Baz Lecocq

The War on Terror in a Haze of Dust: Potholes and Pitfalls on the Saharan Front

In recent decades peoples in the Sahara and Sahel have developed a new type of assault vehicle that is best known under the name of its most significant weapon, the Soviet-made Teknikal heavy machine gun. During combat, the Tuareg in Mali and Niger make clever use of their driving skills and the prevailing winds to create a dust storm offering cover to combatants both as they attack and retreat (Klute 2001:501). The victims are left in confusion, in a haze of dust. Metaphorically, it might be said that the many players and observers of the Saharan front in the war on terror have been similarly overtaken. With the war on terror, interest in the remote corners of the world has increased. Where state control is weak or lacking altogether, terrorists can operate furtively without restraint. Afghanistan is a case in point, where so-called failed states provide an attractive sanctuary for terrorists. It is not surprising, therefore, that Africa, the continent with so many failing or failed states, is seen as a security risk. The American army has opened two African fronts within the framework of “Operation Enduring Freedom”, one of them being in the Horn of Africa, the other, the focus of this article, in the Sahara and Sahel. In the 1990s Al Qaeda was noticeably present in East Africa. Osama bin Laden stationed himself and his entourage for several years in the Sudan, organising military operations against American troops in Somalia. In 1998 there were bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. In 2003, in Algeria and northern Mali, an abduction drama lasting several months played out with the Algerian Al Qaeda-affiliated Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC), and 32 German, Swiss, and Dutch hostages as lead characters. 2 Furthermore, the Islamic grassroots organisation Tablighi Jama’at has been active in many areas of Africa since the late 1990s; some observers view it as a cover or at least as a stepping stone for Al Qaeda’s inroads to Africa. 3

Unemployed Intellectuals in the Sahara: The Teshumara Nationalist Movement and the Revolutions in Tuareg Society

In the past four decades the Tuareg, a people inhabiting the central Sahara, experienced dramatic socioeconomic upheaval caused by the national independence of the countries they inhabit, two droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, and prolonged rebellion against the state in Mali and Niger in the 1990s. This article discusses these major upheavals and their results from the viewpoint of three groups of Tuareg intellectuals: the ‘‘organic intellectuals’’ or traditional tribal leaders and Muslim religious specialists; the ‘‘traditional intellectuals’’ who came into being from the 1950s onwards; and the ‘‘popular intellectuals’’ of the teshumara movement, which found its origins in the drought-provoked economic emigration to the Maghreb, and which actively prepared the rebellions of the 1990s. By focusing on the debates between these intellectuals on the nature of Tuareg society, its organization, and the direction its future should take, the major changes in a society often described as guarding its traditions will be exposed.

The Bellah Question: Slave Emancipation, Race, and Social Categories in Late Twentieth-Century Northern Mali

ResumeCet article esquisse le processus d’affranchissement des Touareg, autrefois esclaves, que l’on nomme generalement bellah, dans le Mali du nord, de la fin des annees 1940 a nos jours, et les relations actuelles entre les anciens maitres et les anciens esclaves. L’affranchissement des esclaves a ete mis en avant pour la premiere fois au cours des annees 1940 sous la pression des hommes politiques africains. Apres l’independance, ces derniers, contrairement a leur discours politique radical, ont poursuivi des politiques coloniales. Les secheresses du debut des annees 1970 et 1980 ont alimente la dynamique interne au sein de la societe targuie qui a alors relance sa campagne pour l’affranchissement des esclaves. Cet article accorde une attention toute particuliere a la nouvelle perception des notions de travail et de comportement social approprie, et aux transformations dans les relations sociales et politiques durant et apres la rebellion targuie. Durant toute la periode decrite, ces relations etaient ...

Tuareg separatism in Mali

This article provides a contextualized overview of Tuareg separatism and the violence that has attended it in Mali. The article sketches key episodes and developments in the conflict between the Malian state and Tuareg separatist nationalists, and outlines Tuareg political goals and internal dynamics. The article examines the impact on Tuareg separatism of the presence of international Jihadi-Salafist movements in the region and the resulting intrusion of the so-called “War on Terror” (Overseas Contingency Operations) during the past decade.

The hajj from West Africa from a global historical perspective (19th and 20th centuries)

Abstract Over the last years, in average, 2,1 million people per year performed the hajj. These millions stand in contrast to the numbers visiting Mecca half a century ago. On average, until 1946 a rough 60,000 pilgrims visited Mecca annually, with at least half of these coming from the Arabian Peninsula. Today Saudi nationals make up about a quarter of all pilgrims. The explanations for the staggering thirtyfold increase in total pilgrims, and the even more spectacular growth of the number of foreign pilgrims in slightly more than half a century are quite simple. First of all, the increasing world population in general led to larger numbers of pilgrims. Second, the journey became safer and better organised during the 20th century. In those parts of the Muslim world where it was not already (the Ottoman Empire), the organisation of the hajj became a state affair, organised first by the colonial authorities, and by the postcolonial states afterwards. Third, despite growing disparities in the distribution of global economic wealth an increasing number of Muslims could afford to pay for the journey. And finally the availability of cheap mechanical mass transport increased over this time period. This paper will look at these interconnected reasons for the spectacular growth of the hajj in the past half century from a world historical perspective, focussing on the West African Sahel in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this paper I hope to sketch how state rule, changing economies, motorised mass transport, and religion are interconnected phenomena, which are all shaped by and giving shape to world historical events in the Muslim world. The focus will be largely on the changing demography and social geography of the pilgrimage journey to Mecca as performed by pilgrims from the Sahel, and the changing significance of this journey in their lives.

Distant shores: a historiographic view on Trans-Saharan space

This article addresses how scholarship has formulated human connections and ruptures over the Sahara. However, these formulations were, and still are, based in both physical and discursive realities that have been developed in Africa itself. The idea of a dividing Sahara is based on historical political divisions-despite a homogenous political culture in the region-and by locally developed notions of race and religion, brought about by trade and justified in Islamic religious discourse. The Saharan divide acquired a new reading in colonial historiography, which, in turn, informed scholarly work until well into the 1960s. I will suggest that both colonial and postcolonial research on the differences and connections between the Saharan shores are suffering from a civilisational bias towards North Africa.

The Drama of Development: The Skirmishes Behind High Modernist Schemes in Africa

This special issue of African Studies arises out of a strong interest in, and fascination with, the nexus of development, power, and the state in Africa. At the core of this volume is a debate around Scott’s seminal Seeing Like a State. His description of failed development projects, in Africa as well as elsewhere in the world, provides a fascinating political and historical analysis of projects carried out by authoritarian regimes. The contributors to this volume engage with his analyses by examining the intricacies of the state in a cross-regional comparison of African development projects, past and present. These contributions range from an analysis of ujamaa in Tanzania after independence (Leander Schneider), relocation and land in colonial Rhodesia (Guy Thompson), the development of a township settlement in post-apartheid South Africa (Erik Bähre), and development and live stock policy in twentieth century Namibia (Steven van Wolputte).

Tuareg Separatism in Mali and Niger

This chapter provides a contextualized overview of Tuareg separatism and the violence that has accompanied it in Mali. The chapter sketches key episodes and developments in the conflict between the Malian state and Tuareg separatist nationalists and outlines Tuareg political goals and internal dynamics. The chapter examines the impact on Tuareg separatism of the presence of international Jihadi-Salafist movements in the region and the resulting intrusion of the so-called War on Terror (Overseas Contingency Operations) during the past decade.