Politics of the Central African Republic

[rousseau]

Fair enough. I guess my larger point is that if Africa's natural history had been allowed to continue, rather than being forcefully disjointed, the Islamic problem would eventually resolve itself, but on Africa's terms. Toward your point Islam would still be a major problem, but it would be a distinctly African problem and not one implanted on a history of European colonialism.

As it stands, though, colonialism has set a dysfunctional framework that the conflict is standing on. IOW, it's difficult for the conflict to resolve itself into a meaningful system, because the conflict is stuck in a static system that's already broken and is hard to change.

Just because there was colonialism does nothing to prove that colonialism is an important factor in the actions of the Islamists. Sorry, but when you look at the world there are plenty of places without colonialism that still have major problems with Islam.

Yes, if you had read my post more closely you'd have seen that I agreed with this point.

So self-determination only matters when it's western powers involved. You don't care if you get a bloody mess because the Islamists weren't interested in them having self-determination.

This is a fair point. I don't know enough about Islam's impact on Africa to comment much, my assumption is that it's more of an internal religious thing, rather than a question of imperialism.

But beyond that you do raise a good question. Which is - how are we supposed to make sense of conquered and conquering cultures? Even before European imperialism cultures like the Bantu took over most of Sub-Saharan African, and pushed many hunter-gatherer tribes to the fringes. So how do we make sense of this reality? Can disparate groups even be ethical towards each other?

I think we can make assured statements about European colonization, but I don't know if we'd be able to extract any type of lasting moral out of it, at least one which we'll have an inclination to stick to.

 

[bigfield]

In order for a rebel group to seize power from the government, the government needs to be weak. Since its independence in 1960, the CAR has never known peace or stability, which in turn means that it lacks robust institutions and infrastructure. For almost all of it's history has been ruled by a series of warlords become dictators who barely cling onto power. None have had the resources to police more than fragments of their country, and they often abuse what little legitimate power they actually have. In this environment, rebels and bandits are inevitable. Since the country has a significant Muslim population in the north, so it's no surprise that the Northern rebels are Islamists.

The Islamists have substantial outside backing. This is far from the only country they have attempted to overthrow.

We might have the wrong idea about these rebels. I've read a little more about Séléka and it doesn't actually appear to have been an Islamist movement. Some of them aren't even Muslim. Séléka was an alliance of several rebel militias. There's no indication that their leader, Michel Djotodia, is an Islamist, and I can't see any indication that he tried to impose Sharia Law during his short time in power. And from what I can tell, the ex-Séléka rebels are tolerant of Christians in the territories they control.

It's also likely that you're overstating the amount of outside backing that Séléka have received. Neighbouring Chad, which isn't Islamist. In fact Chad is fighting against Boko Haram and have fought Islamists in Mali. It doesn't look like the northern rebels were, or are, backed in any substantial way by Islamists. Mind you, I don't know why Chad decided to support the Central African rebels in the first place. What did they gain?

I also find your wording interesting. Who are "they"? Islamists aren't a unified global force. There are multiple types of Islamism, and they don't all agree with each other.