Islam in Mali in the neoliberal era

Abstract

If before 11 September 2001, many praised Mali as a model of democracy, secularism and toleration, many have now begun to express concern about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Mali. I consider a number of recent public debates in Mali over morality, so-called women’s issues, and the proposed changes in the Family Code and show how the perspectives of many Malians on these issues are not new but rather relate to longstanding and ongoing debates about Islam, secularism, politics, morality and law. What is new is the way in which some Muslim religious leaders have been articulating their complaints and criticisms. Since the guarantee of the freedom of expression and association in the early 1990s, there has been a proliferation of independent newspapers and private radio stations and new Islamic associations with a coterie of increasingly media-savvy activists. I explore how some Muslim activists have used such outlets to articulate the concerns of some ordinary Malians, who face the contradictions of living as modern Muslim citizens in a modernizing and secularizing state where, in this age of neoliberal governmentality, the allegedly un-Islamic seems to be always just around the corner.