I was saddened to read of the passing of Ali Farka Touré. The Malian was one of Africa's best and most famous musicians. He won a Grammy for his album Talking Timbuktu, which he made with Ry Cooder. But his albums Niafunké and Radio Mali were even better, in my opinion, if less well-known. One of the reasons I loved his sound was that while the music of many other African artists popular in the west is overproduced, Ali Farka Touré's music was very simple and organic. The greatest complement I can pay his music is that whenever I heard it, I was instantly transported back to my small West African village.
He had been recently named mayor of his home village Niafunké. It's worth noting that despite international reknown, he chose to remain in the dusty and generally unpleasant Sahel rather than moving to New York or Paris. While there, he tried to use his fame to improve the lives of his fellow villagers. He was also active in supporting young, up and coming Malian musicians.
His music is truly a joy to listen to.
Note: A humorous anecdote. A few years ago, my sister and her boyfriend were over. I had Talking Timbuktu (which Farka Touré recorded with Ry Cooder) in my CD player. My sister's boyfriend saw the album cover and asked, "Who's that guy with Ry Cooder?" I laughed and said, "That's funny because when I first saw the cover, I wondered who was that guy with Ali Farka Touré." We both chuckled.
5 comments:
Randy,
First, I think it's laughable beyond credulity to suggest that the interests of ordinary American citizens are a primary component of US foreign policy.
Though I lived in West Africa (about 2000 miles away from the Sudan), I have written about Darfur quite a bit in my Africa blog (blackstarjournal.blogspot.com). Three of the more notable entries being:
http://blackstarjournal.blogspot.com/2005/12/darfur-genocide-over-because-theres-no.html
http://blackstarjournal.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-never-again-keeps-happening.html
http://blackstarjournal.blogspot.com/2005/05/strange-bedfellows.html
Frankly, I don't think anybody in the world has handled this well.
The US was intent on minimalism for a variety of reasons. Our reputation is so battered in the Muslim world because of the Iraq aggression and Bush's Holy Crusade that we no longer have any credibility even when it comes to serious issues like this genocide. The US also didn't want to put too much pressure on the Khartoum regime because the US had invested a great deal in the north-south peace process in Sudan. Though I've heard it argued that the Sudanese regime went along with the peace process in the south so they could have impunity in Darfur. The strategy worked. The military regime also has cracked down on its Islamist former allies in the last few years so I'm sure that bought it leverage with the Bush admin as well.
The UN (which, as you know, is really member countries) was intent on minimalism for a variety of reasons. It was distracted by the oil-for-food problems and was on the defensive because of the American far right's incessant smear campaign against it. Also, the divisions resulting from the Iraq aggression hadn't fully healed which meant forceful action here was always going to be unlikely.
The African Union did try to take an active role here. But the AU (and its predecessor OAU) have always been run by the principle of non-interference in the affairs of member states. So this has always hampered the African body from even issuing strong statements. The AU sent a peace monitoring force to Darfur but the resources just weren't there. The AU wants to hand it off to the UN but the Sudanese regime is violently opposed to this.
The Arab League didn't do or say anything because the only thing ever on their agenda is bashing the US over Iraq and bashing Israel over everything else.
I really would've liked to see the US and EU offer resources (money and, if necessary, equipment and logistical support) to the AU so that they could've effectively done their job.
Frankly, I don't know if there's much left to be done. The genocide seems almost complete, by some accounts.
Umm, that's a really broad question. Maybe if you wanted to narrow it down a bit?
Randy,
First, Sudan may remain officially on the state sponsors of terrorism list (I wouldn't be surprised to see it dropped this year), but its military regime is also considered a burgeoning ally of the Bush administration. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1473788,00.html)
You make a very good point. It's an interesting question about which I'm having a detailed discussion with someone on this very topic.
I do believe that stopping genocide is one of the very legitimate uses of military force (besides actual self-defense, which is the primary reason behind a very small percentage of armed conflicts).
However, there are a few very important caveats that you shouldn't overlook.
a) I believe that military force can be used to stop genocide and the worst cases of crimes against humanity. And it also must be used for the sole purpose of impeding those worst crimes against humanity.
b) It must be a last case scenario after other options have tried and failed, due to the 'law of unintended consequences' that governs warfare. This is why I didn't just say crimes against humanity but the worst cases thereof.
c) Just the worst crimes against humanity is going on doesn't mean the US or some other country/ies under a UN (or continental body banner) must automatically invade. Military interventions of this sort must follow the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.
d) The most important way to stop genocide is to work to prevent it in the first place. The US, European Union and other western countries don't do a very good job of this. They are so myopic (in the US' case with so-called international terrorism) that they neglect hotspots that don't neatly fit into the good vs evil paradigm. What should've happened is that western countries should've put pressure on their Arab allies (for example the US on Egypt, France on Lebanon or Tunisia) to pressure the Sudanese regime to stop the killings in Darfur.
You see the rest of the world through the exclusive lens of the so-called war on terror. You spoke as much about Osama in Sudan and the country's appearance on the state sponsor of terrorism list as you did about the actual slaughter of tens of thousands of people. That's fine. BUT while you see the world exclusively through the lens of the so-called war on terror, people in many other countries do not. As a result, you have a hard time understanding these problems and offering solutions because you're trying to fit everything into a neat little box (Americans/al-Qaedaists). This box is meaningless to the people of Sudan or Darfur. It's like using a hammer to put in a screw; you're using the wrong tool.
This isn't new. Cold Warriors did the exact same thing. They didn't say, "Oh gosh, Pol Pot is killing millions of people." They said, "Hmm... is Pol Pot in our camp, the Soviets' camp or the Chinese camp?" If we'd determined he'd been in our camp, we would've supported him like we did many Latin American regimes despite their hideous mass crimes against humanity. Like we did Liberia's monster Samuel Doe (a great defender of freedom according to Ronald Reagan). That's the single biggest reason there's so much anti-Americanism in Latin America.
Given the above standards, I might've supported an intervention in Iraq in 1988-89 while Saddam was pursuing his genocide against the Kurds. But we didn't do that. The present aggression against Iraq in no conceivable way met any of these four conditions.
As for Sudan, I reluctantly conclude that the US shouldn't intervene there based on principle c). I think if the US were to invade Darfur, we would be seen as foreign aggressors and we would provoke Sudanese nationalism (and pan-Arabism as well) much as happened in Iraq. It would do more harm than good. And frankly, the result would be the same if France or Britain were to intervene as well.
The African Union force presently in Darfur is really the only option because it is not seen as western imperalism. The US, EU and other western countries should give the AU force the financial and logistical support it needs to carry out its mission effectively.
Ali Farka Touré was great. It was a great loss.
I wrote about him on my blog, with healthy borrowing from yours. I gave you a plug.
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