Opinion

What we refrain ourselves from saying on Azawad

OPINION. Which are the main issues that are behind the most usual discourses that are found in the media on Azawad? Which are the foreign links around the proposal for an Islamic state there, if MNLA has repeatedly stated that it is against that idea? CIEMEN Recognition Area's Soraya Sough explains some of the key issues here.

The Sahel region made its entrance into the international scene, not necessarily at its best time, and is considered a region of all dangers for the Arabic and Western mass media "consumers"; completely and consciously ignoring the presence and even the existence of its native people who cannot conceive living anywhere else but in this immense wild nature.

The Tuareg people in Mali have created a precedent in the history of the Amazigh people by declaring the independence of their entire territory as a Republic under the arabised name of Azawad, in Tamashek Azawagh, on April 6th, 2012.

Is this is a done deal? Geopolitically speaking, the new Tuareg state is the perfect embodiment of a mosaic of problems.

The phenomenon of international terrorism under its various forms of dissidents groups of AQMI that activate in the territory of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Mali and Niger forced these countries to work together, hand in hand to counter act this phenomenon.

However Algeria, being the first military power in North Africa, takes its contribution in this fight as one more way to expand its international influence and reduce as much as possible the eventuality of having an Islamic state, which is proven to be supported and financed by Qatar and other unidentified countries, led by the AQIM acolytes at its own borders, as proved by French magazine Le Canard Enchaîné.

When the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA) has officially adhered to the Universal Charter of the United Nations we suddenly face an obvious planned lack of means of protection and deliberate non-assistance to persons in danger, not to mention the unexplained absence of the United Nations with its various agencies which are meant to assist refugees and displaced people. No conviction is to be seen, no concrete initiatives on the ground, no international public reactions! No international reaction whatsoever when the MNLA expressed its will to build a secular republic respecting the core and individuality of its native people living in this vast territory and bring them all together. Indeed, the Tuaregs' demands are no different from those of social movements in Europe and elsewhere, outraged by their fate.

Algeria has definitely a lot to lose if the Azawad is confirmed as a political reality. In fact, gas fields which represent the number one country's wealth fund are part of the Tuareg territory. Bear in mind that the Tuareg people have been scattered across six different states resulting from colonialism that drew and imposed arbitrary boundaries that do not reflect the reality of the people who lived there since the dawn of times. Furthermore, Algeria is at a high risk of seeing its territory shrinking drastically if ever the other Amazigh people came to claim their independence as well.

The situation in the Sahel and in the Azawad leads to a codified language of power struggles displays between several states such as France, the United States, China, Middle Eastern Arab countries in order to grab a piece of the subsoil wealth of the Tuareg territory. Facing the usual spectacle of rivalry states of West Africa with their jacobinistes speeches and postures, too insecure to assume their true identities and diversity, Mali is the perfect example: a state artificially created after 1960 and one of members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which includes 15 states, rushing to suggest solutions pumped and pushed by a heavily driven to military "logistical" support from France however remains poor and diplomatically effortless.

It becomes obvious that the real motivations of the ECOWAS member obey to the universal rule of fear. Fear of contagion and the spillover their beloved and precious territories, so vulnerable to the fragility of their own States and the latest repetitive coups in the region.

On the ideological side: Azawad represents this "neutral" ground for the reinvention of the foundations of what so called the first world: a European Union that spent too many years considering itself the center of the world, the legacy of the last power of the cold war that has overestimated its own abilities. The profound political upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East have grown rapidly and reinvented themselves in so many ways.

It is well known that wars and conflicts have to created and kept burning to maintain the defense industry and war lords' prosperity. Reviving capitalism and reclaim the global sovereignty through the African continent which has been the only continent to show a positive growth this year.

In the end, we realize that the former African Colonialist has not changed its methods or faces. NATO armies do not make the colonialist Africa's savior hero. Always the same old story, the same old ghosts that haunted our collective pasts and still carry on bothering our fragile present.