“Neat lines of demarcation rarely, if ever, exist between one area of the world and the next”⁽²⁾

Eamonn Gearon, author of The Sahara: A Cultural History

The Sahel and Sahara region is comprised of Mali, Mauritania and Niger, as well as some adjacent areas of neighbouring Algeria and Libya.⁽³⁾ As noted by author Anouar Boukhars, “the broader Sahara region has always possessed an underappreciated geopolitical significance. And changes” - he cautiously warns - “should not be ignored.”⁽⁴⁾ Although a few keen observers of African politics have long considered Mali the ‘weakest link’ in the region, many were caught by surprise by the rapid deterioration of the nation once celebrated as Africa’s democratic role model.⁽⁵⁾ The Malian crisis has in many ways represented a hard-learnt lesson, as the significance of the insecurity pervading the region and its proneness to Islamist destabilisation have become painfully apparent following a string of high-profile events, including the toppling of autocratic regimes, separatist rebellions, terrorist attacks, hostage takings, a coup d’état, and an international military intervention.

Consequently, the Sahara has in recent years found itself thrust into the global media spotlight and catapulted towards the top of regional and international policy agendas.⁽⁶⁾ While the world’s attention was fixed on the unprecedented events in continent’s north, with the unfolding of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, the long-overlooked desert states further south were also undergoing their own transformations, with significant global implications.⁽⁷⁾ Whilst acknowledging the existence of a number of overlapping factors and pertinent regional spill over effects and broader global implications, this paper seeks to shift the focus away from the Arab Awakening to neighbouring Mali, currently embroiled in political turmoil. It briefly discusses the recent escalation of violence, the spread of militant Islamism amidst the country’s highly polarised political landscape, and highlights the risks inherent in producing and recycling oversimplified and misleading narratives that equate the Malian case with the global threat of Islamic terrorism.

The narrative of the ‘globalised threat’

Discussions surrounding the escalation of Islamic violence in Africa and the looming threat of spill over effects of the developments, both regionally and globally, are too often embedded in an interrelated narrative that tends to resort to three major overgeneralisations, as outlined by Dowd and Raleigh: First, it is commonly taken for granted that the continent’s violent Islamist militias are part of a “single, monolithic, globalized Islamist threat.”⁽⁸⁾ Second, the West and its interests are frequently assumed to be the principal target in danger of this globalised Islamist threat, whereas African stability and the insecurities borne by its civilian communities are often considered only secondarily.⁽⁹⁾ Third, an incomplete analysis of so-called ‘ungoverned spaces’ or ‘territories’ gives rise to assumptions that the region inevitably provides safe havens for extremists.⁽¹⁰⁾ According to the authors, these three factors form the main tenets of the “globalized threat narrative” which shapes and reproduces what they deem “the myth of Global Islamic terrorism” in Africa.⁽¹¹⁾

In the context of recent developments in Sub-Saharan Africa, this reinforced tendency to conceive of almost all violent Islamist groups as “local manifestations of a single, global jihad ideology or, in extremis, as individual cells in a single, though amorphous, Al Qaeda network”⁽¹²⁾ becomes highly problematic, as it serves to neglect the fluid and complex realities of local and regional conditions and the players involved.⁽¹³⁾

There are, of course, obvious political reasons for treating these groups as an undifferentiated, homogeneous unit, and these resonate on all sides of the evolving conflict as jihadists, domestic governments and the international community try to play the ‘global terrorism’ card to legitimise their actions. However, the reality, or more accurately realities, are messy and composed of layers of structural and historical drivers of conflict, overlapping tribal, religious, armed, and criminal groups with converging and diverging interests and agendas.

Conflicts grounded in local grievances require local priorities in a climate characterised by post-colonial legacies, entrenched poverty, under-development, inequalities and human insecurity.⁽¹⁴⁾ If the numerous myths that circulate are not dissected, it is difficult to properly assess the situation. The notion that all violent Islamist groups operate towards a coordinated regional or global jihad must therefore be dismissed.⁽¹⁵⁾ Rather, groups such as the recently emerged Ansar Dine and Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO/MUJWA/MOJWA) that are currently active in Mali, despite their affiliation with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al Qaeda Central, ought to be seen as first and foremost operating within local contexts.

Islamist violence in Africa and the Mali crisis

Africa is viewed by many as destined to become the next ‘theatre’ in which Islamic violence will flourish and proliferate unless prompt and effective counter measures are implemented.⁽¹⁶⁾ The case of Mali - with its long-simmering ethnic and socio-economic discontent by local communities, recurring resumption of tribal militancy, a series of secessionist rebellions by Tuareg minorities proclaiming an independent state of Azawad,⁽¹⁷⁾ jihadist activity and entrenched criminal networks in a seemingly democratic, though in actuality deeply corrupt, fragmented and dysfunctional state⁽¹⁸⁾ - as previously mentioned, has been used by some to confirm the globalised threat narrative and place it under the umbrella of the ‘Global War on Terrorism’.⁽¹⁹⁾

Islamist militias such as the Ansar Dine and MUJAO have in the past few years opportunistically sought to take advantage of Mali’s political crisis, seize territory and further their own agendas by means of exploiting the existing power vacuums and the absence of a coherent central government.⁽²⁰⁾ It must be noted, nonetheless, that the deterioration of conditions in Mali and escalation of violence do not constitute a merely discrete or sudden phenomenon that can be neatly categorised and managed.

The entire Sahara region has a history of longstanding underdevelopment and marginalisation; it has also experienced sporadic outbreaks of violence headed by separatist-oriented Tuareg minority groups for several decades, and has hosted Islamist militants who have sought to integrate into local communities and economies over the past decade or so. The Malian crisis, as many scholars point out, should not, and cannot, be wholly divorced from the political, economic, cultural and social context of other African countries.⁽²¹⁾ The instability in Mali must therefore be understood as a “product of a complex entanglement of ethnic ties, ideological inclinations, and political opportunism”⁽²²⁾ that is deeply embedded in a “regional conflict ecosystem”⁽²³⁾ in which specific local, as well as regional, dynamics contribute to the precipitation of conflict.

Conclusions: Tipping the balance in favour of a solution

Once hailed as Africa’s “democratic success story,”⁽²⁴⁾ Mali is no longer depicted as the continent’s beacon of democratic hope. Following the unmistakable unravelling of Mali’s political landscape over the last few years, the country’s security climate presently remains multifaceted, unstable and fragmented. Various complex interactions are at work, as political, development, security and humanitarian crises intersect with local, regional and global security concerns.⁽²⁵⁾ In Mali, the combination of weak, corrupt central governments together with deep-rooted ethnic, political and socio-economic cleavages have given rise to a sub-national environment in which extensive illicit transnational criminal enterprises and religious radicalism currently prevail.⁽²⁶⁾ Yet while local factors are highly significant and ought to be emphasised, the implications of Mali’s insecurity cannot be viewed as isolated incidents, but must be understood as linked to a broader crisis that stretches across much of the Sahara and Sahel region.

In many respects, the Malian situation epitomises the structural problems faced by much of the region, whereby weak and corrupt states lack the capacity or willingness to adequately mitigate pronounced ethnic grievances, societal tensions, economic grievances, inequitable resource distribution, terrorism and crime. Until these underlying problems are addressed, attempts to reduce insecurity will largely fail. Finding effective and durable solutions, however, is no easy task and a strategy that relies on foreign military interventions alone is highly unlikely to bring about the needed results.

The solutions to Mali’s problem are not ones that can be imposed from the ‘outside’, but must take into account its specific local conditions, dynamics, histories and relations. At the same time, addressing the Malian problem cannot take place in isolation from its neighbours.⁽²⁷⁾ As political scientist Scott Walker states, “the humanitarian, political and environmental problems of the region respect no boundaries.”⁽²⁸⁾ The elections in July 2013 may have been an important stepping-stone towards rebuilding and reforming the domestic and national structures of governance, but time is yet to show what will come of them.

Furthermore, one must be wary of uncritically embracing and recycling the obscuring and totalising narrative of ‘the global threat’. This is not to say that global religious terrorism is not a serious concern and one that should be mitigated, but rather that it promotes a limited understanding of the situation and presents an incomplete picture of a multifaceted crisis, which is counteractive in the efforts to find solutions.

A lasting solution will only emerge from dialogue and meaningful reform that better ensures equitable distribution of resources, rights and political power. This resonates with many scholars’ call for “a shift away from a security narrative toward one of development.”⁽²⁹⁾ The main focus on security has largely been directed at reducing the jihadist threat. While this may be effective in achieving immediate goals by weakening terrorist cells, it nonetheless fails to adequately address the fundamental roots of the instability, the crisis of governance and human insecurity that haunt the region.

The intricate complexities of the Mali crisis will likely continue to bewilder scholars, governments and the international community alike; however, if any genuine security and durable stability is to be achieved in Mali and its surrounding region, the onus must ultimately be placed on the challenge of thinking regionally, while acting locally. Finally, as author and analyst Eamonn Gearon neatly sums up the current situation and the challenge that lies ahead: “Life in northern Mali is as tough as it gets. This slim margin of survival makes any incentive incredibly powerful. These incentives can be used to fuel criminality and terrorism or to foster political stability and economic growth. We have the power to tip the balance.”⁽³⁰⁾

Written by Akari O. Izumi Kvamme ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1) Akari O. Izumi Kvamme is a Research Associate with CAI with a particular focus on global politics, peace and conflict, human security, gender equity and social justice. Contact Akari through Consultancy Africa Intelligence's Africa Watch Unit ( africa.watch@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Nicky Berg.
(2) Gearon, E., 2013. Mali and the Middle East: Viable solutions. Middle East Policy, 20(3), pp. 134-144.
(3) Lacher, W., 'Organized crime and conflict in the Sahel-Sahara region', Carnegie, September 2013, http://carnegieendowment.org.
(4) Boukhars, A., 2013. “The paranoid neighbor: Algeria and the conflict in Mali”, in Wehrey, F. and Boukhars, A. (eds.). Perilous desert: Insecurity in the Sahara. Carnegie Endowment: Washington.
(5) Ibid; Hagberg, S. and Körling, G., 2012. Socio-political turmoil in Mali: The public debate following the coup d’état on 22 March 2012. Africa Spectrum, 47(2-3), pp. 111-125.
(6) Boukhars, A., 2013. “The paranoid neighbor: Algeria and the conflict in Mali”, in Wehrey, F. and Boukhars, A. (eds.). Perilous desert: Insecurity in the Sahara. Carnegie Endowment: Washington.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Dowd, C. and Raleigh, C., 2013. The myth of global Islamic terrorism and local conflict in Mali and the Sahel. African Affairs, 112(448), pp. 498-509.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Huckabey, J.M., 2013. Al Qaeda in Mali: The defection connections. Orbis, 57(3), pp. 467-484.
(14) Zyck, S. and Muggah, R., 2013. Conflicts colliding in Mali and the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2(2), pp. 2-6.
(15) Dowd, C. and Raleigh, C., 2013. The myth of global Islamic terrorism and local conflict in Mali and the Sahel. African Affairs, 112(448), pp. 498-509.
(16) Lacher, W., ‘Organized crime and conflict in the Sahel-Sahara region’, Carnegie, September 2013, http://carnegieendowment.org; Dowd, C. and Raleigh, C., 2013. The myth of global Islamic terrorism and local conflict in Mali and the Sahel. African Affairs, 112(448), pp. 498-509.
(17) Wing, S., 2013. Mali: Politics of a crisis. African Affairs, 112(448), pp. 476-485.
(18) Branson, K. and Wilkinson, H., 2013. “Analysis of the crisis in northern Mali”, in Conflict over resources and terrorism: Two facets of insecurity. OECD; Bøås, M. and Torheim, L.E., 2013. The trouble in Mali – corruption, collusion, resistance. Third World Quarterly, 34 (7), pp. 1279-1292.
(19) Forest, J.J.F., 2011. Al Qaeda’s influence in Sub-Saharan Africa: Myths realities and possibilities. Perspectives on Terrorism, 5(3-4), pp. 63-80.
(20) Gearon, E., 2013. Mali and the Middle East: Viable solutions. Middle East Policy, 20(3), pp. 134-144.
(21) Dowd, C. and Raleigh, C., 2013. The myth of global Islamic terrorism and local conflict in Mali and the Sahel. African Affairs, 112(448), pp. 498-509.
(22) Marchal, R., 2013. Military (mis)adventures in Mali. African Affairs, 112(448), pp. 486-497.
(23) Zyck, S. and Muggah, R., 2013. Conflicts colliding in Mali and the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2(2), pp. 2-6.
(24) Hagberg, S. and Körling, G., 2012. Socio-political turmoil in Mali: The public debate following the coup d’état on 22 March 2012. Africa Spectrum, 47(2-3), pp. 111-125.
(25) Arieff, A., ‘Crisis in Mali. CRS report for Congress’, Congressional Research Service, 13 January 2013, https://www.fas.org; Zyck, S. and Muggah, R., 2013. Conflicts colliding in Mali and the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2(2), pp. 2-6.
(26) Boukhars, A., 2013. “The paranoid neighbor: Algeria and the conflict in Mali” in Wehrey, F. and Boukhars, A. (eds.). Perilous desert: Insecurity in the Sahara. Carnegie Endowment: Washington.
(27) Walker, S., 2013. Instability in Mali. New Zealand International Review, 38(4), pp. 10-12,
(28) Ibid.
(29) Ibid.
(30) Gearon, E., 2013. Mali and the Middle East: Viable solutions. Middle East Policy, 20(3), pp. 134-144.