by JACQUES DELCROZE
Northern Mali has been held since June by radical Islamist groups that have taken the regions of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, nearly two-thirds of the country. They offer money and help to the poorest who haven’t fled and they find it easy to recruit unemployed youths with no prospects. In Gao, they supply fuel and food at cost price, equip health care centres, and pay the care workers. A member of parliament from the north said that when he tried to contact Iyad Ag Ghali, leader of the group Ançar Dine, he was told: “I’ll meet you when you’ve resigned from your post. Members of parliament have no legitimacy under God’s law.” The groups commit their violence in God’s name.
So is sharia law now likely to spread? Mali is two and a half times the size of France, and the north seems very distant from the “useful” part of the country, where 90% of the population live. In Bamako, the traditional tolerance is still evident. Most people kept the Ramadan fast (which ended in mid-August), but Mali-style, with no public constraints on personal piety: restaurants were open, alcohol was available and some smoked in the streets.
Employment is the main worry as the economy had been badly damaged by the global financial crisis, and many companies, especially in the services sector, have closed or laid off staff temporarily. Hotels and restaurants were the first to be hit, but now most sectors of the economy are barely ticking over. Some of the big employers, such as Air Mali, are cutting jobs. Only the mining sector seems to have been spared, with the government still paying wages.
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