Why French intervention in Mali isn't just rocking the Casbah

Any British observer, such as myself, who hears the news that the French are deploying their forces into deepest darkest Africa should hopefully do so with a suitable measure of skepticism as to the motives of the Elysee palace, which history has shown can be on occasion less than reputable.

Now to clear any initial confusion its not memories of the clash at Fashoda or the battle of the Nile that are being referred to, as fresh as those events indubitably are in the British experience. Instead darker periods in France's colonial record come to mind. Let it certainly not be forgotten the million plus casualties inflicted throughout France's protracted and perfectly senseless conflict in Algeria. This conflict whilst being conducted alongside the pre-amble to the Vietnam war in French Indochina, firmly abolished the myth of the romantic image of the French legionnaire bravely traversing the unforgiving Sahara. The very same Sahara which the French government thought it proper to use as a testing ground for its nuclear weapon's program, this of course being before the heroic use of the French armed services in sinking the Rainbow warrior in 1985 for trying to interfere with further atmospheric tests in the Pacific Ocean. If one adds to this list the equally appalling Operation Turquoise which in 1994 saw the French army invade Rwanda during the country's genocide in order to prop up the government which was perpetrating those very massacres, then the point should hopefully be being conveyed.

This is not to say for one moment that British foreign policy towards Africa has been one without significant and often forgotten stains. However the unique nature of the French relationship with the continent is the country's strange persistence in taking an active role in maintaining French influence over and leadership in the Francophone world which it considers to be its power bloc and sphere of hegemony. Unlike the British who have somewhat gracefully overseen the decline of their presence in Africa the French still seem determined to cling on, this is recognised as being due to France's desire to still remain at the top table of world politics as a counter weight to the dreaded Anglo-Saxon threat. But another important key for understanding why French leaders arn't reluctant to flex their muscles in Africa is as the historian Gerard Prunier elucidates, because French Presidents realise that this is a part of the world in which still only a few hundred soldiers can command great power and can decide the fates of governments and civil wars. When such forces can be commanded under presidential authority and in the case of the Foreign Legion are more expendable than some, such interventions start to become quite attractive and cost effective.

Though this being kept in mind, and treading cautiously with the information we have so far, the intervention in Mali might perhaps be one of France's more productive African operations. The Libyan operation, though its lasting outcome still yet to be seen, was a fresh example of the ability of France and its NATO allies to use military power for more noble ends, which is a faculty which many liberal commentators fiercely deny any Western power could possibly ever posses. The comments of philosopher and public intellectual Bernard Henri Levi who worked on the ground throughout the conflict as a servant of the French government are particularly illuminating and speak to more noble motivation at the heart of the NATO effort. Levi who has been critical of the French political right and former  President Nicholas Sarkozy, being an outspoken leftist, has spoken and written passionately about how the French and British governments decisively seized the initiative to use their air forces to back the people of Libya in their struggle against the Gaddafi dictatorship.        

The intervention in Mali however might not be able to claim to be in the name of the promotion of multi-party democracy, which has been in trouble in Mali since the military coup of last year. Neither will another military conflict do anything for Mali's economic development with nearly half of its population living on less than one dollar per day. However crucially the French force of arms can and must prevent the country from falling foul of a severe threat which has made itself manifest in other parts of Africa and the Middle East, devastatingly so. This is the spectre of militant Islamism. Millions of Africans have already perished by the sword of such forces in the Sudan, Algeria Somalia and Nigeria which have sought to follow the Taliban Afghanistan model of destroying all semblances of civilisation in these countries. Needless to say the brand of Islamo-Fascism which the French are halting the advance of into the south of Mali not only claims mountains of victims both dead and alive but completely retards any chances of progress of economic and social development that such countries may have. From this angel saving 50% of the population of Mali from becoming sexual chattel and therefore further accentuating and cementing the problems the country already has with slavery, is vital if Mali and its neighbours are to have any hope of a future in which, like Asia and Latin America, they join the globalised world and economy which would unquestionably be to the benefit of everyone involved. The practical aspirations of the mission therefore, even though being quite minimal and largely defensive and preventative in nature, go further than just security concerns of allowing a client nation of international jihad to form.

This is too often the forgotten argument which vibrates to the neo-conservative reasoning that it is ultimately in the West's interest to stop the advance of the forces of reactionary Islam not just to stop repeats of 9/11. If we ever want Africa and the Middle East to become more than just the poor and neglected relation of the developed world then it is of the up most importance that such movements are not allowed to succeed wherever they might raise their ugly head.  Even though as it is often commented, especially in relation to Hamas, that such movements are the result of poverty like any extreme political movement such as European fascism, their power to needlessly perpetuate and deepen such poverty and misery must be firmly recognised and that it is in nobody's interest to let them do so.

It is with these concerns in mind that the British population should be less sceptical  and begrudging of the use of small amounts of British logistical support to aid the French effort. Just as moans of reluctance and discontent met the decision to topple the Libyan dictatorship which in turn mirrored the fabulous amount of indignation produced by the idea British troops might be being used to get rid of Saddam Hussein and to help the Iraqi people make a bid at transforming their country into a somewhat more liberal entity. Such short sighted indifference has always proved to be throughout history a much more destructive force than zealots with AK-47s and RPGs. When the Chamberlain whine about the unwelcome impact of small countries far away about which we know little becomes our first touch stone in our public discussion about British foreign policy then the results of that policy are bound to be less than encouraging. Indeed it seems necessary that Pascal Bruckner's tremendous book 'The Tyranny of Guilt' which highlights the evil of the influence of moral relativism and anti-Americanism on the attitudes of the liberal left receives an accompanying volume on the equally dangerous and prevalent tyranny of apathy.

So as much as it is always vital to keep in mind the dark potentials of French military manoeuvres in Africa the Mali operation, even though not quite being the vanguard of the ideas of 1789, might well be more inspired than some. As the Belgians say about the French you never know what 'the Camembert' is going to do next but at least for now the outlook is positive.