MALI DESCENDS INTO EVEN GREATER CHAOS
27th June 2012

If Mali had to be compared to a nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty would seem like a likely candidate. From a beacon of democracy in the African continent, its disintegration now would take more than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put together again. However there is another that is even more fitting: There Was An Old Woman...

On the 22nd March, 2012 President Amadou Toumani Toure was ousted by a group of junior officers who imagined that they could do a better job. On the 6th April, Taureg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) declared the whole of the upper part of the country (the bigger of the two butterfly wings), which includes the major cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, an independent state: Azawad. Next appear the fundamentalist Islamic group Ansar Dine who are wrestling power from MLNA and trying to establish strict Sharia Law in the region (we must be at the bird by now). Today at least 21 people were killed in clashes between the two groups, while the region is having to cope with dire food shortages and all the terror associated with religious bigotry. Enter the cat. The U.N Security Council has said that it would support military intervention from Mali’s neighbours, as long as it had a chance to examine and approve their plans.


Where is it all going? If only it had not swallowed that fly in the first place!

“There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,
I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a bird,
How absurd! to swallow a bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a cat,
Imagine that! to swallow a cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a dog,
What a hog! to swallow a dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a goat,
Just opened her throat! to swallow a goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a cow,
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
She's dead—of course!”