Renegade Mali soldiers walk through ravage presidential palace after coup
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Summary of Renegade Mali soldiers walk through ravage presidential palace after coup
The article is about the ousting of the Mali democratically elected President Amadou Toumani Toure that took place on March 21, 2012 (Umaro, 2012, para.2). The ousting of the president was motivated by the angered military rebels who termed poor governance as their reason for their action. The regime incompetent and incapacity to fight terrorism and resort dignity to the Mali people triggered the action of the solider and armed forces took upon themselves. As a result it is estimated that approximate 29 sustained injuries and were recuperating from Bamaco hospital (Umaro, 2012, para. 14). Other operations of the government also became stand still as people feared for their life. It was reported that those military personnel who showed reluctance in joining their colleagues were mutinied. The coup deta elected harsh criticism from many nations including United State which had earlier applauded Mali as being one of the democratic countries. Other countries which leveled criticism on the episode is the former Mali colonial ruler France. They, therefore, called for stability and calm to restore the dignity of the country through democratic governance that the US would support. The soldiers formed the National committee for the restoration of democracy and state to work as a transitional government. Government is accused for failing to provide incentives to allow the Mali soldier to fight the Local Tuaregs nomads who are demanding the creation of an independent state. The coup is feared to worsen the security of northern Mali if no urgent measure is provided. The last coup in Mali happened in 1991(Umaro, 2012, para. 15). The coup happened few months before the election period.
The article is therefore a good illustration of a social problem that has caught up with the Mali society. Various social concepts are applicable to the article. These include social construction, crime, social control, deviance and stratification. Deviance refers to any kind of behavior that goes against cultural norms of a given community or society (Stark, 2007, p.23). Deviance encompasses crimes which refers to violation of the set or formal laws that govern people. This type of deviance includes crimes such as assault and murder. The Mali soldiers have violated these set laws by going against the social order or law by removing an elected president from the leadership role. This is against the laws hence amounts to deviance. Furthermore, assault has been witnessed in Mali as a result of the coup as many people have succumbed to injuries and others faced evacuations. Social control is yet another concept that helps to understand the article. Social control is the political and societal mechanism or processes which regulate group and individual behaviors that leads to compliance of rules and conformity to certain rule. In circumstances that this control is not controlled it might ad to chaos or conflict. This is what has replicated in Mali. The Renegade soldiers felt that the constitution which was supposed to bring them together and allow them to be governed well was not helping them hence the need to disintegrate leading to a conflict and a coup. Another method that was used to control the escalation of the conflict was issuance of threats and sanctions by the donors. This was meant to lessen the stances of the rebels and allow for negation aimed at resolving the conflict.
Social stratification is a concept that suits the events in the article. This is the classification or categorizing of people into groups that share commonalties in terms of socio-economic status, income or culture. It is therefore a relational set that is based on inequality in ideological, economic or political dimensions. In the article the source of conflict is based on perceived inequalities in the politics. The security personnel’s announced a coup because they felt non partisan from the poor leadership of the president. They were not being provided with equipment and facilities to carry out their duties well. This angered them. Secondly, those security forces who felt no need to get involved or to support the rebels received threat from the partisan because they believed that they shared common predicaments that they needed to join hands in finding a solution. Furthermore, the Tuareg’s nomads also played a role in the conflict. These community feels excluded and therefore frequently attacked Mali demanding for equality in terms of economic and politic freedom. This therefore, contributed to the conflict and the coup. Social constructionism is how our social phenomena develop or exhume in our social contexts (Kelly, 1995, p.23). The article best demonstrated how the society values, beliefs and norms have been constructed in individuals. The constitution provides legislations or laws that people have lived to abide by. This became evident when the coup was announced. The people of Mali and the world around express their astonishment and criticized the move as uncalled for. The motivation behind these accusations of the security forces action is that the society have formed in their mind that a sitting president should not be removed from office in the way the president of Mali was ousted. Therefore, the article has provided in length the social concepts that society’s experience.
References
Kelly, G.A. (1995). The psychology of personal constructs. New York, NY: Norton.
Umaro, Djau. (2012). Renegade Mali soldiers walk through ravage presidential palace after coup. Retrieved on Mach 26, 2012 from: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/22/world/africa/mali-coup/index.html
Stark, Rodney. (2007)Sociology: Biological Theories of Deviance (pp. 182–185). Belmont, CA. Thomson Wadsworth
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