Editing Persecution (section)

===Dogons===
{{main|Dogon people|Dogon religion}}
For almost 1000 years,<ref name="Griaule"/> the [[Dogon people]], an ancient tribe of [[Mali]]<ref>[[The Independent]], ''Caught in the crossfire of Mali's war'' (25 January 2013) by Kim Sengupta [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/caught-in-the-crossfire-of-mali-s-war-8467800.html] (retrieved March 14, 2020)</ref>  had faced religious and ethnic persecution—through jihads by dominant Muslim communities.<ref name="Griaule">[[Marcel Griaule|Griaule, Marcel]]; [[Germaine Dieterlen|Dieterlen, Germaine]]; (1965). ''Le mythe cosmologique. Le renard pâle.'', 1. Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie Musée de l'homme, p. 17</ref> These jihadic expeditions were to forced the Dogon to abandon [[Dogon religion|their traditional religious beliefs]] for Islam. Such jihads caused the Dogon to abandon their original villages and moved up to the [[Bandiagara Escarpment|cliffs of Bandiagara]] for better defense and to escape persecution—often building their dwellings in little nooks and crannies.<ref name="Griaule"/><ref>''[[Africa Today]],'' Volume 7, [[Africa Media Review|Afro Media]] (2001), p. 126</ref> 
In the early era of [[French colonial empire|French colonialism]] in Mali, the French authorities appointed Muslim relatives of [[El Hadj Umar Tall]] as chiefs of the [[Bandiagara]]—despite the fact that the area has been a Dogon area for centuries.<ref>[[Christopher Wise|Wise, Christopher]], ''Sorcery, Totem, and Jihad in African Philosophy'', [[Bloomsbury Publishing]] (2017), p. 68, {{ISBN|9781350013100}} (retrieved March 14, 2020) [https://books.google.com/books?id=YNwCDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA68]</ref>

In 1864, [[Tidiani Tall]], nephew and successor of the 19th century [[Senegambian]] jihadist and Muslim leader—El Hadj Umar Tall, chose Bandiagara as the capital of the [[Toucouleur Empire]] thereby exacerbating the inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflict.  In recent years, the Dogon accused the [[Fula people|Fulanis]] of supporting and sheltering [[Islamic terrorism|Islamic terrorist]] groups like [[Al-Qaeda]] in Dogon country, leading to the creation of the Dogon militia [[Dan Na Ambassagou]] in 2016—whose aim is to defend the Dogon from systematic attacks.  That resulted in the [[Ogossagou massacre]] of Fulanis in March 2019, and a Fula retaliation with the [[Sobane Da massacre]] in June of that year. In the wake of the Ogossagou massacre, the [[List of heads of state of Mali|President of Mali]], [[Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta]] and his government ordered the dissolution of Dan Na Ambassagou—whom they hold partly responsible for the attacks. The Dogon militia group denied any involvement in the massacre and rejected calls to disband.<ref>[[World Politics|World Politics Review]], ''What Explains the Rise of Communal Violence in Mali, Nigeria and Ethiopia?'' (Sept. 11, 2019) by Hilary Matfess. [https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/28182/what-explains-the-rise-of-communal-violence-in-mali-nigeria-and-ethiopia]</ref>