JCC [Mali] Bonjour, néocolonialisme Français. Mon amour.

lol

Really, Even? This is the stance you took on it? Funny -- most of the people I discussed the news with this morning were wondering why the heck there wasn't a request for an intervention sooner, esp. given that ECOWAS is dragging its heels.

 

PG , iirc the Tuaregs were driven at of the area at some point last year, I think around summer or so? That was when I first started hearing about the stuff going on in Mali, particularly with the destruction of tombs and things.


But I guess destruction of priceless cultural heritage is preferable to having some white people intervene, or something.

 

There aren't, and there's the tragedy. It generally takes economic or political interests to get an intervention going. But whether or not France's motivations are genuine or not (and sure, cynicism is probably warranted), I still say that it's too little too late.

 

You have to admit that the British have a mixed legacy about that, though. While they certainly looted the majority of their stuff, it wasn't always taken from people who were using them. A lot of the artifacts they obtained were exposed to dangers and were essentially saved by British appropriation. Did they have this sort of charitable purpose in mind? Largely no. Were their practices consonant with what we'd do today? No -- we have a different view about cultural property these days, and from what little I know about archaeological practices in the Mediterranean basin these days, we prefer to keep stuff on-site (but can't always manage that).

Regardless, what they did still isn't as bad as wanton destruction.

 

I did say at the beginning that they looted stuff. I didn't mean that as a compliment

 

What about the implementing of extreme Shariah law that the rebels were doing in Timbuktu and Gao? Is that not worth an intervention?

 

I'm having trouble seeing the downside to the intervention, as military imperialism is essentially done with. It's not like France is going to set up a Leopold-esque state in Mali. The government of Mali, illegitimate though it may be, invited them in, and ECOWAS was planning an intervention of their own. The rebels were advancing into Central Mali which is why France jumped the gun, and considering what they're doing in Northern Mali, the rebels would have enacted more of the same in Bamako until the West African states were organized enough to intervene.

 

The issue is that the civil war would probably not stay internal for long. If there was no French intervention, the rebels had a good chance of winning. And what then, would they have set up their own state and sat pretty? Or would they have tried to overthrow other North and West African states? Seems to me like it would be the latter.

But damn, the French are intervening in one of their former colonies, obviously worse than letting a bunch of armed extremists brutally oppress civilians who don't want them there.

According to the Economist, France's African military bases are in Senegal, Djibouti and Gabon. I personally don't have a problem with military bases abroad, provided of course that the people there want it and whether it's necessary or not. (Like I don't think it's necessary for the U.S. to have bases in Europe because of necessity, and Okinawa since the people there don't want it.

Anyway, what about the rest of it? You're really fine with Mali coming under extreme Shariah law if it means that the West doesn't send a few thousand troops in?

 

The problem, Even, is that we don't live in an ideal world. Yeah, a free and happy Mali would be just awesome. But it's not -- so the question is, what to do? Are the French intervening because they feel responsible towards their former colonials or are they intervening because they want to push around their former colonies? Hard to say.

But my bottom line is that a French intervention is a better scenario than one without it. It's not the best, but it's better than the status quo. I guess I just have a realist view of int'l relations.