AFRICA THIRTEENTH STOP MALI

MALI

AFRICA

BACKGROUND :

Africa covers 6 per cent of the surface of the Earth and provides 20.4 per cent of Earth’s landmass.   Occupying this massive  and significant territory there are 1.1 Billion people. Africa is the second largest and second most populous continent on Earth.


MALI


The Republic of Mali is yet another landlocked country. it is bordered to the North by a small part of Mauritania, to the North East by Algeria, to the East and South by Niger, and to the South by Burkina Faso and Cote d Ivoire and to the West by Guinea and Senegal and then to the North and West by Mauritania completing its encirclement.

Mali is the 24th largest country in the world and the 8th largest country in Africa . (It is interesting to note that Mali is almost twice the size of it former colonial power France which ranks 42nd in the world.) However, with a population of only 16 .2 millions , Mali is only the 66th most populous country in the world, and the 17th most populous country in Africa ( the former Colonial power France has a population of 66 millions and ranks 20th in the world.)  

The fact that Mali's Northern reaches extend deep into the Sahara Desert, goes along way toward explaining the disparity between the size of Mali and its population.

Mali is yet another country whose long history has been largely a product of the trans Saharan trade routes, and the interactions of the historic African powers that vied to influence that trade : the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire and the Songhai Empire.Mali to-day is formed out of parts of those Empires. The zenith of the civilisation in the area was reached in the 1300s when there is evidence of flourishing mathematics, astronomy, art and literature.

The trans Saharan trade was in gold, salt, slaves and precious goods.

The slave trade was feeding North African Mohammedan Arab demand - which was at the same time preying on Christian sources in the Mediterranean area.

The trans Saharan trade remained significant until the European powers' sea borne trading efforts and their larger volumes and possibilities made it ineffective and redundant. Following a Mohammedan invasion of Moroccan origin, the Songhai Empire which originated in North Western present day Nigeria, collapsed and the region's trade crossroads role was at an end.

In the period from the late 1600s the whole of West Africa was afflicted by recurring drought and by devastating plague locusts. So bad was it, that in the period 1738-1756 half the population of fabled Timbuktu was killed by the effects of drought and plague locusts. Thus weakened, the region was ripe for invasion when , in the wake of the European " scramble for Africa" following the Berlin carve-up, the French took control in the late 1800s. By 1905 the area was integrated firmly into French Sudan. But in the post World War II period in 1959 French Sudan changed its name to the Sudanese Republic and joined with Senegal to form the Mali Federation which gained its independence from France in 1960. But in that same year, Senegal withdrew and the Sudanese Republic became the Republic of Mali. Its first President quickly turned it into a one party state and turned his back on the West. In 1968 he was overthrown in a military coup led by Moussa Traure. After prolonged and growing violent opposition, the coup Government was itself overthrown by part of the military forces alienated by Traure's harsh efforts to suppress opposition.

A new Constitution was created and democratic multi-party elections were held. This led to a period of stable government.

But there are sad facts recorded about Mali , for example there are said to be 200,000 slaves in the country owing obedience to a master. A significant factor in all the later violence in the country, has been a very large number of well-armed Tuaregs who had gone to Libya to fight in the Civil War there and returned to Mali with the idea of creating their own nation in the North of the country which they named Azawad.

In all of this violence and warfare it should be remembered that the parties involved are all Mohammedans fighting one another. As it happened the Malian forces held out against the Tuaregs who finally gave up on their demands.

In more recent times, Mali has become less hostile to Western connections and more pragmatic.Many Government enterprises have been privatised, and new private enterprise projects have been approved.
80 % of Malian workers are in agriculture - many only seasonally employed and 15% are in the services sector.

Mali has a very sorry record in infant mortality with 106 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2007.In that same year 48% of Malians were less than 12 years old. 90 % of Malians are Mohammedans, 5% Christians (2/3rds Catholic) and 5% follow indigenous religious practices. The Mohammedans - except in the North in recent years have had no adverse effect on non-Mohammedans. But the return of the Tuaregs from Libya did introduce severe persecution of Christians in that region.

There we have it - Mali. It is interesting that in my childhood the name Timbuktu was proverbial - as a place unthinkably " lost" - if you were told " you might as well be in Timbuktu" you were going into very deep trouble!