Monday, October 15, 2012

Timbuktu.

When we were kids we would holler at each other “go to Timbuktu” thinking is was a far away fictional place at the end of the world. BAMAKO, Mali – Isolated for centuries by the harsh desert that surrounds it, Timbuktu now finds itself even more cut off from the rest of the world. Rebels supported by Al-Qaida who captured the city in northern Mali in April have imposed a form of hard-edged Islamic rule, prompting many residents to flee in fear and changing the face of what had been a tolerant and easygoing destination that drew tourists from around the world. Women are now forced to wear all face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the ancient mud-brick town is changing. A centuries-old monument, the shrine of a 15th century saint, has been defaced; bars have been demolished; and black flags have been hung around town to honor Ansar Dine, or defenders of the Faith, the radical Islamist movement that emerged from the desert and turned life upside down. “There is no liberty,” said Abdoulaye a tailor who fled Timbuktu as the Islamist were circulating with guns. All of Mali size of France have wrested the Tauregs and under Ansar Dine are promoting and enforcing the Taliban brand of Islamic law of Shariah. Women are living in terrible fear in this sinister situation as these fundamentalist want to put a veil on everything. Restrictions range from the petty to the serious. Followers defaced the ear of a woman for wearing a short skirt and flogged men who drunk alcohol. “When you accept that there is Islam, you have to accept that there; if Shariah obliges us to cover women, we are obliged to apply it, “adding, “we have not chosen you as judge.” Timbuktu has taken on the air of a ghost town. The traditional evening gathering of young men who drink tea and chat on doorstep have disappeared – -

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