Joe Penney writing in Think Africa Press:
More here...Restoring Mali's ‘democracy’ by reverting to the pre-coup status quo poses a major threat to Mali’s long-term future. After all, it was precisely this pre-coup status quo that allowed the country’s dramatic collapse to begin with.
Malian forces, seen here in the town of Diably on Jan. 26, (Joe Penney)
Mali’s borders, original constitution, and official language are all inherited from its former avaricious French colonial masters. Its cumbersome colonial-era boundaries – resembling two large triangles stuck hastily together with a thin strip of land in the middle – has proven particularly significant during the recent conflict. 90% percent of the population resides in the southern triangle, whose crops feed the whole country, while the northern triangle, which accounts for two-thirds of Mali’s territory, consists almost entirely of sparsely populated desert. Mali’s political and economic structures were also built using models left by the French colonial administration; they were not designed to benefit the Malian people, and the economic situation is liable to collapse at any time.
Yet many in the West are calling for a return to the politics of the past, and economic reform seems absent from any plan to rebuild Mali.
