DVD
Review: Timbuktu—Jihad for Dummies
A
gazelle zigzags through the landscape while macho maniacs fire at it
with guns. That represents fragile systems under attack. Remember
'Bambi Meets Godzilla'? The same macho maniacs then destroy cultural
artifacts as a matter of (religious) course, anything a threat to the
doctrines and dictates of dogma. People are corralled and cajoled
into concentration camps of convenience for the sake of religion
without reason and even less rhyme: neither cigarettes, music, nor
football—God forbid alcohol—are allowed.
I
think everybody has at least some vague recollection of the events
that occurred in northern Mali in 2012, when Arab jihadis
basically co-opted the desert nomadic Tuaregs' long wished-for dreams
of an Azawad homeland, using them in their quest for a fundamentalist
Islamist state, then basically hanging the Tuaregs out to dry before
the central Bamako government—with French help—regained control.