Malian singer/songwriter Rokia Traoré is practicing her lilting guitar tunes in Sydney that, if played in the north of her homeland, could lead to fierce corporal punishment, or worse.
“Not just [for] musicians. Life is impossible in the north of Mali since April,” she says.
Since the secular Bamako government fell in a coup d'état early in 2012, a loose clutch of Islamist militias with al-Qaeda links have imposed harsh, Taliban-style sharia rule across the country's vast, lawless north.
Their tilt at the capital, and the southern half of Mali that holds 13 million people not yet under their control, was met just days ago with French airstrikes.
Now, the UN endorses a broader military intervention; France is tripling their troops and a multinational force is surging in to push back the insurgents.
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It has been reported that half a million people are displaced by the fighting in a disturbing humanitarian fall-out.
There have been reports of militiamen cutting off the hands and feet of thieves or stoning adulterers, with public whippings for smokers, alcohol drinkers and women who not properly dressed.
Rokia's close musician friend visited family in northern Mali, narrowly avoiding violence himself.
It was reported that militia men burnt his instruments and told his family "we'll cut off all the fingers he uses to play his guitar with."
“When you hear that people are not allowed to make music and they break their instruments, maybe it's shocking for you, but the problem was there for a while,” Rokia says.
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Herself a moderate Muslim, Rokia was born in Kolokani, in the north-western part of Mali's Koulikoro region.
The daughter of a diplomat, she saw most of North Africa as a child, and speaks about the current conflict from a pan-African perspective.
“Africans know how to deal with hard solutions, so it will be one more hard solution in Africa.”
“For people all around the world this is a problem starting, for us this is a solution starting. We weren't ready for an occupation, so now we have to be ready for fighting and recovering what we used to have.”
But she remembers the day Mali changed in April last year.
“It was like nightmare, like I was sleeping. Unfortunately it happened and one day I heard guns [firing] and it was the coup d'état.”
She laments the loss of tolerant pluralism that has since largely gone in Mali.
“We all used to live together in a very good way. We would like our Mali to continue that way, we are Muslims, but in a different way [from what] the people who came and occupied our country thought we must be.”
For Malians national security might seem closer. But a full return to the days of religious and creative freedom is still a very long way away.
“This country needs music. We haven't finished yet, this [fighting] will be on for a while, [but] first we have to feel as we used to in our country.”
Rokia Traoré is performing at the Sydney Festival.
