Mali

The French are leaving Mali after nine years of heavy military involvement.  According to the French they have decided to leave- if you read Malian reports, they have been kicked out...

https://www.nytimes.com/.../mali-france-withdrawal.html

Those who have followed me from Mali to Italy will perhaps remember my blogs from January 13: http://djennedjenno.blogspot.com/2013/01/

I remember so clearly the day they arrived- their timely intervention was hailed by all as a gift from heaven: the saviours had arrived! There was no doubt in anyone's mind at the time that without their intervention, Mali would have been overrun by the Jihadists and  Bamako would have been taken  within days. Since then, public opinion has shifted in Mali. 

The BBC just  tried to give an account of why the French, from being regarded as the heroic liberators, are now more or less universally distrusted and despised by the Malians. The BBC does not get it right. They (as well as most of the other commentators, such as the NY Times above) fail to mention the one thing that has irked the Malians more than anything else: the fact that the French have always been in in collusion with the Tuareg liberation movement, which it separated from the other forces at work in the Northern territories of Mali. Yes, the Tuaregs wanted independence , and their goals were not the same as the Jihadists, but they entered into unholy alliances with them , and the French therefore found themselves compromised, since they were always on the side of the Tuaregs. 

 I am going to Mali in March. I will be going to Djenne again, like I always do. The Junta that disposed of IBK- Ibrahim Boubakar Keita- in August 2020 is riding high in the opinion of the locals, although they have incurred the wrath and sanctions  of the ECOWAS- the West African Economic Alliance- as well as the powers that be in the Western diplomatic community. Nevermind, my Keita would have said, along with most Malians. "Let's forge new alliances... I know  the Russians have arrived in the form of the 'Wagner'  group of mercenaries, to the great glee of the Malians- there are also rumours of Iranian  involvement...

There seems to be a new energy deployed even within the Malian army: My old friends in Djenne are assuring me that in the last few weeks the FAMA (Forces Armees Maliennes) have arrived in some numbers and have freed many Jihadist occupied villages in the vicinity of Djenne.

Wishful thinking? Who knows...

Walking through Chianti

The Weekend excursions continue, but yesterday they took a  new direction. Nevertheless,  here is my Japanese friend Satomi, on our Sunday outing a week ago when we walked to the lovely  Basilica Osservanza on the outskirts of Siena, which holds a few lovely early paintings in the early Renaissance Senese style, such as this Madonna by Sano di Pietro.  

       

 We figured out the route there with the help of Google. The problem with that approach is that you tend to end up walking along deadly motorways again, since Google only really understands the big picture. And in addition Satomi is very undisciplined for a Japanese- I thought they were supposed to be the opposite! But no, she kept walking in the middle of the road as if she did not have a care in the world and only narrowly escaped being squashed by oncoming traffic by my timely, and repeated, intervention. She complained the next day at our language school that I had behaved like her mother....

It was clear that the time had come for some local know-how and assistance, so I decided to join a local walking group called Camminando a Quercegrossa, which I found on Facebook. They were a jolly lot of about 30 walkers, one of whom kindly picked me up in her car at the Porta Romana on Sunday morning to take us to the starting point. (Oh  dear. It looks as if I might have to get myself a little Vespa at least in order to continue this...I can't expect people to pick me up every time!)

A 12k easy stroll took us through the woodlands and vineyards of Chianti, and I met some nice people, all Italians:

                                

including a jolly  dark-haired lady from Calabria, above, called Caterina, who invited me to join her and two friends for dinner in a restaurant in the Campo in the evening- this turned out to be a giggly, girly evening of the sort I have not had for quite a while, and it felt like an important day for me. I needed to begin some friendly interaction with the locals!

Meanwhile the date when those all important Keys to Casato di Sopra are finally going to be handed over to me is creeping closer! I went to see Paolo again, who had put the final touches on the drawings and could give me reassuring news from the structural engineer- what we want to do can be done! 

 

Italian concerns

Italy has just voted in their new President- that is to say, the old one, Sergio Mattarella, was voted back in again, after a week of deadlock. There was  nothing else on the telly during the whole week, as the country was gripped by election fever. I must say, I don’t quite understand why, since the Italian President seems to wield very little power, and one never hears about him normally. Nevertheless, the voting, which was carried out by the parliament, not by a general election, seemed to stir deep emotions  in people. After this week of passionate disagreement in the Centro Destra, the center right which has been steering Italy for the last few years, the thing was finally decided last Thursday- Mattarella once more. And what do they all do when he gives his acceptance speech? All those that could not agree? They all give him a standing ovation and he is unable to finish a sentence without applause.

‘ Ipocrisia!’ was the outraged cry the following morning on  Rai 3 – the television channel  of Tuscany. It is very entertaining to watch its ‘Agora’ morning programme where Italian news is being discussed by invited journalists, politicians and assorted  luminaries. Everyone is always shouting over everyone else, no one listens to anyone- in fact they are doing their utmost to enforce the stereotypical image of the Italian.

The other overriding concern of  Italians at the moment is the San Remo song festival, which is something that I had never heard of, but which clearly takes precedence over everything else, such as, for instance, the possible imminent Russian invasion of the Ukraine, a matter which is skimmed over summarily here. 

San Remo is the pre-run to the European Song Contest. It goes on all night, live, for one week in front of a vast audience.  The general public can vote by phoning in and the winner at San Remo will be going to—well, in fact they will stay in Italy, for Italy won the E Song Contest last year of course, and will be hosting it.  There is a lot of huffing and puffing going on in conservative quarters about the contest this year- it has been gripped by the gender fluid bug, and more or less every act kow-tows to this new trend, which I believe to have been inaugurated, in the context of the Eurovision Song Contest,  by the immortal Conchita Wurst some years ago. 

  Other head line grabbing material is anything blasphemous. It is still possible to offend along those lines in this, maybe the last, bastion of religious conservatism in Europe. When I suggested to an Italian friend that Italy may be becoming more liberal in this respect because of  Pope Francis, I was told that he is, sadly, quite unpopular here in Catholic circles.  
The worst  blasphemous offender -so far- in San Remo was a handsome young chap with a naked tattooed torso, tight leather jeans, the crutch of which he stroked, Michael Jackson style, while  kneeling down and baptizing himself in some 'holy' water, crooning away all the while. This put the cats among the pigeons most entertainingly, which was obviously the desired effect.

Can’t wait to see the finals tonight. Am I becoming Italian?

Sunday morning: Here they are, the SanRemo 22 winners: Mahmoud and Blanco, whose 'Brividi' is in fact rather a great love song, I thought...: