the Lebanese pound was strong; the exchange rate was two LL for one dollar instead of 1,500 LL right now. Basically, that’s the sum I got so far from my folks; I recall that I asked for $1,000 in 1991 for graduation expenses and for my PhD ceremony; dad had to ask my cousin Patrick to lend him the money since he was completely broke and I was not aware of my parents’ financial predicaments.
My parents have spent a lot on the education of their three offspring; they spent lavishly on the weddings of Raymonde and Ghassan and furnishing their apartments and contributing to the purchase of their cars; they gave a flat to Raymonde and Ghassan and they should have asked for rent because my parents are flat broke right now and have no sources for financial help. We cannot count on a government in Lebanon for the old citizens.
I guess that, besides the expenses of my education prior to entering universities, I cost my parents just $6,000; all my expenses were from my sweat and hard work to survive and continue my education in the USA. My actions with money demonstrate that I don’t consider money as my own and could easily dispense with as long as I secure the bread of the day regardless of how I am perceived as cheap or tight or whatever. Anyway, I never earned enough to save more than $5,000 at any period in my life so that I have no idea how I would react if I come into big bucks.
Adonis Diaries 