Ask the average Malian this question, “Parles-tu Français encore?” (Do you speak French still?) Knowing where you are coming from, his response, in all probability, will be: “Oui, je la parlerai toujour, mais ce n’est pas obligatoire au present, non plus.” (Yes, I’ll always speak it but now it isn’t compulsory) Yes, he would be right. French is no longer the official language of this large West African nation, for many years la colonie of France, until 1960 when it gained it’s independence. Even with freedom, Mali chose the French language as its lingua franca and its currency was (still is) tied to the French franc.
The context of this imaginary dialogue is the decision of the soldiers in Mali, who seized power in a coup in 2020, to drop French as the country’s official language. Under a new constitution passed overwhelmingly with 96.91 precent of the vote in a June 18 referendum, French ceases to be the official language but will be the working language from now on. It recognizes 13 indigenous languages as official ones. These include Bambara, Bobo, Dogon and Minianka.
The dropping of French as the official language is to spite France for condemning the 2020 forcible takeover of power. Before now, the junta, headed by Col. Assimi Goita, had cancelled all defence agreements with Paris. It also asked the United Nations, which had also condemned the coup, to end its decades old peace mission, Minusma, started in 2013 to prevent a jihadist takeover. Malian foreign minister Abdoulaye Diop told the UN Security Council in June that Minusma had been a “failure” and demanded it be disbanded. The pullout was completed last month. Under longstanding UN practice, a peacekeeping mission needs the approval of the host nation. Those ‘retaliatory’ actions have been taken by the junta, it is believed, because it has found a ‘new’ partner in Russia. Already Russian military contractors are pouring into Mali.
Let us look at the sense, or the lack of it, in the actions taken by the junta. Getting rid of the French language. This last vestige of French imperialism has stuck to the cultural skin like a leech. It takes over the mind, the intellect and the soul. It ‘assimilates’ you as a French national but, in truth, it leaves you looking neither French nor Malian. The policy of assimilation was a fraud. It made the colonist French but not truly French. In Bamako, you could tell the French man from the frenchised African: the quarters of the administrators sent from Paris were built on a mole higher up there while the accommodation for African assistants was lower down in the valley. (Remember Emily Bronte’s novel “Wuthering Heights”)
“Seizing the day” to attack this cultural fraud was the Malian junta’s vain idea of legitimizing its own illegality. The action made it ‘popular’ with the people who probably were paid, or forced, to demonstrate on the streets in its support. But they did so, still speaking to each other in the language of the enemy. See, the leech won’t go away by wishing it to disappear. The coupists themselves painfully realized this implausibility, that’s why they have not kicked out French altogether. And even if they had done so, France couldn’t have cared less about that. The cost to Paris of maintaining and sustaining the relics of imperial France is a burden it would gladly shed. If the power usurpers in Mali would help do that they are welcome.
As for kicking out the French military garrison and the UN’s Minusma mission because they have “failed” to stop the advance of jihadists from northern Mali, that is even more absurd. The insurgency has lasted all of 10 years, and if not for the French military and UN intervention, the rebels would have easily overrun the country. Where was the Malian army all that time? Disparu, virtuellment ( virtually disappeared). America fears that with Minusma booted out of Mali, the Malian people would suffer harm. “We deeply regret the transitional government’s decision to abandon Minusma and the harm this will bring to the Malian people,” senior US diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis told the UN Security Council. But it is exactly what the army wants. The more harm the ordinary people suffer, the more compelling their excuse to cling to power. To them, the power of the gun isn’t enough except backed by economic/ financial might. They have watched the politicians feed fat on state resources. Now they want more than a taste of the pudding, they want to eat it themselves. They tell you that when they overthrow politicians they do so to save you and me. But our experiences in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Uganda and Sudan tell us that “military managerialism” is no less destructive. If anything, it is death itself.
And courting Russian partnership? Your enemy’s enemy is your friend, is it? But a Russian approchment could be disastrous for the Malian junta. A veritable military power Russia may be, but right now it is in no position to save itself, talk less another country. Its hands are full, right now, with the war in neighbouring Ukraine. The seesaw way the war is going, Russia may very well be consumed by it. A sign of internal combustion is all too visible in the Wagner Group mutiny in May in Moscow. So, seeking help from a drowning man doesn’t seem a sensible thing to do. So, I ask my imaginary Malian friends again, “parlez-vous Français encore apres avoir vu ce que s’est passe?” (Will you still speak or use French after what you have seen?)
