Sunday 13 January 2013

Sophie's scoop



It’s now been a very long time since tourists like us could watch the sunset over the river Niger from a bar terrace in Mopti, central Mali. Which by Thursday afternoon was the scene of panic as the hard-line Islamist rebels occupying the country’s Sahara region took the town of Konna, 55 kilometres miles to the north of Mopti, freeing up their southward route to Bamako.

Our Sophie Sarin, on the eve of leaving Mali and her hotel in Djenne for two weeks to come and attend the Chelsea Arts Club wake party for her beloved Princess Lulie, who died recently at the age of 97 (read Sophie’s tribute to an extraordinary life in The Independent), stole a march on the world’s press. On Thursday evening, just before leaving Bamako on Moroccan Airlines, she heard from her husband Keita first that French and Nigerian troops had landed at Sévaré Airport near Mopti, then that they had retaken Konna. The events unfolded with dramatic immediacy on her blog.

All this by 9.45pm (our time as well as Mali’s). It wasn’t until 5pm the next day (Friday) that François Hollande officially announced the involvement of his country's troops. More than 24 hours after Sophie’s statement, it was confirmed that Konna had been retaken*, no doubt all under the circumstances of hush-hush which are a necessity in war  Whether the French troops' brief is to liberate Timbuktu (market pictured below, like the Niger at Mopti above, on our 2007-8 visit) and the other towns suffering under the harshest interpretation of sharia law remains to be seen.


Sophie is right to have a certain pride in all this. But of course she is deeply worried by the state of emergency in Mali and her friends left behind – delighted though they (and it seems all Malians) are by this already overdue intervention.

There she is below chez nous, contemplating the timeless truths of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and trying to adapt to our English freeze. On Friday evening we went to a splendid Barbican concert. Some contrast that must have been for our Djenneista. Will Sophie be able to return as planned in a fortnight’s time? Who knows. Never underestimate Thucydides’ ‘persistence of the unforeseen’ in warfare.


In the meantime, here we are suffused by the balm of peace in the form of this Sunday’s Bach cantata. It’s ‘finding in the temple’ time, based on those verses in Luke where Mary and Joseph lose their twelve year old son for three days in Jerusalem and eventually discover him in the temple, listening to the learned doctors and questioning them. It’s an event surprisingly under-represented in Renaissance art, so I settled for this diligently researched ‘realistic’ representation by Holman Hunt.


Of the three options on Vol. 18 of Gardiner’s cantata pilgrimage series, I went straight to Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen, BWV 32. Unveiled in Leipzig on 13 January 1726, it’s a dialogue between Jesus, a bass (big boy for 12!), and a soprano who turns out to be not the searching mother but the Christian soul. She gets an opening aria with one of Bach’s most wonderful oboe solos, chromatic and weaving around the vocal line - I could play this! – against searching notes from upper strings marked piano e spiccato. He is twinned with a solo violin, all gracious triplets and trills.


After a string-haloed recitative dialogue in which the soprano quotes Psalm 84’s ‘How lovely are thy dwellings fair’, they sing the bounciest and most operatics of joyous duets. Gardiner, who performed the three ‘first after Epiphany’ cantatas in Hamburg and gives us interesting background on the opera-fixated city in Bach’s time, celebrates Bach in this duet ‘rivalling the lieto fine [happy ending] conclusions to the operas of his day, but with far more skill, substance and panache’. The usual chorale rounds off the dialogue, but it was the duet which Gardiner and co encored on 9 January 2000. Here, as usual, is the YouTube alternative - this time from the rival Suzuki series.


*Now (15/1) it appears that it hasn't. Which just goes to show how tough the going must be.

22 comments:

Laurent said...

Well, what an interesting post, Freya Stark, I read many of her books and Princess Lulie, the Shepheard Hotel, oh my so many memories of Cairo this brings back to mind. Please tell your friend Sophie that I have added her blog to my reading list. Never been to Mali but many moons ago, did work for the Foreign Ministry of Togo. I am pretty sure the French will clean up Mali of insurgents, their air force can do a lot and they have no qualms like the Americans. I do believe that Monsieur Hollande consulted fellow Heads of Government and there is probably a tacit understanding. I have also finished reading the Funeral Party, loved it!!!! Beautiful and so human on so many levels, real people caught in two worlds, I can really relate to that.

Willym said...

I feel like such as Philistine or even a Boeotian. Here you are posting glorious Bach cantatas for Epiphany and I'm wallowing in bon-bon music of the Ancien regime. Just wish I could find the emotional core in Bach - it has always eluded me. Though I can see the beauty and understand the genius behind it I just can't seem to connect.

Having said that we are following in your footsteps and listening to your postings.

And as always you live is filled with so many wondrous and fascinating people.

David said...

Laurent - so glad you enjoyed The Funeral Party. Roll on more translations of Ulitskaya, say I.

Willym - we can't connect to everything. Deryck Cooke wrote about 'blind spots' when you know the composer is a genius but he (or she) doesn't necessarily speak to you. I have blind spots re the late Beethoven Quartets, which I studied hard to try and like, and some of the Bruckner symphonies.

I still reckon we can say, without coming over too religious, that Bach is God and Mozart the son of man. Anyone who denies Bach his pride of place, whether he speaks to them or not, is just WRONG.

David Damant said...

As you may be aware certain humans send out a probe from time to time into (for practical purposes)infinite space in the hope that after umpteen light years the probe will hit a planet containing intelligent life. A probe will contain diagrams giving the dimensions of our bodies and other factual indications. But the one I liked contained recordings of ALL the works of Bach. "That" said the scientist who launched the probe " will show them - however advanced they may be"

David said...

If we were in the looking glass world of Facebook, that would get a big 'like' (a term I DON'T like) from me.

By the way, the photo you wanted has now mysteriously popped up in an earlier context, but not here.

toubab said...

Dear David,thank you for your post about Mali and me! And Laurent, so glad you enjoyed the obituary- yes, Cairo indeed what a wonderful place- I went once with Lulie...

David said...

Mali and you AND that composer you rashly assumed my fundamentally 19th/20th century soul didn't care for!

As I said to you, I so wish I'd met la Princesse. What an extraordinary life.

Susan Scheid said...

I remember, I think it was last December, when I first learned of Sophie's blog, Djenne Djenno, and I have made it a point to keep abreast of her chronicle of events in Mali, a place with which I'd prior had no familiarity, ever since. It was astonishing to watch the events you note here unfold--and of course I loved it when I saw that she'd arrived in London and attended live with you the very concert you noted to me. The Edu-Mate and I listened to the entire concert this past Sunday afternoon. What a pleasure it was. Thank you for all!

David said...

I'm so pleased about that connection - Sophie tells me she's so often been buoyed by your positive support when friends were sometimes conspicuously absent, I know. Her blog was the reason I started mine (altogether less singular, of course).

You'll love the BBCSO concert this coming Friday. Not sure whether it's being broadcast live, but I'll have to content myself with radio listening as I can't make it. Li-Wei Chin - is he the cellist you heard - as soloist in your beloved Qigang Chen's Reflet d'un temps disparu, a new piece by Raymond Yiu (don't know him) plus Elgar's profusely inspired Cockaigne and Haydn's Symphony No. 104. The conductor, Long Yu, is new to me.

Susan Scheid said...

I have the name of the cellist as Li-Wei Qin, but I think it must be the same, no? I thought he played beautifully in Wales. I didn't know Sophie's blog was the reason you started yours, yet another wonderful connection. I'm touched to think my tiny gestures were felt as the support I hoped to convey. She's a remarkable person.

David said...

Yes. Ch is also Q, as in Chi and Qi (useful scrabble word!)

Fazaly said...

What, you were in Timbuktu?

David said...

Oh yes. And why? Because it's there, and because of where it is. Getting there was no huge hardship, cushioned from desert tracks in a 4x4 (though we passed several which had broken down). Getting away was one of the most memorable holiday experiences of my life - two and a half days on a pinasse down the Niger river all the way to Mopti.

Howard Lane said...

It's great to hear unbiased and direct reporting from Sophie. I almost wish she were still in Mali to keep us up to date. The truth is famously the first casualty of war. Listening to Adrian Brendel's radio 4 programme yesterday on Baba Maal's annual River Festival I was appalled at the banning of music and threats to musicians under Sharia Law in northen Mali and continue to be mystified by the range of contradictions and differences within Islam.

It's hard not to be drawn in to the general vilification of "Islamists" and "terrorists" which seems to be the plan of western governments, ably supported by our news media, in persuading us that bombing distant lands inhabited by such people is in our interests. What are they after this time? Is there oil or important minerals in Mali?

Stop the War Coalition maintain that Malian government forces are also responsible for atrocities against the Tuaregs, and that the West can be held responsible for driving "Islamists" into Mali after the bombing of Libya. What to think? I can't bear the thought of Sharia repression taking over the wonderful culture and ancient traditions of this fascinating country. Should Mali be left to fight it out amongst themselves? Or is France (and the UK) really helping, even if they are acting in their own political interests rather than Africa's?

David said...

Now let's get the facts straight. The French are there to stop the whole of Mali falling under the extremists' sway. The Malian army is completely hopeless/helpless.No imperial ambitions, no attempts to grab resources. Once they saw that with the taking of Konna the whole country lay open, they acted - and not a moment too soon. All the Malians Sophie knows are profoundly relieved and grateful, whatever happens next.

Of course it IS Realpolitik in so much as neither France nor Britain want a 'terrorist', Al-Qaeda affiliated country on its doorstep. But the action has indisputably saved the rest of Mali (with the proviso that anything can still happen).

There WERE atrocities committed on both sides in the Malian army/Tuareg conflicts. But the Tuaregs who want independence in the north are NOT the 'terrorists', who ousted them. Several of their leaders have vowed to fight on the French/Malian side against their enemies.

Mali is a good example of 'moderate' Islam, or at least seemed to be so when I was there. The very religious Marabouts and people of Djenne all hate the extremists and have woven powerful spells to keep them at bay.

But if you want further enlightenment, I'm sure Sophie can oblige. She IS married to a Malian, after all

toubab said...

Hello Howard , hello David,
you do a good job of explaining the situation David, I am not sure I need to add anything- perhaps to say that as far as atrocities go there seems to be one in particular that has not been investigated, and that was the other way around- the Touaregs slitting the throats of nearly a 100 unarmed Malian soldiers at Aguelhoc nearly a year ago now. I am not sure there has been any similar cases the other way around?
As far as 'being drawn into the general vilification of the Islamist and Terrorists' it is hard to know what other attitude would be appropriate?
But thank you Howard for reading the blog and my reports!
Sophie

David Damant said...

One of the reasons for the expansion of the later ( 19th century) British Empire was the horrors being perpetrated in the country next to a part of the Empire. So taking up the white man's burden, and anxious not to have chaos or our borders, we moved in and stopped the trouble and - as was possible in those days - kept the new territory, which of course prevented any resurgence. This is not to excuse any of the Imperial actions, but perhaps to point out that these "local" disputes will run and run, unless sat on permanently, which is not an option these days

David said...

Now, I suppose, we have 'peace-keeping' troops permanently in place around the world. I can't see any other option for Mali. Nor can I see any problem in giving the tuaregs the north if that's properly done too. But certainly there will need to be some permanent solution from outside, unless the training of the Malian army is a success.

David said...

Oh, the messy horror that is war. Howard is proved right in this respect: Amnesty has strong evidence that the Malian army is guilty of atrocities against Tuaregs and even the Fulani people, whom they look down on as from the north. Detailed report here in The Guardian.

Howard Lane said...

Thanks for all this. I must admit I was feeling shabbily cynical for questioning France's motives. The claims of atrocities came from Stop the War Coalition who, as you would expect, oppose pretty much any act of war. Somehow one tries to form an opinion between such extremes of idealism and naked aggression, especially when the label of "terrorist" can be slapped on anyone our armed forces feel the need to drop bombs on, inevitably innocent civilans. I don't doubt Sophie's reports - they are of such great value in the fog of foreing office b.s. and "the national interest".

Some reporters such as The Media Lens accuse the Guardian and the BBC of collusion with the government's lies but I think they do a fine job most of the times. There was an excellent analysis in the Grauniad (prob. the same report you mention) of the whole region showing Algeria, Mali and beyond, all the gas installations and uranium deposits. So maybe cynicism about Frances' motives isn't entirely misplaced, but if the end result is peace in Mali and the continuance of its tribal harmonies and culture then that would be a win-win, at least I hope so.

David Damant said...

As regards the messy horror of war, Churchill summed it up in 1909 (that is, before the real horrors of the twentieth century had begun)in a letter to Clementine

"Much as war attracts me and fascinates my mind with its tremendous situations, I feel more deeply every year what vile and wicked folly and barbarism it all is"

David said...

How could we not agree with Winston? Yet when belligerence or evil erupt, is it a duty to embrace the lesser evil to prevent the greater? I can't recommend too strongly the first episode of that superlative Danish government drama Borgen, in which our Staatsminister has a major dilemma over withdrawing or keeping Danish troops in Afghanistan.