Mali: A failure of Afrikan leadership

The situation in Mali that has seen in the French get involved in the matter with military intervention is a sign that Afrikan leaders have failed the people of Mali and that it takes the military intervention of the former colonial/imperial power France to get Afrikan countries to commit to sending in troops.

The Mali problem started nearly a year ago and the failure to find an Afrikan solution to this issue is completely unacceptable and shows the irrelevance of the AU and ECOWAS to the total emancipation of the Afrikan.

This state of affairs is an absolute disgrace on all Afrikan leaders, the Afrikan Union (AU) and The Economic Community of West Afrikan States (ECOWAS) and shows to the world that unfortunately Afrikan leaders cannot solve Afrikan problems.

In the days of the formation of the AU's predecessor, The Organization for Afrikan Unity, (OAU) the founding fathers including Ghana's Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, it would have been unthinkable for a former colonial power to meddle in the affairs of an Afrikan state.

Indeed Dr. Kwame Nkrumah warned fellow Afrikan leaders of a Mali type situation in the future and this is why he advocated the Afrikan Military High Command as a means to protecting the sovereignty of an Afrikan state from mercenaries and those with ulterior motives – if only those leaders had heeded Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's advice!!

This was due to the fervent Pan-Afrikanism that had been cultivated at the time and the sense that the Black man could manage his own affairs.

However a new generation of Afrikan leaders has emerged since, who do not necessarily have that fervent Pan-Afrikan unity but rather in the main care about amassing a fortune for themselves and their families and acting in a neo-colonial way that is against the bigger picture of emancipating the Afrikan from the jaws of 21st century colonialism, imperialism and impoverishment.

The essence of this article is to explain the Mali file, the root of the problem, the possible threat to Ghana's sovereignty and why reluctantly I support the French led military intervention in Mali.

However first things first and that is a brief overview of the history of Mali. Mali was one of the great civilizations that emerged in Afrika about 1,000 years ago. This civilization of Mali had as its centre the great city of Timbuktu which was responsible for education of the highest order, in fact in the contemporary world Timbuktu was the centre of learning where people from all over the world came to Timbuktu to seek enlightenment.

Timbuktu was also a great cultural city with mosques, temples and architecture of the most splendid order in which people from all over the world would come and marvel at the splendor and symbolism of these grandiose edifices.

Timbuktu was also the centre of the Islamic tradition and schools of thought of the Islamic culture/belief in the contemporary world with monuments and edifices that symbolized the importance Islam played in Mali. However Mali was not indigenously an Islamic country and this is where the root of today's problem begins.

Prior to the White Arabic enslavement of Afrikan people which began in 640AD, the bulk of Afrika including Mali was NOT Islamic but practiced traditional Afrikan religion which had as its core the belief in the deity, the Supreme Being and the Ancestors and the spiritual connection between the Creator, the Ancestors, the current generation and those still to be born.

However when White Arabs from Persia discovered Afrikan riches they invaded Afrika and brought with them their brand of Islam. It must be pointed out at this juncture that Islam ORIGINATED in Afrika and that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his right hand man Bilal were “Black” Afrikan – this can be testified by reading Afrikan origins of Major Western Religions, The Black Man of the Nile and his Family by Dr. Josef Ben Jochanan, Afrikan origins of major world religions by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima and scholarly works from amongst others Arab historian Al-Jahiz who once stated that Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) grandfather was as Black as the night.

Again it MUST be noted that the term ARAB is somewhat a misnomer and does not denote to a specific race of people. Indeed ALL Arabs (Black and White) descend from Ishmael who himself is Afrikan with his mother HAGAR being an Afrikan from Ethiopia.

Nonetheless this invasion of at first Northern Afrika which after 711AD spread to West Afrika resulted in the forced imposition by these White Arabs on indigenous Afrikans, the Arabicised version of Islam that is practiced today.

History reliably informs us that this forced imposition of Arabicised Islam on indigenous Afrikan people was brutal as it involved enslavement, rape and murder to subordinate Afrikans into accepting Islam and there has been the added hidden agenda to push Islam further south and to arabicize the whole of the Afrikan continent.

As a result of this forced imposition of the Islamic religion on indigenous Afrikan people, many indigenous Afrikan people now refer to themselves as Arabs and NOT Afrikan and are prepared to carry out this nefarious agenda.

This can be testified by the emergence of Al-Shabbab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, The dominance of Arabic in Sudan which led to the creation of South Sudan in July 2011 to Mauritania and what we witness in Mali today which is a dangerous mix of anti-Afrikan Touaregs, Islamic fundamentalists and other Jihadist movements.

The objective of this nefarious agenda is to impose by any means necessary as they see it SHARIAH law on the entire continent of Afrika. These in the main Islamic fundamentalists which include elements of Al-Qaeda Maghreb are hell bent on imposing Shariah law on the entire continent because as they see it Islam is the only way to obtain salvation and that all the other religions including Christianity have been corrupted.

Shariah law is documented in the Qur'an just as the Ten Commandments are documented in the Bible but suffice to say the type of Shariah law that these Islamic fundamentalists want to impose is unjustified and more importantly unislamic in nature and even moderate Muslims have great concerns over the imposition of this type of Shariah law.

This threat of Islamic fundamentalism is a direct threat to Ghana's sovereignty because as we have seen in Nigeria with the threat being posed by Boko Haram, it could undermine national unity and cohesion.

Again it could encourage Islamic fundamentalists in Ghana to follow Boko Haram's example and call for the imposition of Shariah law for the entire country and more importantly could jeopardize Ghana's journey to economic emancipation and this is why Ghana is right to support the French led military intervention in Mali.

This brings us on nicely to the reason why I reluctantly support the military action spearheaded by the French.

The abject failure of Afrikan leaders to come up with a detailed definitive Afrikan plan to dissolve the crisis in Mali has left a void which has been exploited by the French.

France being the former imperial power of Mali has reluctantly deemed it fit to get involved in the Mali crisis by first securing its own national interest and secondly looking at the wider picture of the threat Islamic fundamentalism could have for its own interests in Afrika and indeed in its own backyard where France is home to more than 5 million Muslims.

Whether or not we like it the French military intervention has served a purpose and that purpose is to protect the sovereignty of Mali and make sure that it does not disintegrate into a chaotic state as we have seen with Somalia and Libya and to an extent Egypt.

The French have vowed not to extend their stay in Mali until the remaining pockets of Jihadists have been flushed out and that the country will be left under the control of Afrikan Union forces whose job it will be to ensure that peace prevails in Mali and that the threat of Islamic extremism is nullified.

Keeping the peace will be the litmus test for the Afrikan Union in that despite failing to intervene diplomatically and militarily it now has an historic duty to ensure that peace and real democracy come to Mali whilst curtailing the real threat that Islamic extremism poses to Mali and the wider sub-region.