"Islamic Militants Destroy Malian Cultural Heritage, Purporting a 'Pure Islam'" PBS Newshour 8/23/2012
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Many Malians harmoniously practice Islam alongside cultural traditions such as animism. But these Malians fear that they will be the first targeted as infidels by Islamic militants, who have already destroyed traditional Malian shrines. Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News reports.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): .....another story from the West African nation of Mali.
Earlier this week, Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News reported on the rise of Islamic militants and the exodus of refugees.
LINDSEY HILSUM: Mali, one of the most culturally diverse countries on Earth, a land of music, mud mosques, ancient Islamic manuscripts, animists, all now under threat.
About 50 miles from the capital, Bamako, I meet the Hunters. They brandish their 19th century flintlock rifles and their talismans. The Islamists who now control Northern Mali hate all this, but the Hunters culture goes back 1,000 years, and they like to show it off.
These men see themselves as Muslims, but they mix their Islam with animism, traditional culture, and they know that, if the Islamists came down from the north to here, then they'd be the first target. But they're an essential part of Malian culture.
They show me how they aim their rifles, no shooting, though, because it's Ramadan, and they say they can always send magic to destroy the Islamists.
DAGABA TRAORE, Hunters community leader (through translator): We're scared of the new Islamic wave. When they see us wearing Hunters clothes, they won't regard us as Muslims. They will automatically think we're infidels who cannot know Allah.
But our external appearance is different from what we feel inside. These foreigners are showing us a kind of Islam which has never been Prophet Mohammed's message, by taking knives and killing others.
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