Don't Mess With Mali - Part Two

            The fourth listed reason was that Mali is an extremely cultural region with beautiful unique and peaceful traditions. Most of Mali follows a kind of unique and virtuous Islamic tradition, which gives women public lives. If countries begin to battle over Mali, many are afraid that the musical and artistic culture will be ruined. I don’t really see how this reason would affect other governments from taking action though. Hear me out, if you look at the history of Africa, there used to be a lot of tribes and interesting cultures but the countries carved it up anyway. What I learned in world history was that the imperialism of Africa caused the destruction of most of the tribes and cultures and traditions but the greedy European countries did it anyway.

            A conflict in Mali would also create victims of the crisis. There are hundreds of thousands of Malians that are already displaced from the country and dying of disease. The article mentioned exact numbers which I will gladly share; “there are at least 150,000 refugees in neighboring countries, and more than 50,000 that live in Mauritania, a refugee camp.” Many if the refugees are dying from malnutrition and diarrhea. This may be off topic and a Western opinion but I feel like diarrhea would be a horrible and stupid way to die. Anyways, if the fighting continues, there would just be more and more refugees and more and more people dying.

            Finally, Mali would matter because, almost sadly, it has become a kind of experiment to test how well international action would work against militant Islam in Africa; the way that the international governments fights against the extremist organizations can set a precedent for future military action for other groups depending on how successful that campaign is.

           

            Hopefully this summed up the article pretty well for you but honestly I see know that the reasons were a little politically biased. If you learned anything, it should have been just to leave Mali alone because it does matter and the actions have consequences. (343)