18 March 2013
Publisher Scott Taylor has been sounding the tocsin over
Canada’s deployment of a C-17 Globemaster aircraft to Mali in aid of the French
effort there.
As a result of the collapse of the Gadhafi in Libya, for
part of which Canada bears responsibility, militarily proficient Tuareg
tribesmen returned to their native Mali and nearly destroyed the country. Troops from mainland France deployed to Mali
and restored the situation, and for the sustainment of these forces France
asked Canada for the assistance of one of her strategic lift aircraft. Canada’s commitment has lasted longer than
the government projected, and our commitment will likely persist for as long as
French combat troops are in theatre.
That Mali collapsed ought to give pause to westerners. Mali was created out of French West Africa in
1960. It was seen as a stable country in
the Treaty of Westphalia sense. It had
borders, a government, and a sense of nationality - leavened and weakened by
powerful cross-currents of tribalism and race.
The relationship of tribe, religion, race and nation were supposed to
have been settled, and all that remained was for Mali to develop economically
and to expand and raise the level of education for it to ripen into a liberal
democracy with African roots.
The overthrow of the Gadhafi regime disrupted Malian equilibrium
with unsettling ease. Freebooting Tuareg
tribesmen, thrown out of work in Libya through the fall of Gadhafi, joined with
elements of al-Qaeda, and tried to found a separate country upon the desert
wastelands of Northern Mali. What is
worrisome to westerners is the ease with which an African country organized on
western lines collapsed in the face of weak tribal forces motivated by
grievance and fired by religious zeal. Malian
military forces, trained by western countries, ought to have given a good
account of themselves. In the event,
large numbers of these military forces changed sides.
The French military theoretician Colonel Ardant Du Picq
would account for the collapse of Malian forces before the Tuaregs to
differences in morale. The tribesmen had
a cause, while the trained military force did not. They did not even have professional pride,
apparently, despite western training.
After an independent Azawad was declared, France deployed
its military. The French military
provided the air power and the corseting on the ground that enabled fresh
Malian forces to drive out the al Qaeda forces who had hijacked the rebellion. The appearance of western civilization was
thus restored, but France has more mopping up to do.
After sixty-five years of French governance followed by
another sixty as an independent country, showing all the signs that a civilized
political culture had taken root, Mali in this crisis reverted to the kind of
Africa that the Saracens overran in the seventh century. The larger question that Mali raises is when
NATO partners should serve as fire brigades for liberal democracy.
After Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and now Mali,
western countries ought to become alive to the differences between western
civilization and other civilizations in the rest of the world. It may rankle some to hear it said, but the
wondrous beliefs of liberty, equality, justice for all before the law, and
respect for human rights which were born of the Western experience, are not the
cultural inheritance of large portions of the world. Even the experience of these values for a
long time seems to make no lasting impression in the Middle East and in large
parts of Africa.
Those of the third world who speak in terms of western
values talk in a learned language. The
collapse of Mali shows that there is little cultural basis for them. Western values are forms to be observed until
something thrusting comes along, such as a return to tribalism.
The French are admirable for the way in which they tend to
the countries born of their empire. The
front line of western civilization runs through Mali, and because of decisive
French action al-Qaeda presently has no Treaty of Westphalia to hide behind
like they had in Afghanistan.
But is rescuing Africa the best medium term strategy against
Islamic extremism? Should the west be on
the offensive everywhere? Would it not
be better to wait and allow extremist anti-western forces to gain a foothold
somewhere, the better for them to concentrate?
Islamic extremism is no more the cultural inheritance of sub-Sahara Africa
than liberal democracy is.
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