I have nothing else to offer here than a song. Its a song on a new album of a Malian singer/musician — Inna Modja. She comes from northern Mali, and as most people on Daily Kos should be aware of, the region has been in the center of extensive insurgency and warfare in the last years. Most western people will have heard of it during the episode when the state of Mali nearly collapsed, and islamist insurgents, of saharan people’s makeup, captured and ruled Timbuktu for a while, the famed old center of west african islamic tradition.
I dont think I should try to describe more of the background. I know hardly anything about the Mali, whereas Inna Modja is from there. I also know even less about her, except she grew up, went to France to study, and was determined to make her way as an artist, she apparently began or earned her spurs as a model and chanteuse of popular songs, embedded in the French popular culture of the day. But she is from Mali and had apparently no intention to stop being that. She turned around and made some more music.
That’s in Bambara — her language … and its worth writing the translation out (as is in the subtitles)
The Night has fallen // Hunger is rising
Every single month of the year we are struggling
Everyday single day our People are being killed
The Endless War has just began
We won't sit down and shut up
Let our country be conquered by intruders
They aim to conquer the North
They aim to conquer the South
They aim to conquer our souls
The Day is up // The sun is rising
They sweared they will never ever give us back Kidal
Our Country is broken
Hyenas have come into our homes and will have no
Mercy on us
Our people are starting to rebel
We won't unite with these intruders
They aim to break our Fathers
Force our mothers to surrender
They want to silence our voices
We will keep on fighting, The light is coming
Dibi donna: The Night has fallen
It doesnt contain the midsection where she goes through the many places that have been visited by the troubles … Djenné, Gao, Niafunke, Koulikoro and so on.
One might note the name she wears on the one t-shirt — frontside — is Thomas Sankara. A person well worth knowing about. The slogan she wears on the one t-shirt backside — “La patrie ou la mort” [… nous vaincrons] — is a slogan from Thomas Sankara’s revolution.
Inna Modja can very well talk for herself and since she’s polyglot, here goes:
its worth listening through; the interview starts out with the personalities that could be put aside as no more than the personalities of a next generation musician .. but she gets to politics soon enough (as its the logical consequence).
For me, on hearing this, the song has another dimension, one that goes beyond the singer, and her beloved Mali alone.
Everyday single day our People are being killed
The Endless War has just began
We won't sit down and shut up
Let our country be conquered by intruders
They aim to conquer the North
They aim to conquer the South
They aim to conquer our souls
That could have just as well come from Aleppo.
The people coming across the Mediterranean Sea are generally seen in our countries as refugees, as weak and therefore (for the ones) needy of our help or (for the others) not deserving of our help. But in fact they are not weak at all. They are human and as strong as the grass, certainly they will not lie down and suffer their fates whatever we northerners would decree it to be. Inna Modja in this song doesnt say “please [Western] world come save us from the Islamists”; they are going to stand by themselves. No more and no less than the likes of us do.
Thanks for listening with me, if you did, until here. I hope you appreciated it.