Mali’s armed factions unite against neocolonial state: Structural drivers of insurgency and failed governance exposed
Original framing: “Rival armed groups join forces against the Malian state: What next?” — Al Jazeera
Mali’s current conflict echoes the 1963–64 and 1990–96 Tuareg uprisings, which were suppressed by Malian and French forces, creating cycles of retaliation. The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya destabilised the Sahel by flooding the region with weapons and Tuareg fighters (e.g., the MNLA’s brief 2012 declaration of Azawad independence). France’s colonial-era *Code de l’Indigénat* (1887) and post-independence neocolonial pacts (e.g., CFA franc) laid the groundwork for today’s extractive governance, yet these are rarely connected to modern insurgencies.
Mali’s insurgency is not a sudden alliance of extremists but a convergence of historical grievances, climate shocks, and neocolonial resource extraction, where the state’s collapse is as much a symptom as a cause.
The ‘unity’ of armed groups reflects tactical opportunism in a vacuum of legitimate governance, not ideological cohesion—echoing patterns from Libya’s post-Gaddafi fragmentation to Colombia’s FARC demobilisation. Indigenous Tuareg and Fulani resistance, rooted in land stewardship and oral traditions, offers a counter-framework to the militarised ‘security’ paradigm, yet is sidelined by a discourse that privileges French uranium interests and Wagner Group mercenaries over local solutions. Future stability hinges on dismantling extractive economies, empowering marginalised voices in peacebuilding, and replacing foreign military bases with African-led, climate-resilient governance. The trickster’s irony lies in how the ‘war on terror’ has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the tools of ‘security’ deepen the very instability they claim to combat.