“I believe the cultural legacy of Timbuktu represents the missing link for Africa,” said Noel Brown, president of Friends of the United Nations and a Timbuktu Heritage Advisory Board member. Conserving and reviving this African cultural legacy will reestablish Timbuktu as an important African intellectual and commercial center and dispel myths of an illiterate past. Given current global tensions, evidence of applied tolerant Islamic theology-past and present-is attracting the interest of governments including the United States and Arab states.Īt its height, the University of Timbuktu enrolled 25,000 students and spanned many cities, 180 Qur’anic schools, and ambulant camps in the desert. To enjoy widespread support and success, manuscripts-related projects must complement or even drive sustainable economic development in the northern regions. Prospects for a lasting peace are diminished by persistent human suffering associated with extreme poverty and recurrent famine. But there is also a need to recognize that a major root cause of conflict and insecurity is north-south economic disparities. Recognition and celebration of a shared peaceful legacy will help resolve differences, forgive past offenses, and cultivate greater compassion. In an effort to heal ethnic tensions still simmering from the civil unrest of the 1990s, government leaders must affirm the lessons of the past. New and existing government ministries in Mali have devoted resources to support this approach. This unusual national policy ensured that cultural heritage preservation and revival initiatives were more prominent in the development process. In 1992 the Malian government, inspired in part by the scholars of Timbuktu, identified cultural heritage as a central theme to guide development initiatives. “It will be a tragedy if our generation cannot preserve our heritage for future generations,” said Abderahman Ben Assuyuti, Imam of Jingaray Ber Mosque, in Timbuktu in 2002. To this day, traditional scholars who have inherited this intellectual and faith-inspired tradition remain united behind the peaceful message. Though Mali also experienced periods of oppressive rule during which the guidance and writings of scholars were oppressed, the unity among scholars of diverse ethnicities never diminished. This legacy of peaceful governance distinguishes Mali from many other historic African empires, as well as modern nation-states. Tolerance for differences is a long-standing Malian tradition with generations of Timbuktu scholars providing the guiding vision. The Timbuktu Heritage strategy builds on several years of research, coalition building, and strategizing with local, national, and international partners. Its conservation and research efforts emphasize scholars’ private collections, which hold the most valued manuscripts pertaining to peaceful governance. Its mission is to save the manuscripts, promote their peacemaking legacy, and foster sustainable development in a region trying to lift itself out of poverty. The Timbuktu Heritage Institute, an international nongovernmental organization with bases in Mali and the United States, is working to seize a unique opportunity presented by these threatened manuscripts. The manuscripts’ unifying power is a product of the ethnic diversity of historic and contemporary Timbuktu scholars who embrace a collective heritage that includes the Songhay, Tamashek (Tuareg), Fulani, and Moors. They are relevant today for their treaties on tolerance and peaceful means to resolve conflicts. The writings, influenced by traditional African thought and the Islamic faith, are written in Arabic and languages indigenous to the region. Scholars during this period, commonly referred to as Ambassadors of Peace, used the written word extensively to guide leaders of Malian empires that once spanned vast areas of West Africa. Government officials, traditional leaders, and NGOs hold a strong conviction that the historic Timbuktu manuscripts from the 12th through 19th centuries could further cultivate a distinctive Malian development paradigm-one rooted in this ancient culture of rapprochement. In Mali, cultural diversity is celebrated as an asset rather than opposed as a threat to monolithic national identity. Malian democracy now has the potential to lead West Africa, and even all of Africa, in the creation of the pluri-ethnic state. “Tragedy is due to divergence and because of lack of tolerance … Glory to he who creates greatness from difference and makes peace and reconciliation,” -Timbuktu manuscript entry by El Hadj Oumar Tall (1797)
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