Development Studies, Postcolonial Studies
Biopolitics and its Application to the Refugees from Mali
The reverberations of the complex conflicts in Mali are felt around the world; a small war does not exist in the New Millennium. The global implications started before the conflicts and before the French intervention. For example, the National Movement for the Liberation on Azawad (the MNLA) only became possible with the dissolution of Libya’s army with the collapse of the Qaddafi regime in Libya. Former soldiers, both Tuareg and non-Tuareg, returned home to northern Mali equipped with weapons; the MNLA was formed when they joined with Tuareg rebel groups. The threat of extremists groups and terrorism led to security agreements between northern African neighbors. Militarized extremists calling labeled as ‘Islamist jihadist groups’ were strengthened, not in the least motivationally, by the USA’s long war in Afghanistan. The ‘Islamist jihadists’ militarily took over northern Mali has become a region where Sharia law is enforced. Their actions motivated a French military intervention. France’s involvement also gave the French political establishment an opportunity to prove their ability to maintain global power even if their prime minister is a Socialist. Through all these dynamics between countries across Northern Africa, in Europe and extremists from many parts of the world; it is the people of Mali who suffer the most because the families and population of Mali is forced into an existence as refugees.
The creation of refugees in Mali shifts economics and cultural dynamics in the neighboring countries and in other countries farther afield who are able to offer them temporary shelter. Some countries allow the relocation of refugees although they may eventually return refugees to their country of origin. The worldwide population or refugees has been growing at an alarming rate. Understand that this is not a comment on population growth but only on the population of those people on the globe who have become refugees. A refugee is not a native, not an immigrant and not a migrant worker. A refugee does not have a claim to native status or nationality; a situation which is straining the meaning of citizenship. Perhaps we will eventually be questioning the purpose of citizenship as generations of one family are shuffled from one place to another due to ongoing crises.
The state of living a “bare life” due to actions of a sovereign nation is a concept from Giorgio Agamben, a philosopher. This state of bare life has been applied to refugees. “Agamben locates the origins of biopower and biopolitics much earlier than the advent of modernity, arguing that sovereign power has always been addressed to controlling life and not just to the question of adjudicating between life and death.” Refugees live in a state of ‘bare life’ compared to their pre-refugee status. Their lives have become unstable but not due to their own actions but due instead to an entity with powers greater than their own. Sovereign power has become so strong that in many modern cases (disregard for the lives of civilians in war, lack of concern for refugees, and the imprisonment and torture of innocent people) an argument can be made that contemporary sovereign powers are not even acting nominally within the law because they suffer no consequences for breaking the law. Thousands of Malian refugees have fled to neighboring countries and have little or no humanitarian resources. “Thousands of internally displace persons are being faced with malnutrition and disease.” Therefore thousands of Malians are living the bare life.
The Malian conflict has already negatively impacted neighboring countries, but not only due to the large numbers of refugees who need aid. Although harboring refugees leads to economic and security instabilities, the possibility of the conflict moving into the countries and bringing chaos is a real, possible scenario which demonstrates the regional reach of the conflict. If and when that situation arises more refugees are created and the plight of all the refugees worsens. The creation of a human catastrophe which ripples across northern Africa is a picture of thousands or perhaps millions of people entering the state of bare life. “The fear is that chaos in Mali will seriously affect its neighbours.”
Small towns in the region are negatively impacted, particularly when they are already suffering from food and/or water shortages. Hosting refugees that sometimes number greater than the population of the town reduces everyone to living with zero luxuries and few of the necessities. The international community was not able to react quickly enough to prevent the violence erupting in Mali. Unfortunately the international community does not have the cohesion of a shared goal to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis. For example shifting soldiers on duty in Afghanistan to humanitarian duties (without any weapons) could allow for the distribution of food, water, and medicine in a timely way. The ability of a few thousand soldiers working to build shelter and sanitary areas for purposes of hygiene would be a doable task instead of an insurmountable task.
Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by Daniel Heller Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Francis, David J. The regional impact of the armed conflict and French intervention in Mali. Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF), Report, April 2013.
Parfitt, Trevor. Are the Third World Poor Homines Sacri? Biopolitics, Sovereignty, and Development, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 34, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 2009), pp. 41-58
