Bandits & Democrats
Introduction
Bandits & Democrats
How to interpret this double language & how to analyse the disappearance - verifiable - of thousands of Touareg & Maure civilians since 1990 ? Was it just 'fights' outside of the control of the authorities - in this case why has nobody been brought to justice ? - or is this repeated violence part of a political program ?
Comparing documents from government authorities, newspaper articles from Mali, Nigeria & the international press, and finally the manifestos of the songhay Gandakoy militia, certain common principles can be ascertained which structure the dominant discours on the Touareg question.
The first postulate is that 'there has never been a united Touareg world, neither politically nor economically', as D.Hamani, a Nigerian historian, puts it in a text used in the 'Basic document for the Government of Niger to use in negotiations with the rebellion' (April '94). The corollary of this statement is that the nomads would, by definition, have no 'territory'. They would be 'men from nowhere' as Jeune Afrique 28/7/94 put it, making the frequent confusion between wandering & nomadism.
These theses, particularly employed since the beginning of the Touareg uprising, are widely used by the authorities to prove the 'illegitimate', 'unacceptable' 'unenvisagable' nature of the demands for autonomy made in the name of the Touareg community. This perspective strips any political meaning from the rebel movement by reducing them to 'isolated anarchist actions' following a schema largely used during the colonial era.
Developped by the Gandakoy militias, the self-proclamed 'Masters of the Earth', these principles are thus expressed : 'The nomads from the North are a wandering people, without a country, without a State, who have come from the desert in tiny tribes'. The solution is then to send them back to their original state : 'Wanderers they were, wanderers they will remain' by taking action : 'Sweep all nomad presence from our towns & villages, from our lands even if uncultivated .... Send the nomads back into the sands of Azaoud ... Organise yourselves, arm yourselves, raise the people's army which alone can destroy the enemy' (La voix du nord, n°0, undated).
Underlying these ideas is the evolutionist dogma according to which nomads represent a primitive stage of the development of humanity, which is caracterised by a series of 'lacks' : lack of economic rationality, lack of unity & homogeneity, lack of the idea of a 'nation', lack of 'civic mind', lack of 'civilisation' ....
Symbols of barbarity, the Touaregs are thus presented as 'slavers'. This argument, which served to give the colonial enterprise a 'humanitarian' legitimacy, has largely been taken up again today to describe the Touaregs & the Moors, at the cost of forgetting the slave trades of neighbouring societies - Songhay, Peul, Bambara, Haoussa .... - as well as the majority of African societies, whether nomadic or sedentary. This selective accusation has permitted the rationalisation & justification of violence against the Touareg & the Moors.
In the language of the militia, which assimilates 'rebel', 'bandit' & 'Touareg', the discours becomes : "the armed bandit-rebels are racists & slavers ... Banditism is the natural state of a Tamachek. They are a foreign body in the social fabric'.
This rhetoric recycles arguments developed at the beginning of the century by the French confronted by Touareg resistance to their occupation. For example, commander Bétrix in 'Pénétration touareg' (1908) defines the Touareg as 'a race which is a social zero'. In the 'Rapport politique du Cercle d'Agadez' (1916) it is stated that 'the Touareg have no more reason to exist than the Redskins used to have. Unfortunately, the climate of the desert & the fantastic creature that is the camel create obstacles for us that the Americans didnt encounter'.
Thus, in the wake of colonial discours & practises of nearly a century ago, a nationalist & racist ideology has become widespread which uses all the clichés to stigmatise the the enemy of the nation. The analogy between this schema & the portrait of the wandering Jew invented by european anti-semitism is too striking not to be underlined : without a country, transnational, agent of foreign powers, predator, thief, asocial, genetically warped ....
It should be remarked that this populist propaganda is adressed to an electorate that is frustrated by the economic, political & social crisis and by the current failure of these States where the military are exerting more & more influence in the management of the country. The military coup d'état in Niger in February 1996 only served, from this point of view, to legitimise an already existing state of affairs.
The evolutionist perspective serves also to legitimise violence against 'enemies of progress' by developping the idea of the passage from an incoherent, undefined, primitive state (nomadism, tribalism) to a coherent, defined & evolved state (sedentarisation, the nation-state).
In an abusive use of 'democratic' language notions such as 'state power/ legitimacy/ democracy/ equality/ modernity/ sedentary' are opposed to the series 'rebellion/ outlaw/ feudalism/ tribalism/ slavery/ archaic/ nomadic'.
On these bases a veritable doctrine of violence has been erected, justifying the recours to terror employed by the army & the militias. Finally, for international public opinion, the repression against the Touareg population starts to appear legitimate.