Berber Confederacy

Azawad was a short lived breakaway republic from the West African nation of Mali. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) declared northern Mali independent under the “Azawad” designation in 2012. The MNLA is an ethnically Tuareg guerilla. The Tuareg are a nomadic Berber people living across the Sahara, and are mostly known in the West for the fact that the men, rather than the women, cover their faces.

The MNLA was originally allied with Islamist groups (often referred to as branches of Al-Qaeda by international media). This union of forces broke down when the Islamists, true to form, wanted to impose their version of the sharia on the “liberated” territories. The MNLA apparently preferred hallowed Tuareg tradition. Eventually, both the MNLA and the Islamists were defeated by the Mali military (backed by France).

I can't say I like the Tuareg, who are still slave-raiders and hold thousands of Black Africans as bonded laborers. Azawad could be seen as the Berber version of the Confederacy. It's almost poetic justice that the Tuareg were tricked by their Islamist allies, or that some of the slaves were freed when the former colonial power returned to its old haunts…