Islamic Democracy? Mali Finds a Way To Make It Work:
All over Mali last month, the boisterous pursuit of votes unfolded with hardly a hitch. Candidates focused on everyday issues like garbage removal and roads. Their lively campaigns showcased something highly unusual in the Muslim world: a thriving democracy.Islam and democracy haven’t had a good record together, especially where mixed with deep poverty such as that of this sprawling West African country. While much of the world has moved away from authoritarian rule, the New York think tank Freedom House ranks just two of the globe’s 47 Muslim-majority nations fully “free.” They are Mali, a democracy since 1992, and neighboring Senegal. Mali’s rare success thus stands as both a hopeful sign and a measure of the task the U.S. faces in seeking to seed democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can’t say I knew much about Mali:
Democracy might seem to face particularly long odds in Mali. The former French colony sits astride one of the world’s most violent neighborhoods. To the north is Algeria, wracked by a lethal Islamist insurgency, and to the south the Ivory Coast, rent by ethnic civil war.Mali — bigger than Texas and California combined, with 12 million people — is a hodgepodge of ethnic groups. Listening to Mr. Cissé campaign were black Songhay farmers in Muslim skullcaps, Arab traders with goatees, Peul cattlemen in conical leather hats, and olive-skinned Tuareg nomads whose full-face turbans left only sunglasses exposed. The diversity reflects Timbuktu’s past as a caravan crossroads where the Sahara meets a bend in the muddy Niger River.
Mali’s “intricate social fabric” includes taboos against violence among castes and ethnic groups:
That tradition is known to locals as “cousinage,” and arose as a way to preserve peace as empire succeeded empire in medieval times. The descendants of winners and losers were usually made “cousins” in order to bury grievances. The tradition of loyalty to multiple cousin groups still defines social relationships in Mali, in contrast to the tribal allegiances that are the rule in much of the Arab world and tropical Africa further south.