The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel 9780198816959, 0198816952

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T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

T H E A F R IC A N SAHEL

The Oxford Handbook of

THE AFRICAN SAHEL Edited By

LEONARDO A. VILLALÓN

Section editors

SARAH MCKUNE, RENATA SERRA, SEBASTIAN ELISCHER, ALIOUNE SOW, BENJAMIN SOARES, FIONA MC LAUGHLIN, ABDOULAYE KANE

1

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2021 The moral rights of the authors‌have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2021930535 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​881695–​9 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198816959.001.0001 Printed and bound in the UK by TJ Books Limited Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments List of Maps, Figures and Tables Contributors Editor’s Introduction: Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters Leonardo A. Villalón

xi xiii xv 1

SE C T ION I   T H E S A H E L A S R E G ION 1. Mapping the Sahelian Space Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé

15

2. French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel Gregory Mann

35

3. The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel Jean-​Pierre Olivier de Sardan

51

4. Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel Augustin Loada

69

SE C T ION I I   NAT IONA L T R AJ E C TOR I E S 5. Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy Marie Brossier

89

6. Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability Boubacar N’Diaye

109

7. Mali: Collapse and Instability Bruce Whitehouse

127

vi   Table of Contents

8. Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open Ernest Harsch

147

9. Niger: Precarious Stability Lisa Mueller

167

10. Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation Ketil Fred Hansen

185

SE C T ION I I I   T H E E N V I RON M E N T A N D T H E C HA L L E N G E OF C L I M AT E C HA N G E Introduction 205 Sarah McKune 11. Land Use Change and Climate-​Smart Agriculture in the Sahel Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappan, and Chris Reij

209

12. The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security Sarah McKune

231

13. Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts

249

14. Climate Change and Human Conflict in the Sahel Tor A. Benjaminsen

269

15. Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors Marjatta Eilittä

285

SE C T ION I V   T H E C HA L L E N G E S OF DE V E L OP M E N T Introduction 305 Renata Serra 16. Informal Economies of the Sahel Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye

311

17. Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel Renata Serra

329

Table of Contents     vii

18. The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel Isaline Bergamaschi

347

19. Corruption and the State in the Sahel Giorgio Blundo

363

SE C T ION V   T H E C HA L L E N G E OF G OV E R N I N G Introduction 383 Sebastian Elischer 20. The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón

387

21. Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics Daniel Eizenga

405

22. Militaries in Sahelian Politics Sebastian Elischer

423

23. Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel Cristina Barrios

439

24. French Interventions in the Sahel Roland Marchal

459

SE C T ION V I   T H E I N T E L L E C T UA L L A N D S C A P E A N D H I S TORY OF I DE A S Introduction 477 Alioune Sow 25. Toward a History of Ideas in the Sahel Felwine Sarr

481

26. Yesterday Meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents Rahmane Idrissa

493

27. The Literary History of the Sahel Alioune Sow

511

viii   Table of Contents

SE C T ION V I I   T H E R E L IG IOU S L A N D S C A P E I N F LU X Introduction 529 Benjamin Soares 28. Islamic Intellectual Traditions in the Sahel Rüdiger Seesemann

533

29. Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel Benjamin Soares

551

30. Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim

569

31. Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel Ousseina Alidou

587

32. Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel Alexander Thurston

605

SE C T ION V I I I :   T H E C HA N G I N G S O C IA L M O S A IC Introduction 625 Fiona Mc Laughlin 33. Social Stratification in the Sahel Cédric Jourde

631

34. The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel Fiona Mc Laughlin

649

35. Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel Wendy Wilson-​Fall

667

36. Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian

683

Table of Contents     ix

SE C T ION I X   ON T H E M OV E :  U R BA N I Z AT ION , M IG R AT ION , T R A N SNAT IONA L I SM Introduction 703 Abdoulaye Kane 37. Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel Florence Boyer and David Lessault

709

38. Sahelian Migrations within Africa Sylvie Bredeloup

729

39. Trans-​Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel Harouna Mounkaila

747

40. Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas Abdoulaye Kane

767

Index785

Acknowledgments

A handbook of this sort is, by definition, a collective effort. In this case, the collectivity that has contributed to the effort is a particularly extensive one. The idea for this volume was born in the context of the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida, the institutional home of all of the editors. As a group, we share a commitment to interdisciplinary exchange and to close collaboration with colleagues in and from the countries of the Sahel. Individually and in teams, Sahel Research Group members have participated in numerous trans-​Atlantic projects on a wide range of topics related to the region. Many of the authors of the chapters that follow are friends and collaborators from such efforts. But our network also includes countless other colleagues who have shared their knowledge and perspectives with us in visits to Florida, or with whom we have had the privilege to exchange and collaborate in other settings, and who have thus contributed to our understanding of the region, and hence to this work. We thank them all, regretting only that we cannot recognize them individually. The activities and research of the Sahel Research Group have been generously supported from various funding sources, including an ongoing collaboration with the Sahel and West Africa Club of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (SWAC/​OECD). The majority of the chapters in this volume were first presented at a conference entitled “On the Edge: What Future for the African Sahel?” held at the University of Florida as the 2017 Gwendolen M. Carter Conference of the university’s Center for African Studies. In addition to support from the center, the conference was made possible with funding from a four-​year grant from the Minerva Initiative on “Institutional Reform, Social Change, and Stability in Sahelian Africa.” Special thanks are due to the Minerva Initiative, and to my collaborators on the research team for that project, which also provided support for the successful completion of their respective doctoral degrees: Mamadou Bodian, Daniel Eizenga, and Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim. We have received much support and logistical help from various people at the University of Florida, including director Brenda Chalfin, associate director Todd Leedy, and Ikeade Akineyemi of the UF Center for African Studies. My colleagues in the UF International Center have been supportive, and patient, as this project consumed more time than anticipated. Chizoba Ezenwa, Jordan McKenzie, Emily Moore, Luke Whittingham, and Isabelle Walther-​Duc each contributed in various ways to the challenging tasks of editing and formatting, and communicating with forty-​seven contributors while keeping track of multiple versions of each chapter. Olivier Walther produced the map of the political Sahel as well as the country maps in Section II. Five

xii   Acknowledgments of the chapters (by Loada, Blundo, Mounkaila, Bredeloup, and Boyer and Lessault) were initially translated from French by Noal Mellott. I thank all of these people for their help. Research in and on the countries of the Sahel can be challenging. Yet across the region, researchers, like others, are overwhelmingly received with hospitality and generosity even under trying circumstances. We recognize and pay tribute to these qualities of Sahelian cultures and societies. Leonardo A. Villalón Gainesville, Florida

List of Maps, Figures and Tables

Maps

Introduction: Political Map of the Sahel 

1.1

Precolonial routes, cities, and empires

17

1.2

Variation for annual precipitation in West Africa

22

1.3 US and French military initiatives and violent political events, 1997–​2015

27

1.4

29

Sahel strategies

5.1 Senegal 6.1

Mauritania 

xviii

88 108

7.1 Mali 

126

8.1

146

Burkina Faso

9.1 Niger

166

10.1 Chad

184

23.1 The G5 Sahel and its Joint Force

455

Figures 11.1 Percentage of agriculture in the gross domestic product, by country, from 2005 to 2014

211

11.2 Agriculture expansion between 1975 and 2013 in the Sahelian countries

212

11.3 Zai that have been dug during the dry season

214

11.4 Contour stone bunds slow down and conserve rainfall and runoff

215

11.5 Farmer-​managed natural regeneration of Faidherbia albida in Niger

216

11.6 Illustration of different tree cover densities within a 10-​hectare sample plot

218

11.7 On-​farm tree cover density in south-​central Niger, sample plots on a 2-​kilometer grid

219

11.8 Change in on-​farm tree cover density 2005 to 2014 in southern Maradi and Zinder Regions, sample plots on a 6-​kilometer grid

220

xiv    List of Maps, Figures and Tables 11.9 Satellite images showing typical increase in density of on-​farm trees in an area of high-​density tree cover

221

11.10 Tree cover extent and density in agricultural parklands of the Seno Plains, Mali

222

13.1 Population pyramids for Niger

251

13.2 Scenarios for year in which replacement-​level fertility is reached in Niger and consequent population sizes

252

16.1 Share of informal sector in GDP and total employment

317

39.1 Migratory movements in northwest Africa

751

Tables 11.1 Average harvested area of leading crops in the Sahel, 2010-​13 (thousands of hectares)

210

13.1

258

Progress toward Millennium Development Goals in the Sahel

15.1 Livestock populations in the Sahel, with human populations for comparison (in millions)

288

16.1 Percentage of informal sector workers who are women

318

22.1 Military coups and military rule: 1960 to 1990

426

22.2 Sahelian civil-​military relations and power relations post 1990

431

23.1 Impact and implications of security challenges on Sahelian states

445

23.2 Security capacity in the Sahel: Defense budgets and personnel

447

23.3 Governance and democracy indices for the Sahel

452

29.1 External “Islamic” actors in the Sahel

556

34.1 Estimated percentage of French speakers in the Sahel by country

652

34.2 Lingua francas of the Sahel

657

37.1 Population growth Since 1950 of the main cities in the Sahel (in thousands)

712

37.2 Population growth Since 1950 of the main cities in the Sahel (in percentages)

714

37.3 Percentage of the country’s urban population residing in each of the main Sahelian cities since 1950

715

40.1 Remittances to four Sahelian countries in 2001 and 2016 ($US millions)

773

40.2 Remittances from migrations to “North” and “South” compared

775

Contributors

Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni is a Statistician and Demographer and the Country Director of the OASIS Initiative in Niger. Ousseina Alidou is a Professor of African Languages and Literature at Rutgers University. Cristina Barrios is a Senior Analyst at the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies (EUISS). Tor A. Benjaminsen is a Human Geographer and Professor of Development Studies at the Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Isaline Bergamaschi is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Centre de Recherche et Etudes en Politique Internationale at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Giorgio Blundo is a Professor of Political Anthropology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Marseille. Mamadou Bodian is a Researcher in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Sahel and West Africa Program. Florence Boyer is a Researcher in Geography and Anthropology at the Migrations and Society Research Unit (URMIS) at the L’Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). Sylvie Bredeloup is Director of Research in the Laboratoire Population, Environnement, Développement (LPED) of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). Marie Brossier is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Université Laval. Suzanne Cotillon is Geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. Marjatta Eilittä is an Agronomist and Research Associate with the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida, and Program Director for the Farmer-​to-​Farmer Program at Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA). Daniel Eizenga is a Research Fellow in the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, Washington DC.

xvi   Contributors Sebastian Elischer is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. Alisha Graves is President of Venture Strategies for Health and Development and co-​ Founder of the OASIS Initiative, Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel. Fatou Guèye is a Professor of Economics at the University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar. Ketil Fred Hansen is a Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger. Ernest Harsch is a Journalist and Research Scholar and adjunct Associate Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Rahmane Idrissa is an Assistant Professor in the African Studies Centre of Leiden University and senior researcher at the Laboratoire d’études et de recherches sur les dynamiques sociales et le développement local (LASDEL) in Niamey, Niger. Cédric Jourde is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa. Abdoulaye Kane is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. David Lessault is a Geographer and Research Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and member of the Migrinter team (International Migration, Space and Societies) in Poitiers. Augustin Loada is a Professor of Public Law and Political Science at the University of Ouagadougou, and founding director of the Centre pour la Gouvernance Démocratique. Gregory Mann is a Professor of History at Columbia University. Roland Marchal is a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique based at the Centre de recherches internationals (CERI) of Sciences Po, Paris. Ahmadou Aly Mbaye is Rector of the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, where he is also Professor of Economics. Sarah McKune is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health and the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. Fiona Mc Laughlin is a Professor of Linguistics and African Languages at the University of Florida. Harouna Mounkaila is a Researcher and Professor in Geography at the Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey. Lisa Mueller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Macalester College. Boubacar N’Diaye is a Professor of Political Science and Pan-​African Studies at The College of Wooster.

Contributors   xvii Jean-​Pierre Olivier de Sardan is a Professor emeritus of Anthropology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Marseilles, and founding director of the Laboratoire d’études et de recherches sur les dynamiques sociales et le développement local (LASDEL) in Niamey. Malcolm Potts  is a Professor of Public Health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder of the OASIS Initiative. Chris Reij is a Sustainable Land Management specialist and a Senior Fellow of the World Resources Institute in Washington. Denis Retaillé is Professor Emeritus in Geography at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne. Felwine Sarr is a Professor of Economics at Gaston Berger University, St. Louis, Senegal and Research Professor in the Department of Romance Studies, Duke University. Rüdiger Seesemann is Dean of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Director of the Institute of African Studies, and Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Bayreuth. Renata Serra is a Senior Lecturer of African Economics in the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. Benjamin Soares is a Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for Global Islamic Studies at the University of Florida. Alioune Sow is an Associate Professor of French and African Studies at the University of Florida. Gray Tappan is a Geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. Alexander Thurston is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati. Leonardo A. Villalón is a Professor of African Politics and Dean of the International Center at the University of Florida. Olivier J. Walther is an Assistant Professor of African Geography at the University of Florida. Bruce Whitehouse is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Lehigh University. Wendy Wilson-​Fall is an Associate Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania. Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim is a Consulting Senior Sahel Analyst for the International Crisis Group, based in Dakar.

Edi tor ’ s I n t roduc tion Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters Leonardo A. Villalón

SPACES At one level, this book is focused on a geographic space—​vast, resource poor, and far from the places of dense human habitation, or of the massive consumption of global resources that is usually characterized as “developed.” The etymological origin of the name Sahel, from the Arabic word for shore or coast, evokes a line where one topographical reality yields to another, where the sands of the Sahara give way to the grasses and acacia trees of the savannas. The limits of this geographic Sahel are frequently measured by rainfall isohyets: 100–​200 mm of average annual rainfall at its northern edge where it meets the desert; 500–​600 mm per year where it fades into the Sudanic belt to the south, though these averages conceal significant variations over time. Within this space there is also a human Sahel, a cultural zone of connectivity and blending among the diverse populations that have long inhabited it. Centuries of encounter and exchange have produced what Hale and Stoller (1985) once described as a “deep Sahelian culture,” a shared set of commonalities and continuities that now help to define the region sociologically. North to south, the human Sahel is the venue where peoples characterized as Arabo-​Berber have long traded and mingled with Black African populations to the south. It is the space where the Muslim world encounters Christianity and historical African religious traditions. From east to west this Sahel represents the range of historical homelands of the Fulani, scattered across the region in what has been called the “Fula Archipelago” (Boutrais 1994), and known by diverse names among the many other groups with whom they live and exchange. The human Sahel is a space where historical symbioses between divergent and often precarious household economies have evolved to support interconnected human livelihoods. This is the area where pastoral rangelands overlap with the soils where

2   Leonardo A. Villalón fast-​growing grains can mature in a short and intense rainy season. In the process, as the historian Barbara Cooper has evocatively phrased it, the human Sahel is the place “where milk meets millet,” where herders and farmers have developed systems of exchange to their mutual benefit.1 This cultural and economic zone is of course not isolated. Indeed, it is also largely shaped by its location at a crossroads of historical exchanges: with the Maghreb to the north, Darfur and Sudan in the east, south to Nigeria and to the tropical coastal areas of yam and cocoa production, or to the Fouta Jallon highlands of Guinea. And increasingly, the future of the human Sahel is tied to even wider-​ranging networks of diasporas, to communities established on the Arabian Peninsula, in European and North America cities, in China, and more recently to new locales in such places as Brazil or Argentina. Within this geographic space and cultural zone, this book focuses on six political entities, officially independent and sovereign states whose borders transect the common social ties and whose boundaries define another way of framing the Sahel. This political Sahel is part of the international state system, represented as individual entities in the various governing bodies of that system, and regularly ranked in their reports and publications at the bottom of various scales of development. The four landlocked countries of the political Sahel—​Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad—​cluster year after year at the very bottom of the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings produced by the United Nations Development Program. Mauritania and Senegal, with the distinct advantages of an Atlantic coastline and significant protein from rich fish resources, score slightly higher, but remain in the bottom quartile.2 There is nothing natural about the political Sahel. As Timothy Mitchell reminds us, “the convention of imagining countries as empirical objects is seldom recognized for what it is, a convention” (2002, 230). Countries and their administrations are created objects, the products of historical and political processes. In the case of the Sahelian countries, they are the result of a specific colonial process: France’s participation in the European conquest of the continent in the late nineteenth century, and the rushed end to that occupation in 1960. The configuration of the current Sahelian countries is only tangentially related to the historical activities of the ancestors of the people who now live in these entities. The emergence of the specific set of countries that make up the Sahel was in fact contingent and unforeseen, and their existence in no sense a given until very shortly before their appearance on the world stage. Their final boundaries and discrete sovereignties were produced in the play of competing interests and forces in the 1950s as France, unable to “face the burden of an empire of citizens,” (Cooper 2005, 228) found it expedient to withdraw from the region.3 One legacy of that historical process is the parallel political institutions across the region. While there are some variations—​perhaps most notably in Mauritania and Chad—​the six countries continue to share strikingly similar legal, political, and educational systems, shaping institutions ranging from commercial law to electoral systems to security forces. Less readily visible but centrally important, a second legacy is the persistence of transnational networks of close ties among the respective francophone

Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters    3 elites of each country. In any given professional field—​including academics, jurists, journalists, public health specialists, and many others, as well as among activists in women’s associations, human rights organizations, or religious institutions—​there are well-​established trans-​regional “communities of practice” made up of individuals who know each other well, and interact regularly. In the countless international seminars, workshops and conferences that take place in the major hotel venues of Dakar, Bamako, Niamey, Ouagadougou, or elsewhere, these people meet their former classmates, colleagues, and collaborators from neighboring countries. Such groups literally share a common language of exchange and transaction, one that also leads to periodic encounters at events in Paris, Bordeaux, or Marseille. Beyond the historical cultural ties, the Sahelian space is also built on the shared discourses, practices, and language of an interconnected regional elite whose contours were shaped by the political dynamics of a common French colonial experience and its persistent legacies. The commonalities of the Sahelian spaces have produced shared traits and intermingled fates among countries. Yet these countries have also been marked by distinct political trajectories, and by the social and economic consequences of political choices and the vagaries of institution building over the decades since 1960. At times these trajectories have paralleled each other, although differing responses to critical historical moments—​such as to the wave of political liberalization in the name of democracy that swept the globe in the early 1990s—​have also produced divergences, with enormous consequences. In countless ways the distinct trajectory of each individual country within the political Sahel also shapes and determines the lives of those who are born and live and die within those spaces today.

CHALLENGES Beyond exotic images of turbaned men in blue and the fabled if vague renown of places like Timbuktu, the Sahel historically attracted little attention on the world stage, and was recognized only as a relatively remote realm of the French empire in Africa. To the extent that it has garnered international attention since independence, that attention has been largely framed by its challenges, recounted in narratives of the Sahel as a region marked by recurrent “crises,” notably periodic humanitarian crises brought about by food shortages. In the early 1970s, several consecutive years of terrible drought undermined what remained of the ambitious development projects of the new countries, and accelerated the erosion of the optimism of the first decade of independence. In the 1980s, drought and its consequent human suffering were again brought to world attention by the photographer Sebastião Salgado. His numbing images of the Sahel as “the end of the road,” republished in 2004 in a book series on contemporary photography, suggested, in the words of one reviewer, a place where “people are above all citizens of an environment rather than a society or culture” (Morton 2006). Periodic waves of hunger since then, and the annual publication of reports detailing grim

4   Leonardo A. Villalón prognoses for rain-​fed agriculture or analyses of zones of pending food insecurity have both reflected and sustained a focus on Sahelians as above all victims of a harsh natural environment. As the global environmental movement and awareness of climate change have become international points of contention and discussion, much attention to the future of the region has been directed at the challenges brought by the intersection of natural phenomena, politics, and social and demographic change. Indeed, the countries of the region have some of the highest population growth rates in the world, and consequently some of the youngest societies.4 This has also brought with it renewed attention to the role of human agency in producing what are perhaps best understood as “not-​so-​ natural” disasters, as Crombé and Jézéquel (2009) have described the famine of 2005 in Niger. Since the 2000s the main crisis at the center of the global narrative on the Sahel has been presented as one of “security,” a focus that has intensified since 2012 with the regional aftershocks of the collapse of the Malian democratic experiment (Raleigh, Nsaibia, and Dowd 2020). This is a crisis born of rising “violent extremisms” and the proliferation of religious radicalisms in the face of waning state capacity to channel or control social dynamics from beyond the region, producing an increasingly complex “geography of conflict” (OECD/​SWAC 2020). To some, it seems to be fed by competition for dwindling resources or by the struggles over illicit trade and smuggling of drugs, arms, and consumer goods across the Sahara. In the military and security terminology of the times, the Sahel’s “ungoverned spaces” define the challenge of an “arc of instability stretching across Africa’s Sahel region, an area of strategic interest for the United States and its allies . . . plagued by violent extremist organizations (VEOs)” (Cooke and Sanderson 2016). The challenges of attempting to govern and to maintain or restore authority and order in the face of this context have come to dominate the ways in which policies toward—​ and in—​the Sahel are framed, affecting domains of action well beyond strictly security or military concerns. Thus, debates about educational reform, for example, are shaped by anxieties about the dangers of violent extremism, and programs are designed around the goal of “countering violent extremism” (CVE). A United Nations discussion of the deepening Sahel crisis notes that: “Experts are now reflecting on what a suitable education system should be in the violence-​hit northern Burkina Faso, where most public schools have shut down while Franco-​Arabic schools and Qur’anic institutions remain open.”5 The reality of chronic food insecurity combined with the increasing spread of violence defines the global understanding of the Sahel today as a region of extreme vulnerability and fragility, at high risk of further suffering. These realities threaten to undermine the capacity of Sahelian countries to respond to new emerging challenges, fueling concerns that they are particularly susceptible to further dangers and hardships. As the global COVID-​19 pandemic of 2020–2021 spread, for example, the United Nations warned that “COVID-​19 is complicating an already complex security situation in the Sahel, with terrorist groups exploiting the pandemic as they step up attacks on national

Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters    5 and international forces.” For its part, the OECD highlighted that “the pandemic is unfolding as the region faces a food crisis of exceptional magnitude and high levels of insecurity.”6 In response to these intersecting and indeed often daunting challenges, the Sahel has long been marked by extraordinary levels of outside intervention, and has served as an international laboratory for theories of development and social change. As Greg Mann has incisively argued, in many ways the Sahel’s history in the decades since independence can be read as a grand experiment in “nongovernmentality,” a mode of intervention in which NGOs come to fill the void left by weakening or incapable states. In this context, aid and development projects became central to national economies, and led to the emergence of an elite class of expert consultants whom Olivier de Sardan and Bierschenk (1993) have labeled “local development brokers” (les courtiers locaux du développement). The clutter of metal signs pointing the way to the offices of agencies, projects, NGOs, and charitable organizations that make up much of the graphic landscape of sandy street corners in capitals across the region provide visual reminders of the persistent centrality of the aid industry to national economies. In this mix, international faith-​based organizations—​Christian and Muslim—​play a prominent role in the promotion of projects in select domains reflecting their own, sometimes shared, priorities. Despite their limitations, and significant variation in their effective capacities, the structure of the international state system has ensured that individual states maintain important roles in shaping the governance of their respective societies, while external actors in many ways define the parameters of their room for action. States in the region are thus particularly prone to rely on what Peiffer and Englebert have labeled “strategies of extraversion” as they maneuver to convert “their dependent relations with the external world into domestic resources and authority” (2012, 355). The forms and extent of governance in each state are forged in the ways in which their specific histories and configurations shape their political choices as they maneuver to extract resources and secure support from the international system. From the moment of independence, all the countries in the region were faced with the common challenge of governance of often-​vast territories with few resources and limited infrastructure. Unsurprisingly in retrospect, the efforts of new governments in the early decades were directed at attempting to centralize authority and ensure “order,” a goal quickly endorsed by both scholars and the international community (see, e.g., Zolberg 1966). As elsewhere, this ultimately proved unsustainable, and in the early 1990s demonstrators on the streets of Sahelian capital cities joined the global wave of defiant challenges to entrenched authorities. This proved to be as true in semi-​democratic Senegal as in authoritarian Niger or Mali, or even unsettled Chad. The French Fifth Republic everywhere served as the referent for subsequent political struggles over the contours of executive institutions, electoral systems, and other structures of government. Throughout the 1990s and into the decade that followed, outside intervention in the Sahel reflected global dynamics, producing a veritable industry of “democracy promotion” (see Brown 2013). The outcomes of these processes were very mixed, but their legacy remains everywhere as an ongoing central tension between “the dialectics

6   Leonardo A. Villalón of democratization and stability” (Idrissa 2020). Both internal and external actors have attempted to play on the ambiguities of this dialectic in seeking influence, and have thus shaped the ongoing responses to the challenges of governance. As world attention has moved the Sahel’s security crises to center stage, the priorities of external actors have shifted, and the intensity, forms, and objectives of outside intervention have been transformed. With the global expansion of the “war on terror” following 2001, Americans and their allies found new threats in the Sahara and into the Sahel, and began a gradual process of militarization of relations with countries that had long been of very limited strategic interest. Most significantly, of course, the new framing of the challenges of the Sahel around security has been driven by France, “the de facto military guarantor of the security of Sahelian regimes” (Guichaoua 2020). While the French have periodically intervened militarily across their former African colonies over the decades, their Sahelian presence accelerated in 2013 with the launching of Opération Serval, intended to drive the jihadist occupiers from northern Mali, and then continued with Serval’s successor, Opération Barkhane. At the same time, international organizations, most centrally the United Nations, via its Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), but also the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union, became part of the de facto governance landscape in key areas. And increasingly, China, Russia, Turkey, and other rising powers in search of influence have seen the Sahel as an opportunity and have, at times, found entries to establish influence. Seen in global context, the extraordinary challenges that the six countries of the Sahel face—​collectively and individually—​are undeniable, and the sequential crises in the region are real. The challenges are a product of both the changing geographic realities and the regional effects of global political dynamics. Yet an understanding of the specific ways in which these crises play out, and of the parameters that shape and define their evolution and long-​term consequences, requires attention to many other key aspects of the region’s reality. The contemporary Sahel is a zone of movement, intense debate, protest, and controversy, of political vibrancy and ongoing experimentation with governance, of unexpected social and cultural change that reflects contradictions, confrontations, and controversy, as well as innovation and creativity. Given its high demographic growth, it is home to some of the most youthful populations in the world, to generations whose future is being forged in the intersecting and rapidly moving realities of the region.

ENCOUNTERS Well before its emergence as a region of international interest, the intensity of contact and exchange that are the defining features of the human Sahel made it a zone of historical innovation and cultural transfer. In many ways it is today on the cutting edge of grand natural experiments exploring how humans will adapt to climate change, to

Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters    7 technological innovation, to the global movement of populations and the restructuring of world politics, to urbanization, social change, and rapid demographic growth, and to inter-​religious contact and innovation. There is nothing timeless about the region; it is a weathervane on the front lines of the forces of global change. In the face of the many real challenges, historical capacities for adaptability and mobility remain as central resources for contemporary Sahelian societies. In the context of overlapping crises, these features have fed another notable approach to the region, one that seeks to identify and to promote indigenous sources of the region’s “resilience.”7 In profound and persistent ways, the parameters of Sahelian responses to the region’s many challenges are shaped by its dual heritage as a space of intellectual and cultural contact between two major global forces. These forces were already at play in the mid-​ nineteenth-​century confrontation, vividly described by David Robinson (1985), of two men with imperial state-​building ambitions in the Senegal River Valley: the Fulani jihadi leader al-​Hajj Umar Tall and the French General Louis Faidherbe. This encounter between two projects for modern order, like many other encounters that followed, was a violent one, but the eventual imposition of the French political project over its rival only temporarily masked the persistent appeal of the two grand ideas for governing society that were to long outlive the colonial interlude: Liberalism and Islamism. The intellectual encounters between the two worldviews have produced “a space in which the revolutionary projects of liberalism and Islam were localized in a society which was the product of the colonial order” (Idrissa 2009, 74). Far from fading, the dynamic encounter between these two revolutionary projects has moved to the center of social movements and politics in recent decades, shaped by both local conditions and global forces in a post-​secular world. Particularly among its vast Muslim majorities, but also within its strong Christian minorities, the Sahel represents a vibrant laboratory for religious discourse and change, and a zone of high interest to international religious actors. It has produced crucial and dynamic discussions of the limits of liberal secularism, and most centrally of the French notion of laïcité, in conceptualizing democracy for profoundly religious societies. These discussions have begun—​and will no doubt continue—​to be echoed in how the concept is framed and understood among the growing Muslim populations of France, and elsewhere in Europe. Importantly, these public debates have in turn provoked internal religious ones, in the process opening doors to religious change and innovation. The continued encounter of the two grand projects in the region today is not always—​nor even perhaps primarily—​marked by conflict, but rather often takes the form of negotiation and dialogue (Villalón 2010). In the broad religiosity that cuts across social sectors and backgrounds, these traditions are increasingly fused and intermingled in myriad ways. The direct contact between the two projects is in part negotiated via the associated dominant languages of their civilizations of origin, but also in interaction with the rich linguistic diversity of the region on which they are superimposed. In the elite realms of politics and religion, the two world languages—​French and Arabic—​coexist and often compete for dominance, intersecting with the vernacular languages of social interaction used in virtually all of everyday life. The ongoing linguistic encounters continue to evolve and

8   Leonardo A. Villalón to shape the future, notably reflected in recent debates on educational systems. The dual intellectual traditions that underlie and are perpetuated by parallel formal and informal school systems intertwine daily in the increasingly popular Franco-​Arabic schools that have spread across the region. Distinctly Sahelian forms of cultural production and literary innovation and creativity are forged at the intersection of these encounters (Wise 2001). To be sure, the varied manifestations of “deep Sahelian culture” have not been buried. On the contrary, both ideological blueprints for African modernities have been entangled with and central to debates on social change, including the adaptation of older and preexisting forms of social organization and identities, structures of control and stratification, modes of livelihood, and forms of traditional authority. An underlying tension often characterizes public debates about the interpretation of historical events or contemporary social realities as positions are structured through the alternative frameworks of Islamic or Liberal worldviews. The intense debates over the politics of confronting the persistent legacy of slavery in Mauritania—​as in Niger and indeed elsewhere in the region—​for example, have been marked by a persistent tension over whether the issue should be framed in the liberal terminology of international human rights, or as a debate about the correct interpretation of Islamic legal texts and Maliki jurisprudence.8 Increasingly public debate about other contemporary dynamics, including communal life and personal behavior in growing urban spaces, or the relationship with other global cultural and social norms—​namely those prevalent in the host societies in which growing Sahelian diasporas find themselves—​highlight the persistent strength of both frameworks for modernity. These dynamics have intensified in recent decades. With the temporal and spatial acceleration of the geographic mobility that has long been a hallmark of Sahelian societies, the patterns and intensity of migration and urbanization have evolved. Mobility has long been and continues to be an adaptive resource, but as numbers have grown it is also often presented as another problem or challenge, both across international borders and within the region. Though in fact it does not represent the majority of outmigration from the Sahel, the expansion of travel to Europe has attracted particular international attention, and alarm. The issue is destined to stay central to debates about the region as the Sahel’s vibrant youth population continues to move, in search of opportunities created in part by the deficit of working adults among the aging populations of Europe and other parts of the world. In the meantime, historically deeper and in many ways more important zones of movement continue, internally to other parts of Africa, but also within the region itself. Demographic and climate pressures have in many cases forced changes in patterns of transhumant pastoralism, seemingly a cause of increased farmer–​herder conflict. Yet even as the future of pastoralism is in question, its intrinsic possibilities for adaptation, mobility, and change serve as paradigm for a region seeking to understand and invest in dynamics of resilience. In this mix of social change, contact and exchange, conflict and collaboration, social movements flourish in the Sahel, at times working in concert with the state, at others independently—​and indeed sometimes against the state. This book attempts to offer an understanding of the specificity of the Sahel, and to examine its core characteristics as shaped by the geographic, cultural, and political

Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters    9 parameters that define it. Following a series of chapters focused on the shaping of the Sahelian space as a region, six chapters explore the distinct national trajectories of the countries of the political Sahel. The extraordinary combination of environmental, economic, and political challenges, and the ways in which Sahelian states and societies have responded, are the primary focus of the three subsequent parts, while the various parameters of the lived realities of these societies in motion are explored in the four final parts of the book. Transversally throughout, the chapters aim to offer an interdisciplinary and holistic view of the challenges and the dynamics that are shaping a region at an historical crossroads, and an understanding of the many factors that feed and perpetuate its vulnerabilities and fragilities, as well as its sources of resilience.

Notes 1. Cooper’s phrase is from a keynote address, “Producing and reproducing the Sahel over the long 20th century,” delivered at a workshop on “Reframing the Sahel as a Political Space”, held at Johns Hopkins University, 8–​9 November 2013. See also Cooper 2018 for an excellent overview of the region’s history that explores these social dynamics. 2. See, for example, the following HDI rankings:

Niger: Chad: Burkina Faso: Mali: Mauritania: Senegal:

2013

2015

2019

186/​of 186 184 183 182 155 154

188/​of 188 185 183 179 156 170

189/​189 187 182 184 161 166

3. The French Loi-​cadre (“Framework law”) of 1956, only four years before independence, set the stage for a series of small independent states rather than larger and potentially more powerful countries to emerge from the vast territories of French West Africa (AOF) and French Equatorial Africa (AEF). Efforts to maintain larger units collapsed only at the moment of independence, or indeed shortly thereafter in the case of the Mali Federation, which became the independent republics of Senegal and Mali. Five of the six Sahelian countries are heirs of the AOF; Chad was carved from the AEF. Cooper (2005) offers a fascinating account of the role of labor in shaping this unexpected and indeed unwanted outcome. See ­chapter 7, “Labor, Politics, and the End of Empire in French Africa.” 4. In 2020 The World Bank ranked the four landlocked Sahelian states in the top twelve, of 231 countries, in terms of population growth rate, while Senegal was ranked at thirty and Mauritania at forty-​one. See: https://​data.worldbank.org/​indicator/​SP.POP.GROW 5. United Nations Office on the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “The Sahel crisis deepens—​Education under attack in Burkina Faso.” Available at: https://​www.unocha.org/​ story/​sahel-​crisis-​deepens-​education-​under-​attack-​burkina-​faso 6. The ways in which the pandemic compounded the region’s challenges, namely in food, humanitarian assistance, and security, were the subject of innumerable articles and

10   Leonardo A. Villalón discussions. The two statements quoted here are available at the following sources, respectively: https://​news.un.org/​en/​story/​2020/​06/​1065742 and http://​www.oecd.org/​swac/​ coronavirus-​west-​africa/​ 7. The term is widely used in discussions of possibilities in the Sahel, ranging from responses to drought to responses to jihadi violence. See, for example, McGovern 2013 and Goffner, Sinare, and Gordon 2019. 8. Biram Dah Abeid, founder of the Mauritanian anti-​slavery organization, Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA), famously staged a burning of Maliki legal texts in Nouakchott following prayers one Friday in April 2012. In discussions of the highly controversial act (for which he was jailed), Abeid presents it as an explicit effort to reframe the debate on slavery away from the international human rights issue in which it had long been presented, to an Islamic one. The latter, he believes, will have much deeper resonance in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. For a discussion of the intertwining of such international and domestic arguments in this case and other similar debates in Mauritania, see Freire 2019.

REFERENCES Boutrais, Jean. 1994. “Pour une nouvelle cartographie des Peuls.” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 34(133/​135): 137–​146. Brown, Stephen. 2013. “Democracy Promotion,” in Nic Cheeseman, David M. Anderson, and Andrea Scheibler, eds., Routledge Handbook of African Politics. London: Routledge, 404–​413. Cooke, Jennifer G., and Thomas M. Sanderson. 2016. Militancy and the Arc of Instability: Violent Extremism in the Sahel. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Cooper, Barbara. 2018. “The Sahel in West African History,” in Thomas Spear, ed., The Oxford Research Encyclopedia: African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​acrefore/​9780190277734.013.167 Cooper, Frederick. 2005. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Crombé, Xavier, and Jean-​Hervé Jézéquel. 2009. A Not-​So Natural Disaster: Niger 2005. New York: Columbia University Press. Freire, Francisco. 2019. “Weapons of the Weak, and of the Strong: Mauritanian Foreign Policy and the International Dimensions of Social Activism. The Journal of North African Studies 24(3): 490–​505. Goffner, Deborah, Hanna Sinare, and Line J. Gordon. 2019. “The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative as an opportunity to enhance resilience in Sahelian landscapes and livelihoods.” Regional Environmental Change 19: 1417–​1428. Guichaoua, Yvan. 2020. “The Bitter Harvest of French Interventionism in the Sahel.” International Affairs 96(4): 895–​911. Hale, Thomas, and Paul Stoller. 1985. “Oral Art, Society, and Survival in the Sahel Zone,” in Stephen Arnold, ed., African Literatures Studies: The Present State. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 163–​169. Idrissa, Abdourahmane. 2009. The Invention of Order: Republican Codes and Islamic Law in Niger. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Florida, Department of Political Science.

Framing the Sahel: Spaces, Challenges, Encounters    11 Idrissa, Rahmane. 2020. “The Dialectics of Democratization and Stability in the Sahel,” in Leonardo A. Villalón and Rahmane Idrissa, eds., Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 191–​210. McGovern, Mike. 2013. “Understanding Conflict Drivers and Resilience Factors in the Sahel.” USAID/​USSOCOM Joint Sahel Assessment. A report prepared by the Navanti Group. Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-​politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Morton, Christopher A. 2006. Review of Sahel: The End of the Road. Anthropological Quarterly 79(1): 175–​177. OECD/​SWAC. 2020. The Geography of Conflict in North and West Africa. West African Studies series. Paris: OECD Publishing. Olivier de Sardan, Jean-​Pierre, and Thomas Bierschenk. 1993. “Les courtiers locaux du développement.” Bulletin de l’APAD. Association Euro-​Africaine pour l’Anthropologie du Changement Social et du Développement. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 5. Peiffer, Caryn, and Pierre Englebert. 2012. “Extraversion, vulnerability to donors, and political liberalization in Africa.” African Affairs 111(444): 355–​378. Raleigh, Clionadh, Héni Nsaibia, and Caitriona Dowd. 2020. “The Sahel crisis since 2012.” African Affairs, adaa022, https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​afraf/​adaa022 Robinson, David. 1985. The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-​Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Salgado, Sebastião. 2004. Sahel: The End of the Road. Berkeley: University of California Press. Villalón, Leonardo A. 2010. “From Argument to Negotiation: Constructing Democracies in Muslim West Africa.” Comparative Politics 42(4): 375–​393. Wise, Christopher, ed. 2001. The Desert Shore: Literatures of the Sahel. Boulder: Lynne Rienner publishers. Zolberg, Aristide R. 1966. Creating Political Order: The Party States of West Africa. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Section I

THE SAHEL A S R E G ION Section editor: Leonardo A. Villalón

Chapter 1

MAPPING T H E SAHELIAN SPAC E Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé

Located far from the seaports of the Gulf of Guinea and separated from North Africa by the world’s largest desert, the Sahel has often been envisioned as an arid strip of land in which sedentary and nomadic peoples clash periodically. The global humanitarian response that followed the famines of the 1970s and 1980s temporarily brought the Sahel into international headlines and initiated a durable investment in food security and new forms of “nongovernmentality” (Mann 2014), but the region remained a peripheral area of interest within the scholarly community. The deterioration of the security situation that started with the emergence of armed groups affiliated with al-​Qaeda and the Islamic State in the 2000s marked a radical change in the way the Sahel was perceived by scholars and policymakers alike. After such a long period of obscurity, the Sahel—​ often confused with the Sahara—​is now considered the center of a toxic combination of violent extremist organizations, secessionist rebels, and criminals, who exploit the weakness of the states and their porous borders (Walther and Miles 2018). This chapter examines the geographical meaning of the Sahel, its fluid boundaries, and its spatial dynamics. Unlike other approaches that define the Sahel as a bioclimatic zone or as an ungoverned area, the chapter shows that the Sahel is primarily a space of circulation in which uncertainty has historically been overcome by mobility. By focusing on the interactions that the region and its people have with the broader North and West Africa, we adopt a relational view on the Sahel that aims to avoid the “territorial trap” (Agnew 1994) that results either from considering the Sahel as a fixed territorial unit with strict boundaries or from dividing it into mutually exclusive states. On the contrary, the Sahel constitutes a crossroads that has historically been linked to the rest of the African continent, particularly the Sahara, with which it forms an indivisible pair, divorced only by colonial science. In what follows we first discuss how precolonial empires relied on a network of markets and cities that facilitated trade and social relationships across the region and beyond. The second section explores changing regional mobility patterns precipitated

16    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé by colonial powers and the new approach they developed to control networks and flows. It shows that the metaphorical origin of the term Sahel—​which stems from the Arabic sahil, meaning “coast”—​was ignored by the geographers, ethnographers, botanists, and explorers who attempted to define the limits of the Sahel by relying on natural criteria. The third section discusses the postcolonial period and the current contradiction between the mobile strategies adopted by local herders, farmers, and traders in the Sahel and the territorial development initiatives of modern states and international donors. Particular attention is paid in the last section to how the Sahel has been progressively redefined through a security lens.

PRECOLONIAL EMPIRES: THE SAHEL-​SAHARA AS A NETWORK The precolonial period of the Sahel-​Sahara was characterized by a succession of empires for whom political power and commercial wealth was not a product of territorial domination but rather one of control of the major routes that permitted the trade of gold, salt, slaves, dates, textiles, and wheat across the region (Austen 2010). The boundaries of these precolonial states were very different from those of modern Sahelo-​Sahara states: fluid and flexible, they separated the main center of religious and political power from its vast peripheral areas, where slaves were raided.

Precolonial Empires Four great empires succeeded one another in time and space and controlled travel between North and West Africa between the end of the ninth century and colonization: Ghana, Mali, Songhay, and Kanem-​Bornu (Map 1.1). The Ghana Empire was the first real trans-​Saharan empire (Davidson 2014). It controlled the western routes from Koumbi Saleh to Sijilmasa before the nomadic Arab population settled in the area. It was replaced by the Almoravid Empire in the twelfth century, which conquered southern Spain and the western half of the Maghreb. The transformation by the Almoravids of what had been an empire to a more traditional territorial form precipitated internal schisms that ultimately undermined their political power, and resulted in the fragmentation of the empire into provinces. In the ninth century, the Mali Empire succeeded the Ghana Empire without actually conquering it. The emergence of the Mali Empire occurred when the dominant Mali dynasty, the Keïta, seized control of the trade routes in the region and shifted them from the Senegal River basin to the Niger River basin. As in the west, the population along this central route was made up primarily of camel drivers, ancestors of the ancient Sanhadja and Garamantes, as well as other Berbers fleeing Arab conquest. These groups

Mapping the Sahelian Space    17

Map 1.1  Precolonial routes, cities, and empires Source: Adapted from OECD/​SWAC (2014) with permission.

took a long time to knit into a cultural community and never attained a significant degree of political unity. Centered on Gao, the Songhay Empire (from the fifteenth to sixteenth century) was the last of the empires based on the Senegal and Niger Rivers (Abitbol 1999). It was the most extensive of the Sahel-​Saharan empires and controlled the same central trans-​ Saharan route as the Mali. The Songhay Empire was dominated by the Touré, known as Askia, who at their peak in the early sixteenth century ensured the stability and permanence of movement within the Sahara at a time when the Maghreb, which collapsed after the Almohad episode, was still unstable. The Moroccan conquest that brought an end to the Songhay Empire in 1591 radically changed the centrality of the trade network to the benefit of the north. It revived within a single entity the large central Timbuktu–​ Sijilmasa route, passing through the salt mines of Taghaza (later and further to the south, Taoudenni) via the Tanezrouft desert. One thousand kilometers east, the most enduring of the empires, the Kanem, and subsequently the Kanem-​Bornu (from the tenth to the nineteenth century), was centered on Lake Chad but extended as far as the current route from Chad to Sudan (Barkindo 1999). The Toubou and Kanuri who built the empire ensured the permanence of movement within the Sahara by controlling the route to Fezzan in present-​day

18    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé southern Libya, the main Saharan crossroad between Lake Chad and the Mediterranean Sea. Despite being less well known than other precolonial routes, this route has been one of the most durable axes of commerce in the region. This succession of Sahelo-​Saharan empires demonstrates how history often repeats itself. First, a powerful dynasty like the Keïta of Mali or the Touré of Songhay or an organization like the Almoravids managed to gain control over commerce through alliances. The accumulation of commercial wealth then permitted them to establish political power. This situation was, however, precarious as the social groups excluded from power perpetually contested the ruling authority until power shifted to another dynasty. This succession of dynasties was first described in the fourteenth century by Ibn Khaldun (1969), who noted that the “sedentarization” of power over movement was accompanied by a softening of nomadic warrior spirit and pride. The experience of the Sahelo-​Saharan empires shows that attempts to transform routes into conduits of power radiating from central places results in the leakage of power to groups that are unencumbered by the challenge of controlling sparsely populated territory.

Routes, Population Centers, and Mobility Precolonial empires were not dedicated solely to commerce. Each empire was anchored in a densely populated area in the Sahelian zone, from which the trans-​Saharan routes to the north and southern routes to the savannah and to the Gulf of Guinea radiated. The Ghana Empire was centered in the west of modern Mali and to the south of Mauritania, the Mali and Songhay empires were governed from the Niger River valley, and the Kanem-​Bornu Empire from the Lake Chad region. These population centers were linked to the large nomadic areas of the Sahara: the Senegal River population basin offered access to the Moorish nomadic territories; the Niger River valley was connected to Tuareg grazing lands; the Hausa settlements offered access to the Azawagh of northern Niger; and the Toubou settlements to the Djado. Over the centuries, particular patterns of mobility developed within each empire and at their fluid boundaries. Sahelian populations developed trade networks linking the principal salt, textile, kola nuts, and natron producing areas with regional consumer markets. In addition to the Hausa merchant diaspora organized around the kola nut trade (Lovejoy 1980), several other large networks operated between the basins of the Volta and the Niger Rivers: the Dyula from the Mali Empire, the Yarse from the Mossi kingdom, and the Wangara who were associated with both the Ghana and Mali empires. Farmers and pastoralists also engaged in seasonal exploitation of the rich grazing land and cultivation areas. Their patterns of settlement and periodic movements were finely tuned to the agroecological areas they connected and knew exceptionally well. In the Inner Niger Delta, for example, three systems of production were intertwined. Depending on the season, fishermen, farmers, and pastoralists invested in the flooded areas, the fertile lands, and the grassy meadows of the delta, each in turn. Formalized in the nineteenth century with the founding of the theocratic empire of Macina, this

Mapping the Sahelian Space    19 sociopolitical organization shunned the intensive cultivation of areas that, elsewhere in the world, would have attracted a significant and permanent rural population (Gallais 1967). In addition, agricultural expansion strongly contributed to defining property rights and the structure of relationships between social groups in the region. In many regions, such as the Dendi, northern Ghana, or southwestern Burkina Faso, conquerors who supplanted local chiefs became responsible for political authority, while the “sons of the soil” retained their religious power over animist cults, land administration, and natural resources (Walther 2012; Lentz 2013). Several urban centers where food stuff and cereals were purchased by the nomads in exchange for salt and animals punctuated these spaces. Cities located at the crossroads of caravan routes functioned as strategic places for the circulation of goods and people: Bilma and Iferouane in Niger; Chinguetti, Tichit, Oualata, and Atar in Mauritania; Tamanrasset in Algeria; and Gao in Mali (Lydon 2009). The alignment of these centers in the southern Sahara, just as in the north, constituted a network of places that served as transit centers between the desert and the savannah (Retaillé 1995; OECD/​SWAC 2014). This particular spatial structure in which trans-​Saharan routes were associated with marketplaces remained remarkably stable until the dawn of the colonial period, despite the temporal and spatial succession of empires.

EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION: DIVIDING THE SAHEL-​SAHARA Nineteenth-​century European explorers, attracted by the accounts of ancient and Arab geographers, followed the routes used by the nomadic peoples of the Sahara. They documented the names of the stopping places they discovered, described landscapes, took climate measurements, and gathered rock samples. Gradually, a map including topographical relief and the location of watering holes crucial to long crossings began to fill in the blank spaces that represented the region in European atlases. The Arabic word sahil made its entry into the vocabulary of geography. In the north, as well as the south, the search for the limits of the Sahel and the Sahara was undertaken for the twin objectives of finding routes across the immense region and the boundaries that would enable its division. It was both a scientific and a political exercise.

Mapping the Routes and Boundaries of the Sahara The routes traveled by all explorers through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries followed those traced, in previous centuries, by the precolonial empires and nomadic caravanners. Later, the colonization of this vast territory, primarily by the French, also involved trans-​Saharan railroad and road projects based on the dream

20    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé of linking the two colonized areas of the Maghreb and West Africa. Due to internal rivalries between French colonies, these ambitious projects never materialized and both shores of the Sahara progressively became completely disconnected from each other (OECD/​SWAC 2014). At the same time, colonial era geographers attempted to identify the borders of the vast desert in the north and south and establish sensible sub-​regions based on human and climatic characteristics, like rainfall or sedentary and nomadic “ways of life.” In their search for the boundaries of, and passageways through, the great desert, explorers and conquerors considered it a barrier between two great hydrographic systems—​one oriented toward the Mediterranean and the other to the Gulf of Guinea. The seasonal rivers that penetrated the desert made up a vast basin that never flowed into the sea, except for the Nile River. This vocabulary of geographical positivism was inspired by the work of Philippe Buache (1752), geographer to the French King Louis XVI, who used hydrographic basins to delimit regions. The boundaries of specific regions were, therefore, defined by the network formed by the principal rivers and their tributaries from their sources to the sea. Features of the terrain played an equally important role in this approach to understanding space, particularly for French explorers and colonizers for whom the Massif Central was considered both the geological (Dufrénoy and Elie de Beaumont 1841) and historical center of France (Michelet 1886). The presence of the Hoggar and Tibesti Mountains in the center of the Sahara was reminiscent of the continental upland. This similarity was noted by the French explorer Conrad Killian (1925, 11), who in his description of Hoggar noted that “to reach the Saharan Massif Central you must first traverse a whole country of vast plains.” The European geomorphological model served as a point of references for interpreting the geography of the Sahara and the identification of massifs centraux gained currency as a method for constructing geographical frameworks alongside rivers and other boundaries and barriers. Later, the Sahara was conceptualized as a “roof ” with two pitched sides, one to the Mediterranean, and one to the “Sudan” in the south, and an edge-​oriented NE-​SW. From the Atlantic Ocean to the Nile, geographers also identified three large empty areas separating nomadic populations: the Tanezrouft between the Moors and the Tuareg, the Ténéré between the Tuareg and the Toubou, and the Libyan desert in the far east (Monod 1968). This representation of the Sahara as a roof punctuated by central mountains and scattered human settlements was frequently used to delimit nomadic “countries” (pays in French). The pays Tuareg, an object of considerable attention for the French, for example, was defined as a region with “fairly precise boundaries in the heart of which [the Hoggar, the Aïr, and the Adrar des Ifoghas] form an armature” (Bernus 1991, 120). In addition to forming the high country of the nomads, the central mountains of the Sahara were considered as a starting point from which to fix the limits of sedentary society, where movement could be controlled and territory could be conceivably divided for agricultural exploitation.

Mapping the Sahelian Space    21

The Invention of a Frontier Between Sedentary and Nomadic Populations The delimitation of a frontier between sedentary and nomadic populations was the object of fierce debate during the colonial period. North of the Sahara, this debate engaged the geographers at the University of Algiers who were, more or less, devotees of the French School of regional geography espoused by Paul Vidal de la Blache. The “Algerians” led by Emile-​ Félix Gautier (1923) supported meticulous field survey. They eventually prevailed over the “Parisians” represented by Augustin Bernard and Napoléon Lacroix (1906), whose main preoccupation was to draw a line between the fertile production lands extending along Algeria’s coast and the more rebellious Sahara. The desert boundaries were therefore established at the first line of oases, visited seasonally by nomadic tribes, that punctuate the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The limit draws on the historical boundary set by the Regency of Algiers, also known as Ottoman Algeria (c. 1517–​1830), that prevailed until colonization. Other administrative regions were created in the Sahara: between 1902 and 1952, French Algeria constituted the Southern Territories, a military area patrolled by companies of camel corps against nomad incursions. In the south, geographers also sought the boundary of the Sahel and the Sahara, this time on a purely bioclimatic basis and with the implicit idea that rainfall conditioned sedentary or nomadic “ways of life.” Using maps to record the volume of rain that fell each year made it possible to draw lines connecting locations that received equal amounts of rainfall, known as isohyets. Because the volume of water that falls on the surface of the earth varies a great deal over time, particularly for smaller volumes, rainfall was therefore expressed as an average annual normal. In this view, the 200 mm annual precipitation isohyet was defined as the cut-​off for aridity, below which farming and herding were no longer possible. Regions receiving less than 200 mm of rain per year were considered Saharan, while those receiving between 200 and 600 mm were considered Sahelian. Further south, the Sudanian domain was characterized by precipitation between 600 and 1300 mm, while the Guinean domain with precipitation greater than 1300 mm (OECD/​SWAC 2014). This zonal distribution is mainly due to the seasonal movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where northeasterly winds from the Sahara, called harmattan in the Sahel, and southwesterly winds from the tropical Atlantic Ocean converge (Lélé and Lamb 2010). The boundary between the dry and hot air of the continental trade winds and the warm, humid air of the southwesterly winds is roughly aligned east–​west. Its movements condition the intensity of rainfall in the Sahel: when the trade winds move northward, the convergence zone moves in this direction until reaching its maximum position, approximately 20°N in the month of August. From April to October, West Africa experiences a rainy season, when the southern winds

22    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé prevail and bring moist air to the interior of the continent. Starting in November, the zone of convergence begins its descent toward the equator. The Sahel then experiences a dry season, characterized by the preponderance of the Saharan winds, until the following April. Because the relative strength of the northern and southern trade winds greatly varies from one year to the next, any effort to use isohyets to define the boundaries of the Sahel proved challenging. As a transition zone between the Sahara and the savannah, the Sahel is the region where the coefficient of variation for annual precipitation is the highest in West Africa (Map 1.2). Rainfall anomalies are the norm rather than the exception and wet seasons can be followed by droughts in a rather unpredictable way (OECD/​SWAC and Met Office 2010). The average normal from 1968 to 2000, for example, shifted the isohyet lines about 100 km to the south, strongly suggesting that the desert was gaining ground. Data recorded in recent years suggest that moisture may be returning. Due to global climate change, however, the projections for Sahel rainfall are less robust than twentieth-​century records, with a probable increase of extreme meteorological events such as massive rainfalls followed by periods of relative droughts (Panthou, Vischel, and Lebel 2014).

Map 1.2  Variation for annual precipitation in West Africa Source: Adapted from OECD/​SWAC (2014) with permission. Coefficient of variation calculated by: UK Met Office Hadley Centre; University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) and defined as standard deviation normalized by the mean (only regions with annual precipitation > 10 mm/​year).

Mapping the Sahelian Space    23

The Sahel Separated from the Sahara By casting settlement as the opposite of nomadism, colonial geographers precipitated an ethnicization of livelihoods and of spatial practices. The nomadic existence of herders was juxtaposed with the investment in land by farmers, and a civilizational fault line was drawn. In addition to being considered more productive than the nomads, sedentary populations were considered more receptive to the French “civilizing mission” (Benjaminsen and Berge 2004a). The settlement policies pursued by the French in the Sahel were in part an effort to control populations they considered too independent with respect to colonial power, and partly an attempt to promote a development model centered on agriculture and mineral resources. The nomads were subject to rules defining the administrative region to which they would be attached for the purpose of paying taxes, immunizing their herds, and educating their children, and to circumscribe the limit of their nomadic “territories” (Clauzel 1992). Cartographic boundaries and strict climatic zones masked the circulation that was characteristic of the region and offered it the flexibility to survive periods of political and climatic instability. Thus, the Sahel was separated from the Sahara as if they had nothing at all to do with one another. This view contradicts the spatial dynamics observed in the Sahel and Sahara during the colonial era. Because of bioclimatic fluctuations, herders and farmers were intermingled, and often occupied the same areas depending on the seasons (Retaillé 1989). Both tended to disperse from one another during good years or seasons; the farmers expanded their agricultural frontiers while the herders spread out to abundant pasture lands. Convergence occurred during dry seasons or in periods of drought: farmers left peripheral hamlets to regroup in villages, while the nomads sold their herds and headed toward urban centers. Mobility also varied considerably within both sedentary and nomadic populations. For the “nomadic” Moor, Tuareg, Toubou, and Fulani, sedentary lifestyles were actually very common (Bernus 1993). While the poor among these groups were devoted to agricultural work in the oases, rich and noble Saharan were not compelled to move incessantly in search of pasture for their cattle. Thus, the Sultan of Agadez has always lived in town, just as the wealthy Tuareg noble families had limited nomadic patterns and delegated pastoralist work to people of lower social status. Sedentarization was thus done either from the bottom, due to the impoverishment of nomadic groups that the countryside could no longer feed, or from the top, through the enrichment and the transfer of tasks to servile groups. Among many sedentary societies, mobility was just as important. For the Soninke, Marka, Hausa, and Kanembu, being mobile was deeply ingrained, permitting traders and migrants to participate in commercial activities and inter-​regional flows of migration (Miles 1994; Manchuelle 1997; Bredeloup Chapter 38 in this volume). Traders and migrants demonstrated a great adaptability to the “new spatial order” brought by colonization (Howard and Shain 2005). After the French and British drew borders between their West African colonies, trade networks were redirected to supply newly established colonial cities, use new railways and roads, and avoid customs authorities. The creation

24    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé of border posts between the Colony of Niger and Nigeria in the mid-​1910s, for example, led Nigerian traders to relocate south of the border, where better business opportunities were available, until the removal of border controls in the 1950s encouraged the massive development of cross-​border trade (Nugent and Asiwaju 1996).

SAHELO-​SAHARA STATES The colonially inspired bioclimatic definition of the Sahel was hardly contested by postcolonial elites, who enthusiastically embraced the distinction between nomadic and sedentary populations, and the rigid demarcation between the Sahel and the Sahara. A similar view was shared by foreign donors and international organizations, for whom development necessarily implied a stronger investment in land and other localized resources.

The End of the Nomadic World Many of the new states that emerged during the 1960s in the Sahelo-​Saharan zone promoted production to the detriment of pastoral migration and pursued settlement policies against the nomads. Such states policies were designed to make the patterns of settlement and social life of nomadic people legible to the state (Scott 1998). The idea was that the state could more efficiently provide public services, prevent rebellions, and promote intensive forms of agriculture and cattle breeding if population was assembled into permanent settlements. Drawing on the zonal model of colonial inspiration, states adopted laws that limited the agricultural expansion in the north and constrained pastoral movements to the south. In the Republic of Niger, for example, the Code Rural, which builds on a similar colonial order of 1954, defined a limit to the north of which “all rainfed crops and installation of farmers’ groups are prohibited” (République du Niger 2013, 41). Similar decrees adopted in 1961 defined how water from pumping stations and grazing lands had to be used by herders (République du Niger 1961). In Mali, Modibo Keïta’s government considered the nomadic lifestyle as unproductive and as an obstacle to modernization and launched a series of ultimately ineffective measures to settle the Arab, Fulani, and Tuareg populations. In the Inner Niger Delta, these policies attempted to transform the nomads’ seasonal grazing lands into irrigated rice fields (Benjaminsen and Berge 2004b). In Nigeria, federal policies also aimed at intensifying production by adopting a ranch model and settling pastoralists, with limited success considering the cross-​border mobility of many nomadic populations (Blench 1996). By the mid-​1970s, social scientists started to recognize that while tracking annual and periodic fluctuations of the isohyets had permitted them to map the agricultural and natural resources of the Sahel, it had also obscured social dynamics, particularly

Mapping the Sahelian Space    25 in times of crises such as the great droughts (Monod 1975; Gallais 1984). During such periods, the rainfall deficit in the Sahel caused the loss of a large part of the herds deprived of water and pasture. Struggling with their means of subsistence and exchange, the Saharan nomads were forced to settle in the southern Sahelian zone, in Algeria, or in Libya. Migratory movements to cities, which before the great droughts only concerned certain servile categories, such as tributaries, or some marginal social categories such as divorced women and adolescents in school, suddenly extended to large parts of the nomadic societies, leading to the weakening of cultural and economic life in the rural world. The droughts of the 1970s also marked the beginning of large-​scale international interventions, encouraged by Western media. At that time, humanitarian and international organizations regarded sedentarization as inevitable and financed agricultural projects dedicated to convert ruined nomads into agriculturalists. These initiatives to permanently settle mobile people rarely succeeded. Their economic and environmental failure was often explained by the fact that they paid little attention to local knowledge, social practices and spatial representations of the pastoralists and cultivators of the Sahara-​Sahel. Herders for whom cattle was a sign of wealth and social prestige proved reluctant to adopt a new sedentary lifestyle. When the aid agencies or the state managed to settle nomadic groups, it was generally only until they had reconstituted their flocks or, in some cases, only former slaves settled in the villages.

Mobility Rediscovered The last thirty years have provided an opportunity for geographers and other social scientists to rediscover original forms of mobility that had been obscured by the humanitarian crises of the 1970s and 1980s. This rediscovery has led to a new geography of the Sahel and the Sahara, more attentive to the mobility and adaptability of local societies to climatic variations. The research carried out in the region has stressed the conceptual limitations of the zonal division of West Africa and the need to consider it as a single circulation area that transcends ecological zones. Anthropologists have highlighted the sheer adaptability of pastoralists, who favor flexible and opportunistic responses to climate and political uncertainties (De Bruijn, van Dijk, and Foeken 2001; de Bruijn 2007; Boesen, Marfaing, and de Bruijn 2014), as well as the smuggling and semi-​official trade networks that crisscross the Sahara (McDougall and Scheele 2012; Scheele 2012). Other social scientists have documented the mobility patterns of the Sahelo-​Saharan populations (Gagnol 2012), with a particular focus on cross-​border networks (Choplin and Lombard 2014), trans-​Saharan migration (Marfaing and Wippel 2004; Bensaad 2009; Mounkaila Chapter 39 in this volume), and trade (Grégoire and Labazée 1993; Grégoire 2002). Drawing on an analysis of the traders’ spatial strategies and the historical dynamics of the precolonial commercial system, historians have developed what is known today as the “spatial factor” approach to African history (Howard and Skinner 1984; Howard

26    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé and Shain 2005; Howard 2010). The spatial factor approach highlights how traders were quick to explore new markets and adjust to changing economic opportunities and market conditions due to the flexibility of their social networks. It shares many similarities with the “mobile space” approach initially developed by geographers to analyze the effects of the droughts on the livelihoods of farmers and herders in the Sahel-​ Sahara (Retaillé 1989) and, later, progressively formalized to reflect the primacy of mobility in the spatial organization of the region (Retaillé and Walther 2011, 2013, 2014; Retaillé 2013). Both approaches emphasize the role of Sahelo-​Saharan markets, viewed as “nodes of transregional or transnational trade networks and places in production territories” (Walther, Howard, and Retaillé 2015, 347).

SECURITY AND SAHEL STRATEGIES In the early 2000s, the deterioration of the security situation in the region dramatically increased the academic, military, and policy interest in the mobility strategies of the Sahelo-​Saharan populations. Scholars and analysts quickly adopted the terms Sahel-​Sahara or Sahara-​Sahel to describe the interdependencies between the two regions (Lacher 2012; Zoubir 2012; IPI 2013; Harmon 2014; OECD/​SWAC 2014; Reeve and Pelter 2014; Boukhars 2015). Foreign powers intervening in the Sahel-​Sahara also adopted a more transnational approach to the region, while African and international organizations drafted “Sahel strategies” that mainly conceived of the region as a collection of states.

Countering Transnational Threats in the Sahel-​Sahara The geographical expansion and opportunistic relocation of many violent extremist organizations, such as al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Boko Haram, have led foreign powers to challenge the hard edge between Sahel and Sahara that was so prevalent during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Both the United States and France have adopted counterterrorism strategies and military tactics that focus on the fundamentally transnational nature of the threats in the region. The United States recognized the risks inherent in the rise of Sahara-​Sahel terrorism shortly after the 9/​11 attacks. In 2002, the US Department of State implemented the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) to support border control capabilities, control illicit trade, and enhance regional security between Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad (Map 1.3) (Ellis 2004). After the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), later renamed AQIM, conducted an impressive hostage-​taking in the Algerian desert in 2003, the PSI was turned into a counterterrorism program for the states that had at least part of their territory located in the Sahel region and were threatened by the movements in the Sahara. PSI was replaced by the Trans-​Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI), a

Mapping the Sahelian Space    27 much larger program that involved, in addition, the Maghreb states, as well as Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Nigeria, and was incorporated into the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) established in 2007 (Francis 2010; Harmon 2014). The regional dimension of the terrorism threat is also at the heart of the initiatives developed by France after Operation Serval was able to regain control of northern Mali in 2013 and paved the way for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM). Operation Barkhane, which succeeded Operation Serval in August 2014, explicitly addresses the regional and cross-​ border dimension of terrorism activities in the Sahel-​Sahara. As noted by its former Commander, General Jean-​Pierre Palasset, Barkhane differs from previous military engagements that targeted “one country, one crisis, and one theatre of operations” (Ministère de la Défense 2014). The four thousand-​strong contingent of French forces relies on three ports in the Gulf of Guinea (Dakar, Abidjan, Douala) for their supply, two airports in the Sahel (N’Djamena and Niamey) where fighter jets and drones are stationed, and several Saharan outposts such as Madama in the trinational area between Niger, Chad, and Libya, from which cross-​border trafficking routes and terrorist networks can be disrupted (Map 1.3). A truly regional operation, Barkhane is nonetheless facing serious logistical issues related to the vastness of the area covered by the operation—​nine

Map 1.3  US and French military initiatives and violent political events, 1997–​2015 Source: Complied by the authors from data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, the US Department of State; French General Staff and Ministry of Defense.

28    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé times larger than metropolitan France—​as well as the difficult climatic conditions in the Sahara that take a heavy toll on equipment and troops.

The Sahel as a Collection of Countries From a policy perspective, the degradation of the security situation has led an increasing number of states and intergovernmental organizations to recognize that the problems faced in the Sahel can only be understood and solved with a regional approach. The European Union (2011, 1), for example, argues that “many of the challenges impact on neighboring countries, including Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and even Nigeria, whose engagement is necessary to help resolve them.” Similarly, one of the strategic goals of the United Nations Sahel Strategy (2013, 18) is to build and support “national and regional security mechanisms [that] are capable of addressing cross-​border threats.” The African Union (2014, 13) observes that the establishment of terrorist organizations and transnational criminals has “worsened the climate of insecurity and now constitutes the major threat in the region.” These threats, they argue, have “a regional and international dimension aggravated by the weakness of border control exercised by the states of the Sahel-​Saharan sub-​region and their lack of operational and strategic capabilities.” In order to address these issues, several “Sahel strategies” have been initiated in the region. These include the Joint Operational Army Staffs Committee (CEMOC), an Algerian initiative created in 2010 to coordinate the fight against terrorism and criminality, the African Union’s Joint Fusion and Liaison Unit put in place by the militaries of eight North and West African countries in 2010 to share information and coordinate activities against terrorism, weapons smuggling, and narcotics, and the Nouakchott Process launched in 2013 with the aim of reinforcing security cooperation in the wider region. The European Union’s Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel (2011) and the United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (2013) are two other examples of initiatives that combine governance, security, and development at the regional level. Other strategies include the Strategy for the Sahel elaborated by ECOWAS, UEMOA, and CILSS, the Strategy for the Sahel Region of the African Union and the Sahel G5, adopted in 2014 (Map 1.4). There is a little consensus among states and intergovernmental organizations as to which region the Sahel strategies should target (Helly et al. 2015). Geographically, their only apparent common denominator is that they should build on a number of countries in which security issues have been identified. By doing so, Sahel strategies have contributed to challenging both the definition of the Sahel as a bioclimatic zone and crossroads. The African Union (2014, 2), for example, focuses on “all the countries located on the Sahelian strip separating North and Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Outside this area, it notes that there are countries “who deserve, all the same, special attention, including Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-​Bissau, Nigeria and Senegal.” International organizations such as the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Bank have identified several “Sahelian countries” that include Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso,

Mapping the Sahelian Space    29

Map 1.4  Sahel strategies Source: Adapted from OECD/​SWAC (2014) with permission.

Niger, and Chad. Apart from Burkina Faso, all the countries comprise vast expanses of land located in the Sahara. The choice of which countries should be included in the Sahel strategies more often reflects regional rivalries and state agreements, both within Africa and with Western countries, than real functional interdependences within the region. For example, Morocco is excluded from most Sahel strategies despite being a key Western ally in North Africa, due to its rivalry with Algeria and long exclusion from the African Union. An Algerian creation headquartered in Tamanrasset, the CEMOC is limited to Algeria and its southern neighbors, without including Libya, which has been one of the epicenters of regional political instability since the fall of Qaddafi in 2011. Senegal, a purely Sahelian country, is only part of the Nouakchott Process. While military and policy initiatives differ in their own definition of the Sahel, they share much in common in terms of how they conceive the cultural and social relationships that develop within the region. Both have largely disregarded the classical distinction between sedentary and nomadic populations elaborated by colonial science,

30    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé to the profit of another binary division between radicalized individuals and the rest of society. Particular attention is paid to the drivers of violent extremism (USAID 2011), including social marginalization, government repression and human rights violations, endemic corruption, and elite impunity.

CONCLUSION Since the end of the nineteenth century, geographers have attributed the Sahel with a double geographical identity. Based on variations in mean annual rainfall, the Sahel was first defined as an intermediate zone between the desert and the savanna that extended from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The Sahel was also defined by colonial geographers as a front between sedentary and nomadic populations. Colonial science and policies relied on these two attributes to progressively map the location of the natural, legal, and cultural boundaries of the Sahel. This interpretation of the Sahel has not been questioned by the postcolonial policies supported by international organizations, which have been focused on settling nomads, limiting their rangelands, and enhancing the agricultural potential of areas where rain-​fed and irrigated agriculture was possible. The catastrophic droughts of the second half of the twentieth century have gradually called into question the idea that the Sahel was a territory that could be divided, appropriated, and developed. Studies carried out on the pastoral, agricultural, and trade movements of Sahelo-​Saharan populations from the end of the 1980s show that the urgency of humanitarian crises had masked the fact that local populations did not necessarily share sedentary representations of space and often privileged movement over territorial fixity. What really mattered to them was the ability to circulate across the region and create a flexible social network that transcended national and climatic boundaries. It has been increasingly clear that the Sahel could be defined as a crossroads in which the spatial structure, made up of cities and markets, could adapt to climatic variations and political crises. The development of terrorism and trafficking has made the search for rigid boundaries even more elusive, blurring the distinction between the local, the national, and the global. Violent extremist groups in the region thus rely on certain pan-​Islamic ideas, such as jihad, and on their affiliation to al-​Qaeda and the Islamic State to express local or national grievances. Their attacks are seemingly unpredictable because they are based on a high degree of mobility and opportunistic use of national borders. Traffickers who smuggle migrants, weapons, and drugs across the region also rely on transit centers and trans-​Saharan roads that rapidly adapt to the actions of states. None of these networks is purely Sahelian. The degradation of the security environment in the region and the proliferation of “Sahel strategies” devoted to addressing political instability have prompted further questions about what the Sahel really is. Military strategies implemented by the United

Mapping the Sahelian Space    31 States and France since the 2000s seem to suggest that the Sahel is the epicenter of a large theatre of operations that virtually knows no boundaries. The fact that violent extremist organizations can expand or relocate to a neighboring country where military capabilities or political will are weaker means that the bioclimatic zones upon which the Sahel was defined for much of the twentieth century have lost their importance. Policy makers in charge of designing Sahel strategies have also largely disregarded bioclimatic zones, to the profit of a new division by country. Such strategies stress the internal divisions of the Sahel-​Sahara rather than its functional interdependencies, that transcend state boundaries, from the Gulf of Guinea to the Mediterranean Sea. The near impossibility to define the Sahel in a purely territorial manner has consequences for scholars and policy makers alike. If the Sahel and its people have no boundaries and can move relatively freely from Abidjan to Tripoli, new geographic tools should be developed to represent and model transnational patterns that are not, as with many existing maps, limited to fixed points, straight arrows, and states boundaries, but can also include dynamic features such as social ties, alliances and conflicts, and spatial representations. Sahel strategies that currently build on mutually exclusive states should also move beyond territorial approaches to regional security and more thoroughly address the roots, structure, and resilience of the social and spatial networks that enhance political violence and trafficking in the region.

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34    Olivier J. Walther and Denis Retaillé Reeve, Richard, and Zoë Pelter. 2014. From New Frontier to New Normal: Counter-​terrorism Operations in the Sahel-​Sahara. London: Oxford Research Group. Retaillé, Denis. 1989. “Comment lire le contact Sahara-​Sahel?,” in Ministère de la Coopération, ed, De l’Atlantique à L’Ennedi. Paris: Ministère de la Coopération and Museum national d’histoire naturelle, 19–​33. Retaillé, Denis. 1995. “Structures territoriales sahéliennes. Le modèle de Zinder.” Journal of Alpine Research 2: 127–​148. Retaillé, Denis. 2013. “From Nomadic to Mobile Space: A Theoretical Experiment (1976–​2012),” in Judith Miggelbrink, Joachim Habeck, Nuccio Mazzulo and Peter Koch, eds., Nomadic and Indigenous Spaces. Productions and Cognitions. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 55–​75. Retaillé, Denis, and Olivier Walther. 2011. “Spaces of Uncertainty: A Model of Mobile Space in the Sahel.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 32(1): 85–​101. Retaillé, Denis, and Olivier Walther. 2013. “Conceptualizing the Mobility of Space Through the Malian Conflict.” Annales de Géographie 6: 595–​618. Retaillé, Denis, and Olivier Walther. 2014. “Space and Mobility: Lessons from the Sahel to the Globalized World,” in Elisabeth Boesen and Laurence Marfaing, eds., Mobilité dans l’Espace Ouest-​Africain: Ressources, Développement Local et Intégration Régionale. Paris: Karthala, 207–​234. République du Niger. 1961. Décrets 61-​150/​MER du 25 juillet 1961 et 61-​254/​MER-​MAS du 2 décembre 1961 fixant les règles d’utilisation des stations de pompages et des zones de parcours en dépendant, par les collectivités ou individus en bénéficiant. Niamey. République du Niger. 2013. Code Rural. Niamey: Comité National du Code Rural. Scheele, Judith. 2012. Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State. How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. United Nations. 2013. United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel. New York: United Nations, S/​2013/​354. USAID. 2011. The Development Response to Violent Extremism and Insurgency. Washington DC: United States Agency for International Development. Walther, Olivier. 2012. “Sons of the Soil and Conquerors Who Came on Foot: The Historical Evolution of a West African Border Region.” African Studies Quarterly 13(1–​2): 75–​92. Walther, Olivier, Allen Howard, and Denis Retaillé. 2015. “West African Spatial Patterns of Economic Activities: Combining the ‘Spatial Factor’ and ‘Mobile Space’ Approaches.” African Studies 74(3): 346–​365. Walther, Olivier, and William Miles. 2018. African Border Disorders. Addressing Transnational Extremist Organizations. Abingdon: Routledge Zoubir, Yahia. 2012. “The Sahara-​Sahel quagmire: Regional and international ramifications,” Mediterranean Politics 17(3): 452−458.

chapter 2

F RENCH C OL ONIA L I SM AN D THE M AKI NG OF T H E MODERN S A H E L Gregory Mann

Did French colonialism “make” the modern Sahel? This chapter offers a two-​part answer to that question. Couched deliberately in the subjunctive voice and the conditional tense, it argues that the Sahel offers neither a textbook case of French colonialism in Africa nor of the postcolonial phenomenon known as Françafrique, even if it reflects key elements of both phenomena. I argue instead that a plurality of competing factors—​ some structural and longue durée, others contingent—​“made” the modern Sahel. The former—​such as recurring droughts, notably in the 1970s and 1980s, and the decline of pastoralism—​are considered elsewhere in this volume. I emphasize instead the latter, contingent factors. While French colonialism induced profound but gradual economic and social changes across the region, the specific political architecture of the Fifth French Republic (1958–​) and the forms of postcolonial government it enabled or engendered had—​and have—​considerable repercussions. Among them one might note the lingering effects of a particular bureaucratic culture, the form of the state itself, its secular identity, and to a lesser extent, the region’s extra-​African connections. Many of these themes are pursued in the chapters that follow in this volume. This chapter looks specifically and in turn at the institutional architecture inherited by the Sahel’s postcolonial republics, at the role of militaries and warfare in the region, and at the durability of an authoritarian—​if sharply contested—​political culture. I argue that each of these phenomena is a radically uneven co-​production of French and African actors. Adopting such a perspective demands that two powerful received ideas be qualified if not dismissed: that which confounds the theories of French colonialism and the contingencies of its practice, and that which both generalizes and projects back in time the particular political conjuncture dubbed Françafrique, by which France is said to maintain a form of neo-​colonial hegemony. I propose instead that two distinct analytical concepts—​commandement and “kinetocracy”—​taken as a pair offer a means

36   Gregory Mann of thinking through the colonial legacy on contemporary governance in the Sahel. Finally, I end with a question on secularism as a colonial legacy embattled in the region.

THE SAHEL, FRENCH COLONIALISM, AND FRANÇAFRIQUE The Sahel itself represents a complex conceptual bundle defined by more than its geography or its colonial past. “The Sahel” is an old idea, borrowed into the region’s other languages from Arabic, that compares the Sahara to a sea surrounded by a “shore” (sahil). It is also a recent invention, notably in the form of the Comité permanent inter-​ états de lutte contre la sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS), which was founded in 1977 and re-​defined the “Sahel” as specifically the southern edge of the desert. The core members of the CILSS are Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.1 This Sahel, as it has been known since the 1970s, is characterized by the tension between its historicity, its unique form of nongovernmentality (Mann 2015), and its vulnerability, particularly the perception of endemic poverty associated with it (Bonnecase 2011). Like most of francophone Africa, the Sahel was never colonized by European settlers. Away from the Atlantic coast, the period of colonial rule was relatively short, and increasingly so as one moves to the east. In many parts of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad, the colonial period hardly lasted a person’s lifespan. The year 2030 marks the approximate tipping point when the postcolonial history of those Sahelian states surpasses the duration of their colonial history (in the Sahara, that tipping point fell roughly between 2000 and 2010). The decades of colonial rule were turbulent ones, but while change was intense and profound, much of it was internal to Sahelian societies and only partly attributable to the colonial presence, and still less to French ideology. Taken as a whole, the Sahel is a place where the theories of French colonial rule in Africa have less traction than they might elsewhere on the continent. Assimilation never had much purchase across the region, excepting its westernmost points, like Dakar and Saint-​Louis. There, in the oldest French possessions, Senegalese men and women generally preferred political assimilation—​the acquisition and defense of the citizenship they had acquired in 1848 and the rights that came with it—​to its cultural counterpart (Diouf 2000; Manchuelle 1995), which would have distanced many of them from their Muslim practices and identities. In Senegal and elsewhere, the particular French version of secularism, or laïcité, took the form of limiting (albeit unevenly) the influence and even the presence of the Catholic Church while pursuing an ad hoc policy of attempting to develop and maintain positive relationships with influential Muslim spiritual figures (Robinson 2000a). This policy had effects that were unintended, although not surprising in hindsight. Indeed, more people became Muslim under French rule than under the nineteenth-​century jihadi states, for reasons that had little to do with the state itself, although arguably something to do with government, in the sense

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    37 of adjudication and property rights (Launay and Soares 1999; Peterson 2011). Likewise, while French administrators attempted to orchestrate an end to slavery as a legally sanctioned practice, many slaves freed themselves via individual or collective acts of resistance. The most dramatic of these took place in the western Sahel in the first decade of the twentieth century, but in the pastoralist societies of the Sahara and the Niger Bend, such conflicts flared after World War II (Klein 1998). Nonetheless, the repertoire of social relationships that depend on profound inequality remained an important one, even as over the course of the twentieth century it came to be re-​defined around heritage, mutual dependence, kinship, and violence (the latter two real or imagined) rather than on the market as such (Olivier de Sardan 1976; Pelckmans 2011; Rossi 2015). In short, French colonialism lived not in texts—​most of which were prescriptive, not descriptive—​but in practices. While these were often violent, they were in fact less transformational than the rhetoric of the civilizing mission proclaimed. Neither can the Sahel be taken as a paradigmatic example of the phenomenon known as Françafrique, or the “system of reciprocal corruption” that has bound French and African ruling elites over the decades since independence, with corrosive effects on the possibilities of democratic governance on either side of the Mediterranean (Mbembe 2007). The Sahel has known military rule, party-​states, and fragile republics, but it has not known the veritable monarchies that constitute such important nodes in the contemporary Françafrique nexus in such places as Gabon and Togo. Rather, in the Sahel, state power has been centralized and stabilized only with great effort. Indeed, one achievement has often come at the expense of the other; national militaries and non-​state forces have seen to that, while the French state has continued to intervene either openly or behind the scenes. The resultant militarism is common to the Sahelian states. Yet while they share certain characteristics, some of which reflect the impact of French colonial rule, much distinguishes them as well. The distance from the Sudanese border to the Atlantic Ocean is enormous, and it encompasses a broad spectrum of relationships with France and French colonialism. This chapter will look at the region’s extremities, the two poles of Senegal in the west and Chad in the east, in order to apprehend some of its signal and contradictory characteristics. Under French rule, most of the Sahelian states belonged to the federation of French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française, AOF), which was itself a heterogeneous conglomeration of territories. Chad is the sole exception; it belonged to French Equatorial Africa (AEF). Like Chad, three of the eight AOF territories were Sahelian and landlocked (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger), while three others (Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin) bordered the Atlantic Ocean. Two more played a double role, although Mauritania’s sparse population and the late development of Nouadhibou (Port Etienne) meant that it was defined more by the desert and its “shore” than by the Atlantic coast. Senegal enjoyed access to both the sea and the Sahel with an infrastructure, including the port at Dakar and a railroad to the Niger River, that allowed the territory to exploit its unique position linking the two. Politically, too, the AOF was a heterogeneous space. The federation was organized around an administrative capital in Dakar, led by a governor general, and a subordinate

38   Gregory Mann capital in each of the territories, led by governors or lieutenant governors (depending on the period). The capitals shifted over time: Saint-​Louis was the capital of both Senegal and Mauritania until just before independence, when the Senegalese administration moved to Dakar (occupying the capitol of the defunct AOF) and Nouakchott was rapidly developed. Borders, too, were in flux. The territory of Haute-​Volta (now Burkina Faso) was cobbled together, divided among its neighbors, and finally reconstituted in 1947. That example is extreme but not unique, as territorial boundaries proved to be much more stable under African than French government. More importantly, the colonial period witnessed the decline of many of the Sahel’s venerable cities and the rise of others—​thus, not only did Niamey replace Zinder but Bamako took precedence over Ségou, Djenné, or Timbuktu. An old urban tradition, in which cities constituted a lateral commercial network, gave way to another much more hierarchical form of urbanism, in which in every territory political, economic, and military forces—​along with the population—​concentrated in (or near) one place, which enjoyed privileged and direct access to the world beyond national and continental boundaries. The question of access to the world beyond their immediate neighbors also distinguished the Sahelian countries from one another. Under colonial rule, each territory had developed a distinct role in the federation, one determined in large part by access to the sea. Decades ago, Samir Amin offered a useful economic typology of West Africa based on the economic activities of the individual territories (1972). Amin recognized a distinction between territories that essentially functioned as labor reserves—​all of them Sahelian—​and those that became zones of production for export. The latter were on the coast, and only one of them (Senegal) was also in the Sahel. Amin’s typology justified the rudimentary conclusion that “the necessary corollary of the ‘wealth’ of the coast was the impoverishment of the hinterland” (Amin 1972, 523). The key resource of the “hinterland”—​that is, the savanna and the Sahel—​was labor itself, and generations of migrants left to produce peanuts and cocoa in the coastal territories while their relatives cultivated cotton and grains at home. Two phenomena—​the decline of slavery and the rise of cash crops—​intertwined in complex ways that remain to be fully elucidated, but neither colonial coercion—​constant as it was—​nor slave labor itself provoked the adoption of cash crops on the coast or the turn toward migration in the Sahel (Austin 2009). To the east, Chad developed a similar profile but a distinct orientation. Its farmers grew cotton for export—​often under coercion, as did their counterparts to the west—​but they also left the territory in large numbers to work and settle in the Anglo-​Egyptian Sudan, where the railroad and the vast irrigation project at Gezira were major attractions. Indeed, another look at the region’s colonial economy reveals two striking characteristics. First, the two major infrastructural projects in colonial Africa—​ the Gezira project in the Anglo-​Egyptian Sudan and the Office du Niger in French Soudan—​straddled the same Sahelian latitude of approximately 14-​14.5’ North. Neither transformed the surrounding region into the proverbial “breadbasket”—​a poor metaphor for the Sahel, where rice and millet are preferred—​but both witnessed extensive settlement from neighboring African territories, and they continue to produce if not to

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    39 flourish (Diawara 2011; Bernal 1995). Second, if despite such infrastructural investments, colonial economic plans failed to fully “capture” the productive efforts of the Sahel’s farmers, weavers, and consumers, the failure to engage the activity of the pastoralists or to harness the wealth of their herds is even more striking. Pastoralism defined, and in some sense continues to define, the region (Afrique Contémporaine 2014). Colonial administrators sought to convert livestock into commodities for export, and they made significant investments in the pastoral economy, digging bore wells, training veterinarians, and inoculating livestock. Taken together, these initiatives allowed herds to swell in size, but neither the amount of pasture nor the number of herders increased. To the contrary, as slavery declined, labor (for herding) and land (for farming and grazing) came to be exploited ever more harshly. Competition between farmers and pastoralists over grazing rights and access to water points became more acute, and it was always unequal (Franke and Chasin 1980, 98–​103; de Bruijn and van Dijk 1995, 82–​ 85). Despite the state’s investments, pastoralists fit awkwardly into colonial visions of an economy based on peasant, waged, and migrant labor to the exclusion of the slave or “unfree” labor that had been become increasingly central to Sahelian economies throughout the nineteenth century (Lovejoy 2012; Rossi 2015). These countervailing trends—​more livestock, fewer slaves—​might help to account for two different kinds of conflict: the last known slave revolts, which occurred among pastoralist societies in the postwar period (Hall 2011a; Lecocq 2005); and the ongoing tensions between centralized Sahelian states and pastoralist or nomadic populations since independence. In the end, as much as colonial military officers in particular may have held a romantic respect for Saharan nomads and their chiefs, ultimately the colonial state would hand over power to sedentarists (Lecocq 2010).

INSTITUTIONS AT INDEPENDENCE Demonstrating the heterogeneity of the Sahel, one can identify deepening forms of personal dependency in the geographic center of the Sahel even as a strikingly contemporary and pluralistic set of civic rights was being elaborated on its Atlantic edge (Diouf 2000; Johnson 1971). In Senegal, at the extreme western end of the Sahel, Four Communes with “full” civic rights—​Gorée and Saint-​Louis, and later Dakar and Rufisque—​had been French territory, on and off from the seventeenth century and definitively from 1817. At the time of the French Revolution, they submitted a cahier de doléance. The citizenship of those born within the Communes was firmly established, and it would continue to be recognized, with fits and starts, across the long nineteenth century. Beginning in 1848, they elected a deputy to represent them in the French parliament; in 1914, Blaise Diagne became the first African without European ancestry to hold that seat. The divergence between the political history of the Communes and that of the rest of the AOF is significant; Diagne was a deputy before parts of the Sahara can be said to have been conquered. Over a thirty-​year period—​until the constitution

40   Gregory Mann of the Fourth Republic made their countrymen citizens as well—​the originaires of the Four Communes enjoyed an exceptional political status. Parliamentarians from Senegal helped to build the French democratic system, expanding the boundaries and the meaning of citizenship, and the future Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor aided in writing the constitution of the Fourth and the Fifth Republics (Cooper 2014). To some degree, then, Senegal’s relatively robust institutions of governance, like those of France, were a kind of colonial co-​production, developed in the Communes before being more broadly shared as they gradually lost their particularity in the postwar period. Elsewhere, the most powerful colonial legacies might be those that came last and that had the most impact in the years just before independence in 1960. It matters a great deal for the postcolonial trajectory of political life in the Sahel that independence came in the context of the transition from the Fourth to the Fifth French Republics. Two of the enduring characteristics of government in the Sahel are, first, that its regimes are centralized, presidential ones, in which great power is invested in the executive and in which the legislature is systematically disempowered, and second, that they have often been militarist (the latter question will be addressed in the following section of this chapter). One could argue, with some justification, that those characteristics predate colonial rule. Nonetheless, they were powerfully reinforced in the years—​indeed the months—​immediately before independence. Those years witnessed rapid and intense political change, punctuated by three key dates. In 1946, colonial subjects became citizens of the Fourth Republic and its French Union, in which an assembly drawn from across the French empire—​including the Sahelian territories—​gradually debated and in some cases secured greater political, social, and economic integration within the new Union. The Fourth Republic was characterized by a weak executive and a divided assembly, which gave African deputies greater leverage and influence than their numbers would suggest. Indeed, rather than a period of “decolonization,” this was in fact a time when African political leaders worked to get into the Union, not out of it. In 1956, a new “Framework law” or loi cadre (also known as the loi Gaston Deferre) dissolved the colonial federations of the AOF and the AEF. The law also granted the assemblies of their constituent territories considerable internal autonomy and budgetary discretion. Therefore, by 1956, two important processes intersected: the gradual extension of suffrage culminated in universal adult suffrage even as their elected representatives gained more power. Put simply, more people could vote, and they had more to vote for. The year 1958 was the culmination of that trend. In a referendum to ratify a new constitution for what would become the Fifth Republic, the stakes could not have been higher. Voters were asked whether they accepted to enter a new French Community in which Paris would preserve key “sovereign” functions—​ notably defense, diplomacy, and monetary policy—​while the territories (newly dubbed republics) would exercise internal self-​government. The issue was intensely debated. Some understood the question as a binary choice between national independence and continued colonization, while others framed it more subtly, as a choice between a sudden, isolated exit from empire and a gradual, collective one, which would favor

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    41 future African integration. Only Guineans voted for immediate independence; all the Sahelian states voted for future integration, in spite of strident voices in favor of an exit, notably in Niger. The significance of the option of independence often overshadows another important development: the proposed constitution dramatically increased the power of the presidency while diminishing that of the assembly. In doing so, it disavowed a political structure that may have favored African interests. After all, the Fourth Republic—​which collapsed in the wake of an abortive coup in 1958—​had not failed in Africa. Rather, it failed in Paris and in Algeria, where it could neither contain a burgeoning conflict nor confront intractable political problems. In Africa south of the Sahara, on the other hand, parliamentarians had worked within the French Union to facilitate, or at least to cope with, rapid social and economic change. The messy political compromises of the 1950s may have pleased no one entirely, and the system was neither perfect nor perfectly democratic. Nonetheless, under the French Union, the practice of citizenship via suffrage and social and economic rights became dramatically more dynamic and inclusive, while the violence that plagued Algeria was very largely avoided, at least in the Sahel and the former AOF (Cooper 2014). Indulge a thought experiment. Had the Sahelian countries taken as a model, when they became independent, the form of government that prevailed in the French Fourth Republic—​parliamentarian and relatively unstable as it was—​would they have experienced collectively less turmoil than they did under presidential regimes modeled on one made to measure for General Charles de Gaulle? A form of parliamentary government in which the head of state was largely a figurehead and in which the head of government was regularly made aware that he was merely primus inter pares might have suited the Sahelian states much better than did a presidential regime in which the concentration of political capital in the hands of an individual (and/​or his party) was out of keeping with the means to actually govern single-​handedly, and in which the head of state derived authority from the state rather than, as in de Gaulle’s specific case, lent legitimacy to it. Other political models appeared possible in the 1950s and 1960s. For instance, Modibo Keïta’s US-​RDA government in Mali discussed the possibility of creating regional assemblies within the new state. The initiative became a dead letter, only to be revived decades later, arguably too late. What if regional assemblies had been created and sustained beginning in the 1950s? Would they have been able to alleviate some of the tensions that centralized models of government have created across the Sahel? Would they have engendered a form of parliamentary civility? Such civility was pronounced in the 1950s—​witness Deputy Fily Dabo Sissoko’s 1956 funeral oration for his departed rival, Mamadou Konaté, schoolteacher, deputy, and party leader (Allocutions 1956). It died as suddenly as Konaté had with the passing of a generation of elder statesmen and parliamentarians, of which he was only one member. What would the Sahel have looked like in 1960 or 1970 if the rich parliamentary experience of an elder like Konaté had been available to Mali, or that of Ouezzin Coulibaly—​also a schoolteacher and party leader—​to Upper Volta? Both men had been deputies in the French National Assembly,

42   Gregory Mann and both would quite likely have become heads of state at independence. That is not what happened. Konaté passed away suddenly in 1956. Coulibaly died of illness in 1958. A younger, less experienced generation of leaders emerged. Strong parties brought them to power; those parties then attempted to invest in the state apparatus and incorporate or shut down the opposition. This effort failed in Upper Volta, where a popular uprising chased Maurice Yaméogo from power in 1966. In Mali it succeeded, for a time. Under Keïta, the US-​RDA ruled with a heavy hand, prompting a military coup in 1968. While Konaté had died in bed, after independence both Sissoko and Keïta, his bitter, younger rivals, would die as prisoners. Given the French practice by which politicians may hold multiple elected offices at once—​the cumul des mandats—​figures like the future Malian president, Modibo Keïta, could be simultaneously a parliamentarian in Paris, the mayor of Bamako, and the secretary-​general of his party, the US-​RDA. Would less concentration of power have been a good thing? Almost certainly so, not least because it would have opened up spaces external to the political party for rising stars to inhabit. Instead those once-​promising individuals became and remained party apparatchiks, symbols of the squandering of the scarce human capital of the educated class by new states that needed their skills and potential expertise. The result of so many minor factors, the cumulative effect of several chance events, combined with the effects of “Balkanization” and a calendar for decolonization that seemed to be beyond anyone’s control (Cooper 2014), produced an unfortunate phenomenon by which a set of small nation-​states emerged into independence having adopted a political model particularly ill-​suited for them. By the same token, the states themselves were poorly equipped to handle the demands of administration. Using public trade union membership as a proxy, in 1955, there were apparently more civil servants and other government wage-​earners in the single territory of Dahomey (later Benin) than in Senegal—​which was nonetheless the capital of the federation of French West Africa—​or indeed than in Mali (Soudan), Burkina Faso (Haute-​Volta), Niger, and Mauritania, taken together (Morgenthau 1964, Appendix X). What would Niger have done without bureaucrats from Benin and France? The relative scarcity of qualified civil servants was only compounded by the expansive idea of what “government” ought to mean that prevailed in the mid-​twentieth century, and that had been extended to the colonial territories at a gradually increasing tempo, dating back to the interwar years. “To govern” was no longer to collect occasional taxes or tolls and to adjudicate disputes in the absence of an extensive coercive apparatus, the de minimus practice that had prevailed in the Sahara (Hall 2011b; Lydon 2009; but see MacDougall 2012). Rather, over the course of colonial rule, the expectation of what governing meant had shifted dramatically, indeed it had slowly been revolutionized, in a fashion that has drawn too little attention from historians. The reserve granaries of Sahelian kingdoms—​into which grain poured directly, via taxation in kind—​had given way to sociétés de prévoyance (obligatory collective savings associations) and finally, at independence, to planned economies. That is only one example (did any Sahelian polity intervene in the conditions of childbirth?) but others are numerous. In sum, the states of the Sahel did not assume the institutional heritage of modest, decentralized polities

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    43 of limited ambition, or even the relatively elaborate architecture of the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate of the eighth to tenth century, which had influenced the Sokoto caliphate and, to a lesser degree, successive jihadi states (Robinson 2000b). Rather, they inherited an ever-​expanding set of socio-​medical imperatives ranging from education and vaccination to maternity clinics and old-​age pensions. The alternatives were not attractive. With power focused in the capital, with limited material means or human resources, and without formal mechanisms for regional integration, Sahelian heads of state were forced to rule by remote control, or by proxy, when they did not govern by force. Georg Klute, writing on contemporary Mali, referred to such forms of government as a kind of para-​sovereignty (1999). Yet while rule by proxy would prove to be more effective in the Sahara than direct administration, it was unworkable or unpalatable further south. The chieftaincy, as a purportedly traditional form of authority, was politically bankrupt by the end of World War II. Continued reliance on the chiefs functioned as a form of accommodation that allowed colonial governors and commandants to fulfill their functions. Individual chiefs might have continued to wield an attenuated form of power, but the people who had come to positions of authority via either school or the army were more often than not their rivals. No less importantly, the anti-​colonial movements that slowly gained momentum in the 1940s and 1950s had targeted the chiefs specifically, even more than the colonial state itself. In Mali, as in Guinea, the canton chiefs were drummed from office, and their positions eliminated, in the immediate wake of independence (Mann 2015). Their dismissal left a void alongside a host of structural problems that the new republics were unable to solve, but which they could not entirely ignore. The victory of the political class over the chiefs was incomplete in Upper Volta, and in Niger it was actually reversed. The Sahara, too, would remain an exception (Lecocq 2010; Klute 1999). In any case, the political problems were more profound than the mere question of the chiefs. Such problems ranged from the existence of an unaccountable state to the durability of forms of slavery and social inequality that republics could neither abide nor abolish. Rule by proxy had been difficult. Direct rule would prove to be impossible, at least through the mechanisms of the civilian administration and the political party. Enter the military.

MILITARISM The fact that French colonialism was not only authoritarian, but also militarist, left profound traces in the Sahel. Chad offers a crucial counterpoint to the much more familiar story of Senegal. Its history could hardly be more different. What Chad knew of colonial rule could largely be reduced to a brutal history of forced cotton cultivation, labor migration, and military recruitment. Its border with Sudan—​which for our purposes marks the extreme opposite end of the Sahel from Dakar—​was a particularly neglected but violent zone for much of the twentieth century (Daly 2007; Vaughan 2013). In this poorest territory of a poor federation, the social stratum of the French-​educated class

44   Gregory Mann of civil servants was so thin that the territory struggled to find representatives within the institutions of the Fourth and Fifth Republics; Chad’s first prime minister, Gabriel Lisette, was a colonial administrator from Guadeloupe. Chad’s role in French Africa was neither civic, nor civil, nor parliamentary, except in the most superficial fashion. Rather, it was military. Tellingly, its capital was a garrison, Fort Lamy. Although it has been argued that the militarism that has largely defined the country’s history since independence was “unique within francophone Africa,” at least until the 1990s, this argument deserves qualification (Styan 2013, 240). The difference between this Sahelian country and its neighbors may be one of degree rather than kind. Its militarism may have pre-​colonial roots, but its colonial antecedents are no less real. The most infamous of the latter is the Voulet–​Chanoine expedition, in which two renegade French officers at the head of a column of African troops left a path of devastation east of the Niger bend, culminating in the murder of a superior officer east of Lake Chad in 1899 (Taithe 2009). Even by the standards of French conquest in the Western Soudan, this was an extreme case, a rejection of both civilian command and of the military hierarchy. The first form of insubordination was not unique; the second was scandalous. This episode briefly clipped the wings of the military’s autonomy in this African colony, but it set a precedent for what would become a pattern of loose civilian control and raw struggles for power. Like the institutional heritage of Senegal, the militarism of Chad is a Franco-​African co-​production. Chad represented the cradle of Free France, the first territory to proclaim its allegiance to Charles de Gaulle’s project under the leadership of its governor, Félix Eboué. It is also the site from which Leclerc’s famed Second Armored Division, its ranks filled with Africans, set out to fight in Koufra (Libya). There, Leclerc’s officers would famously pledge to liberate the cathedral of Strasbourg (Jennings 2015). The African origins of this story may have been largely forgotten in France, but it lingered in Fort Lamy (now N’Djamena), even if the tirailleurs continued to be referred to as Sénégalais. Chad is arguably the African territory with the deepest Gaullist history, and partly for that reason it may be the Fifth Republic’s African territory par excellence. That relationship remained for many years a military one. Within a few years of independence, French troops were fighting to keep FROLINAT rebels from N’Djamena; this intervention turned into a four-​year mission (1968–​1972) to restructure the Chadian army. This would be the first of several French military interventions, as factional fighting continued, on and off, for years to come. In the 1980s, Chad’s forces were (apparently) willing proxies in the struggle with Libya over the Aouzou Strip. Most recently, Chadian troops have been major partners in French-​led counter-​terrorism operations in the Sahara. Chad’s militarism was extreme but not unique. While a violent struggle for power has been “a dominant, indeed defining feature of post-​independence politics and the maintenance of the [Chadian] state” (Styan 2013, 240), national armies have played a preponderant role in political life across the Sahel. This militarism has colonial roots.

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    45 Indeed, the most intensive zones of recruitment for the French-​African army misleadingly labeled the tirailleurs Sénégalais were in the Sahel (conversely, Saharan populations generally escaped conscription). The contemporary armies of the Sahelian states have loomed large in political life in Burkina Faso, Mali, and particularly in Niger (Idrissa 2008), even if each has generally been too small to control its respective national territory. In fact, securing the territory and its borders has often seemed to be a secondary concern to controlling the capital and its streets. As a result, civilian rule has been contingent across the Sahel. Niger spent roughly half the twentieth century under military government, whether under French rule (in which Niger was a military territory through the 1920s) or after independence. In this regard, the form of French–​African postcolonial elite interdependency at work in the Sahel is not a generic Françafrique of “mutual corruption,” but a highly specific, militarized one. A corollary of that characteristic is the relative frequency of coups d’état in the postcolonial period. These began before the independence ceremonies of 1960. Gabriel Lisette, Chad’s first prime minister—​under the complex power-​sharing tutelage in the last years of French rule—​would be pushed from power in a parliamentary coup by one of his deputies, François Tombalbaye, who took his place and went on to become the country’s head of state at the time of independence on 11 August 1960 (Thompson and Adloff 1981, 23; Buijtenhuijs 1978, 93). Within a fortnight of that date, Lisette had been stripped of Chadian nationality—​he was from Guadeloupe—​and forbidden to re-​enter the country. It is hard not to read such episodes as foreshadowing the tumultuous pursuit of power that would break into open warfare in the 1970s (Nolutshungu 1996). It was, at the very least, bare-​knuckled politics. Chad had no monopoly on that variety of political contest. In the shadow of nationalist historiography, it is too easy to forget just how bitter the contests between African political rivals could be under colonial rule. The Mali Federation, a joint venture between Senegal and what was then known as the French Soudan, split apart after a few short months in 1960, partly due to the tensions between Léopold Sédar Senghor and Modibo Keïta, the respective heads of state. This event could reasonably be characterized as a coup d’état; it was certainly an extra-​legal seizure of power backed by military force, in the form of the French-​commanded gendarmerie. What happened then was in some respects worse: within two years, Senghor had his erstwhile prime minister, Mamadou Dia, deposed and imprisoned, while Keïta had his own rivals, Fily Dabo Sissoko and Hamadoun Dicko jailed, tried, and imprisoned before they were shot and killed in what was described as an escape attempt. Niger had already been through its own version of a coup d’état, when Governor Don Jean Colombani stripped the ministers of the elected government of the Sawaba party—​ which took a strong anti-​chief and anti-​France line—​of their powers, just before the constitutional referendum in 1958 (van Walraven 2013, 195–​203). Thus crippled, Prime Minister Bakary Djibo would soon lose power and be forced into exile. Indeed, within a five-​year period before or after the date of independence, each of the four largest Sahelian states had experienced the equivalent of a coup.

46   Gregory Mann

CULTURES OF COMMAND Returning to the geographic from the political Sahel, I have suggested that a pair of analytical tools—​commandement and kinetocracy—​might if used together offer a means of thinking through the colonial legacy on contemporary governance in the Sahel. The former term, which is Achille Mbembe’s, refers to a culture of authoritarianism and command rooted in constrained and hierarchical forms of social distribution premised on the state’s centralization and its capacity for imminent violence (Mbembe 2001, ch. 1). Over the last two decades in the Sahel, such a culture of command has been countered and limited by Sahelian intellectuals, artists, and activists; those limits were established and maintained by political struggle, when need be in the streets. The second term, “kinetocracy” is proposed by Benedetta Rossi to indicate local Sahelian and Saharan forms of governmentality that relied on the control of movement rather than of territory (Rossi 2015, 11–​12). Although Rossi sees the territorially based conception of power as characteristic of French colonial rule, and of sedentary rule more generally, in fact both civilian commandants and military commanders saw their power as kinetic, even as they demarcated it in territorial terms such as the cercle, or administrative district (Dela­vignette 1950, ch. 3). With the two ideas of commandement and kinetocracy in mind, one might think of the colonial and early postcolonial periods as the short-​term victory of (relatively) territorially bound, sedentarist forms of political power over the longue durée characteristic of mobility seen in nomadic and pastoralist societies. But colonial power was originally highly mobile and kinetic. French expeditionary forces were comparatively light and fast, in addition to being well armed. During and well after the conquest, the challenge of both the military and the civilian administrations was to control their far-​ flung representatives: the scandalous case of Voulet and Chanoine is an extreme military example, but the conquest in the Western Sudan was carried forward by such independent actors, beyond the reach of Paris, Dakar, or Kayes. As for the civilians, those representing a centralized form of bureaucratic power based in the capital and its hierarchies struggled for decades to control the individualized form of administrative power exercised by the commandants in distant districts. When it came, the victory of the center over the periphery was short-​lived. Arguably, it lasted from around 1946 until as late as the early 1990s, when decentralization became a governing mantra in the Sahel, while the failures of central government provoked (or at least permitted) Saharan rebellions. Since 2011, it seems quite clear that the mobility of insurgents is unmatched by the national armies, and that while borders represent a real problem for the latter, they are a resource for the former, as they function simultaneously to offer a strategic reserve and to structure a market in licit and illicit exchange (Scheele 2012). That observation leads to another. The French colonial administration failed, and indeed was largely incapable of drawing on extant and time-​tested repertoires of government in the region. Its agents could not reliably use kinship, marriage alliances,

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    47 and multi-​generational forms of indebtedness and reciprocity to generate durable accommodations with others who drew their power or prestige from distinct repertoires (such as ancestry, sometimes in combination with religious knowledge). As actors weakly bound by a bureaucratic state with which they struggled, they did not have the capacity to offer multi-​generational alliances, and could only inconsistently draw on the state that empowered them to offer material and symbolic advantages to their local allies. They possessed a form of political power that was like an unconvertible currency. Alliances with local instances of political power—​put simply, the chiefs—​could only ever represent a patch rather than a solution to this problem. Rather, one saw two linked phenomena emerge. The first of these is the production of multiple, competing vertical sodalities—​which were accentuated and multiplied in these post-​slavery societies—​ rather than their integration (Bayart 2007), and their further entrenchment since then, along the Europhone–​Arabophone divide (Kane 2016). The second is a concomitant multiplication of forms of authority, which stands in stark and paradoxical contrast to Delavignette’s insistence—​echoed by Mbembe—​on the singularity of authority in the person of the commandant (Dela­vignette 1950; Mbembe 2001). An institutional sketch of political power such as the one proposed here neglects one signal aspect of French colonial rule in the Sahel: its avowed secularism. The particular French vision of the secular state—​in which organized religion and its authorities are subordinated to (rather than independent of) political power, and in which the relationship between citizen and state is not mediated by religious institutions or individuals—​ may represent the most enduring but also the most troubled of colonial legacies in the region. From 1905, when the Catholic Church was definitively subordinated to the Third Republic, the colonial enterprise in West Africa was a peculiar one. The Church engaged in proselytization and provided education in much of the region, but its activities were diminished or curtailed in the Sahara and most of the Sahel. While Catholic schools produced and continue to produce an elite class of students, many of them are Muslim. Thus, the influence of the Church cannot be measured by confessional identities, but rather by the emergence of a Catholic-​educated bourgeoisie and the often discreet political influence of successive generations of bishops, notably in Bamako and Ouagadougou. The relationship between the state and Muslim religious authorities evolved over the course of French rule from contentious to commodious, leaving the spiritual authorities of the Sahel with a great deal of informal political power. Senegal provides the clearest example of this phenomenon: from the 1940s, the Catholic Senghor built his political base in the countryside on an alliance with the aristocracy of the Mouride Sufi order. Elsewhere in the Sahel, the exercise of political power was less obviously dependent on alliances with religious authorities, at least through the first two decades after independence. The emergence of political Islam within the Muslim world at large and within West Africa specifically has brought into question the accommodating, secular balance that characterized West African political life within the last years of French rule. The durability of that model is very much in question, particularly as democratic regimes since the 1990s have chosen not to invest in it.

48   Gregory Mann

CONCLUSION In governmental terms, French colonialism left the Sahel with three somewhat competing phenomena: a centralized institutional architecture based on presidential power—​a characteristic partly contingent on the political moment at which independence came, an expansive notion of what government is and should be, and a culture of authority that is multiple and contested. Combined with French militarism in the region, the contest between these three phenomena—​state, government, and authority—​ opened up a volatile space exploited by military rulers only a few short years after independence. However, it also allowed—​well before the neoliberal era—​the emergence of new forms of nongovernmentality by which external agencies adopt key functions of government while the Sahelian states themselves, their sovereignty mortgaged but no less real, endure.

Note 1. The CILSS now has thirteen members including, in addition to those listed here, Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-​Bissau, and Togo.

REFERENCES Afrique Contémporaine. 2014. Special issue, “Les Dynamiques du pastoralisme au Sahel.” 249: 1–​82. Allocutions Prononcées à Bamako à l’Occasion du Décès du Député Mamadou Konaté. 1956. Koulouba: Imprimèrie du Gouvernement Soudan Français. Amin, Samir. 1972. “Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: Origins and Contemporary Forms.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 10(4): 503–​524. Austin, Gareth. 2009. “Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa.” International Review of Social History 54: 1–​37. Bayart, Jean-​François. 2007. “Les chemins de traverse de l’hégémonie coloniale en Afrique de l’Ouest francophone: Anciens esclaves, anciens combattants, nouveaux musulmans.” Politique Africaine 105: 201–​240. Bernal, Victoria. 1995. “Cotton and Colonial Order in Sudan: A Social History, with Emphasis on the Gezira Scheme,” in Allen Isaacman, and Richard Roberts, eds., Cotton, Colonialism, and Social History in sub-​Saharan Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 96–​118. Bonnecase, Vincent. 2011. La Pauvreté au Sahel: du Savoir colonial à la mesure international. Paris: Karthala. Buijtenhuijs, Robert. 1978. Le FROLINAT et les révoltes populaires au Tchad, 1965–​1976. The Hague: Mouton. Cooper, Frederick. 2014. Citizenship between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945–​1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

French Colonialism and the Making of the Modern Sahel    49 Daly, M. W. 2007. Darfur’s Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Bruijn, Mirjam, and Han van Dijk. 1995. Arid Ways: Cultural Understandings of Insecurity in Fulbe Society, Central Mali. Amsterdam: Thela Publishers. Delavignette, Robert. 1950. Freedom and Authority in French West Africa. London: Published for the International African Institute by the Oxford University Press. Diawara, Mamadou. 2011. “Development and Administrative Norms: The Office Du Niger and Decentralization in French Sudan and Mali.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 81(3): 434–​454. Diouf, Mamadou. 2000. “Assimilation coloniale et identités religieuses: De la civilité des originaires des Quatre Communes (Sénégal).” Canadian Journal of African Studies 34(3): 565–​587. Franke, Richard W., and Barbara H. Chasin. 1980. Seeds of Famine: Ecological Destruction and the Development Dilemma in the West African Sahel. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld. Hall, Bruce. 2011a. “Bellah Histories of Decolonization, Iklan Paths to Freedom: The Meanings of Race and Slavery in the Late-​Colonial Niger Bend (Mali), 1944–​1960.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 44(1): 61–​87. Hall, Bruce. 2011b. A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–​1960. New York: Cambridge University Press. Idrissa, Kimba. ed. 2008. Armée et politique au Niger. Dakar: CODESRIA. Jennings, Eric. 2015. Free French Africa in World War Two: The African Resistance. New York: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, G. Wesley. 1971. The Emergence of Black Politics in Senegal: the Struggle for power in the Four Communes, 1900–​1920. Stanford: Published for the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace by Stanford University Press. Kane, Ousmane Oumar. 2016. Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Klein, Martin. 1998. Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Klute, Georg. 1999. “De la Chefferie administrative à la parasouverainété régionale,” in André Bourgeot, eds., Horizons nomades en Afrique sahélienne: Sociétés, développement et démocratie. Paris: Karthala, 167–​182. Launay, Robert, and Benjamin F. Soares. 1999. “The Formation of an ‘Islamic Sphere’ in French Colonial West Africa.” Economy and Society 28: 487–​519. Lecocq, Baz. 2005. “The Bellah Question: Slave Emancipation, Race, and Social Categories in Late Twentieth-​Century Northern Mali.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 39(1): 42–​68. Lecocq, Baz. 2010. Disputed Desert: Decolonisation, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Contemporary Mali. Leiden: Brill. Lovejoy, Paul. 2012. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lydon, Ghislaine. 2009. On Trans-​Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-​ Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-​ Century Western Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacDougall, James. 2012. “Frontiers, Borderlands, and Saharan/​World History,” in James MacDougall and Judith Scheele, eds., Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 73–​91.

50   Gregory Mann Manchuelle, François. 1995. “Assimilés ou patriotes africains? Naissance du nationalisme culturel en Afrique française (1853–​1931).” Cahiers d’études africaines 35(2–​3): 333–​368. Mann, Gregory. 2015. From Empires to NGO’s in the West African Sahel: The Road to Nongovernmentality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mbembe, Achille. 2007. “L’Afrique de Nicolas Sarkozy,” Le Messager (Douala, Cameroun), 1 August. Morgenthau, Ruth Schachter. 1964. Political Parties in French-​Speaking West Africa. London: The Clarendon Press. Nolutshungu, Sam C. 1996. Limits of Anarchy: Intervention and State Formation in Chad. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Olivier de Sardan, Jean-​Pierre. 1976. Quand nos pères étaient captifs: récits paysans du Niger. Paris: Nubia. Pelckmans, Lotte. 2011. Travelling Hierarchies: Roads in and out of Slave Status in a Central Malian Fulbe Network. Leiden, NL: African Studies Centre. Peterson, Brian J. 2011. Islamization from Below: The Making of Muslim Communities in Rural French Sudan, 1880–​1960. New Haven: Yale University Press. Robinson, David. 2000a. Paths of Accommodation: Muslim societies and French colonial authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–​1920. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Robinson, David. 2000b. “Revolutions in the Western Sudan,” in Nehemiah Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels, eds., History of Islam in Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 131–​152. Rossi, Benedetta. 2015. From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800–​2000). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheele, Judith. 2012. Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Styan, David. 2013. “Chad’s Political Violence at 50: Bullets, Ballots, and Bases,” in Tony Chafer and Alexander Keese, eds., Francophone Africa at Fifty. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 233–​248. Taithe, Bertrand. 2009. The Killer Trail: A Colonial Scandal in the Heart of Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, Virginia, and Richard Adloff. 1981. Conflict in Chad. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies. Van Walraven, Klaas. 2013. The Yearning for Relief: A History of the Sawaba Movement in Niger. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Vaughan, Christopher. 2013. “Violence and Regulation in The Darfur-​Chad Borderland c. 1909–​56: Policing a Colonial Boundary.” Journal of African History 54(2): 177–​198.

chapter 3

T HE C ONSTRU C T I ON OF STATES AND SO C I ET I E S I N THE SAH E L Jean-​P ierre Olivier de Sardan

The Sahelian countries clearly exhibit a certain “family resemblance” that distinguishes them from the coastal and tropical forest countries of West Africa. This is particularly true for Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, but may be extended to Mauritania and Chad. This “family resemblance,” however, is difficult to define. Is it based on a common climate and ecological and agro-​pastoral context? Or should one point to the commonality of “caste-​based” and “class-​based’ ” societies, overseen by aristocratic social groups but in which, nevertheless, la parenté à plaisanterie or “joking relationships” operate between unequal social groups? Or is it perhaps due to the crucial role played by migration to the coastal countries of the Gulf of Guinea? What of the hegemony of Islam? Or of a glorious past feted in song by griots, the storytellers, poets, and musicians? No one of these features is sufficient on its own, none of them completely convincing to explain the Sahelian commonalities, and yet they all have a grain of truth. At the same time, the West African Sahelian countries also have a lot in common with the other francophone countries of West Africa, not least because they experienced the same colonial occupation that radically altered the course of their history and because, today, they are still largely subject to the international “aid regime” (Lavigne Delville 2010) and are dependent on aid donors from the global North. For over a century, societies and states in the region did not follow the same rhythms and trajectories. The societies, which experienced a considerable degree of turmoil in the nineteenth century—​due among other things to the Fulani jihads and to slave raiding for internal purposes or trans-​Saharan trafficking—​underwent steady incremental changes from the time of their colonial conquest. These changes accelerated after independence with the progressive abandonment of a significant number of their values, customs, and traditional relationships, and the simultaneous perpetuation or the restructuring and modification of others. The emergence of new social relationships,

52    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan increasingly dramatic urbanization, and the intensification of migratory flows, increased school enrolment, integration into the process of globalization, the economic focus on imports and exports, and more recently the development of fundamentalist Islam, are all other factors driving social change. In the process, Sahelian societies have become increasingly diversified, and marked by growing divisions. By contrast, Sahelian states are relatively standardized. They were created brutally—​ practically out of nothing—​by colonization, and they were built on an atypical state model, that of the colonial state. This model was fundamentally despotic in nature, and virtually identical across all of French West Africa, although far from the model of the state in France itself. This model of the state was perpetuated and indeed experienced strong growth after independence, but it also developed some original traits of its own, such as a very specific bureaucratic culture and a quasi-​private monopolization by a business-​oriented political elite. Today, African states in general and the Sahelian states in particular are confronted with widespread distrust on the part of their citizens, and increasingly fierce criticism of their methods of governance. At the heart of this distrust and criticism is a serious crisis related to the delivery of state services. Adopting a historical perspective, what follows will examine in sequence: first, the question of the so-​called “traditional” heritage and the colonial legacy; second, three main characteristics of the post-​independence period—​development aid, the weakness of the political elites, the failure of electoral democracy; and third, two current challenges facing Sahelian states—​their bureaucratic culture and social divisions.

“TRADITIONALISM” AND THE COLONIAL LEGACY There is a widely accepted theory that the African state today is still a “foreign” or “imported” Western-​style state, which is alien to the local cultures and was grafted onto societies that remained very traditional in nature. This theory, which is expressed in a variety of forms1 and is frequently applied to the states and societies of the Sahel, has long provided and indeed continues to provide a convenient explanation for the numerous administrative shortcomings and for the abuses, clientelism, and corruption of regimes. However, even if it is true that a “gap” exists between African states and societies, this theory is incorrect. First, and despite the misleading appearances, Sahelian societies are neither more nor less “traditional” than those of Norway or Italy; and secondly, although the state may be colonial in origin, successive regimes over the last sixty years have appropriated it and shaped it in their own ways and to their own purposes. The discrepancy or gap between contemporary states in the Sahel and their societies cannot be explained by the original “foreignness” of the state, but rather by its capture by national political elites and by its failure to deliver public services.

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    53

Traditionalism is not a Relevant Paradigm Sahelian societies changed considerably over the course of the twentieth century, first under the impact of colonization and then over the course of the decades that followed independence. Even in areas that appear to have the strongest and most direct legacy in terms of family structures, agro-​pastoral methods, rituals, and chieftaincies, transformations were far-​reaching and today’s so-​called “traditional” practices and customs are very far removed from the situation that prevailed in the late nineteenth century. In many instances the term “neo-​traditional” would be a more appropriate designation. The chieftaincy in Niger presents an example (Miles 1987; Tidjani Alou 2009). Despite the creation of communes ruled by elected mayors since 2004, village chiefs and cantonal chiefs have held on to some of their prerogatives—​such as receiving foreign visitors and government authorities, or collection of the capitation or poll taxes—​and they retain a far from negligible level of influence in terms of symbolism and protocol. The association that represents them is called, significantly, the Association des chefs traditionnels du Niger (the Association of Traditional Chiefs of Niger). They have an entourage of griots who sing their praises, horsemen who constitute their personal guard, and courtiers who chat with them all day long. By all appearances they represent a “traditional” social institution. In fact, however, such chiefs no longer have much in common with their pre-​ colonial ancestors, whose power rested primarily on the outcome of wars and the establishment of emirates, kingdoms, or nomadic confederations that reigned over territories that often differ considerably from the boundaries of current chieftaincies, and whose authority was based on slavery and power sustained through “animist” practices. The chieftaincies that exist today are much more the legacy of the administrative chieftaincies created by colonialization than a continuation of the pre-​colonial chieftaincies. Today’s chiefs are appointed and paid by the state, of which they constitute the lowest hierarchical level. In the majority of cases they are former public administrators, and in countries that have become almost entirely Islamized and where Wahhabism has assumed an increasingly dominant role in the last two decades, they must make pledges of piety. Many examples of these profound political, social, and religious changes can be observed across the region. The vast familial land plots of earlier times, which united several dozen people from different generations working in a single unit of production and were a typical feature of Sahelian villages, have now disappeared. Although the extended family retains some social relevance, the nuclear family now constitutes the normal production unit in rural areas. Some 40–​50 percent of the Sahelian population currently lives in the towns and cities (see Boyer and Lessault Chapter 37 in this volume), and it may be estimated that several tens of millions of Sahelians have migrated, either permanently or temporarily, not only to Europe (especially from Mali and Senegal) but more commonly (especially from Mali, Niger, and Burkina

54    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan Faso) toward the coastal countries of West and Central Africa (see Bredeloup Chapter 38 in this volume). Even the religious cults of pre-​colonial origin that continued to exist in some areas and resisted the onslaught of the Muslim clerics have been profoundly altered.2 A theoretical conclusion must be drawn from these observations: the paradigm of “traditionalism” and “cultural survivals” can no longer be seriously invoked to explain the nature of Sahelian societies today. Like their states, these societies are entirely modern. However, the modernity involved here is not the modernity of the West—​even if these societies and states have been and remain influenced by their relationships with the West. Indeed it is the difference between African modernity and European or American modernity that creates the illusion of traditionalism, which in turn is amplified by Western perspectives infused with exoticism or naïveté. This is not to say, of course, that the entire cultural heritage of the pre-​colonial period has disappeared; clearly many of today’s social norms and cultural practices have their roots in the nineteenth century or earlier. They have evolved, however, and in most cases they have changed radically in terms of their form or basis, they have assumed a place in very different contexts, and they carry new meanings. The case of slavery is emblematic. This practice, which was a socially central one in the nineteenth century and was directed either at the trans-​Saharan slave trade or at domestic or productive use (Pollet and Winter 1971; Miers and Kopytoff 1977; Lovejoy 1983), undoubtedly left its mark in the minds of people and in everyday life; strong social discrimination approaching “racism” still exists against the descendants of slaves in some Sahelian societies. However, in the majority of cases, slavery of the pre-​colonial type in the strict sense has disappeared as a system of production and trade (Olivier de Sardan 1984; Bellagamba, Greene, and Klein 2013; Rossi 2009), with the notable exception until recently of the Moorish societies. Today, the legacy of domestic slavery in the countryside is more likely to be reflected in the forms of modern slavery found in the cities (the petites bonnes or maids). We might also consider the example of the nomadic groups of the Sahelo-​Saharan belt, particularly the Fulbe, Tuareg, and Toubou. Their historical largely mobility-​ based pastoral economy has been widely replaced by an economy based on contraband and trafficking (cigarettes, drugs, weapons, and migrants), which was and is often interlinked with the separatist and jihadist movements of the past decade or two. Those pastoralist groups who do continue to practice livestock farming using the old extensive methods of grazing and transhumance do so in a radically new context which poses a serious threat to so-​called “traditional” livestock farming. This context is marked by the growing sedentarization of the nomads themselves, the proliferation of cultivated fields in areas that were previously available for pasturing and movement, the competition between land and livestock farmers, which has replaced the complementarity of the past, the commercialization of wells, and the new forms of intensive and semi-​intensive livestock farming (see Wilson-​Fall Chapter 35 in this volume).

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    55

The Colonial Heritage The colonial period and its legacy is anything but a mere digression of course. Because the colonial state was limited in its resources, had little manpower at its disposal, and its activities were mainly concentrated in the towns and cities, some have argued that colonization had little direct impact on rural Sahelian societies (Cooper and Stoler 1997; Cooper 2005). However, this interpretation must be nuanced: one need only think of the impact of the development of export crops (especially peanuts and then cotton), forced labor, the compulsory supplying of farm produce, the conscription and participation in the two world wars of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais (the colonial infantry corps mainly recruited in the Sahel), and the efforts to eradicate major endemic diseases. However, the influence of the colonial heritage was above all crucial at the level of the state. The modern African state arose directly from the colonial state and retained some of its characteristics after gaining independence, sometimes in a modified form, and sometimes in an amplified form (Olivier de Sardan 2009). This colonial state was not the metropolitan state; it was very much a distinct model and some of its particular characteristics had a direct influence on the postcolonial state. One can point, for example, to its despotism, the confusion of powers, the indigénat regime—​the laws establishing the inferior legal status of the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies—​the absence of elections or rigging of elections, and the role of intermediaries. The practice of institutionalized privilege provides an example. Consider the myriad “perks of office” peculiar to the colonial bureaucracy: Apart from being paid what were, in effect, double salaries thanks to their expenses, administrators lacked for nothing—​ accommodation, domestic staff, vehicles, donations, gifts in kind from the locals, free services, and even mistresses. Given the considerably lower educational attainments of the average colonial official compared to their counterparts in the metropolitan state, this discrepancy in conditions is all the more glaring. Access to these perks and privileges was based on the mere fact of holding a position in the colonial administration. This disproportionate extension of the (formal and informal) perks of office was fully maintained by national state officials in the process of conversion to independent rule, and indeed the gaps between the “privileges” and qualifications widened even further. In fact, the importance of the advantages of office grew to outweigh that of the officials’ salaries, which declined in comparison. The privileges of the colonial bureaucracy were extended to the entire hierarchical chain in the postcolonial administrations. Other examples can also be cited here, for instance, the lack of consideration shown by colonial staff toward the “indigenous population” was continued in the indifference shown by today’s officials toward the users of state services. In these ways, independence did not constitute a break with the colonial state—​and even less a return to the political forms of the nineteenth century—​but rather an extension of it, with the structures being transferred progressively and peacefully from the hands of the colonizers to those of independence leaders, while also becoming increasingly removed from the kinds of

56    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan relationships that prevailed between citizens and the state in Europe during the same period.

CHARACTERIZING THE POST-​INDEPENDENCE STATE Beyond the shared heritage of the colonial “state” all the Sahelian countries share some other key characteristics. They are all dependent on external support in terms of both development and humanitarian aid. And irrespective of the nature of the regimes that have assumed power after independence (single party government, military dictatorships, and multipartyism), all have also experienced the same privative and clientelist appropriation of power by their elites. Multiparty democracy failed to meet the expectations it raised, and elections characterized by a significant discrepancy between the requirements of electoral codes and actual implementation of elections have also had various adverse effects. Aid dependency, the hijacking of resources by the political elites, and the difficulties of electoral democracy are, without doubt, the three main characteristics of postcolonial Sahelian states.

Aid Dependency: Rentier States? Compared to the importance of international aid, both public and private, income from mining resources (e.g., gold in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and uranium and oil in Niger) is relatively insignificant in the Sahel. From independence to the present, aid dependency in its different forms has been and remains a consistent and typical characteristic of the Sahelian states. To adopt a term developed from the concept of mining rent (Yates 1996), in this respect it may be stated that the states of the Sahel are all “rentier” states (Olivier de Sardan 2013). Of course, when compared to oil rent, development rent is less concentrated, more diversified, more transparent, and offers greater innovation opportunities. However, it has also had numerous adverse effects: the systematic pursuit of funding from “technical and financial partners” (the official name given to aid donors) at the expense of local mobilization of resources; the feeling that everyone should have a share of the “white people’s money” (even if it means obtaining it illegally); and the “brain drain” of the most competent public officials to the NGOs, development agencies, and international institutions. Development aid fosters and promotes dependency, the concentration on capture strategies, and an addiction to reforms dictated from outside the country. The policies “suggested” (and often imposed, as in the case of structural adjustment with its disastrous consequences) by Western partners involve standardized methods or “magic bullets” developed by international experts in Washington, DC, Geneva, Brussels, or

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    57 Paris. These are disseminated in the form of “travelling models,” which are supposed to have a “high impact factor” but take very little account of the local contexts in which they are implemented. As a result, these multiple reforms are generally dismantled or circumvented through local practices and routines in the course of their implementation. This gives rise to “the revenge of the context” (Olivier de Sardan 2017). Furthermore, the multiple projects and programs developed and funded through the aid disappear when the external funding and technical or management support come to an end.

Capture by the Elites Beyond the regimes and governments, the political elites who assumed power, contested it, or shared it have all profoundly disappointed citizens’ expectations of them. In almost all cases, gaining access to the presidency, the prime ministership, ministerial and senior administrative office has been synonymous with personal gain, nepotism, corruption, and clientelism. This is also true within the military, as demonstrated in the case of Mali. The astonishing persistence of the popularity of the Burkinabè revolutionary Thomas Sankara across the region, thirty years after his death, is certainly due to his image as a man of integrity with a frugal lifestyle very much at odds with the accumulative practices and ostentatious spending of almost all the Sahelian governments. Gaining access to positions of power by a party involves the large-​scale distribution of rewards to the party members and political clients who accompanied the party in its rise to power. And these rewards are distributed throughout the duration of a government’s mandate in the form of jobs, privileges, favors, and special dispensations—​and all at state expense. In turn, united by their common access to these privileges and their having become indebted to the party leader, the beneficiaries of this largesse—​the militants and the dignitaries rewarded with responsibility for affairs of state—​form a circle of courtiers around the leader. Selected based on favor for the services they provided, their gratitude is expressed in turn by their favor and support for those in power. Needless to say, the establishment of democratic regimes from the 1990s made transitions in power possible—​sometimes through the paradoxical means of coups d’état that eventually lead to a democratic transition, as in the case of Niger. Yet the assumption of power by the opposition has never resulted in the establishment of alternative governance; without exception, the new arrivals adopted the practices they had denounced when they were in the opposition.

The Failures of Electoral Democracy With the exception of Senegal, the Sahelian countries all experienced single-​party regimes followed by military dictatorships for a period of thirty years. In the early 1990s all entered the so-​called democratic period, based on the ideals of freedom

58    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan of the press and of association, and free and open multiparty elections. Since then elections have officially represented the normal system for the devolution of power, but in most cases the results are in fact disputed, with multiple accusations of fraud and rigging. In fact, there are numerous discrepancies between the electoral codes prescribing the official rules for the conduct of elections and the actual practices of the candidates and voters, who not only play with these rules, but also around them and, in many cases, against them. Thus, in reality, the game is about not getting caught. From one country to the next it is possible to observe more or less similar ways of avoiding compliance with the electoral code while at the same time maintaining appearances.3 In other words, “non-​compliant”4 electoral practices have in fact become regulated, and the same “practical norms”5 relating to elections can be found in all countries. Naturally they include fraud and deliberate rigging, but they also cover other kinds of departures from the electoral code, which are considered legitimate (for instance, voting for absent parents without official procuration) or as taking advantage of the blurred boundaries between what is actually licit and illicit, legal and illegal—​such as “buying” votes. In the electoral context, these practical norms can be grouped in six main areas: 1) the factionalism that exists within parties; 2) the systematic interventionism by the state in the electoral process; 3) the role of prominent, high-​ranking individuals—​notables: the chiefs, the political patrons, and the large merchants; 4) regionalism (politique du terroir) (Bako-​Arifari 1995) and the “ethnic question;” 5) the distribution of the electoral rent; and 6) the methods of fraud. One of the significant adverse effects of democracy in Africa is linked to the enormous cost of elections, which involve the large-​scale redistribution of funds to the electors, militants, clients, and finally, the opinion leaders and other “big men.” Through their financing of the political parties, major businessmen are at the heart of the electoral system. However, their involvement is by no means selfless, as they expect a return on their investment in terms of protection, fiscal “favors,” the employment of their relatives and clients in strategic posts, or the awarding of contracts. They are thus at the core of a vast systemic corruption. Parliamentarians, mayors, and presidents are all captives to their funding in some way, and it is almost impossible for them not to return favors, as they owe their electoral success to their patrons.

SAHELIAN STATES AND SOCIETIES TODAY The indisputable fragility of the Sahelian states, which is due in large part to the fact that they are still under construction and “at work” (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2014), but also to the other factors discussed earlier (the colonial heritage, the dependency on aid as rent, the capture by the elites), should not, however, lead one to label the Sahelian

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    59 states as “failed states,” a concept that has undoubtedly enjoyed too much success. Despite their evident weaknesses, the states in Sahelian West Africa are not failed states. Even Mali, despite the fact that its northern territory is in the hands of armed groups and drug traffickers remains a “real” state in its southern territory. In other words, it is a state in which the minimal delivery of state services is ensured (even if it is unsatisfactory), and where the external signs of the state are visible everywhere (even if they are a mere façade in part), and where administrations work (even if they work badly or with difficulty). Admittedly, these states do not function like the states of Western Europe or North America. However, the countries of the Sahel are governed and, indeed, in some instances strongly governed; the infrastructure is improving, even if the improvements are inadequate and corruption results in the higher cost and lower quality of services; the most functional pockets of the bureaucracy are still afloat;6 and finally, citizens everywhere express a strong “demand for the state,” which is indicated by the huge demand for services and the inevitable dissatisfaction of citizen-​users with the public services provided.

Bureaucratic Culture: Practical Norms and the Delivery of Public Goods and Services As is the case elsewhere, the state in the Sahel is not simply a president, government, ministries, and a civil service. It is also, and above all, a bureaucracy and its mode of functioning, that is, its bureaucratic culture. From the capitals to the smallest sub-​ prefectures, civil servants and contractual state employees are at work (admittedly in their own way) in the provision of so-​called “command” or “technical” services. This bureaucracy has its areas of sovereignty (the legal authorities, police, army, diplomacy) and battalions of nurses and teachers. This entire “state apparatus” delivers services to the population: security, justice, health, education, water, roads, and more. The bureaucracy provides the interface between the states and the societies, and it thus assumes a central role. But, across the region, everyone knows that the quality of the services provided by the state is very poor. The service users, who are also the citizens of these states, complain bitterly about them. The disastrous situation of public schools throughout the Sahel is a clear illustration of this: overcrowded classrooms, a low standard of education, frequently demotivated and incompetent teachers, constant strikes, corruption, absenteeism, and inconsistent and contradictory reforms. The vast majority of upper-​and middle-​class people in the Sahel do not send their children to public schools—​no more than they attend the public health centers, which are also severely criticized by their users (Hahonou 2015). This inadequate delivery of services is not due solely to shortages and a “lack of resources.” It is also the product of disastrous human resource management in all

60    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan sectors, and of the “non-​compliant” behavior on the part of state officials, who frequently do not observe the laws, official norms, and regulations.

Practical Norms There is a considerable discrepancy between the procedures that are supposed to regulate the behavior of public officials, and their actual behavior and practices. But the gap between official rules and actual behavior is not a space where norms are forgotten or missing—​a space deprived of norms—​but rather it is a space where alternative norms are in use. The practices of state agents who do not comply with the official norms are both widespread and non-​random. First, these norms are not marginal practices like criminal activities or pathological behavior; the vast majority of public servants do not follow the official rules but they are normal people. Secondly, these “non-​compliant” practices are not associated with anomie, chaos, or chance; on the contrary, they are recurrent, tolerated, and regulated, albeit by an “informal” register. Public servants do not just decide autonomously how to act; they follow a routine. In other words, their behavior is regulated and their interactions with each other and with service users are relatively predictable. For instance, when a citizen must complete an administrative procedure in Niamey, as in every other West African city, their first action will involve looking for someone they know in the service in question, or a relative who knows someone there, rather than attempting to find out about the official procedure to be followed. Frequently, the regulation of the “non-​compliant” practices of state employees is explained simply as the result of the intrusion of prevailing social norms. In African contexts, these social norms are often classified as “traditional cultural values.” In this perspective, the modern bureaucratic rules are not “rooted” in the local culture, and the latter is not compatible with “foreign” official norms (cf. Dill 2009). African public servants are assumed to diverge from the official norms in their behavior because they are subject to values and norms specific to the local cultures. “Community” pressures, local customs, and traditional values are regularly cited here. In other words, behavior is explained by a set of stereotypes or clichés about “African culture,” “socio-​cultural traditions,” the “pre-​colonial heritage,” “African worldviews,” “cultural determinants,” “community values,” and “magico-​religious practices” (Olivier de Sardan 2015a). There is no dearth of counterexamples to the regular recourse to “African traditional culture” as an explanation for the habitual practices of public servants in contravention of professional norms. Take a particularly common case: Healthcare professionals in urban areas over almost all of Africa are notorious for the lack of consideration they show to anonymous patients; this phenomenon has been highlighted by numerous studies carried out in a number of countries (Jewkes, Naeemah, and Zodumo 1998; Jaffré and Olivier de Sardan 2003). It is highly likely that when receiving an elderly woman wearing a wrap, a young nurse in a hospital in Bamako, Niamey, or Conakry will not show the slightest consideration, greet the woman, or even invite her to sit down. This kind of attitude is completely at odds with the widely reported respect due to elderly people in “African cultures,” in other words, the rules of social decorum. It is

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    61 also at odds with the teaching of medical faculties and the proclaimed respect of the patient, which is to say the official ethical and medical norms. It expresses instead the widespread view subscribed to the majority of healthcare workers that patients are ignorant, waste their time, and do not deserve to be heard. Hence, beyond failing to comply with the official norms, the behavior of public servants also does not comply with the so-​called “traditional” social norms either. What is involved here are implicit norms, that is, informal or tacit norms, which I refer to as “practical norms.” These alternative norms are not made explicit, and they are not taught as such. They are instead virtual or implicit, but they are nevertheless “enacted,” incorporated or embodied in the daily practices of civil servants. They are routinized and widely shared, and can thus be predicted and expected by the service users (Olivier de Sardan 2015c). Some of these practical norms involve what is referred to as “petty corruption,” a widespread phenomenon today, such as when a service user pays an official to do the work they are paid by the state to do (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006). Others involve coping strategies such as the fact of allowing the police to regulate local conflicts without involving the legal system. Still others involve opportunistic behavior—​for example, the systematic application of the system of “favors” for relatives, friends, and acquaintances. Finally, other practical norms are considered largely legitimate by most actors, such as the prioritization of participation in social events over professional obligations (e.g., attending weddings or baptisms during work hours). Almost all these practical norms are reproduced in places of work in the form of a path dependency. In the majority of cases these practical norms have a negative impact on the delivery of public services. However, they can also have positive effects in the case of the “palliative” provision of services by means of “improvisation,” for example, by the establishment of informal arrangements with the violators of water and forestry regulations to create a “secret fund” that can be used to pay for the fuel required for the service’s patrols (Blundo 2015). In all cases such practical norms are at the root of the inconsistency and informality that is so characteristic of the bureaucratic culture of the Sahel. Alongside with informality outside the state (the importance of the informal sector of the economy is widely recognized), there is an informality within the state. Both informalities are patterned. This has an importance consequence for how we understand bureaucratic culture in Africa. The bureaucratic culture is not in effect the simple expression of the official norms; it constitutes the space for “play” between the official and practical norms and is based on a plethora of routines and behaviors rooted in the everyday life of the services. The public policies decreed at the top of the state are themselves largely incoherent,7 given that they are stimulated by aid donors who are for the most part ignorant of the local contexts. And when these policies are implemented in local contexts they are confronted with the bureaucratic culture within the services charged with their implementation. Hence the policies mostly end up being dismantled, thwarted, hijacked, and circumvented. Such African bureaucracies constitute a citadel that very few politicians are ready to confront. They precede and survive the various regimes. Changing them would

62    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan involve a long-​term undertaking, the duration of which would far exceed the electoral timescales with which the political classes are obsessed, as well as the project timescales with which the aid donors are obsessed. Moreover, all of those who benefit from the current functioning of the bureaucracies, first and foremost the large business owners and political worthies, block all efforts at reform in this area.

The Delivery of Public Goods and Services: Heterogeneous Modes of Governance In addition to the bureaucratic mode of governance and the bureaucratic culture, other modes of governance also provide public and collective goods and services, and the Sahelian state has relinquished the monopoly or leadership position it had in these areas in the initial stages of independence (Blundo and Le Meur 2009). Taking the concept of “governance” in a purely descriptive and analytical sense, being as empirical as possible, we can define it as any organized method of delivering public or collective services and goods according to specific norms (official and practical), and to specific forms of authority. Any organized form of this delivery (each institutional arrangement), operating according to specific official and practical norms, and involving a specific form of authority, can then be considered to be a mode of governance. Our definition of “governance” enables us to complete the traditional anthropological approaches to the state in Africa that (liberally quoting Foucault or Scott) ignore for the most part the role of the state in delivering goods and services or as the manager of this delivery (or more specifically as co-​deliverer, and co-​manager, alongside other institutions), and that systematically favor other already well-​known functions, in particular repressive functions. The state delivers public goods in Sahelian countries, but many other institutions do so as well. Development institutions, development projects, and NGOs provide public goods and services. Local governments (communes and mairies) provide public goods and services. Chieftaincies provide public goods and services. Local or national associations provide public goods and services. Faith-​based associations (Islamic or Christian ones) provide public goods and services. Sponsors (large merchants) provide public goods and services. And even private entrepreneurs may sometimes provide public goods and services. These various and un-​coordinated modes of governance—​ relating to development, local governments, chieftaincies, associations, sponsorship, religion, and the market—​provide goods not only in parallel to the state but sometimes in collaboration with it, formally or informally (Olivier de Sardan 2011). The co-​delivery of services by the state and other institutions is in fact a common phenomenon. It has become the norm for drinking water, sanitation, healthcare, and education and even the legal system, customs, and security services—​not to mention the public–​private partnerships currently promoted by the aid donors. There is thus a striking diversity and intertwining of modes of governance in Sahelian Africa. This diversity can be apprehended both externally (several “modes of governance” coexist) and internally (a single mode of governance involves different players and institutions).

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    63

Divided Societies Sahelian societies today are indisputably pervaded by multiple cleavages—​social, regional, and religious—​which threaten their stability and jeopardize their future. These three types of cleavages or divisions sometimes combine in a way that poses a particular threat to both the state and to the societies in question.

Social Divides The spectacular enrichment of the political and business elites, as evidenced by the proliferation of ostentatious urban buildings and property speculation, contrasts crassly with the precarity and poverty of rural areas and the urban peripheries. In the absence of industrialization, the predominant informal sector that characterizes the urban context cannot absorb the masses of unemployed young people arriving from the countryside, which then become the source of migratory flows. Several factors contribute to this mass rural exodus: the soil is often overworked and productivity gains in farming are weak; export crops like peanuts and cotton experience recurring crises either due to fluctuations in the global market or poor management on the part of the collecting institutions; little employment is created in rural areas, the birth rate remains very high, and education offers no outlet. It is true that the middle class, long very weak in the region, is developing. However, its new members are frustrated by their exclusion from power, which is cornered by the leading elites. Moreover, due to the absence of entrepreneurship in the formal sector, most citizens remain excluded from social mobility.

Regional Divides Due to the frustration of the populations located in marginalized regions that have been abandoned by the central state, various separatist movements that oppose the nation-​ state and are the outcome of the borders imposed by colonization have emerged since independence. However, such “pro-​independence” secessionist or autonomist claims are by no means being expressed everywhere. For this to happen, “ethnic entrepreneurs” have to be present in the political arena or, in the case of armed rebellion, “military-​ ethnic entrepreneurs.” Such has been the case not only in northern Mali but also in the Casamance conflict in Senegal, and the Tuareg and Toubou rebellions in Niger. The case of northern Mali, where the independence movements coexist and often collaborate with jihadi movements, is by far the most complicated. In contrast, the other rebellions and conflicts have been resolved or are running out of steam, and both the Senegalese and Nigerien states no longer appear to be under any direct threat from them.

Religious Divides The past thirty years have been marked by a proliferation of forms of religious intolerance in the Sahel. This is related to the rise of fundamentalism, on the one hand, and to growing fragmentation due to the sectarianism within or on the margins of the major

64    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan religions (Christianity and Islam), on the other. In the predominately Muslim societies of the Sahel, the most visible manifestation of this is the tidal wave of Wahhabism, which is leading the charge; however, the more discrete advance of the Pentecostalists should not be forgotten here. At times this religious intolerance overlaps with (a) regional frustrations and (b) social exclusion. This convergence can enable the “political-​religious” entrepreneurs to give a political Islamist expression to one or the other of these, and thereby assume a role that is very similar to that of the populist European movements. Sometimes “military-​ religious” entrepreneurs can also offer and organize a channel for the violent rejection of the “system.” Extremist movements such as the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) or Boko Haram clearly demonstrate this aggregation of divides. In effect, the jihadist movements in the Sahel are not merely the ultimate and paroxysmal expression of Wahhabi intolerance, they also convey local expressions of identity, while targeting young unemployed school-​leavers.

CONCLUSION Sahelian political regimes are currently threatened on multiple fronts: (a) by the partisans of an alternative radical Islam; (b) by those nostalgic for the robust old regimes (which they airbrush retrospectively as having been more effective); and finally, and above all, (c) by their own failures, in terms of the delivery of public goods and services in particular, but also due to the dismal spectacle of political elites scrambling for access to the perks of office. Reflecting this, the word “politics” has become extremely pejorative in the two main languages of Niger and today signifies discord and endless disputes, conflicts, and rivalries of proximity (Olivier de Sardan 2017). This is also the case in other countries, and the woes of the current regimes discredit democracy in an alarming way. However, if it is difficult to see any alternative emerging from the political class of the Sahelian states, and the programs and injunctions of their “development partners” (the World Bank, IMF, the agencies of the United Nations, the multilateral institutions, bilateral partners, or major NGOs) do not appear to be capable of providing any suitable solutions either. Despite discourses focused on promoting “civil society,” the international experts who develop policies, projects, and interventions aimed at the Sahelian countries are broadly unfamiliar with the reality of contemporary African societies. In fact, the latter remain opaque to the experts, whose only contact with them is through the mediation of development “brokers” (Bierschenk, Chauveau, and Olivier de Sardan 2000), in general at the top of local NGOs, who generally tell them exactly what they want to hear. These brokers represent a very specific and minority urban and intellectual “civil society” (one that defends human rights and promotes women, freedom of the press, the fight against corruption, and the protection of the environment), which constitutes the favored partner of the NGOs and international institutions. Scant

The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel    65 attention if any is paid to less visible “civil societies” that exist in the Sahel, such as youth social groups—​like the grin in Mali (Bleck, Dembele, and Guindo 2016) and the fada in Niger (Masquelier 2019), women’s groups (e.g., foyandi in Niger), and also “Islamic civil society”—​groups of associations, study and prayer circles, forms of mutual aid, and groups of “preachers” (Sounaye 2007, 2016). Finally, the European and North American countries have their own agendas for Africa—​mainly focused on the prevention of migration, the military response to jihadism, and the reduction of the birth rate—​which fail to take all the challenges facing African societies and states into account. The far-​reaching reform of public services would appear to be essential to re-​ establishing a minimum of confidence between Sahelian states and their citizens, and to overcome the divisions within the societies. But these reforms cannot come from outside, from the international experts and aid donors. Like the other travelling models, the new public management methods currently being promoted by the international aid regime are finding themselves subject to the “revenge of the contexts.” The innumerable “external reformers” have failed and will continue to fail; only the “internal reformers” can change the behavior of the officials, modify the operation of the administrations and improve the quality of the services provided. Only the internal reformers are familiar with the everyday reality of the local and national contexts. They alone are thus able to start from routine behaviors and actual practices in their reform efforts, rather than constantly introducing new layers of increasingly sophisticated, bureaucratized and proceduralized official norms, which like all those that preceded them will inevitably be “absorbed” and “circumvented” by local practical norms. There are very few “internal reformers,” of course, but they do exist—​even if they are most often invisible at the level of decision-​makers and in the media. We have met them in the course of our research within state administrative agencies. Yet in most cases they are ignored by their hierarchies, isolated, often discouraged, and sometimes even sanctioned for their efforts. Challenging though it may be, a strategy for backing them, supporting them, bringing them together, and giving them a voice may be the best possible way of encouraging and motivating the innovators and entrepreneurs within the public service, so that the currently weakened and sometimes broken connection between states and societies can be re-​established.

Notes 1. The literature on neo-​patrimonialism and different variants of “Africanist traditionalist culturalism” provides numerous examples of this (see Chabal and Daloz 1998). For critiques of the neo-​patrimonialist paradigm, see Bach 2011; Therkildsen 2014; Olivier de Sardan 2014; for a critique of “Africanist traditionalist culturalism,” cf. Olivier de Sardan 2015a. 2. For the case of the possession cults in Niger see Olivier de Sardan 1994. 3. For an ethnographic analysis of the electoral process in Niger, see Olivier de Sardan 2015b. 4. By “non-​compliant” I mean practices that do not respect the letter or spirit of the official norms, in this case the electoral code.

66    Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan 5. “Practical norms” refer to “the latent regulations of practices of social actors when these do not follow official regulations” (cf. Olivier de Sardan 2015c). 6. Regarding “pockets of efficiency,” see Crook 2010; Roll 2014. 7. On the case of a health policy in the Sahel (targeted free healthcare), cf. Olivier de Sardan and Ridde 2015.

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chapter 4

CIVIL SO CIET Y A ND P OLITICAL ORDE R I N THE SAH E L Augustin Loada

Since independence, African ruling classes have attempted to re-​appropriate the colonial state to build a new political order. Under the pretext of nation-​building and socioeconomic development, they gradually set up authoritarian political orders that clamped down on the pluralism inherited from the colonial period, called into question individual and collective freedoms, and repressed social movements as well as citizens, political parties, and the civil society organizations (henceforth CSOs) that protested this authoritarianism. In the Sahel, Senegal and Burkina Faso (previously Upper Volta) have been partial exceptions, characterized by moderate authoritarianism and temperate multiparty politics. Yet Burkina Faso, as in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad, has also been characterized by the frequent militarization of politics. To varying degrees, state authoritarianism has left its mark on the relations between civil society and the political order everywhere in the Sahel. As a point of departure, we need to conceptualize the key concepts of “political order” and “civil society.” Political order here refers to the ensemble of political institutions and structures for managing society, which in modern contexts refers to the Weberian state: “A compulsory political organization with continuous operations will be called a ‘state’ insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order” (Weber 1978, 54). In this sense the political order ensures social cohesion by allocating resources and values, and regulating conflicts through its bureaucracy and the use of legitimate force. In elaborating the postcolonial political order, ruling classes faced several challenges. One was nation-​building—​how to incorporate ethnic and regional differences into a single nation, while respecting this diversity. One response was to concentrate and centralize power in a unified state. Ruling classes also pursued policies of uniformization, mainly through the elaboration of legal systems, but also in some cases (Mauritania,

70   Augustin Loada Chad) via Islamization and/​or Arabization, or on the contrary, by the promotion of laïcité or secularism (Senegal, Mali, Niger). Opposition to these policies of centralization and uniformization still exists, as shown by claims for autonomy (such as in the Casamance in Senegal, or by Saharan societies in Mali and Niger), by the resilience of customary practices, and by the rise of political Islamism across the region. A second major challenge was socioeconomic. For want of a local bourgeoisie, African states were obliged to take charge of social and economic development. They were largely to fail in this effort, opening the door for international financial institutions to impose structural adjustment policies during the 1980s, further weakening the state’s capacity and exacerbating social deficits. Thus, by the end of the 1980s, the economic and financial crises ensuing from failed development policies fueled rising protests against the authoritarian political order. Despite the risks, both individually and collectively, through political parties and CSOs, citizens everywhere demanded the liberalization of the political order. Under both internal and external pressures, in the early 1990s ruling classes were forced to accept a return to liberal constitutionalism and the rule of law, opening the door to both economic and political liberalism. All the Sahelian countries thus adopted some form of constitutional reforms that in theory endorsed democratic principles and values, accepted the separation of powers, assured the independence of the judicial system, and upheld fundamental citizen rights—​including the right to choose leaders and to hold them accountable through free, competitive elections, via a multiparty system with legal opposition parties (see Bodian and Villalón Chapter 20 in this volume). Importantly, in this transition from an authoritarian to an officially democratic political order, a voice that had been nearly inaudible for an entire generation re-​emerged: that of civil society. In Bayart’s terms (1992, 70), civil society might be understood as “society in relation to the state, insomuch as it is immediately struggling with the state, but also the process of de-​totalization of the state in relation to the contradictory processes of totalization pursued by political authority.” Civil society thus serves as “an intermediary or interface between the state and important groups, an emerging in-​between capable of countering the state’s hegemonic tendencies” (Chabal and Daloz 1999, 31). In this vein, I conceptualize civil society as a process driven by social forces or movements, but also including individuals as citizens engaged in “forms of joint collective action in favor of a cause” (Neveu 1996). The re-​emergence of civil society in the Sahel must be understood as a specific historical process. Largely dormant over the first three decades of independence, civil society now wields a force to be reckoned with in building the new political order. Yet civil society in the Sahel, as elsewhere in Africa, also remains nascent and frail, undermined by weak differentiation in the political and economic spheres, and the resulting limited middle classes (Fatton 1995). The degree of frailty varies from country to country, shaped by the national politics of earlier periods. Through the 1980s, the single-​party systems in Mauritania, Mali, or Niger, and the military factionalism in Chad, impeded the growth of civil society, and social movements were barely tolerated. In states such as Senegal and Burkina Faso, moderate authoritarianism allowed for limited pluralism in politics,

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    71 the media, and the labor movement, as well as for greater individual and collective freedoms. Civil society in those countries could thus at times express disagreement with the established political order through the press, labor unions, student movements, religious groups, traditional chiefs, or customary authorities. Yet at the start of the 1990s, civil society experienced a new awakening in all Sahelian states—​those where it had been stifled as well as those where its existence had been tolerated (Gyimah-​Boadi 1996; Monga 1995). Everywhere, constitutional reforms or new constitutions enshrined the principle of freedom of association. In Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, this freedom was substantive, as reflected in the multitude of officially recognized new associations. In Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, the new freedom of association was regulated by laws governing the press, labor unions, and cooperatives, and the strength of civil society in those cases thus depends on whether such associations are actually free, autonomous, and independent of the state. Laws at times formally recognized civil society as a partner for the state, and prescribed its representation in institutions for the management of public affairs. Whether officially recognized, informal, or underground, CSOs have joined political parties in pressing demands for a more democratic political order. This demand was voiced not only by conventional institutions such as labor organizations or student movements, but especially by the various organizations promoting and defending human rights, freedoms, and good governance (Harbeson, Rothchild, and Chazan 1994). The rise of an active and involved civil society thus accompanied the democratization processes launched across the region with varying degrees of successes. By the 2000s, however, assessments of this democratization were often disappointing, as many democratic transitions resulted in “electoral autocracies” or hybrid regimes (Levitsky and Way 2010; Quantin 2010). Although opposition parties found new possibilities for coming to power in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger, the authoritarian temptation remained strong—​provoking protests by CSOs and opposition parties. In Niger (2010), Senegal (2011), Burkina Faso (2014), and Chad (2014–​2016), protest movements arose out of the urban population’s economic difficulties and in reaction to efforts by incumbent presidents to manipulate constitutions so as to stay in power. These protest movements in turn reshaped civil society, mobilizing young people and those on the margins of urban society to demand better governance and solutions to economic hardships. More recently, as public authorities have attempted to respond to these demands, a major new and unexpected issue has been pushed to the center of the political agenda, namely the insecurity caused by terrorism or other violent forms of extremism. Civil society’s contribution to the political order can be approached from the angle of institutions, understood in a broad sense as stable, recurrent patterns of behavior (Lowndes 2010, 61). Beyond formal constitutions and organizational structures, such an approach also pays attention to the informal conventions of politics, the opportunities and drawbacks related to institutions, and the articulation between institutions, values, and power relations. It considers not only the impact of institutions on individuals, but also the interactions between institutions and individuals. This approach considers institutions as a set of rules, which guide and mold the behaviors of individuals within

72   Augustin Loada and between organizations. It thus assumes that civil society’s activists are guided by the rules, principles, and values posited by the state as the primary guardian of the political order, as well as by themselves and by public opinion. In most Sahelian states, formal laws and informal expectations prescribe that civil society should be apolitical. Although this principle is not clearly defined, public opinion expects that CSOs abstain from conducting explicitly political activities, alone or concertedly with political parties or politicians. This implies that CSOs should undertake action in their relevant domains, while publicly adhering to the principle of objectivity and upholding the principle of independence from, and impartiality toward, political forces competing for power. Civil society refers not just to the formal groups officially recognized by the state, but also to informal groups or movements active at the grassroots with or without the tacit agreement of authorities (Bratton 1989). Institutions tend to be immobile, characterized by permanence, stability, and continuity. They evolve gradually, incrementally, in response to signals from their changing environment and depending on the interests of various agents and on the consensus or coalitions they build. By contrast, civil society in the Sahel is dynamic. It experiences ebbs and flows, its configuration changing in space and over time. It is also diverse, including formal and informal groups that do not carry the same political weight, do not intervene alike, and do not necessarily bear the same values. Depending on the country, this pluralistic civil society has different configurations, and acts in different ways. Finally, CSOs depend on the historical context, on the space and time where they intervene, on the choices made in the past. This context shapes civil society’s behavior—​its choices and decisions. From this perspective, I turn now to an examination of how civil society in Sahelian states has evolved as an actor in the social and political changes taking place within the established political order. Civil society has gained increasing autonomy across the region, but always within limits. And in the age of democratic struggle, as well as in the new centrality of security concerns, it has become key to the building of new political orders in the region.

CIVIL SOCIETY IN RELATION TO THE POLITICAL ORDER: INCREASING AUTONOMY, WITHIN LIMITS Civil society in the Sahel is a dynamic agent with a role constructed through history. Far from being petrified or characterized by immobility, Sahelian civil society is constantly moving, engaged in a difficult process of maintaining its autonomy from the ruling classes. State authorities often see its dynamism, and its role as a countervailing force to authoritarianism, as a source of political disorder. They thus try to control civil society, but the latter resists being domesticated.

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    73

Pluralism and Autonomy Yet in the Sahel, civil society was in fact relatively domesticated until the end of the 1980s, with the partial exceptions of Senegal and Burkina Faso. It was also less heterogeneous than nowadays. Depending on the country, traditional chiefs, religious leaders, or labor unions were its major representatives. French colonial authorities had tried, without success, to abolish traditional chiefdoms before deciding to use the chiefs as the colonial administration’s auxiliaries, and indeed artificial chiefdoms were at times set up where none had previously existed. The postcolonial state, in turn, continued to use these “traditional” institutions as relays to society. In some countries, traditional chiefs formed associations to better defend their interests. Successive regimes in Niger have all found it necessary to work with the Association des Chefs Traditionnels du Niger (formed in the late 1940s). It is now represented on the Haut-​Conseil des Collectivités Territoriales, and its members are entitled to sit on town councils. In Burkina Faso, chiefs created the Conseil Supérieur des Chefferies Coutumières et Traditionnelles (CSCCT). They are represented in certain key public organizations, including the National Electoral Commission and the Economic and Social Council. Chiefs informally take part in settling social and political crises in Burkina Faso, and many have sought election to public office, as a member of parliament, mayor, or town councilor. Another historically major force in civil society are the leaders of religious communities. This is strikingly central in Senegal in terms of the influence wielded by “marabouts” on the “prince” (Coulon 1981; see also Villalón 1995). Like chiefs, religious groups have created organizational platforms on which to voice their views and take position on public issues. In Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, Islamic associations have created umbrella organizations that coordinate activities in the Muslim community and serve as its interface with public authorities. Such organizations also exist for Christians (e.g., in Burkina Faso the Fédération des Églises et Missions Évangéliques, FEME). Catholicism, more centralized, is represented by the Conférence Épiscopale Burkina-​ Niger, which distinguished itself by its critical stance in the crisis triggered by President Compaoré’s attempts to manipulate Burkina Faso’s constitution. Despite some erosion of their legitimacy, especially in urban areas, traditional chiefs and religious leaders still enjoy the confidence of a majority of the population and are still a major part of civil society in the Sahel. Thus, in Afrobarometer surveys carried out in Burkina Faso, people regularly have more confidence in traditional chiefs than in state institutions. In Mali, chiefs wield significant influence on local affairs, and state authorities often find it necessary to consult traditional chiefs or religious leaders. Having failed or refused to consult these leaders or follow their advice, many a mayor has seen the local population criticize or boycott their plans or decisions. Recognizing the importance of these chiefs and leaders in the established political order, some Sahelian states have opted to enshrine the place of traditional chiefs in the constitution. Under Article 167 of Niger’s 2010 constitution, chiefs are given a role in the administration of

74   Augustin Loada the national territory, but they also have a strict duty to be neutral and act in a reserved manner. The preamble of Burkina Faso’s constitution recognizes “customary and traditional chieftaincies as a moral authority, the trustee of customs and traditions in our society.” In the dominant Muslim majority countries of Mali, Senegal, and Niger, some groups have increasingly promoted political Islam as an alternative to the failed governments of the secular ruling class. Tensions periodically flare up between the proponents and opponents of secular politics on various policy issues. In Mali, the High Islamic Council successfully opposed a new family law, deeming it contrary to Islamic values (Soares 2009). In Burkina Faso, a law that would have regulated the expression of religion in public was withdrawn from parliament’s agenda under pressure from the Burkinabè Federation of Islamic Associations (Madore 2020). While they are highly controversial, especially among the secular urban elite, religious and traditional organizations are a central part of Sahelian societies, and an unavoidable fact in shaping the political order. A space for dialogue between the state, chiefs, religious groups, and other forces in civil society is a prerequisite for building a political order that is both democratic and legitimate at the grassroots level. In some Sahelian countries, labor organizations, a major force in the fight against colonialism, remain a driving force in civil society. Unions were set up after World War II in metropolitan areas of French West Africa, then federated as sections within inter-​ African labor organizations and, following independence, in national labor unions. Even before 1960, political leaders were groomed and formed in labor union movements. In Burkina Faso, the labor movement was ideologically polarized between “reformists” and “revolutionaries.” Pushed aside by the Sankara Revolution in 1983, the unions resisted and came out of this period weaker. By the end of the 1980s, when the country underwent political liberalization, the unions were no longer civil society’s driving force, having been displaced by associations for human rights and freedoms, democracy, and good governance. Once the freedom to form associations was recognized, hundreds bloomed with the approval of public authorities, who saw them as a means for obtaining international legitimacy. The adoption of the principles and values of pluralism and democratic governance in the late 1980s opened a wide space for the development of such civil society organizations. The single-​party era was now over and despite the weight of the authoritarian past, civil society’s growing autonomy seems irreversible, grounded in both political and ideological bases. One safeguard for civil society’s autonomy is its pluralism. Pluralist democracy—​ in contrast to a “popular democracy,” an “African-​style democracy,” or a single-​party system—​necessarily implies accepting pluralism in politics, the labor movement, the media, and associations. Activists in a growing number of CSOs have internalized these values and are quick to react when they suspect that they are threatened by powerholders. Backed by activists steeped in Marxist ideology and the values of equality, social justice, and compassion for the underprivileged, some CSOs have strongly resisted attempts to control them. Such organizations tend to underline their differences with “reformist” CSOs that, in their opinion, play into the hands of powerholders. Civil

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    75 society’s increasing autonomy also has material grounds. Traditional legitimacy may generate significant resources that underlie the power of traditional chiefs and religious leaders. In Senegal, some marabouts wield immeasurable financial clout. In Burkina Faso, the paramount chiefs may accumulate large capital reserves generated by their subjects’ contributions. Dues paid by members provide resources to labor organizations, although these are frequently insufficient. Most strikingly, the CSOs that sprung up in the wake of political liberalization during the 1990s and were recognized as legitimate agents for international cooperation have gradually attracted financial and material support from foreign sponsors. These sponsors count on such CSOs to make up for the shortcomings of the central state (deemed to be inefficient) or to bypass governments (deemed to be authoritarian). As outside sponsors have come to be the principal source of funding for many CSOs, the state has lost leverage for controlling them. CSO organizations funded by sponsors, however, may suffer a loss of autonomy as they become accountable to sponsors who dictate their agendas, perhaps to the detriment of the CSO’s internal procedures of governance. Financial autonomy from the state may come at the cost of increased control by foreign sponsors. To attenuate the detrimental effects of civil society’s fragmentation and to make collective actions more effective, some sponsors, or even state authorities, have promoted the formation of alliances, coalitions, or networks of CSOs. These have been pursued with mixed results. Since they compete for leadership and for the economic rent offered by sponsors, CSOs in fact find it hard to cooperate, except during critical social or political moments or in widespread mobilization in reaction to authoritarian governments.

But under Surveillance As a player in building the political order, civil society is consubstantial with the postcolonial state since its origin. Following decolonization, the new ruling classes in most Sahelian states tried to restrain, or even outlaw, political pluralism. Since CSOs, and trade unions in particular, were seen as a mold for forming a counter-​elite, the nascent political order tried to eliminate potential sources of subversion or contestation. When not dissolved, CSOs were used by powerholders, whether military or civilian, whether in states with a single party or a dominant ruling party. They were asked to promote and diffuse the rules and values dictated by the ruling class, and in particular loyalty to the regime and its incarnation, the head of state. When a CSO tried to stand clear of the established political order, the attempt was interpreted as dissent; and security forces would be charged to handle it. In this context, any independent collective action or social movement was suspicious and could be outlawed. Strikes or demonstrations for protesting against the established political order were forbidden, whereas actions for legitimating the political order were tolerated or even encouraged. After the 1990s wave of political liberalization, however, officials had to be more cautious as civil society’s new pluralism made it much more difficult to domesticate or

76   Augustin Loada coopt, and any attempts to do so could elicit strong counter-​reactions. Public authorities at times try to corrupt civil society leaders through forms of clientelism by which leaders are compensated for their cooperation, moderation, or willingness to dialogue. To buy social peace, broaden their legitimacy, or control civil society’s countervailing political force, governments might also try to coopt civil society’s most visible leaders. But to remain credible with their supporters, CSOs must also raise their voices against the powers that be. For their part, political officeholders know that they sometimes have to make concessions when responding to demands expressed by civil society organizations, lest their leaders be replaced with persons who are more radical, less prone to corruption, and less open to compromise. A double game is thus regularly played out between authorities and CSO leaders, each of whom claims to be sticking to its position while colluding with the other in the wings. When corruption or persuasion does not work, coercive means might be put to use, including police surveillance, threats or blackmail, or outright physical elimination. As the events following the assassination of Norbert Zongo in Burkina Faso demonstrated, however, any government tempted to resort to such a radical method is exposed to ominous protest movements (see Harsch Chapter 8 in this volume). Advances in the rule of law in many countries have made the political costs of a crackdown on civil society too high for politicians whose legitimacy depends on democratic elections. In states where stronger authoritarianism has limited this progress, protest movements launched by civil society might be more easily routed. Such was the case with the unprecedented demonstrations held in Chad between 2014 and 2016. Given lower world oil prices and poor management of oil wealth, the Chadian state faced a dire economic situation, and the population suffered the consequences. The situation spurred social protest, which turned increasingly political with the involvement of youth-​led CSOs (such as Trop C’est Trop, Lyina, and Ça Suffit), demanding the departure of President Idriss Déby. But the authoritarian regime managed to stifle the protests and ensure the incumbent president’s controversial reelection in April 2016. Unlike in Senegal or Burkina Faso, Chadian civil society has not been able to produce a democratic change of government and repression has, for the time being, blocked prospects for change. In some countries in the Sahel, educational associations of teachers or students have been important components of the labor movement and of civil society leadership. Having inherited the traditions of the Fédération des Étudiants d’Afrique Noire en France (FEANF—​founded in 1950), unions of teachers, professors, and researchers, and, above all, student associations—​often steeped in Marxism—​have tirelessly worried authoritarian regimes. Their actions have often turned campuses into hotbeds of protest and, not surprisingly, places under close supervision. Authorities have attempted to manage this challenge in various ways: police surveillance, cooptation via the appointment of activists to top positions in academic institutions, the infiltration of labor organizations, and the creation of puppet organizations. The relations between powerholders and the press serve as an excellent indicator of the degree of autonomy of civil society. Burkina Faso is one of the few Sahelian states where freedom of the press has deep roots, reaching back before political liberalization

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    77 during the 1980s. The freedom of tone of Burkina’s oldest private daily, L’Observateur-​ Paalga, already attracted attention when it was founded in 1974. While this daily was forced into silence in the period of the Burkinabè revolution, the assassination of journalist Norbert Zongo in 1998 set off a vast protest movement led by Burkinabè civil society that rattled the regime and assured the resurgent independence of the press in the face of the regimes’ limited capacity to control it (Loada 1999). The government’s relations with traditional chiefs and religious leaders are also often tense, especially when they adopt a critical stance as individuals. Acts of retaliation by the state and its brokers may target a leader who abandons the role of intermediary for a position as an opponent. At the same time, the collective action of traditional chiefs and religious leaders may serve as counterweight to the state, and as protection both from powerholders and critics. But as a Burkinabè priest who wrote a book about the démocrature (“democratorship”) of Compaoré’s regime has pointed out, the expression of an individual opinion exposes the person to significant danger (Kolesnore 2016). Beyond any doubt, civil society in the Sahel has developed significant autonomy and is now a key actor in the construction and reconstruction of political order. Indeed, its political role is so decisive that civil society itself has become an issue in the game of power, both for ruling elites (who try to exploit or neutralize it) and for leaders of the opposition (who try to win over its support in search of a balance of power with authorities). Despite government efforts to domesticate it, civil society has taken a central place in the critical construction of Sahelian political orders.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE POLITICAL ORDER From the birth of postcolonial states, civil society in the Sahel has been involved in the construction of a new political order. Even before independence it took part in the struggle against colonialism, mainly through labor unions and student movements. After independence, its role in nation-​building has been no less active in several key ways: It has been a countervailing power; some of its leaders have entered the political arena; and more recently, it is playing a role in security matters.

A countervailing power At the end of the 1980s, several authoritarian regimes in the Sahel were challenged by social movements in which labor unions joined forces with newly (re)emerging political groups, including Marxist or Marxist-​oriented political organizations, to mobilize

78   Augustin Loada a “revolutionary” labor movement. Paradoxically, however, while waiting for the revolution these groups played a largely tribunicial or protective role that in fact helped reinforce the established political order. Marxists thus took up the causes of human rights, fair elections, a free media, good governance, and the fight against corruption, denying “reformists” a monopoly on these issues. More recently, social movements organized to protest the high cost of living have provided such organizations a new platform for legitimacy. These “revolutionary” organizations paradoxically pursue objectives quite in keeping with the “neocolonial bourgeois” order they are supposedly subverting. Hardly capable of fitting into the established political order, they have resisted government control and stoked opposition to the abuses and excesses of powerholders. This tribunicial role has ultimately brought them closer to so-​called “reformist” CSOs, which are striving not to replace the established political order with a revolutionary one, but rather to reform it by advocating the principles and values of pluralist democracy and good governance. With backing from their financial sponsors, they are trying to consolidate the democratic order by criticizing its shortcomings, pleading for social justice, and upholding democratic principles and values. When a regime threatens or tramples on the fundamental principles and values of the democratic order, civil society groups regularly speak up in their defense, organize public demonstrations, or even resort to insurrectional methods. Of course, not all CSOs perceive threat in the same way; some who are closer to the seat of power tend to seek shelter in neutrality and “a-​politicism” in order to avoid taking sides. Yet when tensions mount, such groups may intervene as intermediaries to prevent an explosion of violence. This is particularly true for traditional chiefs and religious leaders. In Senegal, for example, religious leaders interceded with President Wade in 2010 during the widespread mobilization against his controversial plan for a constitutional reform that many criticized as an attempt to establish a dynastic succession. While religious communities frequently include diverse views on the political regime, when they perceive the social order as shaken, and the fundamental values of peace and cohesion as threatened, most religious leaders will side with outraged citizens even against presidents or regimes that they had previously supported. In Burkina Faso, traditional chiefs and religious leaders have often been incorporated into ruling coalitions, but during crises they have also often played the role of intermediary between social forces and the regime. Other CSOs, less tractable on questions related to democratic principles and values, have fewer qualms about crossing the Rubicon to meet the opposition. In their opinion, taking refuge in neutrality plays into the hands of powerholders, and makes them accomplice to violations of the essential principles and values of a democratic order. Civil disobedience is a possibility, and it is even enshrined in some constitutions such as that of Burkina Faso. To justify their presence alongside opposition parties, such CSOs may argue that a circumstantial alliance should be formed to preserve or restore the democratic order. Given the hesitations of some CSOs to act—​such as some Burkinabè labor unions that reject both the government and the opposition—​along with the lack of success or limited results of other social movements, new forms of civil society have more

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    79 recently emerged, such as Y’en A Marre in Senegal, Balai Citoyen in Burkina Faso, or the movement headed by Ras Bath in Mali. Popular among youth and rooted in poor or working-​class urban neighborhoods, these movements have not hesitated to ally themselves with political parties. In Senegal for instance, they joined the “M23” (Movement des forces vives du 23 juin), lending critical support to the opposition movements that managed to ensure a democratic handover of power in Senegal in 2012. Balai Citoyen was to play a similar role in Burkina Faso (Guèye 2013; Touré 2017). Such movements offer young people opportunities for sociopolitical engagement, and rely on urban culture such as rap music as well as social media to mobilize youth. With youth activists as their driving force, huge protest movements in several Sahelian states have forced governments to make concessions, abandon antidemocratic plans for dynastic succession, propose reforms, or even abdicate. Most strikingly, informal coalitions of CSOs and opposition parties led a number of successful protests against constitutional reforms that would have allowed the incumbent head of state to serve additional terms: against Mamadou Tanja in Niger (2009–​2010), Abdoulaye Wade in Senegal (2011–​2012), and Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso (2014). These often heterogeneous coalitions tend to be short-​lived and are rarely institutionalized. Once the goal is achieved, diverging interests and competition for access to the state and its resources in the new context tend to lead to their disintegration. While politicians and political parties often criticize civil society as capable only of opposing, criticizing, and blaming, and incapable of formulating concrete proposals, in fact CSOs have become key players in public policy. In many countries, think tanks were formed during the 1990s in the wake of democratic liberalization. Often with the support of sponsors, these organizations conduct studies, carry out surveys, draft position papers on governance and public policies, and formulate recommendations for public officials and international partners. These structures are often coalitions of CSOs, sometimes in alliance with political parties. They organize forums or conferences to ponder and propose solutions to current problems. To be sure, the impact of position papers may be limited. Even when a head of state has asked for an assessment of the country’s system of governance, he can file the report away in a drawer. Such, for example, was the fate of a report drafted by the “Assises Nationales” in Senegal in 2008, as well as that of the “African Peer Review Mechanism” report on Burkina, which criticized the manipulation of the constitution, corruption, and the blockage of the political system. Political opportunities—​moments at which institutions are amenable to significant change via citizen participation and protest (McAdam 1996)—​are rather limited in the Sahel. Yet such moments may arise during social and political emergencies. In Senegal, the protest movements that opposed President Wade’s dynastic pretensions forced the president to give up his plans for changing the constitution and, above all, to admit his defeat during the election in 2012. In Niger, resistance to Mamadou Tandja’s obstinate efforts to stay in power sparked a coup d’état in 2010 that was hailed by many for “saving” the country. In Burkina Faso, President Compaoré’s tenacity spurred an uprising that forced him to resign and flee into exile in October 2014. Political opportunities evolve

80   Augustin Loada over time, positively or negatively depending on the regime. Given the power it had demonstrated in the streets, for example, civil society was to play a significant role during the transitional government formed to replace Compaoré. Following the presidential and legislative elections of 2015, the new government provided more limited opportunities for civil society to play a role, reflecting a common post-​crisis process by which civil society can be demobilized and returned to its more conventional “apolitical” role.

Involvement in politics Given civil society’s position as a counterweight to power, often in alliance with opposition political forces, regime changes also create opportunities for them to be drawn into politics. The advantages and disadvantages of CSO’s involvement in politics is a source of frequent controversy and debate. Following the democratic handover of power in Senegal in 2012, for example, key civil society leaders who had protested Wade’s efforts to stay in power found themselves on the side of the new government. Some of them were appointed ministers, while others actively supported the new president, Macky Sall. Major civil society groups, such as M23, were obliged to reposition themselves, but had difficulty maintaining their unity. Likewise, in Burkina Faso, civil society was reconfigured following the ouster of Compaoré and the election of the new government in 2015. Some figures from civil society joined political parties or took positions in the new regime. Others, feeling they had been poorly rewarded, adopted new opposition positions. Still others tried to redefine their position and to reclaim their conventional role as a countervailing force or as critics of the political order. There is a widespread expectation that civil society activists should resign from their positions in CSOs when they assume political positions, given the incompatibility of these roles. In Burkina Faso, this expectation gave rise to arguments that traditional chiefs should resign from the chieftaincy before entering politics or seeking elective office. The issues provoked an intense debate in the drafting of the constitution for the Fifth Republic, with the representatives of the chieftaincy arguing for the constitutional right granted to all citizens—​including the chiefs—​to take part in public affairs as a voter or candidate. For other leaders, including traditional chiefs seeking to stake out a position in civil society, political neutrality remains a key value. For chiefs, this neutrality is a means for preserving their legitimacy, especially among urban youth with a negative perception of party politics. They also present it as a democratic imperative, since political neutrality and impartiality reinforce the effectiveness of chiefs in settling conflicts while safeguarding the freedom of expression of their subjects. A striking example of this dynamic was the role played by the Mogho Naaba—​the paramount chief of the Mossi and the most important traditional authority in Burkina Faso—​in the drafting of a charter for the transition after the 2014 insurrection. In the Mogho Naaba’s palace,

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    81 representatives of the former president’s security regiment and of the Burkinabè army signed an agreement for eventually dismantling the ousted president’s dreaded praetorian guard. Significant controversies tend to arise when a leader from civil society enters politics. A symbolic severing of formal ties from the organization is often insufficient to assure members that the person has not been simply coopted or has “sold out.” In contrast, others argue that the engagement of leaders from civil society in a new regime presents opportunities for cleaning up public affairs and introducing values of honesty, social justice, and concern for the underprivileged—​that is for practicing and applying the gospel of good governance as preached by civil society. For their part, professional politicians sometimes look askance at leaders from civil society who enter politics, seeing them as outside competitors to power and offices. In this context of controversy, the involvement of civil society in politics thus carries risks not only for the individuals from CSOs (who might lose their integrity) but also for civil society itself (whose role as a countervailing power might be diminished) and indeed for the democratic order (which might be weakened).

Civil society as an agent of law enforcement and security As security has deteriorated in the Sahel, questions have begun to emerge about the state’s claim to a monopoly (in Weber’s sense) on the use of physical force. In a context of soaring population growth, rapid urbanization, and increasing social inequality, all Sahelian countries have faced increasing insecurity in recent decades, a situation seriously aggravated by the upsurge in violent extremism in the region since 2012. Beyond the actions of individual states, the security situation has been internationalized by the presence of outside actors, and the collective actions of Sahelian states such as via the framework provided by the “G5 Sahel” (see Barrios Chapter 23 and Marchal Chapter 24 in this volume). At the other end of the spectrum, citizens as members of civil society have historically been little involved in security provision, something presumed to be the responsibility of state professionals. Involving civilians in security matters was also considered risky, as the experiences with the “popular militia” in Mali under Modibo Keita or with the “Committees for the Defense of the Revolution” (1983–​1987) in Burkina Faso under Sankara suggested. While such groups served the regimes in attempting to install a new political order, they also turned to settling scores and committing acts of abuse and extortion against citizens. This understanding, however, has begun to shift in complex ways. Under pressure from local sociopolitical forces, security policies are being reoriented across the Sahel. In contexts where state authorities are unable to provide security, self-​defense groups have cropped up. In some communes in Mali, for example, the fight against insecurity is now a key part of the local political agenda. Given the inefficiency of law enforcement groups, local populations may adopt ad hoc measures, such as the lynching of criminal suspects and delinquents without trial, with no regard for the rule of law, and sometimes

82   Augustin Loada under the eyes of public authorities. In some places, local associations have formed to organize patrols, sometimes with the help of traditional hunting lodges (known as dozo) that have long existed in Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea. Local authorities—​elected officials, traditional chiefs, or religious leaders—​at times support these grassroots security initiatives (Hagberg et al. 2017). This dynamic is thus driving the emergence of new actors focused on security in the domain of Sahelian civil society. Burkina Faso presents a particularly important and paradigmatic case of the mobilization of local social groups in the name of providing security. The Burkinabè government had begun to foster local security initiatives in 2005, but state authorities proved unable to maintain control of these community-​based initiatives and left locals to develop them on their own. The most widespread of these are the so-​called koglweogo (a Mossi word meaning “protecting the environment”), based on a practice dating back to the fifteenth century when, under the leadership of traditional chiefs, young people organized to secure territory. Given the state’s incapacity to meet security needs, a variant of this structure began to emerge in 2009, and these groups were at times encouraged as auxiliaries of law enforcement (Bojsen and Compaoré 2019; Leclercq and Matagne 2020). Rapidly proliferating outside any legal framework, however, questions arose about the state’s ability to control these groups. Many koglweogo adopted actions—​ interrogations, arrests, detentions, and corporal punishments—​beyond the purview of the country’s security forces and judiciary. Faced with these criticisms, koglweogo groups met in March 2016 to adopt “rules of good conduct” acceptable to local administrative authorities. Despite this attempt at self-​regulation and better relations with the state, the koglweogo have largely continued to operate extra-​legally, often assuming powers that are the state’s prerogatives (e.g., the right to exercise justice, legitimately use force, and levy taxes). As the movement has spread, tensions arise not only with the state, in particular with the police and with judges who are accused of being ineffective, but also with traditional structures such as the dozo. A lack of confidence in, and even suspicion of, the judicial system and law enforcement fuels this movement. By contrast, the relations between the koglweogo and Mossi chiefs are often more harmonious, and indeed they often operate with the backing of traditional chiefs, who rely on “custom” as a justification for these groups. This alliance, in turn, tends to consolidate the position of traditional authorities vis-​a-​vis the state. The state, on its part, has attempted to channel and control this social dynamic. The Burkinabè ministry in charge of security considers community-​based security organizations such as the koglweogo as associations. Within the framework of the democratic principle of freedom of association, Burkinabè citizens may legally organize associations for security purposes, but these must comply with certain principles and rules. Their role is officially limited to identifying the causes of, and solutions to, security problems; providing information to security forces; enhancing collaboration with the population; keeping the peace; ensuring social cohesion; and monitoring. When delinquents are caught in the act, the association’s members are to inform law enforcement, apprehend the persons involved, and conduct them to the nearest office of criminal investigation. The legal framework for self-​defense groups forbids the illegal

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    83 carrying of firearms; the wearing of uniforms or the carrying of banners, insignia, or emblems similar to those of the security forces; the detention or judging of persons; cruel and unusual corporal punishments; or the collecting of fines or taxes. In the effort to keep these local security initiatives under control, the law requires a structure for coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and communication with them at the commune level, presided over by the mayor and including representatives of law enforcement and of civil society (NGOs, customary or religious associations). Local authorities are also required to formulate an action plan and strategies for social mobilization to organize this partnership, to train and educate participants and locals, and to reinforce the institutional capacities of those who set up such groups. Advocates for the koglweogos argue that their actions have noticeably reduced insecurity in some places, and their effectiveness has made them increasingly popular with locals. Critics, on the other hand, point to serious offences against human rights and the rule of law. The rise and increasing popularity of the parallel justice and law enforcement system represented by these groups pose a potential threat to the legitimacy of the state, and hence to its very foundations. Yet they also represent autonomous social groups with the potential to serve as counterweights to the state. Their longer-​term impact will depend on the state’s ability to retain control over the situation as well as on the capability of the koglweogo’s to represent local concerns while avoiding the risk of being taken over by criminal or terrorist networks. The thorny problem of community-​based security initiatives underlines the difficult challenge of structuring a free civil society while maintaining the legitimacy of the nascent political order. It thus presents an opportunity to reconsider the relations between the state and its society, organized both as associations of citizens and in the form of traditional structures.

CONCLUSION At the birth of postcolonial states, civil society in the Sahel was defined by customary chiefs, religious groups, and student and labor organizations, and to varying degrees such groups played a role in shaping the authoritarian political order of the first decades of independence. With the advent of liberalization and democratization, however, new forms and types of associations flourished, leading to an astounding development and variety of civil society groups. In the years since, Sahelian civil society has struggled to develop, to maintain its autonomy, and to participate in the construction of new political orders, in the face of the authoritarian impulses of powerholders to domesticate and control it. The dynamics always present a delicate balance and tension. Considered globally, civil society in all its pluralism plays a critical part in building the new political order, promoting, defending, and protecting the principles and values of democratic governance and social justice. Across the region, when these principles and values are at stake, CSOs mobilize politically to defend them, criticizing authorities and using various means to influence public decision-​making. When state authorities

84   Augustin Loada menace the democratic order, civil society launches protest movements and may also, at times, form more or less circumstantial alliances with political parties. Some of its leaders may even enter politics and seek office, spawning in turn a debate about the motivations for and the limits of their engagement. When the state is threatened, as it has been in recent years in the context of a worsening insecurity in the Sahel, civil society has the potential for playing a role to improve law enforcement and security. Yet these actions inevitably lead to questions about whether such community-​based structures are capable of taking account of the fundamental principles and values of the rule of law elaborated by the state, values that other forces in civil society tend to advocate. As in many places, Sahelian states must address this problem: how to establish a stable political order in peace and security without forsaking the fundamental values and principles of the democratic order defended by civil society. The response will determine the nature of the political order under construction in Sahelian states.

REFERENCES Bayart, Jean-​François.1992. “La revanche des sociétés africaines,” in Jean-​François Bayart, Achille Mbembe, and Comi Toulabor, eds., Le politique par le bas en Afrique noire: contribution à une problématique de la démocratie. Paris: Karthala, 95–​127. Bojsen, Heidi, and Ismaël Compaoré. 2019. “Enquête Anthropologique et Documentation Visuelle sur la Sécurité Chez les Koglweogo au Burkina Faso.” Mande Studies 21: 91–​113. Bratton, Michael. 1989. “Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa.” World Politics 41(3): 407–​430. Chabal, Patrick, and Jean-​Pascal Daloz. 1999. Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Coulon, Christian. 1981. Le Marabout et le prince. Islam et pourvoir au Sénégal (Paris: Éditions A. Pedone). Fatton, Robert. 1995. “Africa in the Age of Democratization: The Civic Limitations of Civil Society.” African Studies Review 38(2): 67–​99. Guèye, Marame. 2013. “Urban Guerrilla Poetry: The Movement Y’en a Marre and the Socio-​ Political Influences of Hip Hop in Senegal.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 6(3): 22–​42. Gyimah-​Boadi, Emmanuel. 1996. “Civil society in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 7(2): 118–​132. Harbeson, John Willis, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan, eds. 1994. Civil Society and the State in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Kolesnore, Pascal. 2016. De la démocrature à la démocratie au Burkina. Rôle de l’Église et défis. Paris: L’Harmattan. Hagberg, S., Y.F. Koné, B. Koné, A. Diallo, and I. Kansaye. 2017. Vers une sécurité par le bas? Étude sur les perceptions et les expériences des défis de sécurité dans deux communes maliennes. Uppsala: Uppsala Papers in African Studies. Leclercq, Sidney, and Geoffroy Matagne. 2020. “‘With or Without You’: The Governance of (Local) Security and the Koglweogo Movement in Burkina Faso.” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 9(1): 4, 1–​22. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Civil Society and Political Order in the Sahel    85 Loada, Augustin. 1999. “Réflexions sur la société civile en Afrique: le Burkina de l’après Zongo.” Politique Africaine 76: 136–​151. Lowndes, Vivien. 2010. “The Institutional Approach,” in Vivien Lowndes, David Marsh, and Gerry Stoker, eds., Theory and Methods in Political Science. London: Palgrave, 60–​67. Madore, Frédérick. 2020. “Francophone Muslim Intellectuals, Islamic Associational Life and Religious Authority in Burkina Faso.” Africa 90(3): 625–​646. McAdam, Doug. 1996. “Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions,” in Douglas McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 23–​40. Monga, Celestin. 1995. “Civil Society and Democratisation in Francophone Africa.” Journal of Modern African Studies 33(3): 359–​379. Neveu, Erik. 1996. Sociologie des mouvements sociaux. Paris: La Découverte. Quantin, Patrick. 2010. “L’Afrique: L’art d’étirer un concept,” in Jean-​Vincent Holleindre and Richard Benoit, eds., La démocratie. Histoire, théories, pratiques. Paris: Sciences Humaines, 293–​301. Soares, Benjamin F. 2009. “The Attempt to Reform Family Law in Mali.” Die Welt des Islams 49: 398–​428. Touré, Ibrahima. 2017. “Jeunesse, mobilisations sociales et citoyenneté en Afrique de l’Ouest: Etude comparée des mouvements de contestation ‘Y’en a marre ‘au Sénégal et ‘Balai citoyen ‘au Burkina Faso.” Afrique et développement 62(2): 57–​82 Villalón, Leonardo A. 1995. Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society, an Outline of Interpretive Sociology, two volumes ed. G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Section II

NAT IONA L T R AJ E C TOR I E S Section editor: Leonardo A. Villalón

chapter 5

SENEG A L A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy Marie Brossier

Because of its political stability and long history of competitive and representative politics, Senegal has been the focus of much scholarly research. Its geographic position on the continent makes the country an important bridge linking the Sahel to the outside world via the Atlantic. The colonial era, which ended with the country’s proclamation of independence in 1960, produced a class of local political elites with extensive experience in municipal and parliamentary politics. This unique sociopolitical trajectory has forged a deliberative political culture that the Senegalese claim as their heritage. Even today, Senegal is often portrayed as a remarkable “success story” in West Africa because of its politically neutral armed forces, the absence of coups, and the manner in which political elites and the leaders of the Sufi orders have collaborated to strengthen the state’s legitimacy. Since the 1960s, the country has undergone repeated constitutional reforms, initiated by the elite to address both political and social crises (Bodian 2016). In only a few decades, Senegal has undergone fundamental political transformations: a single party regime under President Léopold Sédar Senghor (1960–​ 1974) was succeeded by a limited multiparty regime (1974–​2000) initiated by Senghor and continued under his successor, and then, since 2000, by a fully multiparty regime. Some scholars see in this political evolution a Gramscian “passive revolution” (Fatton 1987; Diop and Diouf 2002). Since the 1990s, the enthusiasm for democracy, portrayed as a solution to both social and political tensions, has contributed an almost mythical narrative of the country’s “democratic” roots. The idea of Senegalese political “exceptionalism” has nevertheless come under heated criticism (Coulon 2000), with some scholars stressing the essentialized nature of an “idealist and linear reading of Senegalese political life” (Dahou and Foucher 2004). Unlike many of its neighbors, Senegal experienced a democratization process bereft of coups and national conferences. Moreover, despite the simmering decades-​long

90   Marie Brossier regional conflict in Casamance, the country’s political liberalization and pluralism has made it something of an outlier in the region. However, despite the two peaceful transitions of power in 2000 and 2012, Senegal’s politics have also been periodically marred by spasms of autocratic behavior and a lack of transparency, as well as limitations to press freedom and free expression (Freedom House 2019), made more obvious by the persistence of clientelism and personalized power, and a deeply entrenched political elite (Dahou and Foucher 2004; Kelly 2020). These factors, combined with the rents generated by international donors and remittances, have contributed to exacerbating Senegal’s already alarming social and generational inequalities. High population growth (15.25 million inhabitants in 2017), an exponential urbanization process (23 percent of the population is located in Dakar), massive unemployment, and regional disparities all constitute major demographic issues (ANSD). Furthermore, the Senegalese state is under constant domestic and international pressure because of the phenomenon of migration. In 2018, Senegal was ranked 168 (among a total of 189 countries) in the UNDP’s Human Development Index.

A LABORATORY OF DELIBERATION AND REPRESENTATIVE POLITICS For centuries Senegalese societies have interacted with other inhabitants of the Sahel. The pre-​colonial space of the Senegambia was often under the influence of kingdoms in the western Sudan, current-​day Mali and Niger. From the eighth century onwards, the circulation of goods and knowledge across the Sahara brought about the initial Islamization of populations in the area, and later encouraged the birth of larger political entities such as the Songhai Empire, extending to the Senegal River valley. The fragmentation of such empires in the sixteenth century with the decline of trans-​Saharan ties and the development of trade on the Atlantic coast gave rise to highly hierarchical societies in the region, with distinct social classes (including nobles, artisans, and slaves) each bound to a set of norms and rules of conduct (Glasman 2004). Contacts with Europe via the Atlantic began to develop in the fifteenth century and intensified through the slave trade and the establishment of European trading posts—​Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French—​on the coast of Senegambia. France’s influence in the region expanded in the nineteenth century, motivated by the harvesting of gum Arabic and the expansion of peanut farming. The governorship of Louis Faidherbe (1854–​1865) saw the establishment of French colonial institutions, although Faidherbe was hindered in his efforts by pre-​colonial elites and by a jihad against the French among the Pulaar-​speaking people of the Senegal River valley. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century Senegal underwent a more extensive process of Islamization. Charismatic Muslim leaders such as Amadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride Sufi order, and Al Hajj Malick Sy, who spread the influence of the Tidjaniyya

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    91 Sufi order founded in the Maghreb two centuries prior, formed an ambiguous pact allowing for the supervision of the peasantry by religious leaders or “marabouts” and the securing of the colony’s growing peanut production (Copans 1980). The alliance between marabouts and the colonial state, which was maintained after the country’s independence, has played a central role in modern Senegalese history. Because of its geographical location and its political status, Senegal held a particularly important position in France’s colonial designs. In 1895, France created the Afrique occidentale française (AOF), a “federation” of its colonies in the region. In 1902, the AOF’s administrative capital was relocated from the city of Saint-​Louis to Dakar, with the former remaining the capital of the Senegalese colony until 1957. The territory was divided into administrative units, each governed by French officials, who often collaborated with marabouts and at times with pre-​colonial aristocrats, although the power of the latter declined considerably with the gradual suppression of slavery. The colonial system’s fundamental racial inequality was codified in the 1887 Code de l’indigénat, which stipulated that natives had no political rights and were subject to a distinct and more repressive legal system. A persistent subject of debate throughout this period was the inherent tensions in the French policies of “assimilation” and of “association.” This debate was especially pronounced in Senegal because of the historical importance of its trading posts and its mixed population, a portion of which had acquired French citizenship as residents of the “Four Communes” (Diouf 1998)—​a prime example of a circumscribed policy of “assimilation.” Each of these municipalities was granted the status of a French commune, with full rights and elected municipal councils: Gorée and Saint-​Louis in 1872, Rufisque in 1880, and Dakar in 1887. Their inhabitants were exempted from the burdens of the indigénat regime and were granted French citizenship (Johnson 1991). This special status and the consequential dual status of colonial subjects were preserved by the 1915–​1916 Blaise Diagne Laws and lasted until the adoption of the Lamine Guèye Law. The resulting nascent culture of deliberation and political representation in these municipalities was reinforced by involvement in parliamentary politics. The colony sent a representative to the French National Assembly from 1848 to 1852, and again from 1871 onwards. Later, Africans were permitted to run as candidates for the National Assembly (1914) and for mayors (1919). The early twentieth century saw the rise of preeminent Senegalese politicians, both Africans and mixed race métisses, and the birth of a powerful political elite centered on figures such as Blaise Diagne (the first African representative to the French National Assembly, in office from 1914 to 1934); Galandou Diouf (the first African to be elected a member of the regional council, in 1909, by the Lebou people in Rufisque); as well as Amadou Lamine Guèye, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Mamadou Dia. This elite of évolués who were defined by their French education (and hence known in Wolof as ku jàng ekool, or those who had been to school), spent years in metropolitan France and helped bring about a structure of competitive politics based on the French model, notably by establishing Senegal’s first political parties.

92   Marie Brossier

Senghor: Political Stability and the Emergence of Limited Multipartyism A proponent of moderate “African Socialism” and pro-​French policies, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal’s first president, maintained political stability through his control of the country’s political arena. However, the rentier nature of the economy inherited from the colonial era hampered the country’s development. Plans to create a federal state with neighboring Mali collapsed three months after Senegal’s declaration of independence in June 1960, and the country adopted a parliamentary style constitution. The new Senegalese government quickly launched policies of institutional and financial centralization, and moved to abolish the municipal privileges inherited from the Four Communes, so as to secure the new nation-​state and to ensure economic and social development. The authoritarian tendencies of the post-​independence government under Senghor’s UPS party (Union progressiste sénégalaise) quickly became apparent with the institutional crisis of 1962, when Prime Minister Mamadou Dia and four cabinet members were arrested and accused by Senghor of fomenting a coup (Bodian 2016). All were tried and found guilty and imprisoned until 1974, when they were pardoned by Senghor. In the wake of the crisis, Senghor introduced a new constitution prescribing a classical presidential regime, which was ratified by national referendum in March 1963. Under the de facto single party rule of the UPS, tensions fueled by the inefficacy of the government’s ambitious developmental initiatives in agriculture, tourism and industry began to rise. Booming population growth combined with agricultural stagnation—​a result of declining global demand and the loss of French subsidies for peanut farming—​ increasingly strained the capacities of the state to distribute rent incomes from agriculture to key social groups, such as marabouts and urban elites. By 1979, the gradual decline in the regime’s political capacity compelled Senegal to begin negotiating the terms of a structural adjustment plan with the Bretton Woods institutions. Intending to introduce an element of political liberalization, in 1970 Senghor re-​ established the office of prime minister and appointed the young technocrat Abdou Diouf to the position. A gradual shift to multipartyism took place from 1974 to 1978, as Senghor permitted three political parties to participate in the political arena, each with a designated ideology: The Parti socialiste (PS), itself the successor to Senghor’s former UPS; the economically liberal opposition Parti démocratique sénégalais (PDS) led by Abdoulaye Wade; and the Marxist Parti africain de l’indépendance (PAI) led by Majhemout Diop. These were joined by a fourth when the conservative-​leaning Mouvement républicain sénégalais (MRS) led by Boubacar Guèye was legalized in 1978. The popular Rassemblement national démocratique (RND) led by the university professor Cheikh Anta Diop, however, remained outlawed. Senghor’s tenure was marked by periodic contestation, notably by violent student and union protests in 1968. Given the declining political and economic situation by the late 1970s, Senghor felt the need to secure his succession, and, under pressure from young

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    93 bureaucrats in the party, he was convinced to step down as president on 31 December 1980. On 1 January 1981, Prime Minister Abdou Diouf became president of the Republic of Senegal, an office he held until 2000.

Diouf and Wade: A Passive Democratic Revolution? Shortly after taking office in 1981, Diouf introduced a full multiparty system, gave the Supreme Court some oversight over the election process and granted increased freedom of the press. However, the transition in power was not easy; as a young technocrat with no popular base in the party, Diouf faced regular opposition from the “barons” of the PS. The 1980s were thus fraught with crises as structural adjustment programs were implemented, living conditions deteriorated, and armed conflict began in the Casamance region. Despite a “detotalisation” of society and hints of a “passive revolution” (Fatton 1987), the efforts of the regime were not sufficient to appease its fierce critics, who denounced the limits of political liberalization resulting from the hegemonic party’s survival strategies. In this new liberalized context the PDS had some success in attracting a following, largely due to Abdoulaye Wade’s charisma and popularity, reflected in his political speeches delivered in Wolof (the Senegalese lingua franca), dressed in local boubou robes. Other opposition parties centered in urban areas, however, were mostly unsuccessful in swaying voters. The votes of the rural population, effectively mobilized by both the PS and the marabouts from the prominent Sufi orders, ensured Diouf victories in the presidential and legislative elections of 1983, 1988, and 1993. Diouf ’s popularity, however, gradually declined over time, notably in urban areas. In 1988 opposition parties contested the validity of the elections, leading to violent demonstrations and the declaration of a state of emergency. The following years were marked by intense politics both nationally and within the ruling party. As the elections of 2000 approached two major figures defected from the ruling PS: Djibo Ka to form his own party, the Union pour le renouveau démocratique (URD) in 1998, and Moustapha Niasse to found the Alliance des forces du progrès (AFP) in 1999. These departures were sparked by opposition to the political ascension of Ousmane Tanor Dieng as Diouf ’s presumed heir, and had the effect of weakening the ruling party, and ultimately in forcing Diouf into a runoff with longtime opponent Abdoulaye Wade in the second round of the presidential election of 2000. With the support of Niasse, Wade defeated Diouf on 19 March 2000, marking the end of the forty-​year hegemony of the PS, a seismic event described by leading Senegalese scholars as the “uprooting of the baobab” (Diaw, Diouf, and Diop 2000). The democratic liberalization that Senegal had experienced with this remarkable transition, however, remained “incomplete” (Coulon 2000). Although a new constitution was ratified in 2001, the coalition that had emerged from the transition quickly broke up when Niasse was dismissed as prime minister. As the euphoria about alternance faded, opposition parties and the press became increasingly critical of the government’s lack of transparency and of Wade’s frequent and opportunistic constitutional amendments, as

94   Marie Brossier well as his grandiose large-​scale projects (Kelly 2020). In reaction, the regime clamped down on civil society and began condoning certain public and private abuses (including threats, assaults, and unwarranted arrests) against members of opposition parties and the press. In the region of Casamance, in the context of divisions among the separatists and the increasing weariness of the public, the conflict between government forces and separatist militias lingered despite several treaties and the significant assistance of international donors. Nevertheless, for most of his first mandate President Wade remained popular, especially with younger voters who remained disaffected with the entrenched leftist elites of the PS, and given the country’s relative economic and fiscal prosperity. Indeed, Senegal’s GDP rose from 3,600 billion CFA francs in 2001 to approximately 4,500 billion in 2005, while the government’s budget rose from 600 to 1,200 billion CFA francs during the same period. This growth allowed the government to recruit more and increasingly better-​paid civil servants, and hence to develop solid clientelist networks. Gradually, however, Wade’s advanced age also began to fuel ambition and rivalries among younger figures within the PDS. After dismissing political heir Idrissa Seck as prime minister and replacing him with Macky Sall in 2004, Seck was accused of embezzlement and detained for seven months. In February 2007, Wade was re-​elected for a second term with 56 percent of votes and 70.5 percent voter turnout. Denouncing his first-​round victory as impossible, opposition parties claimed electoral fraud and boycotted the June 2007 legislative elections. As a result, only 35 percent of citizens voted in those elections, leaving the PDS to win 131 out of 150 seats. However, tensions escalated within the PDS as Wade increasingly seemed intent on transferring power to his son Karim Wade, who had created a political movement called Génération du concret (the Concrete Generation) to bolster his own political legitimacy. Intense controversies were numerous, notably concerning the planning of international events such as the 2008 summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the 2010 Festival of Black Arts (Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres), or Wade’s massive new project of an “African Renaissance” monument in Dakar (De Jong and Foucher 2010). Dissenters in the PDS gathered around Macky Sall, former prime minister and speaker of the parliament, as critics deplored the unreasonable expenses for a poor country, the government’s lack of transparency, and the privatization of public goods to the benefit of Wade’s clientelist networks. In 2008, representatives of civil society and members of opposition parties began holding self-​declared national meetings (Assises nationales du Sénégal) to discuss the latent political crisis in Senegal and to draft a new charter intended to ensure democratic governance. The 2009 local elections inflicted a severe electoral setback to Wade’s administration, and in their aftermath new movements such as the popular Y’en a marre (“Fed up”) emerged to denounce Wade’s political excesses and to mobilize youth. On 23 June 2011, a major social and political crisis—​Mouvement des forces vives du 23 juin (M23)—​erupted following the regime’s proposal for two related constitutional amendments. These changes would establish elections on the basis of a president

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    95 and vice-​president ticket, and would allow a presidential candidate to win in the first round with a minimum 25 percent of votes (rather than the established 50 percent). Widespread public outcry and increasing strife within the PDS itself forced the regime to back down, a move that emboldened opposition forces to pool their strength behind the M23, dedicated to ousting Wade from power. A few days later, on 27 June, power cuts in Dakar prompted massive riots, forcing the government, already preoccupied with the upcoming presidential election, to begin a costly upgrade of the city’s energy grid. Faced with mounting pressure, Abdoulaye Wade decided nonetheless to run for a third term in the face of fierce criticisms and legal challenges to its constitutionality.1 When, in late January 2012, the Constitutional Court approved Wade’s candidacy, riots broke out in Dakar. Yet the opposition parties did not manage to fulfill their promises to rally behind a single presidential candidate in the election of February 2012, leaving fourteen candidates in the race. Wade was thus forced to a second round in March, pitting him against his former prime minister and now fierce rival Macky Sall, who in the end was elected with 65.8 percent of the votes. Despite his drift toward an authoritarian form of governance, and allaying fears that he would refuse to give up power, the outgoing president repeated the laudable behavior of his own opponent in the 2000 democratic transition, and his quick concession of defeat allowed Senegal to further consolidate its democratic successes.

RELIGION AND POLITICS INTERTWINED Over the years, Senegal has been marked not only by increased religious pluralism but also by religious diversification. Although religious doctrines and practices have long been varied in Senegal (Ba 2012), religious diversity both increased during President Wade’s tenure and became more intertwined with political issues. These changes called into question some common portrayals of Senegalese Sufi orders as impervious to reform, and of their leadership (the marabouts) as always central to politics (Brossier 2010; Seck and Kaag 2015). Scholarly fascination with Senegal’s Sufi orders and their stabilizing role in politics has resulted in a proliferation of studies of the Sufi phenomena in Senegal. Many recent studies of Senegalese Islam have also highlighted the flow of ideas, rites, and actors between Sufi orders and reformist movements (Gueye 2002; Sambe 2014).

Diversity and Pluralism of Religious Practices Senegal’s Sufi orders—​of which the Mourides, the Tijaniyya, the Qadiriyya, and (to a lesser extent) the Layène are the most important—​became mass religious institutions

96   Marie Brossier during the colonial era under their charismatic founders, notably Al Hajj Malick Sy (Tijaniyya) and Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba (Mourides). Although initially hostile toward the French colonizers, the leaders of the orders later forged an ambiguous alliance with colonial authorities, allowing for the supervision of the peasantry by marabouts and the securing of the colony’s growing peanut production. Today, the descendants of these marabouts continue to preside over the practice of Islam for the vast majority of the country’s Muslims. In the last few decades, new Islamic reform movements, often founded by individuals returning to the country after studies in Arab countries, have emerged (Loimeier 2000; Brossier 2016). Although in fact heterogeneous, these are usually identified generically as “Ibadou” or “Islamist” (Ba 2012). They have also become increasingly popular, especially among youth who are attracted to their call for a return to a more orthodox form of Islam and their emphasis on acquiring knowledge of the Arabic language (Brenner and Last 1985). Given their ability to challenge the sociopolitical order established by the state in its alliance with the Sufi orders, the reformist movements were long considered with great suspicion. Since the 2000s, they have increasingly participated in various forms of political advocacy, although they are quite varied in terms of their approach to the state. Some favor a bottom-​up reform of society through institutions or social action; the political party Mouvement pour la réforme et le développement social (MRDS), which first elected members to the parliament in 2012, or the Rassemblement Islamique du Sénégal (RIS) are important examples. Other reformist groups prefer more radical or confrontational methods. Their diversity reflects the heterogeneity of their activist bases: local/​national, rural/​ urban, student/​professional. However, these groups converge on some key social issues, such as the promotion of an Arabic and Muslim curriculum in education, the defense of traditional family structures (Brossier 2004), as well as the death penalty, and more recently, on more politicized issues like the condemnation of abortion and of homosexuality (Seck 2010). Sufi orders have also been changing in response to initiatives from groups in mosques, schools, universities, workplaces, and Islamic associations. The associations of disciples known as “dahiras,” which were created in urban areas in the 1970s and 1980s, are now spawning and being transformed into “neo-​brotherhood” movements, the most well known of which are Cheikh Modou Kara’s Mouvement Mondial pour l’Unicité divine (MMUD) (Audrain 2013), Cheikh Bethio Thioune’s Thiantacounes (Brossier 2010), both Mouride groups, or the Moustarchidines of Moustapha Sy affiliated with the Tijaniyya (Villalón 2000). By introducing innovative changes to the historical practices of the Sufi orders, these new movements have exerted a particular appeal to urban youth. Some of these movements have sought to combine a conservative identity with modern technology, such as the Hizbut-​Tarqiyyah (Ba 2012), which began as an association of Mouride students at the University of Dakar. Senegal’s transnational and urban Islam is part of a wider regional trend in which allegiance

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    97 to Sufi orders has become more flexible, and religious practices have become increasingly diverse.

The Renegotiation of the Senegalese Social Contract at Stake Religious pluralism and diversity have not translated into secularism. Indeed, Senegal’s singular intertwining of Islam and politics has long been conceptualized as a social contract (Cruise O’Brien 1975, 1992; Diop and Diouf 2002) binding the state, religious leaders, and “ordinary citizens” (Villalón 1995), which has largely structured the study of religion and politics in Senegal. While some early studies argued that the rural Sufi orders were agents of systemic exploitation (Copans 1980), Cruise O’Brien (1975) proposed that they were rather the cornerstone of a “Senegalese social contract”: clientelist relations between the disciples (talibes) and the Sufi marabouts to whom political elites (colonial governors and, later, presidents) gave goods and services in exchange for their ability to ensure social order and deliver electoral support via religious injunctions (ndigël in Wolof) (Gueye 2002; Brossier 2010). Social contract theory has, however, come under criticism for its presumption that the marabouts wielded absolute power over their disciples (Babou 2013a). During the presidencies of Senghor and Diouf, the Sufi orders played a discreet albeit important role in the management of the country while simultaneously keeping a “critical distance” from the state, allowing them to bolster their legitimacy and to intervene in public debates in times of crises. Wade’s presidency (2000–​2012) lead to the return of the Mouride order to the realm of politics in what Babou (2013b) has described as a “fusion of powers” that upended the previous balance. The extent of Wade’s amalgamation of religion and politics to communicate directly to the Senegalese masses had no precedent in Senegalese politics, and came under heated criticism from the country’s intellectuals, accustomed to official displays of French-​inspired secularism or laïcité.2 During Wade’s time in office, the major caliphs of the orders, perhaps anticipating the regime’s flagging legitimacy, abstained from any major declarations and explicit electoral ndigël in his favor (Babou 2013a, 2013b). Some ambitious and lesser important marabouts such as Cheikh Bethio Thioune, however, enjoyed a renewed visibility by dramatic pronouncements in the public arena. This intertwining of religion and politics remained a central dynamic in the country’s democratization processes as Islamic actors engaged in political struggles to establish institutional rules and to compete in representative politics (Villalón 2010). As they entered political life, some marabouts founded political parties, such as Cheikh Modou Kara’s Parti pour la Vérité et le Développement (PVD), created in 2004 (Audrain 2013). Political elites were more hesitant to allow the

98   Marie Brossier development of Islamist movements and parties, such as the MRDS, founded by the Imam Mbaye Niang in 2001. In the 2012 legislative elections, religious figures for the first time entered the National Assembly as elected deputies. The political engagement of these new “marabout-​politicians” (as the press dubbed them) required that they convert their religious capital into political capital. This was not without risk, however, and in the eyes of their disciples some have lost their legitimacy by doing so. Others have tried to circumvent this dilemma by having disciples or family members run for office as surrogates. The secular nature of the republic became a subject of intense debate when President Wade attempted to remove the term “laic” from the new 2001 constitution (Fall 2009). It intensified during the Family Code debates (Brossier 2004) and those concerning the role of religion in schools in the early 2000s. More recently President Macky Sall, who took office in 2012, was forced to withdraw his proposal to enshrine the “intangibility of secularism” as part of a set of constitutional revisions adopted in a referendum held on 20 March 2016, under pressure from religious groups. Since 1993, every election has seen debates on the role of religion and its effects on the electorate. To the controversial description of Wade as a “talibe-​president” has been added the notion of a “talibe-​ citizen.” At stake is the electorate’s capacity to distinguish religion from politics, and the public sphere from private life (Brossier 2010; Audrain 2013), and hence the social contract itself.

EXTRAVERSION AND DEPENDENCE: ECONOMY AND MIGRATION Bereft of energy and mineral resources (except for phosphate), Senegal has long relied heavily on agriculture. Although peanut and rice harvests rose spectacularly during the colonial era, the production of these staple products soon hit important problems, notably because they are deeply affected by climatic variations. Modernization programs since 1970 have targeted peanut farming since 1970, and the state has also sought to reduce its dependency on peanuts by investing in cotton farming in the regions of upper Casamance and eastern Senegal. The deterioration of peanut farming has accelerated rural depopulation, whereas the development of urban areas is still limited by a weak industrial sector and a freeze in civil service hiring. In the 1980s, the state’s fiscal situation was inching toward a crisis before being rescued by international financial institutions, which imposed privatization and austere structural adjustment programs, leading to an erosion of public services in transportation, education, and health services. In 1994, under pressure from the IMF, France, and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), the CFA franc was devalued by 50 percent, leading to a massive social crisis and further increasing rural depopulation and external migration.

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    99 Although the state has encouraged the development of three other economic sectors to lessen its dependence on peanut farming, these endeavors have mostly faltered: fishing has deteriorated because of overfishing, the tourism sector has remained stagnant, and phosphate mining is in a state of crisis. However, there has been a renewal of gold mining in the eastern part of the country and the state is considering granting exploration licenses for offshore areas. The pre-​eminence of the service sector in the Senegalese economy (63 percent of GDP, whereas the industrial sector represents 23 percent of GDP) is typical of poor countries, and includes banking, tourism, wholesale and retail trade, and an urban informal sector (see Mbaye and Guèye Chapter 16 in this volume). Remittances are also an important element of the national economy. All these factors have led to a foreign trade balance often marred by structural deficits. The two pillars of the Senegalese economy are foreign aid and international migration. Foreign aid is bound to the country’s active diplomacy. International donors seeking “respectable” leaders intent on maintaining peace and security, fighting poverty, and pursuing modernization found an eager partner in President Wade, who provided troops to UN missions and enthusiastically participated in G8 international forums as well as in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Moreover, the peaceful transition of power in 2000 bolstered Senegal’s democratic credentials, which had waned during Diouf ’s presidency. President Wade’s assiduous diplomacy led not only to warmer relations with France, the United States, the Gulf states, Morocco, India, and Iran but also to debt relief and an increase in foreign aid. Indeed, in 2004, Senegal received approximately US$1 billion in aid, thrice the average per capita amount on the continent, and reached the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) completion point. Wade also reaped the dividends of the economic reforms initiated under Diouf and managed to produce a balanced budget as well as benefiting from a cancellation of the country’s foreign debt in 2004. International migration has long been a vital component of the national economy. Severe droughts in the 1970s and economic crises in the 1980s and 1990s led to ever-​ increasing rural depopulation, which translated into both internal and external migration. As it became harder to emigrate to France, Senegalese migrants headed to Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Spain, Italy, North America, and the Gulf states. Remittances, which rose from US$233 million in 2000 to US$2.2 billion in 2018, became the country’s main “international donor.” Senegal is one of the largest remittance recipients in sub-​ Saharan Africa, along with Nigeria and Ghana. These funds stimulated consumer spending, telecommunications, transportation, construction, and trade. The proliferation of transnational money wiring services (e.g., Wari, Orange Money) across the country suggests that remittances are increasing, although most transfers are done by informal means (Tall 1998). The hope associated with migration acts as a pressure relief valve for the regime, while concerns in Europe over increasing migration translate into more foreign aid (in exchange for pledges to fight illegal migration). To conserve the votes of these migrants, the government provides seats in parliament (fifteen during the July 2017 legislative elections) representing Senegalese citizens abroad. Tellingly,

100   Marie Brossier both Wade and Sall launched their presidential campaigns in diaspora communities (Smith 2015). Macky Sall, elected president in 2012, inherited a fragile economy. A combination of factors—​including the 2008 world financial crisis, the rising costs of commodities and petrol, the deterioration of the energy sector, and a decrease in remittances—​had led to economic stagnation. GDP growth fell to 4 percent, while the poverty rate had risen to 46.7 percent by 2011. Although the state budget had already been strained by electoral expenditures, the public increasingly demanded access to water, electricity, and subsidies for staple foods and petrol. Social tensions increased in rural areas, smaller cities, and especially Dakar, where increasing inequality fed anger in a population already suffering from a rising cost of living, poor services, and barely accessible sources of energy. Despite the numerous factors that hamper the country’s development, there remains a considerable potential for socioeconomic development in Senegal. After a period of stagnation in 2006 to 2013, annual economic growth eventually rose above 4.5 percent between 2013 and 2016. In francophone Africa, Senegal’s economy along with Burkina Faso’s is second only to Côte d’Ivoire, with its GDP annual growth reaching 6.8 percent. The return of economic prosperity is partially the result of policy initiatives (e.g., privatization, debt reduction, tax reforms). Since his electoral victory in 2012, President Sall has introduced many reforms, including “Act 3” of the decentralization process, a universal healthcare system, a reform of the energy sector, a reform of higher education institutions, and the completion of the new international Blaise Diagne airport. A more ambitious Plan Sénégal Émergent (PSE), launched in 2012, is meant to structurally transform the economy while providing higher and durable growth and qualify Senegal as an “emergent economy” by 2035. Sall has sought to claim, both at home and abroad, the image of the “builder-​ president,” which Wade had successfully cultivated (De Jong and Foucher 2010; Sarr 2013). In order to do so, he has launched diplomatic initiatives in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. Held in high esteem by international donors, Sall has sought to present himself as a just and legitimate head of state, which has allowed him to act as a mediator in international crises (e.g., in Gambia 2016–​2017) and a model for Sahel security policies favored by the international community.

FAILURES OF PLURALISM: INEQUALITIES, PERSONALIZATION OF POWER, AND FACTIONALISM Social and Territorial Inequalities The deterritorialization brought about by the transition from peanut farming to remittances and foreign aid as pillars of the economy constitutes the last stage

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    101 of what Dahou and Foucher (2004) have called the “detotalisation” process in Senegal. The restructuring of the economy around remittances from migrants has accentuated social changes. The image of the “Moodu moodu” migrant (Ndiaye 1998) and that of the pious but illiterate Mouride disciple have replaced the image of the “ku jàng ekool,” the French-​educated évolué civil servant, as the iconic Senegalese abroad. Although the societal reconfiguration is real, the concomitant economic liberalization has not translated into a reduction of social inequality. Indeed, this liberalization has often been accomplished to the detriment of social and political elites (Boone et al. 1998). Because of the country’s demographic boom—​an increase of 376 percent between 1960 and 2015, with a total population of 15.25 million in 2017, of whom 23 percent live in the capital, (ANSD 2017)—​social disparities constitute a serious issue. Since 2002, the fertility rate has hovered around 5.1 children per woman, albeit with important differences between rural and urban areas. Median age was estimated at 18 years in 2013 (ANSD), with 62 percent of the total population thought to be under the age of 25. Senegal faces several demographic challenges, including its low literacy rate (45.2 percent in 2013), a schooling rate of 58.1 percent, and high unemployment (37.4 percent employed, 13 percent unemployed, and 49.6 percent inactive; ANSD), all of which are linked to regional and international dynamics of migration, which is indicative of the current level of pressure on the Senegalese state, both at home and from abroad. In 2018, Senegal was ranked 168 (out of 189) in the Human Development Index. In 2001, the country was integrated in the IMF HIPC Initiative, which brought about a reduction of its public debt to 60.8 percent of GDP in 2017 (IMF 2018) and a critical redirection of government spending to domestic aid programs. However, the net progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), notably in the areas of poverty reduction and literacy programs and especially for women and girls, have been mixed (Sall 2013; Diagne 2013). Environmental degradation, especially desertification (Ndiaye and Ndiaye 2013), has hampered development in regions where food security is threatened by accelerated erosion, salinization, and the disappearance of plant cover. Because of the Sahel’s arid climate, Senegal’s agricultural production is constantly under threat from drought. International aid programs are increasingly linking the issues of food shortages, unemployment, and social inequality with the phenomenon of transnational migration. This is especially true of the European Union, which has reacted to the northward flow of migrants by externalizing its borders and attempting to address the “root causes” of migration through its EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, a program created to bolster local economies in countries that are major sources of migrations.

Heirs of a Patrimonial Democracy Political coercion is more difficult to achieve in a context of pluralism and easily triggers political mobilization, and co-​optation thus persists as the primary strategy

102   Marie Brossier used by the state to manage disgruntled elites. Indeed, since formal wealth redistribution programs are nonexistent, clientelist networks continue to operate. Despite the hope of sopi (“change”) in the 2000s, the “patrimonial democracy” described by Beck (1997) remains solid. Indeed, President Sall has succeeded in stabilizing the clientelist networks that Wade had extended across the country (Gottlieb 2017). Examples of this patronage include the average size of cabinets and the creation of institutions such as the Conseil de la République pour les affaires économiques et sociales in 2003 (later disbanded in 2007), which was touted as a “synthesis” of the Senate (itself created in 1999 and dissolved in 2001) and the Conseil économique et social (which had been abrogated following the 2001 constitutional reforms). The renewal of the Senate (dissolved a second time in 2012 by President Sall) and of the Supreme Court in 2008 and the creation of the Haut Conseil des Collectivités Territoriales in 2016 indicate that the manipulation of institutions is a vital currency in the distribution and attribution of positions of power. Foucher (2003) has argued that this mode of governance extends all the way to the management of the Casamance conflict. Although Wade initially sought to revamp the model of conflict management developed by his predecessor, a new eruption of violence in 2001–​2003 persuaded him to backtrack and to treat the rebel Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC) as an economic problem. Today, the MFDC and the local population are both so exhausted by the conflict that the strategy could very well pan out. Although President Sall is a renowned figure abroad, his legitimacy at home remains fragile at the national level, given the trajectory of his accession to power. In 2012, Sall had campaigned with the slogan “gagner ensemble, gérer ensemble” (win together, manage together), but his victory was generally considered to be a repudiation of his predecessor. Sall had long been a member of Wade’s cabinet (minister of energy, mines, and hydroelectricity in 2002–​2003, minister of the interior and of local communities in 2003–​2004, and prime minister in 2004–​2007) and had been groomed to be his successor. However, his tenure as president of the National Assembly (2007–​ 2008) ended abruptly when he became the object of presidential ire after attempting to subpoena Wade’s son for a hearing on his management of state funds as director of the Agence Nationale de l’Organisation de la Conférence Islamique. When Sall refused to resign, his position as number two of the PDS was abolished and the speaker’s term of office was reduced from five years to one. Thereafter, accused of money laundering (which resulted in a mistrial), he left the PDS to join the opposition until his electoral victory in 2012. These events, and the violent protests of 2011 in reaction to the proposed constitutional amendments, focused attention on the presumed attempts to establish political dynasties. Indeed, leaders of the opposition feared that if the reforms were to succeed Wade might resign only to leave his son as the new head of state. The massive protests in June 2011 left their mark on the minds of the Senegalese public.

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    103 New opposition forces, such as the M23 and the Y’en a marre movement, along with unions leaders, intellectuals, journalists, artists, and urban youths, arose to confront Wade. Massive political mobilizations are not an entirely new phenomenon in Senegal; they occurred during the colonial era and during periodic student and union protests (Diop 1992; Ndiaye 2010), and were fueled by cultural collective action such as the set setal movement of the 1990s (Diouf 1992). They are, however, indicative of how social forces can rapidly penetrate the public space and how political contestation is often concomitant with increased pluralism. In retrospect, considering the regime’s history of heavy-​handed approaches to political contestation, it would not be an exaggeration to consider the Sall years as the most peaceful in the country’s history. Indeed, critics of both the Wade and Sall administrations have become routinized in a process of veille démocratique (democratic watchdogs) and are quick to react to any perceived attempt to build a political dynasty. Paradoxically, the two very high-​profile trials involving suspected embezzlement did not prove to be particularly popular. Indeed, rather than being considered signs of a new and upright political culture, the trials of Karim Wade (2014–​2015) and Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall (2017–​2018) were mostly thought of as “witch hunts” between various inheritors of Wade’s networks of loyal clients. Despite his attempts to discredit these two political enemies, Sall’s perceived “persecution” only seemed to bolster their political capital. Although Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall were eventually released, they were not allowed to run in the 2019 presidential election as their convictions in court deprived them of their civil rights. In this context, Macky Sall was re-​elected for a second term in the first round, with 58.27 percent of the vote and a 66.23 percent voter turnout.

CONCLUSION Senegal’s sociopolitical trajectory is a manifestation of the “political decompression” and heighted pluralism present in society. Both factors contributed to the peaceful transitions of power in 2000 and 2012. This process has, however, called into question traditional societal balances, such as the Senegalese social contract. Socioeconomic upheavals and surging demographics have left the population increasingly vulnerable. Although they have yet to bring about radical political change, these trends have led to a process of “detotalisation” of political power, which has strengthened the country’s traditions of democracy and competitive politics. Although state coercion has largely faded and been replaced by the co-​optation of elites and the proliferation of clientelist networks, this has not stopped younger generations from engaging with civil society and contestatory politics. However, positions of power handed out by the regime remain the prerogative of the country’s elites. Moreover, the composition of this political elite has only changed slightly over time; Wade’s return to politics as a candidate in the

104   Marie Brossier legislative elections of July 2017 is a testament to this. The participation of women in politics was facilitated by the enactment of a gender parity law in 2010, whereas youths now feel better represented by social movements active in the public arena (but not active in institutional competitive politics). Senegalese society has shown fierce resistance to authoritarian tendencies, which has contributed to reinforcing the myth of “Senegalese exceptionalism.” The process of “moral reconstruction” epitomized by the two peaceful transitions of power in 2000 and 2012 is a product both of the reconfiguration of the relations between politics and religion, and of the renewal of the popular image of the successful individual (Havard 2001). Tethered to a globalized Muslim Umma, a new Arabic-​speaking elite now stands as a challenger to the traditional French-​speaking elites. This is indicative of the country’s potential postcolonial societal projects, which oppose one another but are not necessarily incompatible. Between these visions of a Senegalese society resides the true potential for change, sopi, which feeds civic engagement and the legitimacy of democratic practices. Indeed, this is what the Y’en a marre movement hoped for in its depiction of the Nouveau type de sénégalais.

Notes 1. While the 2001 constitution stipulated a two-​term limit for the presidency, Wade argued, controversially, that his first term did not count, as he had been elected in 2000 under the earlier constitution. The argument was widely rejected, but eventually prevailed in the courts. 2. For a strong critique of Wade’s erosion of laïcité, see Professor Ousseynou Kane’s statement, published as an editorial under the title “La République à genoux” Walfadjri, 8 May 2001.

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Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    105 Beck, Linda. 1997. “Senegal’s “patrimonial democrats”: Incremental reform and the Obstacles to the Consolidation of Democracy.” Canadian Journal of African Studies/​ La Revue canadienne des études africaines 31(1): 1–​31. Bodian, Mamadou. 2016. The Politics of Electoral Reform in Francophone West Africa: The Birth and Change of Rules in Mali, Niger, and Senegal. PhD Dissertation, University of Florida. Boone, Catherine, et al. 1998. “Economic Liberalization in Senegal: Shifting Politics of Indigenous Business Interests.” African Studies Review 41(2): 63–​89. Brenner, Louis, and Last, Murray. 1985. “The Role of Language in West African Islam.” Africa 55(04): 432–​446. Brossier, Marie. 2004. “Les débats sur le Code de la famille au Sénégal: une mise en question des fondements de l’autorité légitime?” Politique africaine (December): 78–​98. Brossier, Marie. 2010. Quand la mobilisation produit de l’institution: Pratiques de la famille et organisations religieuses au Sénégal. PhD thesis, Paris, Université Paris 1 Panthéon. Brossier, Marie. 2016. “Senegal’s Arabophones: From Transnational Education to Linguistic and Political Mobilisation in a Muslim Country.” Mediterranean Politics 22(1): 155–​175. Copans, Jean. 1980. Les marabouts de l’arachide. La confrerie mouride et les paysans du Senegal. Paris: Le Sycomore. Coulon, Coulon. 2000. “La tradition démocratique au Sénégal: Histoires d’un mythe,” in Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Démocraties d’ailleurs. Paris: Karthala. Cruise O’Brien, Donal.1975. Saints & politicians: Essays in the organisation of a Senegalese peasant society. London: Cambridge University Press. Cruise O’Brien, Donal. 1992. “Le contrat social sénégalais à l’épreuve.” Politique africaine 45: 9–​20. Dahou, Tarik and Vincent Foucher. 2004. “Le Sénégal 2000–​ 2004: l’alternance et ses contradictions.” Politique africaine 96: 5–​118. de Jong, Ferdinand, and Foucher, Vincent. 2010. “La tragédie du roi Abdoulaye? Néomodernisme et Renaissance africaine dans le Sénégal contemporain.” Politique africaine 118 (2): 187–​204. Diagne, Abdoulaye. 2013. “Performances et défaillances du système éducatif. 2000-​2011,” in M.-​C. Diop, ed. Sénégal 2000–​2012. Les institutions et politiques publiques à l’épreuve d’une gouvernance libérale. Paris: Karthala. Diaw, Aminta, Mamadou Diouf, and Momar-​Coumba Diop. 2000. “Le Baobab a été déraciné. L’alternance au Sénégal.” Politique africaine 78: 157–​179. Diop, Momar-​Coumba. 1992. “Le syndicalisme étudiant: pluralisme et revendications,” in M.-​C. Diop, ed., Sénégal. Trajectoires d’un État. Dakar: Codesria, 431–​477. Diop, Momar-​Coumba, and Mamadou Diouf. 2002. “Léopold Sedar Senghor, Abdou Diouf, Abdoulaye Wade et après?” in D. Cruise O’Brien, M.-​C. Diop, and M. Diouf, eds., La construction de l’Etat au Sénégal. Paris: Karthala. Diouf, Mamadou. 1992. “Fresques murales et écriture de l’histoire. Le Set/​Setal à Dakar.” Politique africaine 46: 41–​45. Diouf, Mamadou. 1998. “The French Colonial Policy of Assimilation and the Civility of the Originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A Nineteenth Century Globalization Project.” Development and Change 29 (4)(October): 671–​696. Fall, Ismaïla Madior. 2009. Evolution constitutionnelle du Sénégal de la veille de l’indépendance aux élections de 2007. Paris: Karthala.

106   Marie Brossier Fatton, Robert. 1987. The Making of a Liberal Democracy: Senegal’s Passive Revolution 1975–​1985. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Foucher, Vincent. 2003. “Pas d’alternance en Casamance?” Politique africaine 3: 101–​119. Freedom House. 2019. https://​freedomhouse.org/​report/​freedom-​world/​2019/​Senegal accessed 3 February 2020. Glasman, Joël. 2004. “Le Sénégal imaginé. Évolution d’une classification ethnique de 1816 aux années 1920.” Afrique & Histoire 1(2): 111–​139. Gottlieb, Jessica. 2017. “Explaining Variation in Broker Strategies: A Lab-​ in-​ the-​ Field Experiment in Senegal.” Comparative Political Studies 50(11): 1556–​1592. Gueye, Cheikh. 2002. Touba. La capitale des mourides. Paris: Karthala. Havard, Jean-François. 2001. “The “bul faale” ethos and new figures of success in Senegal.” Politique africaine 82: 63–77. IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2018. https://​www.imf.org/​external/​pubs/​ft/​dsa/​pdf/​ 2018/​dsacr1808.pdf accessed 3 February 2020. Johnson, Wesley G. 1991. Naissance du Sénégal contemporain. Aux origines de la vie politique moderne (1900–​1920) [translated from English by F. Manchuelle]. Paris: Karthala. Kelly, Catherine L. 2020. Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa. Senegal in Comparative perspective, Cham, Palgrave McMillan Loimeier, Roman. 2000. “L'Islam ne se vend plus: The Islamic Reform Movement and the State in Senegal.” Journal of Religion in Africa 30(2): 168–​190. Ndiaye, Alfred Inis. 2010. “Autonomy or political affiliation? Senegalese Trade Unions in the face of Economics and Political Reforms,” in B. Beckham et al., eds., Trade Unions and Party Politics. Labour Movements in Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 23–​38. Ndiaye, Malick. 1998. L’Éthique ceddo et la société d’accaparement ou les conduites culturelles des Sénégalais d’aujourd’hui. Dakar: Presses universitaires de Dakar. Ndiaye, Aminata and Paul Ndiaye. 2013. “Changement climatique et contraintes environnementales au Sahel: manifestations et adaptations au Sénégal,” in Momar-​Coumba. Diop, ed., Sénégal (2000–​2012). Les institutions et politiques publiques à l’épreuve d’une gouvernance libérale. Paris: Karthala, 673–​688. Sambe, Bakary. 2014. “Le Sénégal à l’épreuve de la crise sahélienne: Nouvelles dynamiques et reconfiguration du champ islamique.” Working Paper No. 009, Sahel Research Group, University of Florida. Sall, Mohamadou. 2013. “Mutations démographiques au Sénégal: enjeux pour le développement,” in Momar-​Coumba. Diop, ed., Sénégal (2000–​2012). Les institutions et politiques publiques à l’épreuve d’une gouvernance libérale. Paris: Karthala, 449–​462. Sarr, Ibrahima. 2013. “Du héros au patriarche bâtisseur. Évolution et rupture dans la construction de l’image d’Abdoulaye Wade,” in Momar-​Coumba. Diop, ed., Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade. Le Sopi à l’épreuve du pouvoir. Paris: Karthala, 409–​423. Seck, Abdourahmane. 2010. La question musulmane au Sénégal: essai d'anthropologie d'une nouvelle modernité. Paris: Karthala. Seck, Abdourahmane, and Mayke Kaag, eds. 2015. État, sociétés et Islam au Sénégal. Paris: Karthala. Smith, Étienne. 2015. “Sénégal, la diaspora fait-​elle l’élection: Le vote à distance de 1992 à 2012,” Afrique contemporaine 256(4): 51–​72. Tall, Serigne Mansour. 1998. “Un instrument financier pour les commerçants et émigrés mourides de l’axe Dakar-​New York: Kara International Foreign Money Exchange,” in L. Harding, L. Marfaing, and M. Sow, eds., Les Opérateurs économiques et l’État au Sénégal. Hambourg: Lit Verlag, “Studien zur afrikanischen Geschichte”, 73–​90.

Senegal: A Success Story and a Patrimonial Democracy    107 Villalón, Leonardo. 1995. Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Villalón, Leonardo. 2000. “The Moustarchidine of Senegal: The Family Politics of a Contemporary Tijan Movement,” in Jean-​Louis Triaud and David Robinson, eds., La Tijâniyya: Une confrérie musulmane à la conquête de l’Afrique. Paris: Karthala, 469–​497. Villalón, Leonardo. 2010. “From Argument to Negotiation: Constructing Democracy in African Muslim Contexts.” Comparative Politics 42(4): 375–​393.

chapter 6

MAURITA NIA Exceptionalism and Vulnerability Boubacar N’Diaye

Even among the undoubtedly troubled group of states in the Sahel, Mauritania holds a distinctive place. It is conspicuously the only Islamic Republic among these Muslim-​ majority states. It is also possibly the only one whose political class persistently sounds alarm bells that the country is morbidly fragile and at a grave risk of unraveling whenever it is gripped—​as is too often the case—​by political, social, or economic crises. In many ways Mauritania powerfully illustrates the serious challenges, but also the promises and potential, for Sahelian states, among which it is arguably one of the weakest links. When it became independent on 28 November 1960, no state in the region was less prepared to carry out the responsibilities of a sovereign state than Mauritania. A vast former French desert colony with a population estimated at fewer than a million people at the time, even with its population of some 4.5 million sixty years later Mauritania is the least populated country in the Sahel, with a density of only eleven habitants per square mile. In addition, it did not inherit any infrastructure from the colonial era. At independence, both the state and the nation—​as well as the most basic physical infrastructure—​had to be built from scratch. Even as a colony Mauritania had not been considered viable, and was governed from Saint Louis in neighboring Senegal, seat of the French African colonial empire. As the French withdrew Mauritania’s territory was claimed by Morocco and (to a lesser extent) Mali, and its international sovereignty had to be defended for nearly a decade by France and its allies in Sub-​Saharan Africa. While it was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Arab League would not admit Mauritania as a member until 1972. Being surrounded by states with three to ten times its population and that are more powerful in every respect, Mauritania has always had a particularly acute sense of vulnerability that has compelled it, as one expert of Mauritanian politics and society put it, to be constantly “in search of protection” (Pazzanita 1992).

110   Boubacar N’Diaye In recent years, however, Mauritania has come to be a player to be reckoned with in the realm of security and political developments in the Sahel, seemingly overcoming its historical light-​weight status in regional and international affairs. This is not just dictated by its geographical location and the vastness of its territory, which borders Mali, Algeria, and the disputed Western Sahara along thousands of kilometers, but also because Mauritania’s leaders have broken their traditional caution in favor of a new-​ found activism. With a small, entirely Muslim population, a territory richly endowed with iron ore, gold, fish, copper, and significant agricultural potential, Mauritania could have used its natural resources to meet the needs of its people and easily position itself as a stable bridge between Sub-​Saharan and North Africa, a role it is uniquely positioned to play. It certainly has the potential for being the richest country in the Sahel. Instead, social and political tensions fueled by ethnic divisions among its multicultural population, the politicization of Islam, the monopoly of the state by a restricted group that has imposed policies deemed exclusionary, the lingering effects of slavery, and the “human rights deficit” that has persisted following a period of violent events between 1989 and 1992 all compound to continue to jeopardize the country’s stability. In addition, of course, Mauritania shares the severe environmental stresses discussed elsewhere in this handbook, as well as dysfunctions of the security apparatus. The analysis of Mauritania as a Sahelian state that follows emphasizes the nature, origins, and impact of the vulnerabilities and insecurity brought about by political and social dynamics within, and around, Mauritania. The chapter examines the extent to which these dynamics and the tensions and conflicts they generate determine, or are likely to affect, how the country addresses the various challenges Sahelian states face individually and collectively. The causes of Mauritania’s vulnerabilities are to be found equally in its recent history, its current domestic political, socioeconomic, and cultural dynamics and policies, as well as in its geopolitical regional environment. These insecurities and vulnerabilities bear the potential of leading to outbreaks of acute social conflict, and even armed violence, if key challenges are not decisively addressed.

THE SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT Its unique sociopolitical and cultural characteristics have played a critical role in Mauritania’s evolution since independence, and are likely to continue to do so. Mauritanians are divided into three distinguishable ethno-​cultural groups: The “Negro-​ Mauritanians” (black Africans of Haalpulaar, Soninke, Wolof, and Bambara ethnicity), the beydane (“white”) Arab-​Berber Moors, and the haratine, descendants of black African slaves of the beydane, of whom some number continue to live in conditions of servitude. The two former groups make up perhaps some 30 percent of the population each, and the haratine at least 40 percent.1 The Moors are the light-​skin descendants of indigenous Berbers and Arab tribes, the Beni Hassan who arrived from the Arabian

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    111 peninsula in the eleventh century and, after decades of war, subjugated or assimilated the indigenous Berber tribes. Highly hierarchical and “tribalized,” these traditionally nomadic groups live mainly in the north, the west, and the east of the country. The Moors have dominated all walks of life since independence (Marchesin 1992) and the Moorish elite, both civilian and military, have insisted on the Arab character of Mauritania, ignoring and indeed often attempting to erase the non-​Arab identity of other Mauritanians. Negro-​Mauritanians—​the Haalpulaaren, Soninke, Bambara, and Wolof—​are mostly sedentary farmers many of whom also practice other traditional trades and crafts. They live mainly in the south and in Mauritania’s large agglomerations. The same ethnic groups are found in larger numbers in neighboring Senegal and Mali. Finally, the haratine, who are present throughout the country, identify culturally and psychologically with their former (or current) Moorish masters with whom they share the same language (the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic) as well as an Arabo-​Islamic culture. One of the most significant developments in Mauritanian politics and society in recent years has been the emergence of the haratine as a potent social and political force. Mauritania’s recent political history has been marked by cyclical challenges to beydane Moorish hegemony and forceful attempts by Negro-​Mauritanians and the haratine, in coalition or separately, to assert a non-​Arab cultural identity2 and to demand a more equitable share of political and economic power.

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Since it was “pacified” and integrated into the French colonial empire in 1905, the vast territory known today as Mauritania was a neglected colony. This was due in part to its sparse population and the fact that, until the discovery of large deposits of rich iron ore and copper in the north in the late 1950s, it had no known wealth to be exploited. From its administrative center in the adjacent Senegalese city of Saint Louis, France made little effort to disrupt the social and political order dominated by warrior Moorish tribes, with whom a modus vivendi was found through separate treaties after their resistance was reduced or eradicated. Thus, while slavery was formally outlawed in 1905, French colonial authorities in fact left it intact within Moorish society, and interfered with the practice only when it affected the colonial order, and even then it was generally to uphold the rights of the beydane slave-​owning strata (Hunkanrin 1931; Ould Ciré 2014). Like the other colonial territories, only with the approaching end of European colonialism following World War II were political parties and electoral politics allowed. In 1946, after Mauritania was administratively separated from Senegal as a separate colony, Horma Ould Babana, a member of the tiny French-​speaking elite, was elected to the French National Assembly. Following the adoption of the so-​called Loi-​Cadre of 1956, which reframed politics in French colonies and paved the way to their independence, Mauritania fully entered the politics of the dying colonial order. These reforms

112   Boubacar N’Diaye aimed at handing over the management of the future states to an emerging and dutifully accommodating French-​educated elite. From these political dynamics a French-​ trained lawyer, Moctar Ould Daddah, emerged as the country’s “Founding Father.” His political maneuvers quickly eliminated rivals among his earlier companions (such as the National Assembly president, Sidi El Moktar N’Diaye), and with the staunch backing of France, Ould Daddah was to shape the contours of the new postcolonial Mauritanian state, its politics, and its challenges. In the run-​up to independence, cleavages along ethno-​cultural lines started to emerge as black Mauritanians from the south began to sound the alarm about the sociopolitical orientation of the future state and their place in it. Most Mauritanian politicians, however, prioritized the need to resist Morocco’s claims (supported by Ould Babana, who had fled to the newly independent Morocco after an electoral defeat in 1956) that Mauritania should be considered an integral part of the kingdom’s territory. To his credit, soon after Mauritanian independence on 28 November 1960, Ould Daddah succeeded in muting the divisions among major political parties, each championing a region of the country, a community, or a particularistic interest (Baduel 1990). His leadership skills led to the merger of these parties and the creation of the Parti du Peuple Mauritanien (PPM Mauritanian People’s Party) in 1961, which governed the country until 1978. With the help of France and most of its former colonies in Africa, Mauritania beat back Morocco’s claim and, after Morocco relented, it was also admitted into the Arab League. Having resolved the external threat from Morocco, Ould Daddah could devote his full attention to domestic challenges, which already included a challenge from educated black Mauritanians.3 He struggled to maintain a semblance of national unity under the banner of the PPM party-​state, of which he was in firm control. Election after (plebiscitary) election kept the PPM in power, at times, as deemed expedient, by using force to coopt or repress various challenges from young leftists or Negro-​Mauritanians. The severe ethnic and cultural divisions, exacerbated by the failure of the colonial state to build administrative, institutional, or social infrastructure that could have helped structure the embryonic state, were quickly obvious soon after independence. The inability of the immediate postcolonial era leadership to craft a true national identity that could unify all Mauritanians was a constant source of tension. Until his overthrow in a bloodless coup on 10 July 1978, Ould Daddah did make some efforts in that direction, though with a strong penchant toward an Arab-​Islamic character (Ould Mohamed Lemine 2012). Thanks to a careful policy of ethnic and regional balancing, he was able to keep the underlying ethnic, cultural, and political tensions in check, and he made some headway in establishing a viable though still fragile state, and in launching an economic development program. On the international scene, as he describes in his memoires (2003) President Ould Daddah pursued relations and policies aiming at entrenching the image of Mauritania as the “hyphen” (trait d’union) between Sub-​Saharan Africa and Arab North Africa. In the mid-​1970s, however, in what would turn out to be a catastrophic political blunder, he entangled Mauritania in a ruinous war on the side of Morocco, to lay claim to portions of the Spanish (Western) Sahara. The country paid a heavy price in

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    113 treasure and in lives, and weary of an unpopular and losing war the army finally seized power in July 1978, and withdrew from the disastrous territorial conflict. Dissension and personal ambitions within the military, however, as well as foreign interference, quickly led to a series of coups and countercoups, culminating in a military government under Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya after he seized control in 1984. In the years that followed, ethnic tensions degenerated further, finally exploding in 1989 in a major outbreak of violence sparked by tensions with neighboring Senegal (Parker 1991). Under Ould Taya, de facto policies of ethnic cleansing between 1986 and 1992 produced thousands of victims among Negro-​Mauritanians, and tens of thousands were deported or forced into exile (Human Rights Watch 1994). In 2005, another military coup removed the rapidly decaying twenty-​one-​year-​old regime of Ould Taya and, after a transitional military regime, replaced him with what was arguably the country’s first democratically elected civilian president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi (N’Diaye 2006). This transition was widely hailed at home and abroad, but the hopes for a real democratic transformation of the country were soon dashed by yet another coup, led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz in 2008 (N’Diaye 2009). After “civilianizing” his regime—​just as colonel Ould Taya had done in the early 1990s—​ Abdel Aziz had himself elected president in 2009, and reelected in 2014, all the while navigating a seemingly endless political crisis in the country. Thus, like most other former French colonies following independence, Mauritania experienced first a single party regime, and then a series of military regimes that surpassed even the mismanagement of the civilian regime. Since 1978, except for seventeen months of a democratic regime from April 2007 to August 2008, Mauritania was arguably governed by a succession of military regimes, although the period between 1992 and 2005 was camouflaged as a democratization process. Following Abdel Aziz’s August 2008 coup, he succeeded in securing international legitimation for remaining in power thanks to the active complicity of Colonel Qaddafi, then president of the African Union, and arguably also the tacit support of France and its allies in the region. (Foster 2011). The political accord brokered in Dakar by the “international community” was supposed to help Mauritania’s political class overcome the crisis that had resulted from the 2008 coup, and to establish a consensual process for moving ahead and addressing the institutional and political weaknesses. Despite the cunning that General Ould Abdel Aziz displayed to maintain his hold on power (Antil 2010), notably through the 2014 municipal, legislative, and presidential elections, his tenure was marked by constant crisis. The final two years of his term were dominated by intense tensions surrounding his apparent moves to amend the constitution. In this context, and despite suspicions that he would attempt to hold on to power, Abdel Aziz was forced to respect the two-​term limitation on the presidency, and in 2019 his close ally and former Minister of Defense, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, was elected president. Undergirding the country’s political crisis throughout has been the mismanagement of Mauritania’s ethnic diversity. As Crawford Young (1999, 32) has aptly noted: “The saliency of cultural diversity in most African states . . . poses clear challenges to sustainable democracy.” Mauritania’s enduring challenge, since independence, has been to find ways

114   Boubacar N’Diaye to successfully manage the ethnic and cultural diversity of its 100 percent Sunni Muslim population. Young also notes that sensible approaches in the democratization process can find solutions to accommodate ethnic, religious, or racial differences. Yet as one of its preeminent analysts has argued for decades, the Mauritanian state has remained unwilling to ensure that all Mauritanian citizens are treated equally and without prejudice or favor (Ould Cheikh 2006). In this simple reality resides the key vulnerability and the major threat to the stability of Mauritania.

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF VULNERABILITY Like most citizens of Sahelian states, the insecurity and vulnerability Mauritanians feel are due first and foremost to the inability of Mauritanian elites to meet the daunting socioeconomic and political challenges the country faces. Insecurity results from widespread poverty and unmet basic needs due to poor governance. Mauritania’s sequential praetorian regimes have also proven unable to eliminate the physical and psychological insecurity that results from the spread of terrorism and radicalism in the Sahel. In Mauritania, the coalition between the military and the business class that has been in control since the 1980s has consistently struggled to consolidate its control. Yet since the 2008 coup d’état, it has faced unprecedented challenges from increasingly radical, often community-​based or religiously inspired political and civil society groups. While some of these challenges to the established social and political order are structural, others are policy related. These domestic dynamics are compounded by the broader challenging dynamics facing the Sahel as a region. Despite carefully cultivated myths to the contrary—​such as the regular claims by government officials that its policies have kept the country free from terrorist attacks in recent years—​Mauritania remains highly vulnerable to the social and political tensions facing its neighbors. The Sahelian context of conflict and environmental stress will intersect with its own domestic tension-​laden dynamics to continue to shape Mauritania’s evolution.

The Praetorian Legacy Decades of military and quasi-​military rule have transformed the country in several ways, including bequeathing it with a stubborn culture of acquiring power through force, and of the legitimization of military coups once they succeed. The militarization of Mauritanian society and the blurring of the demarcation between the military sphere and the civilian sphere with, for example, military officers heading state-​owned parastatals or major civilian institutions and engaging in lucrative commercial

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    115 activities, has been one of the most notable characteristics of Mauritanian politics. Another outcome of military rule has been the de-​professionalization of the security sector in general, and the weakening of discipline and meritocracy. The 2005 and 2008 coups confirmed a former foreign minister’s perceptive observation about the personalization of the praetorian system. Evoking the old saying about Prussia and its army, he notes that Mauritania is not so much an army that owns a state instead of a state that has its army, but rather that it should be understood as a battalion (specifically the BASEP, the presidential security battalion) that possesses a state (Ould Mohamed Lemine 2012, 233). The deep embeddedness of the military in the political system constitutes a significant source of vulnerability in the country.

Environmental Stress Even more than other Sahelian countries, Mauritania has a large proportion of its territory that is desert, and it is characterized by a chronic rainfall deficit that makes agriculture in the oases in the north of the country as well as in the more fertile lands in the south heavily dependent on nature’s whims. Access to water remains difficult even in urbanized areas. From the late 1960s, Mauritania has been struck by cyclical droughts that have devastated livestock and subjected large segments of the nomadic and sedentary populations alike to recurring famine and chronic malnutrition. The shrinking size of grazing areas has also been an additional source of insecurity, indeed of serious crises and conflict between farming and herding communities both within Mauritania and across international boundaries. The deadly episodes of mass killings, deportations, and suffering for thousands of black Mauritanians sparked by the conflict with Senegal in 1989 occurred in such a context of conflict over scarce pasture and land.

Terrorist Activities As in other Sahel states, the sharp and unexpected emergence of the threat of terrorism since the mid-​2000s is a major cause of insecurity in Mauritania. As elsewhere, the civil war in Algeria and its aftermath increased Mauritania’s vulnerability to terrorism. Indeed, it can be said that terrorism initially came to Mauritania from Algeria. In April 2005, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC (Group Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat), which later became al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), allegedly attacked Lemgheity, an isolated army outpost in northern Mauritania, killing fifteen and making off with military equipment. A year later, the same group was suspected of carrying out attacks in El Ghallaouia, another outpost, beheading ten soldiers. In December 2007, four French tourists were assassinated in cold blood, and in September 2008 another attack occurred at Tourine, a locality in the desert. In 2010, officials uncovered an attempt to attack the presidential palace with a pickup packed with

116   Boubacar N’Diaye explosives, and that same year there was an unprecedented shootout between a terrorist cell and security forces in broad daylight in Nouakchott. These related events understandably produced real fears about possible acts of random terrorism in the country, prompting Mauritanian authorities to engage with other Sahelian states in initiatives to address the treat. These include the creation of the G5 from the so-​called Nouakchott Process (see Barrios Chapter 23 in this volume), which created a framework for counterterrorism collaboration between five Sahelian states. The government of Ould Abdel Aziz (2009–​2019) found itself at a loss about how to handle the delicate balance between “Islamist terrorists” it purports to fight and the need not to alienate a public opinion that is very sensitive to anything Islamic. The imprisonment of “Salafists” has in part fed the mobilization of public opinion by Islamic rhetoric and its instrumentalization in the political process. This threat of terrorism, and the politics of managing and using that threat, are central dynamics that will continue to shape Mauritania’s vulnerabilities.

Radicalization and Increased Politicization of Islam Against this background, there has also been a marked politicization of Islam, the religion of 100 percent of Mauritanians, as passions are too often (mis)-​used in political jousts and to justify political positions (Diagana, Antil, and Lesourd 2016). In this context the country has also witnessed an increasing number of young Mauritanians who are known to join radical Islamists armed groups in the region, or engage in previously unheard-​of suicide bombings. The first of these occurred in August 2009 when a young man blew himself up in front of the French embassy in Nouakchott. The event was widely explained as a product of the desperation of unending unemployment and the absence of prospects for a large segment of Mauritanian youth. The young man, who unsurprisingly came from the economically and socially disenfranchised haratine, was said to have fallen prey to radical Islamist discourse, made pervasive by the Salafist and Wahhabi education in the numerous Islamic schools and charities funded by states from the Arab Gulf. Given the prevalence of these conditions, fear of other such incidents pervades Mauritanian society (Thurston 2012).

Political Impasses and Increased Communitarianism Mauritania’s political context constitutes another—​perhaps the main—​cause of the country’s insecurity. Mauritania’s ongoing political crises since the 1990s may have been only deepened by electoral politics. The elections of 2014 were boycotted by the most significant political parties and leaders, and various dialogue sessions between President Ould Abdel Aziz and his opposition proved unable to diffuse serious tensions in the body politic, and in large segments of the population, including the intellectual class. Indeed, the opposition, which persisted in contesting his legitimacy, at times called

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    117 openly for a military coup against him after their calls for a popular uprising failed. These dynamics are only likely to continue under the new presidency of Mohamed Ould Ghazouani that was inaugurated in 2019. Mauritania’s recurring political crises are compounded by other underlying sociopolitical phenomena, most significantly by the rise of communitarian and ethnic movements and the radicalization of the anti-​slavery movement. On 29 April 2013, a haratine group organized a national march (repeated in subsequent years) and published a manifesto encapsulating their grievances and their demands for specific actions for emancipation and the eradication of slavery. The event signaled a sharpening of the rhetoric and a radicalization of larger and larger segments of the haratine against the state and society in Mauritania. The emergence of Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, a haratine human rights activist, as a major public figure, and his ability to garner nearly 10 percent of the votes in the 2014 presidential election thanks to a radical and confrontational discourse, aptly illustrate this radicalization and its likely effect in sustaining, and indeed increasing, political instability. In the area of human and civil rights in Mauritania, the issue of slavery is coupled with that of the systematic discrimination to which a large percentage of Mauritanians are subjected, and which has attracted significant international attention. The observation of an expatriate working in an intergovernmental organization in Nouakchott that discrimination against blacks is clear and visible, and that its victims are both the haratine and “Negro-​Mauritanians,” echoes a commonly heard sentiment. 4 Other victims of social and political discrimination include the members of lower caste groups, notably that of the blacksmiths (known locally as M’Almine). Slavery in Mauritania is no longer a taboo subject, although it is still a delicate one for the government, which admits only to its “legacy” or “residual effects,” and denies its continued existence. In return, a number of civil rights organizations—​including El Hor, SOS-​Esclaves, Association Mauritanienne des Droits de l’Homme (AMDH), and IRA (Initiative pour la Resurgence du Movement Abolitionste), as well as international NGOs such as Amnesty International—​adamantly affirm its continued existence, and challenge the government to combat it with determination. In response, in September 2007 a law criminalizing slavery and characterizing it as a crime against humanity was passed, and in 2015 a special court was created to judge cases of slavery. The haratine and other marginalized groups argue, however, that the state apparatus remains overwhelmingly controlled by one community, which is unwilling to enact policies to address issues of exclusion and extreme poverty. Tensions resulting from these critiques lead to recurring arrests of anti-​slavery activists, or of those who oppose the displacement of black farmers from their agricultural lands, sustaining the potential for an incident to escalate into a major tragedy. A particularly important actor on this issue has been the Forces de Libération Africaines de Mauritanie (FLAM). This formerly armed liberation movement in exile returned to Mauritania following the change of regime in 2005, and held a congress to inaugurate a political party in August 2014. Decrying the continued marginalization

118   Boubacar N’Diaye of black Mauritanians, one of its key planks was a redesign of the Mauritanian nation-​ state project based on regional autonomy and guarantees of the cultural rights of black Mauritanians. The government, however, refused to recognize the new political party (Les Forces Progressistes pour le Changement, FPC), increasing tensions and risks of violence. In the same vein, a group claiming to speak on behalf of the Soninke ethnic group exposed similar grievances and made parallel demands. These dynamics that feed the rise of tribal and ethnic sentiment in Mauritania have clear implications for collective insecurity. Thus, for example, in 2014 the black African village of Niabina, in the south of the country, was besieged for days and its inhabitants harassed and humiliated, without any intervention by state or local authorities, over the alleged disappearance of a beydane Moor who later was found safe and sound in the capital. Such events feed the worsening social climate, the increase of insecurity, and the rising probability of violent conflict.

Dysfunctions of the Security Sector The acute identity crisis that has hamstrung Mauritania and Mauritanians for over five decades has also affected the armed and security forces. Since the ethnic cleansing and mass killings of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and following purges and deliberate discriminatory policies thereafter, the armed and security forces have ceased to be truly national and inclusive. Given Mauritania’s demographics, the non-​Arab component of the population has all but disappeared from—​and the haratine component is woefully underrepresented in—​the officer corps. Rather, Mauritania’s security sector is singularly dominated by beydane Arabo-​Berbers in the top brass, while the lower ranks are made up overwhelmingly of haratine and non-​Arab Mauritanians. This is a source of significant tensions and grievances. Thus, in a public declaration by haratine intellectuals (Cadres Haratine 2012), they specifically pointed to such imbalances, noting that out of more than 150 police commissars, only two or three were haratine; among the more than five hundred military officers, only about thirty (mostly junior officers) were haratine, and none of the dozen generals was a haratine. This imbalance inevitably generates conflict. It is also the outcome of efforts designed to maintain the status quo. Only major and thorough reforms of the security sector could help make it a truly national security apparatus, and the imbalance and continued marginalization of black Mauritanians bear great risks of future social conflict. Compounding the problems, corruption has not spared the military. There are regular reports of misappropriated funds from military aid, and periodic scandals on such issues. The presidential security battalion (Bataillon de Sécurité Présidentielle, BASEP) which remains by all accounts under the de facto direct command of the president, continues to be particularly resented and feared and suspected of corruption. While in the context of the contemporary Sahel the Mauritanian military has acquired a reputation for effectiveness and combat readiness among outsiders, it remains fractious and divided by ideological currents, mostly Arab nationalists and Islamists.

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    119

The All-​Security Approach and the Politicization of Security Following the 2008 coup, which led to the de facto return of the military to power, Mauritania sought through its various policies to pursue security as its paramount objective, to which everything else is subordinated. Some observers have touted the tough security measures, notably those taken under President Ould Abdel Aziz to protect the country against terrorism, illegal trafficking, and clandestine emigration (Boukhars 2016a.) These policies included sealing off a large portion of the national territory and other restrictive measures. The resulting perception of Mauritania as a reliable partner against terrorism and illegal migration to Europe endeared the country to its Western partners, notably France, the United States, and Spain. It is in fact the case that despite the dysfunctions of the security sector, Mauritania has been more successful than its neighbors in ensuring that its territory not become a sanctuary for Sahelian terrorist groups. Indeed, according to humanitarian relief actors, Mauritanian security forces were also able to secure the Malian refugee camps on the Mauritanian territory. The long-​term sustainability of this remains unclear, however, particularly in the context of persistent rumors that this was achieved through a deliberate “exportation of insecurity” toward Mali, perhaps based on a secret pact with terrorist groups.

Regional Dimensions of Insecurity Given its location in a singularly conflict-​ridden environment, Mauritania is inevitably affected by the insecurity that derives from that environment. It also has the singularity of having more than 5,000 km of land borders to control, in addition to 750 km of Atlantic coastline. Given the intense trafficking of all kinds and the atmosphere of violence and uncertainty in the Sahel and in the broader West African region, as well as in the Western Sahara to its north, regional dynamics are the source of major challenges. The effective controlling of borders is nearly impossible. Those with Mali have been particularly porous, enabling armed groups and traffickers to carry out their activities across large swaths of territory between Mali, Mauritania, and Algeria. The growing and widespread availability of small arms and light weapons in the Sahel and West African regions pose particular challenges. In Mauritania there were already an estimated 70,000 arms in circulation in 2010, coming mostly from Mali and other conflict countries surrounding Mauritania (Pézard and Glatz 2010). Though contested and difficult to document, the overwhelming majority of these illegally held weapons were said to be in the hands of the dominant beydane community. Given the regional context, this threat to the stability of the country has only likely increased in the years since this estimate. Finally, the decades-​long rivalry between Morocco and Algeria over the Western Sahara still affects Mauritania’s relations with both countries. Even after Mauritania’s

120   Boubacar N’Diaye complete withdrawal in 1980 from the portion of the territory it occupied, the conflict continues to affect Mauritania’s vulnerability since its vast territory is still subject to being used by either party. When tensions between Morocco and Algeria rise, as they occasionally do, Mauritania is caught in the delicate position of having to reassert its neutrality even as both parties accuse it of taking the other’s side and exert various pressures on the country. This deadlocked situation has, moreover, prevented any progress from being made on the numerous potentially beneficial socioeconomic projects in the Maghreb.

FUTURE PROSPECTS: MEETING KEY CHALLENGES The Mauritanian government’s claims to have met the security issues facing the Sahel have created an appearance of stability to the external world, but in fact Mauritania remains a quintessentially fragile state. In the face of the tensions and threats to its stability that have been discussed, Mauritania’s political class is confronted with significant challenges. Among these, three interrelated challenges stand out as most likely to shape the country’s trajectory and its future. The first and most critical of the challenges concerns the very identity of the country. In the balance the issue is whether the country’s leadership will recognize and embrace its cultural diversity and attempt to resolve the ethnic and cultural contradictions with which it has been saddled since its independence, or whether it will forge ahead with its attempts to transform Mauritania into an exclusively Arab country, at the risk of serious conflicts. At the height of his power and influence, the late Saddam Hussein used to call Mauritania the “western door of the Arab umma” (the Arab nation), with Iraq of course being its eastern door (Pazzanita 1992). In the early 1990s, the Mauritanian dictator at the time, Colonel Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, found himself scrambling to shield Mauritania from the contagion effects of the “democratic wave” from West Africa that threatened his regime. Although the country had always been geographically associated with West Africa—​indeed it came to independence along with its southern and eastern neighbors as part of the decolonization of French West Africa, Ould Taya purposefully made the calculation to anchor its fortunes within the Arab World generally, and with North Africa in particular. With no official explanation, he withdrew the country from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2000, and insisted that international organizations henceforth situate Mauritania within North Africa and the Arab world. The resulting policy of “Arabizing” Mauritania, anchoring its identity decisively in the Arab World and away from Sub-​Saharan Africa, was camouflaged and justified as a deepening of the country’s Islamic character. Given the country’s demographic composition, of course, this shift had enormous implications for domestic

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    121 politics, deepening and solidifying the ethnic and cultural rifts with which Mauritania has had to grapple ever since. Cast as irreversible, the move exacerbated the core social fracture that defined the country, and led to an increasingly acute identity crisis that has persisted over the years. Tensions in some ways diminished (or were perhaps simply suspended) during the democratic interlude between the overthrow of Ould Taya in 2005 and the deposing of the democratically elected Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdullahi in 2008. The subsequent tenure of President Ould Abdel Aziz in 2009–​2019, however, saw a revival of the regime’s policies of Arabization, presenting Mauritania as an exclusively Arab country and downplaying its non-​Arab populations of black Mauritanians. Among the highly controversial policies driving this effort domestically was the replacement of French as a language of education, with the dominant use of Arabic in most of the educational system. Tensions also persisted over policies that created obstacles for black Mauritanians to register their citizenship, leading black Mauritanian civil society groups such as “Touche pas à ma nationalité” (“Don’t touch my citizenship”) to protest what they denounced as an attempt to erase their existence via “biometric genocide.” These ethnic tensions combined with a growing resistance within Moorish society to the continued subjugation of the haratine, and an insistence on the need to recognize and confront the persistence of slavery, bear the potential for unpredictable instability and violence. A particularly important manifestation of this tension under Ould Abdel Aziz’s rule was the emergence of a strong political movement appealing both to haratine and to non-​Arab Black Mauritanians, under the charismatic leadership of the haratine politician Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid. Ould Abeid and his movement undertook a series of highly publicized and controversial public actions challenging the regime on the issue of slavery. Over the course of the decade, he was periodically prosecuted and imprisoned, simultaneously receiving significant international recognition, including winning the UN Human Rights Prize in 2013 and being named among the one hundred most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2017. In 2014, and again in 2019, Ould Abeid ran for president of Mauritania, coming in second with almost 19 percent of the vote on his second try. Confronting this mobilization has been a countermovement among “White” Moors (beydane), who consider any concession to Mauritania’s cultural diversity as threatening to their conception of Mauritania as an Arab country. In 2016, Nida Al Watan, a political party explicitly created to promote the “Arabo-​Moorish identity” of the country, was founded by the controversial beydane activist Daoud Ould Ahmed Aicha, and allowed to broadcast its message on state-​owned media. Over the course of the Ould Abdel Aziz years, tensions over the place of Mauritania’s diverse population in the national identity remained at best unresolved and at worse exacerbated. It remains to be seen whether his successors will be able to meet this core challenge. The second challenge that will shape Mauritania’s future is the fate of the long-​ promised extirpation of the military from national politics. The accession to power of a democratically elected civilian president in 2007, following a transition from a military regime, offered hope to many that a key step had been taken. But the return of the

122   Boubacar N’Diaye military to politics with the coup of 2008 clearly demonstrated that this issue remained a major challenge. As was already clear at the time, Ould Abdel Aziz’s success in remaining in power following his coup signaled “the return to the quasi-​military order that held sway for more than twenty-​one years,” a fact that did “not bode well for stability and democratization in Mauritania” (N’Diaye 2011, 323). Although he officially resigned from the military when he assumed the presidency, the armed and security forces of the country remained very much in control throughout Ould Abdel Aziz’s tenure in office. And they were clearly central to the political process that led to the nomination by the ruling party, and subsequent election of Abdel Aziz’s close confident, retired General Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, as president in 2019, confirming the continued praetorian nature of Mauritania’s political system. The Mauritanian officer corps has been in power unabashedly for forty years, and the dominant culture within it insists that it embodies “national legitimacy.” The long control over national politics has brought major rewards to the dominant beydane officer corps, and they are not likely to relinquish these. As they demonstrated in 2019, behind the scenes the military is not ready to allow the country to engage in a genuine democratization process, the outcome of which they could not control and which could, in the end, unravel the system of advantages the military class enjoys. Yet notwithstanding the broad consensus among the dominant elite to monopolize power to the detriment of non-​Arabs, the Mauritanian military is splintered along ethnic, tribal, regional, and ideological lines (Pazzanita 1992). Clusters of officers continuously and fiercely vie for influence and dominance, leading to divisions and tensions that are likely to persist. Thanks to the policies that have provided pecuniary and material advantages to officers, the regime has succeeded in buying off the loyalty of the army for now. It is important to recognize, however, that the unity of the officer corps may well be a façade. It could unravel rapidly, and with it the no less façade unity of the country. Using the strategy of diverting the attention of the armed and security forces toward the external threat of transnational terrorism has bought the regime time and allowed it to keep these tensions under control, but it remains one more way in which the military’s political role remains a long-​term challenge to Mauritania’s stability. Finally, the third challenge that will shape Mauritania’s future is the threat of terrorism and the related manipulation of Islam, the state religion of this “Islamic Republic.” Following his 2008 coup, Ould Abdel Aziz was highly successful in convincing Mauritania’s major security partners such as the United States, France, and the European Union, that he personally, and Mauritania more broadly, were key allies in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, as well as in the effort to stem the irregular immigration of Sub-​Saharan Africans toward Europe (Jourde 2011). The backing of these partners in the context of the expansion of terrorism in the region served Ould Abdel Aziz well in his years in power. Terrorism, moreover, has created a climate facilitating the manipulation of Islam by nearly all actors of the Mauritanian political scene. To be sure, Mauritania’s leaders have

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    123 historically had to walk a fine line on many political issues, especially given the reality of Mauritanians’ strong attachment to their religion and the country’s foreign policy goals (International Crisis Group 2005). Responses to the rise of Islamism, and especially its jihadi strain espoused by such groups as Al-​Qaeda and the Islamic State in the Sahel region, have been rendered significantly more complex by the presence of Western troops in the region (Yahaya Ibrahim Chapter 30 in this volume). In this context, Ould Abdel Aziz was obliged to constantly maneuver, and his various manipulations of religion including his overtures to Islamists leaders raised alarms among many observers of Mauritania (Diagana et al. 2016; Jourde 2011; Boukhars 2016b; Thurston 2012). These actions led to increasingly vociferous and at times hysterical debates surrounding the state religion, its political role, and its consequences on society, resulting in various incidents that dominated national and international attention. In 2015, in a widely circulated post a young blogger from the extensively despised blacksmith caste, Mohamed Ould M’Kheytir, denounced the injustices to which the caste was subjected, blaming this in part on aspects of Islam, which he said were misinterpreted. His blog was denounced as blasphemous, a crime punishable with death under Mauritanian law, unless recanted, which he did. Nevertheless, among religious leaders, opinion leaders, and state authorities, there resulted an outcry reaching a hysterical pitch, demanding that his death sentence be carried out and threatening anyone who dared to defend his right to a trial. Despite international outcries, the young blogger was imprisoned for years before being finally released in July 2019. The case was clearly an example of an issue manipulated and, indeed, stage-​managed by Ould Abdel Aziz himself and his government for political reasons, deftly handled to navigate between domestic realities and international pressures (Diagana et al. 2016). Thus, as Boukhars (2016a) has argued, Ould Abdel Aziz deftly succeeded, in the face of rising militancy, growing communitarian radicalization, and worsening economic conditions, to use such means to remain in power and in control. While Mauritania managed to escape the fate of Mali following the collapse of 2012, where irredentism, armed jihadism, and lingering praetorianism combined to all but destroy a once-​ thriving democracy, the cost of this success and its long-​term sustainability remain in question. While Ould Abdel Aziz proudly claimed, and was given credit for, sparing Mauritania from any serious terrorist attack after 2011, there are strong indications that this was achieved by questionable dealings that in effect “exported” violent radicalism toward neighboring countries, and Mali in particular. The long-​term sustainability of such a strategy cannot be assumed. As Boukhars (2016b) notes, despite what he aptly calls “Mauritania’s fragile stability,” the country still faces a serious risk of social and political unrest, related as much to its geopolitical environment as to its internal sociopolitical dynamics. In the face of an extremely fragile social context, and confronting serious challenges to which there are no clear responses that do not themselves bear the potential for more difficulties, dark clouds remain over Mauritania’s future. It is hard not to conclude that the country presents a weak—​perhaps the weakest—​link in the Sahel.

124   Boubacar N’Diaye

Notes 1. There are no reliable statistics on Mauritania’s ethnic composition, which is an extremely sensitive and indeed almost taboo subject. Some estimates put the percentage of haratine as at least 50 percent of the Mauritanian population. 2. It should be noted that many haratine do claim an Arab identity, and that the question of the Arab-​ness of the haratine is a major subject of tension within that community, and in Mauritania’s political class and society in general. 3. In 1966, sixteen black Mauritanian intellectuals wrote a scathing memorandum, the so-​called “Manifeste des 19,” protesting the marginalization of their community by the aggressive policy of Arabization of education and of the public service. 4. Personal communication, October 2014.

REFERENCES Antil, Alain. 2010. “Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, l’alchimiste.” L’Année du Maghreb VI: 357–​372. Baduel, Jean Robert. 1990. “Mauritanie 1945–​1990, ou l’état face à la Nation,” in Jean Robert Baduel, ed., Mauritanie: Entre arabité et africanité. La Calade: Edisud, 11–​51. Boukhars, Anouar. 2016a. “As Threats Mount, Can Mauritania’s Fragile Stability Hold?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Boukhars, Anouar. 2016b. Mauritania’s Precarious Stability and Islamist Undercurrent. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Cadres Haratine. 2012. “Déclaration: Pour une Mauritanie de Demain, égalitaire, unie et réconciliée avec elle-​même.” Nouakchott, pamphlet, October 2012. Diagana, Abdoulaye, Alain Antil, and Céline Lesourd. 2016. “Marches et grèves: Les tourments d’une gouvernance face aux tensions sociales et politiques (2014–​2015).” L’Année du Maghreb 15(2016-​II): 257–​277. Foster, Noel. 2011. Mauritania: The Struggle for Democracy. Boulder: First Forum Press. Human Rights Watch. 1994. “Mauritania’s Campaign of Terror: State Sponsored Repression of Black Africans.” New York: Human Rights Watch. Hunkanrin, Louis. 1931. Un forfait colonial: L’esclavage en Mauritanie. Paris: Imprimerie Moderne Privas. International Crisis Group. 2005. “L’Islamisme en Afrique du Nord IV: Contestation Islamist en Mauritanie: Menaces ou Bouc Emissaire.” Brussels: Rapport Moyen-​Orient/​Afrique du Nord No. 41. Jourde, Cédric. 2011. “Sifting Through the Layers of Insecurity in the Sahel: The Case of Mauritania.” Africa Security Brief No. 15, September: 7–​11. Marchesin, Philippe. 1992. Tribus, Ethnies et Pouvoir en Mauritanie. Paris: Khartala. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2011. “Mauritania: The Military, Elections, and the Elusive Quest for a Genuine Democratization,” in A. Saine, B. N’Diaye, and M. Houngnikpo, eds., Elections and Democratization in West Africa: 1990–​2009. Trenton: Africa World Press, 303–​326. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2009. “To Mid-​Wife—​and Abort—​a Democracy: Mauritania’s Transition from Military Rule, 2005–​2008.” Journal of Modern African Studies 47(1): 129–​152. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2006. “The August 2005 Coup in Mauritania: ‘Justice and Democracy’ or Just another Coup?” African Affairs 105(420): 421–​441.

Mauritania: Exceptionalism and Vulnerability    125 Ould Cheikh, Abdel Wedoud. 2006. “Les Habits neufs du sultan: sur le pouvoir et ses (res) sources an Mauritanie.” Maghreb-​Machrek 189: 29–​52. Ould Ciré, Mohamed Yahya. 2014. La Mauritanie entre esclavage et racisme. Paris: l’Harmattan. Ould Daddah, Moctar. 2003. La Mauritanie contre vents et marées. Paris: Khartala. Ould Mohamed Lemine, and Mohamed Saleck. 2012. Mauritanie: L’Espérance Décue: 2006-​ 2008 une Démocratie sans Lendemain. Paris: L’Harmattan. Parker, Ron. 1991. “The Senegal–​Mauritania Conflict of 1989: A Fragile Equilibrium.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 29(1): 155–​171. Pazzanita, Anthony. 1992. “Mauritania’s Foreign Policy: In Search of Protection.” Journal of Modern African Studies 30(3): 288–​300. Pézard, Stéphanie, and Anne-​Kathrin Glatz. 2010. Arms in and around Mauritania: National and Regional implications. Geneva: Small Arms Survey. Occasional paper No. 24. Thurston, Alex. 2012. Mauritania’s Islamists. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Young, Crawford. 1999. “The Third Wave of Democratization in Africa: Ambiguities and Contradictions,” in Richard Joseph, ed., State Conflict and Democracy in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publisher, 15–​38.

chapter 7

M AL I Collapse and Instability Bruce Whitehouse

Landlocked, impoverished, and beset by cycles of drought and armed rebellion, the Republic of Mali nonetheless managed in the 1990s to gain renown as a model of successful transition to democratic pluralism after years of autocratic rule. By the first decade of the twenty-​first century, Mali was beloved by international donors. That this positive image survived nearly two decades of poor governance, burgeoning state corruption, and public disaffection with Mali’s elected leaders indicates the power of narrative to shape outside perceptions of events on the African continent. A polymorphic crisis in early 2012 demolished Mali’s good reputation. With a new wave of rebellion led by members of the ethnic Tuareg (also known as Kel Tamasheq) population gaining ground against Malian government forces in the country’s north, soldiers near the capital Bamako staged a putsch. The coup threw Mali’s entire state apparatus and political system into chaos just weeks before a scheduled presidential election. Tuareg separatists allied with jihadi militants occupied over half the nation’s territory and declared an independent homeland, which they dubbed Azawad. In Bamako, political factions loyal to the central government remained bitterly divided while the country’s very survival was in doubt (Lecocq et al. 2013). International intervention managed to blunt this emergency, first through military strikes to expel jihadi fighters from occupied cities and towns, then through a peacekeeping operation and presidential election. Yet Mali was hardly “rescued”; insecurity soon intensified in the north and spread to new areas, while neither the international community nor the Malian political establishment addressed underlying causes of instability. Beginning with the twilight of colonial rule, this chapter sketches out Mali’s history, societal features, and foreign relations to excavate the sources of its destabilization, and to ponder its long-​term trajectory. Elucidating such complex issues faces epistemological challenges, particularly the swirl of haze, rumor, and uncertainty that “continues to haunt anything written on what happens in the Sahara” (Lecocq and Schrijver 2007,

128   Bruce Whitehouse 142). Observers in Mali and abroad have proposed competing narratives to explain the country’s postcolonial evolution, and its increasing fragility. To grasp Mali’s present situation and future prospects, it is essential to understand the assumptions and limitations of these narratives. Following a historical review, this chapter examines distinct but overlapping analyses of Mali’s situation, grouping them into anti-​imperialist, geopolitical, and institutionalist perspectives.

ECHOES OF DECOLONIZATION The final years of French control over the land today called Mali—​known from the 1880s until the late 1950s as French Sudan (le Soudan Français), set the mold for much of what followed independence. The legacy of seven decades of colonial rule continues to shape questions of governance, relations among various segments of society, and foreign relations for Malians today. Indeed, reading the Malian press in the early twenty-​first century, it might seem that political discourse about key issues had scarcely changed since the late 1950s. The government of France’s Fourth Republic (1946–​1958), seeking to preserve its influence over French possessions in Africa and elsewhere, created the French Union, a political framework that bestowed certain rights upon erstwhile colonial subjects, including political participation and representation in the metropolitan National Assembly. On the heels of French military defeat in Indochina (1954), a bloody war for independence in Algeria—​France’s largest colony and Mali’s neighbor to the north—​ helped bring down the Fourth Republic and returned Charles de Gaulle to power. To avoid losing its overseas possessions altogether, in 1958 de Gaulle’s government created what they termed the French Community, granting limited self-​rule to former colonies while maintaining the metropole’s power over defense, diplomacy, and currency. A territorial body known as the Organisation commune des régions sahariennes (OCRS) had been established in 1957 to keep French sovereignty over a vast expanse of the Sahara Desert, from the eastern borders of Morocco and Mauritania to northern Chad and its borders with Libya and Sudan. This territory was meant to guarantee French access to newly discovered mineral resources in the region, including oil and gas, as well as France’s nuclear testing site in southern Algeria (N. Keita 2005; Lecocq 2010). Both the French Community and the OCRS were overtaken by events, however. The Community became defunct as colonies opted for independence. In 1959, French Sudan and Senegal formed a union called the Mali Federation, named after the Empire of Mali, which ruled over much of the western Sahel from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Yet the Federation fell apart just weeks after independence from France in August 1960, splitting into two sovereign republics. The OCRS was dissolved after Algerian independence in 1962 (Mann 2015). Throughout this transition from colony to member of the French Community to the Mali Federation to the independent Republic of Mali, a new generation of leaders in

Mali: Collapse and Instability    129 Bamako fought to assure their homeland’s emerging sovereignty. The Union soudanaise-​ Rassemblement démocratique africain (US-​RDA), a pan-​Africanist party headed by former schoolteacher Modibo Keita and drawn from a small cadre of civil servants educated in French colonial schools, became the dominant faction. In many respects the US-​RDA stood firmly against lingering French control, opposing the OCRS in particular. After becoming Mali’s first president in September 1960, Keita demanded the evacuation of French military bases on Malian soil (including Tessalit in the far north, which was useful to the French for the war effort in Algeria). He forged military links with the Soviet Union and communist China and established a new currency, the Malian franc. In these respects, Mali diverged from neighbors such as Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, which continued to house French military bases and retained the CFA franc, pegged to the French franc, as a shared currency. Yet the Malian government made no diplomatic or economic break with France and retained French as its official language (I. Sidibé 2005; Joly 2013). Moreover, Mali’s first constitution was heavily drawn from France’s 1958 Constitution, marked by a strong presidency and centralized state authority (Baudais 2015). While the individuals governing had changed, the same style of governing—​secular, autocratic, and occasionally brutal—​endured (I. Sidibé 2005). Perhaps the most significant resistance to Malian government authority in those early years came from northern Tuareg communities. Tuareg nomads had long roamed the Sahara, their zone of activity straddling the borders of five newly independent states in the region. Colonialism had upended Tuareg society as French authorities banned slavery, dismantled local pre-​colonial polities, and empowered some clans over others (N. Keita 2005). Their repeated armed opposition to French colonial rule notwithstanding, Tuareg people occupied a “privileged place in the French colonial imagination” (Lecocq and Klute 2013, 425) and were exempted from forced labor, conscription, and schooling requirements. Like their French predecessors, Malian leaders in Bamako interpreted hierarchies within Tuareg society as evidence of a feudal political order marked by vestiges of slavery. The ruling US-​RDA, guided by pan-​Africanist and modernist ideals, worked to coalesce a unified Malian national identity and historiography, but did so largely around the dominant Mande cultures of the south (Lecocq 2010; Baudais 2015). In promoting this model of nationhood, Malian government officials saw themselves as opposing an unjust Tuareg social order that permitted light-​skinned elites to impose their will upon darker-​skinned vassals as well as other racially “black” peoples inhabiting the region (Lecocq 2010). The US-​RDA condemned the forces of “ethnic particularism” and “obscurantism” throughout the country, especially in the north where several Tuareg and Arab leaders had lobbied French officials in the late 1950s for inclusion in the OCRS instead of in a new, black-​led, nation-​state (N. Keita 2005; Hall 2011; Koné 2017). These tensions formed the backdrop of Mali’s first Tuareg revolt in 1963–​1964 when nomads in the northern Adrar mountains—​probably no more than a few hundred in all—​took up arms. Malian troops violently suppressed the rebels and abused civilians suspected of aiding them; trauma from this period remains seared into many Tuareg communities’ memories (N. Keita 2005; Lecocq 2010; Rasmussen 2017). Suspecting

130   Bruce Whitehouse a French hand in the uprising, Malian authorities courted the support of historically marginalized segments of Tuareg society to cement their control over the north (Boilley 2005). Much of northern Mali would remain under direct military administration for decades. Political power, marked by the authoritarian culture of commandement fostered by French colonial administrators (Mbembe 2001, 24–​ 65), became increasingly personalized under Keita’s presidency. Official socialist rhetoric and economic policies proved divisive: the government was forced to devalue the Malian franc in 1963 and again in 1967, and cracked down on groups it accused of undermining its revolutionary aims, such as migrants seeking work abroad and merchants opposing import controls. Heavy-​handed rule eroded the state’s legitimacy and stoked disaffection in segments of society and the state (Baudais 2015).

MILITARY RULE AND MULTIPARTY POLITICS The coup that ousted Modibo Keita in November 1968 ended Mali’s period of revolutionary socialism. Under the presidency of junta leader Lieutenant (later General) Moussa Traoré, the government undid some unpopular US-​RDA policies but kept a firm grasp on the economy and society and tolerated little dissent. Keita died in prison in 1977, and the regime’s detention of dissidents, including many former members of government, drew censure from abroad (Mann 2015). Severe droughts in 1972–​1973 and 1983–​1984 left Mali dependent on foreign aid and government debt, intensifying historical patterns of emigration to neighboring countries and beyond. Migration for labor and trade had been a central part of the male life course throughout southern and central Mali for generations. From the 1970s, thousands of Tuareg joined this outflow and headed for Libya, where some joined the Libyan armed forces (Lecocq 2010). In Bamako, the combination of neopatrimonial politics, elite predation of aid, and IMF-​ induced fiscal austerity further compromised the Traoré regime and damaged the economy to a degree scarcely offset by pragmatic policy decisions, such as abandoning the Malian franc and rejoining the CFA franc zone in 1984 (Baudais 2015). Mali’s second Tuareg uprising began in 1990, and like the first elicited a harsh reaction from government security forces. 100,000 refugees fled the country, and many remained abroad for years (Lecocq and Klute 2013). This rebellion, which saw the first explicit rebel demands for an independent homeland, continued through the mid-​1990s. Amidst the northern conflict, nationwide opposition to Traoré’s authoritarian rule culminated in massive street protests in Bamako, eventually forcing Traoré from power in March 1991. Amadou Toumani Touré (known as “ATT”), the army colonel who toppled him, headed a transitional government, which in 1992 organized Mali’s first democratic presidential election since the end of the colonial era. Thirty years of

Mali: Collapse and Instability    131 one-​party rule thus gave way to a multiparty political system and new constitution. The new regime of President Alpha Oumar Konaré legalized private newspapers, radio stations, and telecommunications companies, devolved some state powers to a new layer of elected local officials, and expanded public primary schooling from 28 percent of school-​age children in 1991 to 62 percent in 2000 (Zobel 2013). With the economy expanding by more than 5 percent annually, observers declared that Mali had achieved “a thriving multiparty democracy with competitive elections, a free press, better protection of civil liberties and political rights, less corruption, and stronger governance” (Radelet 2010, 10). This combination of growth and formal democracy, however, failed to foster sustainable, inclusive politics into the twenty-​first century. Especially after ATT’s return to power with his 2002 election as president, the government appeared increasingly unable to cope with persistent challenges. ATT adopted a “consensus approach,” bringing a host of political parties into his government. Without significant opposition, his government had little incentive to make hard political choices or enact meaningful reforms (Villalón and Idrissa 2005). Voter turnout was among the lowest in the region. Public schools became dysfunctional, social divisions widened, and state dependency on foreign aid increased (N. Keita 2013; O. Sidibé 2013; Charbonneau and Sears 2014; Baudais 2015; Bergamaschi 2016). Public satisfaction with democracy plummeted from 63 percent to 31 percent of survey respondents, while perceptions of corruption rose (Dulani 2014). Lucrative smuggling interests, including the transit of South American narcotics across the Sahara, facilitated criminalization at every level of the state, from elected officials in the north to top-​ranking authorities in Bamako, and magnified disputes between local communities (Ag Alhousseini 2016). Sporadic, low-​intensity rebellions in the north blended into criminal activity. The 2011 demise of Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi and his regime sparked the gravest threat to Malian stability: Tuareg fighters returning from Libya joined forces with Tuareg groups in northern Mali to organize new rebel movements. One, the Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad (MNLA), fought for a secular, independent state within Mali’s existing borders. Another, Ansar Dine, fought for the establishment of Islamic law throughout Mali. Both groups allied with al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which had been present in Mali’s north since at least 2006. These were the main entities responsible for expelling the Malian armed forces from the country’s three northern regions in early 2012. Soon after occupying northern cities and towns, though, the MNLA lost support due to abuses carried out by its fighters, leading to a complete northern takeover by jihadi groups imposing a harsh interpretation of Islamic law (Lecocq and Klute 2013; F. Keita 2014; Schulz 2016). Meanwhile the March 2012 coup exposed the failings of Malian democracy. Many Bamako residents saw it as divine punishment of a corrupt ruling elite, viewing elections as merely “arrangements between those in power to perpetuate their hold on society and the economy” (Diawara 2014, 111). Many greeted the coup as a chance to free the country from predatory rule and establish the true democracy that had eluded them since the 1990s. A return to the political status quo ante was, for them, out of the question. Neither

132   Bruce Whitehouse the army junta nor the civilian transitional government officially succeeding it, however, could reunite the fractured nation. In January 2013 French President François Hollande deployed French forces against a rapid offensive led by Ansar Dine and AQIM in central Mali. Operating alongside troops from Mali, Niger, and Chad, “Operation Serval” retook the north of the country, ending the jihadi occupation and enabling transitional authorities in Bamako to organize a nationwide presidential election later that year. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, or “IBK,” a former prime minister, was elected with over 77 percent of second-​ round votes. Key problems persisted, however. Kidal, the sole administrative region in which Tuareg constitute a majority, had been the scene of the 1963–​1964 rebellion and remained a stronghold of separatist sentiment; it reverted to MNLA control once French troops drove out jihadi groups (Ag Alhousseini 2016). Kidal’s continued exclusion from central government authority sapped IBK’s domestic support. The deployment of UN peacekeepers in July 2013 brought only minimal stability to the north, where jihadi attacks on UN, French, Malian government, and civilian targets increased year by year. Violence soon spread from the northern regions of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu to the central regions of Mopti and Segou. In 2015 Bamako became the unprecedented scene of two jihadi terrorist tactics when gunmen targeted businesses catering to Westerners, killing twenty-​five; in 2017 three civilians, two military personnel, and four attackers were killed during a similar attack at a resort outside the capital. The opportunity for a “credible, state-​led rethinking of the state” (Charbonneau and Sears 2014, 11) was squandered in the years following IBK’s election, and Mali’s political establishment demonstrated neither the willingness nor the capacity to undertake serious reform. Implementation of a 2015 peace agreement brokered with separatists, mandating among other things a degree of self-​rule at the regional and community level, lagged. As president, IBK outsourced difficult issues to associates rather than deal with them directly (Baudais 2015). Public service provision remained poor, and in rural areas where the majority of the population lived, most government services remained nonexistent. For rural Malians, the crisis “merely exacerbated what was an ongoing empirical state failure” of long standing (Bleck and Michelitch 2015, 26; see also Bleck, Dembele, and Guindo 2016). This failure left the field open for non-​state actors advocating alternative forms of political change, many of them violent. With government authority increasingly tenuous, a proliferation of armed groups in central and northern regions blurred the boundaries between criminality, insurgency, and terrorism (Boeke 2016). Conflicts between herders and farmers and between rival ethnic self-​defense militias intensified throughout the Mopti region, with factions sometimes seeking redress for local grievances under the banner of jihad (International Alert 2016; Sangaré 2016; Benjaminsen and Ba 2019). Jihadi groups gained strength in northern zones completely outside the control of the Malian state, the French military or UN peacekeepers (Ahmed and Carayol 2017). In 2017 Mali’s main jihadi organizations—​including AQIM and Ansar Dine—​merged to

Mali: Collapse and Instability    133 form a new group, the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (Jama’a Nusrat ul-​Islam wa al-​Muslimin or JNIM), which conducted attacks on military and civilian targets in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso. For its part, the international community was unable to impose a lasting solution, as the French and UN military missions lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the Malian public (Sabrow 2017). Creeping instability in Mali also laid bare the country’s “Tuareg question”: after multiple generations of Tuareg-​led rebellion against the Malian central state, the place of the Tuareg people within Malian society remained a raw issue. Neither the government nor rebel groups held much confidence in the 2015 peace deal (International Crisis Group 2017). A significant portion of Tuareg—​particularly members of high-​ status groups—​held out for a Tuareg-​dominated, self-​governing Azawad. In the south, where most of Mali’s population lived, Tuareg irredentism was widely viewed as the root cause of the country’s calamities. “For many southern Malians, the MNLA and other Tuareg rebel fronts are responsible for the disastrous conditions all of Mali has experienced since the onset of this recent conflict,” wrote a Malian anthropologist (Koné 2017, 56). Before 2012, political violence was foreign to most Malians, but structural violence—​ in the form of poverty, political exclusion, and social hierarchies based on race, caste, gender, and education—​was rooted deep in Malian life (Bayart 2013). The country’s economy, dominated by the production of a few primary commodities (gold, cotton, cereals, and livestock), never brought about widespread prosperity despite sustained economic growth (Moseley 2017). Agriculture, employing three-​quarters of the population, remained precarious due to erratic rainfall, and food insecurity was rife. As in much of the Sahel, climate change and high fertility rates placed significant economic and demographic pressure on Malian communities. With the nation’s population approaching twenty million—​four times its size at independence in 1960—​the scale of the human drama playing out in Mali had never been greater.

EXPLAINING MALI’S INSTABILITY To account for the extent of the Malian state’s dilapidation and the proliferation of political violence in the early twenty-​first century, Western journalists, governments, and security specialists have tended to focus on proximate causes (e.g., Islamic radicalization, state corruption, the spread of small arms, and inter-​ethnic tensions), paying little attention to the historical, social, and political-​economic context. Other accounts by both Malians and non-​Malians have sought to identify the long-​term processes underlying this instability. While these various narratives converge at points, for analytical purposes they might be grouped into three approaches: anti-​imperialist, geopolitical, and institutionalist. Each has shaped recent policy and scholarly discourse regarding Mali, yet none can entirely illuminate Mali’s situation on its own.

134   Bruce Whitehouse

Anti-​imperialist Analyses From the late colonial period, a strong anti-​imperialist perspective informed Mali’s ruling elite. Emerging during the quest for liberation from French rule, this perspective led US-​RDA intellectuals to pursue a strong central state and national identity (consolidated through a single political party) at home, and pan-​Africanist policies abroad. Wary of neocolonial designs on the region, Malian nationalists in the 1960s accused France of opposing their new country’s full sovereignty by sabotaging its federation with Senegal, and of inciting the Tuareg to revolt (I. Sidibé 2005; Lecocq 2010; Mann 2015). The seeming advocacy of continued French rule by certain Tuareg and Arab chiefs, by such means as the OCRS, constituted an unpardonable offense in Malian nationalist eyes (N. Keita 2005). For its part, the French government hoped to maintain troops on Malian soil, notably at the Tessalit garrison, after independence to support its ongoing war in Algeria. This desire fueled mistrust and resistance among Malian leaders, who fervently supported Algerian independence (Joly 2013). Modibo Keita’s regime celebrated the final departure of French forces from Mali in September 1961 as a signature achievement for the young nation, and held up Mali’s new army as a symbol of national dignity (Mann 2003); by contrast, France only withdrew from its last military base in Senegal in 2010. Suspicion of French motives has shaped Malian politics and national identity ever since. More than half a century after Mali’s independence, the specter of French meddling in Mali’s internal affairs still aroused public fears (Koné 2017). Anti-​imperialist narratives represent Mali’s “Tuareg problem” as primarily exogenous, and Tuareg rebels not only as feudal racists but also puppets of neocolonialism. Asked how Modibo Keita’s government handled the 1963 Tuareg rebellion, Seydou Badian Kouyaté—​a former minister in that government—​replied, “we went to war. That crisis was provoked by French colonists who had served in southern Algeria and some in northern Mali. Those colonists . . . pushed our brothers into rebellion” (27 September 2015). In this telling, the revolt stemmed neither from oppressive administration nor from the nomads’ history of resistance to state control, but from covert French manipulation. Malian anti-​imperialism took on an altermondialiste tone in the 1990s, with activists such as former minister of culture Aminata Dramane Traoré decrying neoliberal economic reforms as an affront to national sovereignty. Once Mali’s crisis flared in 2012, she and other critics linked it to Western efforts to destabilize the country and region. “The West’s interest is for a central Malian state without real control over the northern part of its territory,” she and a Senegalese colleague asserted (Traoré and Diop 2014, 141). Weeks into Operation Serval, a group of Mali’s most prominent public intellectuals, including Traoré and Kouyaté, warned of a “planned re-​colonization” and invoked the memory of the OCRS (FORAM 2012). Anti-​imperialist narratives sometimes nourish conspiracy theories casting Mali solely as a victim of a “great game” between global powers, and ignoring domestic drivers of rebellion and state incapacity. While such theories were popular among

Mali: Collapse and Instability    135 Malian journalists and intellectuals, Malian officials have generally refrained from openly accusing France or other foreign powers of interference. In one notable exception during a 2015 speech to Malian troops, IBK appeared to lend credence to reports in the Malian press of an arms embargo against the country (Malijet 2015). These reports accused Western governments, particularly France, of trying to destroy the country by preventing its military from rearming. Yet no embargo existed, and the Malian government continued to acquire weapons from sellers in Brazil, Russia, and elsewhere. Malian nationalists’ concern for their country’s sovereignty, however, was founded on real fears. With the country’s once-​vaunted army in disarray, over four thousand French soldiers were deployed to Mali for Operation Serval (2013–​2014), followed by one thousand posted there indefinitely for its successor Operation Barkhane. By operating out of sensitive bases including Tessalit, and allowing MNLA rebels to control Kidal, even collaborating with them on the ground to hunt jihadi fighters, French forces only added to suspicions of their true purpose in the region (Notin 2014; Wing 2016). Many Malians similarly saw the UN Mali peacekeeping mission (MINUSMA) as tainted by imperialist motives (Sabrow 2017). Nostalgia for the US-​RDA’s anti-​imperialist ideals thus surged after the events of 2012. Some Malians blamed France for the 1968 coup, and lionized the late Modibo Keita as a martyr of neocolonialism. Political language regarding Mali’s present travails frequently echoed official rhetoric on Tuareg rebellion and imperialism from the early 1960s. Former prime minister Soumana Sako, for example, lambasted the 2015 peace accord signed by the Malian government, arguing that national reconciliation should not “condone impunity nor support the survival or resurgence of slavery-​supporting feudal, racist, and obscurantist forces (Le Républicain 2017). A political party in Bamako denounced a “vast plot to undo the Malian state as a unitary, democratic and secular republic” (ADPS 2016). Such narratives thrive for good reason. As Chafer and Keese have noted: “conspiracy theories find fertile ground in the literature on Franco-​African relations precisely because they have been dominated by secrecy. Moreover, France has in many cases done precisely what the conspiracy theories claim that it does—​destabilize or prop up African regimes that are perceived as pro-​French in order to further French interests” (2013, 5). Such anti-​imperialist suspicions of French influence are at times overstated, however. Notions of a “French plot in the Sahara” often rest on unrealistic assumptions; as Boilley wrote well before the 2012 crisis, “a large portion of this fear was fantasy, ascribing to France interventionist designs that no longer operated through vague desires of political control like the OCRS, or the wish to unleash rebellions against the Malian central state” (2005, 180). France and other powers continue to defend their interests in Mali and elsewhere in the Sahel today, but their methods have changed since 1957. Many scholars have also challenged the nationalist assumption that Modibo Keita’s revolutionary regime was brought down by external forces, identifying

136   Bruce Whitehouse strong internal factors behind the breakup of the Mali Federation, the 1963–​1964 Tuareg rebellion and the 1968 coup (e.g., Mann 2003; N. Keita 2005; Lecocq 2010). Defenders of US-​RDA rule tend to exaggerate its achievements and overlook its mistakes, not least in managing the economy. Ultimately, argues Ibrahima Sidibé (2005, 351), “Malian socialism collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.” Its corresponding anti-​imperialist narratives have contradictions of their own which cannot be ignored.

Geopolitical Analysis Analytical perspectives centered on geopolitics emphasize competition among states, including the Malian government, its Sahelian neighbors, and extra-​regional players, in shaping events in Mali (Tamboura 2016). These perspectives pit the Malian state’s interests in controlling its territory, population, and resources against those of external actors pursuing their own agendas. This set of narratives overlaps with anti-​ imperialist narratives in highlighting the role of external powers and their interest in Mali’s natural resources. Foreign governments also have security and diplomatic stakes in Mali and the region. Threats posed by terrorist and criminal organizations have brought the Sahel/​Sahara to the great powers’ attention since the beginning of the US “War on Terror” (Lecocq and Schrijver 2007) and especially since 2012 (Campbell and Pham 2014). From this perspective, Mali is often presented as either blessed or cursed by the fact of a valuable geographic setting as well as abundant natural resources. Historian Doulaye Konaté described Mali’s location to an interviewer as “the transition between North Africa and Africa that reaches the ocean and the forests. This gives us an important strategic position: whoever controls Mali, controls West Africa—​if not the whole of Africa . . . that’s why this region became so coveted” (Al Jazeera 2016). N’Diaye (2013) has linked Mali’s conflict to “the covetousness that the immense resources beneath its soil inspire among Western, notably French, multinational companies with respect to oil and uranium.” In the wake of Serval, many scholars (e.g., Claudot-​Hawad 2013; Diarra 2013) agreed that foreign competition for Mali’s minerals—​particularly energy resources, but also precious metals—​had fueled conflict there and throughout the region. The real impact of Mali’s strategic minerals, however, is unclear. Some scholars (e.g., Chivvis 2016) cast doubt on mineral wealth as driving the country’s destabilization. Mali certainly has significant gold deposits, and in the 1990s became Africa’s third-​largest gold producer. But these deposits are mainly in the south and west, and in any case French spending on Operation Serval in 2013 was over twice the value of Malian gold produced, or of all French trade with Mali, that year (Notin 2014; Powell 2016). In the north, the extent of gold, uranium and other minerals is not known. With respect to oil, none was successfully drilled in Mali despite years of exploration. If deposits ever were

Mali: Collapse and Instability    137 confirmed, the cost of exploiting them would be steep and the rewards uncertain. This explains why energy companies never flocked to explore in Mali, and why many of those that did gave up even before renewed instability in 2012 (Augé 2011; IMF 2013). Northern Mali’s hydrocarbons could simply be a mirage and external powers’ purported desire for them a red herring. Indeed, Bergamaschi and Diawara (2014, 138) argue that Mali was never “the jewel of the French empire” because it lacked significant natural resources. Yet the mere possibility that they exist has long shaped Malian leaders’ actions on the ground. More compelling than Mali’s supposed riches or important location in accounting for its instability are the security interests of foreign powers, both regional and global. Numerous geopolitical narratives attest that if the Sahara is no strategic heartland (Lacoste 2011), it is a zone where real and assumed threats to various governments abounded after 9/​11. Violent jihadi groups in northern Mali began as a consequence of civil war in neighboring Algeria during the 1990s and have posed a determined menace to the Algerian government ever since. By kidnapping Westerners and holding them for ransom in the Sahara, they also became a Western concern even before they affiliated with al-​Qaeda in 2007 (Harmon 2014). The Malian government was slow to recognize the jihadis as a serious threat, and may even have reached an informal non-​aggression pact with AQIM (Lasserre and Oberlé 2013; Moyar 2015). Yet northern Mali’s 2012 occupation exposed violent jihad in the Sahara and Sahel as a major risk to the region’s relatively weak states. Despite decades of Malian military cooperation with the United States, China, Russia, and other states, France became the most prominent external actor with respect to Mali’s security when it launched Operation Serval in 2013. The French government identified three short-​term goals: securing Bamako and its expatriate residents, halting the jihadi insurgency, and restoring Mali’s territorial integrity (Chivvis 2016). Of these, it was arguably successful only in achieving the first: if the complete collapse of the Malian state was averted, separatist resistance and resurgent jihadi militants kept vast areas of northern Mali outside state control. France also hoped to locate its citizens held by insurgents in the region, but Serval freed none of the eight French hostages then in captivity; one was later killed and the others released in prisoner swaps. Long-​term interests were also at stake. Uranium in neighboring Niger, a major source of fuel for France’s nuclear reactors, was among them, as was the necessity to keep Mali from becoming a safe haven for militants who could strike at French citizens, embassies, and businesses in Africa. Intervention additionally served a French strategic interest to which Mali was merely incidental: it raised France’s profile on the world stage. This was among Hollande’s central goals and Mali was a convenient venue for projecting French military power, particularly given other actors’ unwillingness to deploy troops there. Serval “allowed France to demonstrate its willingness to take responsibility for dealing with global terrorism in ‘its’ area of influence,” writes Chafer (2016: 131). Serval provided the French defense ministry with an opportunity to reclaim

138   Bruce Whitehouse authority over defense policy lost under the previous administration (Henke 2017) and showcased, in the face of potential defense budget cuts, a robust military as vital for protecting French interests at home and abroad (Chivvis 2016) and maintaining France’s status as a global power. But protecting French material and symbolic interests came at a cost to Malians beset by insurgent violence, crime, and injustice in their still-​fractured country. French troops came to hunt terrorists, not protect Mali’s people or restore its territorial integrity. Predictions that foreign military intervention would facilitate internal Malian dynamics of conflict resolution and stabilization proved misplaced. Hollande’s Malian gambit was a tactical success but no strategic victory (Boeke and Schuurman 2015; Pérouse de Montclos 2020): while it helped prop up the Malian government, it also added new international dimensions to an already complex situation and lacked a clear exit strategy. By taking the pressure off Bamako’s political establishment to make structural reforms necessary for lasting peace, French and UN military presence in Mali was partly counterproductive (Powell 2016). Even if geopolitical dynamics were not primarily behind Mali’s destabilization, then, they exacerbated the conflict already underway and made the Malian state more fragile.

Institutionalist Analyses Institutionalism ascribes a country’s success—​or lack thereof—​to the quality of its political and economic institutions. This type of analysis highlights such problems as government corruption, poor public infrastructure and services, and weak rule of law as the underlying factors affecting stability and prosperity. Where institutions are “extractive” they take wealth from one segment of a population to benefit another. Because states with extractive institutions have no capacity to hold powerful actors accountable to those with less power or enforce rules and contracts that serve broad public interests (especially when doing so would threaten elite privileges), they are prone to conflict and economic stagnation (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012). Mali’s postcolonial institutions have been extractive in many respects. The multiparty system set up in the early 1990s had no grounding in the political realities of Malian society, and most parties functioned as vehicles for personal advancement rather than political change (Sanankoua 2007). State bureaucracy and public services, heavily concentrated in Bamako, were plagued by deficiencies (O. Sidibé 2013). Yet despite grave threats to the nation since 2012, its ruling elite resisted calls for political reform and inclusive dialogue, seeking instead to restore the pre-​coup order (Marchal 2013; Bleck et al. 2016). Their exclusionary and self-​serving rule perpetuated the illusion of a functional state while delivering a bare minimum of public goods, leading critics to brand the post-​2012 Malian state a clever fake or an illusion (Dramé 2017; Craven-​Matthews and Englebert 2018). From an institutionalist perspective “there is little doubt that the

Mali: Collapse and Instability    139 erosion of democracy, rise of criminality, and impunity of state officials are at the very root of the Malian crisis” (Wing 2013, 481). Why was corruption so rampant, and why did Mali lack modern state institutions like effective policing, impartial courts, a professional civil service, and checks on executive power? Baudais (2015) blames the neopatrimonial practices of Mali’s ruling elite under successive regimes. These practices were partly an inheritance from French administrators: as elsewhere in the Sahel, colonial governance was authoritarian, unaccountable, clientelistic, and corrupt—​characteristics amplified by Mali’s new rulers after independence (Olivier de Sardan 2007; Sanankoua 2007), rendering state agencies incapable of fulfilling their duties This incapacity was evident in the way the Malian government dealt with donors. Budget support from foreign governments was not effectively monitored, and Malian officials were rarely punished for embezzling public funds. Mali’s ruling elite made a show of being compliant aid recipients, ensuring that aid flows continued and even increased, while stymying bids to make the Malian state more transparent and accountable to its citizens (Bergamaschi 2014). In fact, the Malian government proved adept over the years at exploiting competing donor agendas and domesticating foreign aid priorities to serve its own political ends (Bergamaschi 2016). Similar institutional failings undermined the nation’s armed forces. By 2012 the army was a mire of corruption and nepotism, with a top-​heavy command structure estranged from the rank and file. Foreign military assistance programs, sponsored notably by the United States, poured millions of dollars’ worth of training and equipment into structures unable to absorb them. New supplies were often stored rather than issued to troops in need, and organizational culture was “overrun by apathy,” according to a US Special Forces officer who advised Malian army units in the decade preceding the coup (Powelson 2013, 31). The result was a military unable to counter militant threats or even safeguard its own assets, virtually inviting rebellion. Insurgents captured large quantities of government weapons and hardware on the battlefield and from conquered barracks. Studies of fallen rebels’ arms found their most common source to be Malian army stockpiles, not Libyan or other foreign depots (Notin 2014; Small Arms Survey 2015). Against the backdrop of “empirical state failure,” where state provision of security and public services was poor or absent, government forces were ill-​suited to wage a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at winning the hearts and minds of local populations, even in areas not previously occupied by Tuareg or jihadi fighters. Filling the void left by the state, jihadi groups and ethnic militias offered protection and, for some, the opportunity to contest local power hierarchies or penetrate lucrative smuggling networks. Soldiers sent to quell insurgent activity in the Mopti region only alienated local civilians by engaging in counterproductive operations that sometimes included the detention, extortion, or abuse of civilians, thereby further delegitimizing the Malian government (Jézéquel 2016; Sangaré 2016; Théroux-​Bénoni et al. 2016).

140   Bruce Whitehouse Where a weak or failing state is concerned, institutionalist analysis situates the primary source of instability firmly within its national boundaries, ascribing agency (and responsibility) to the nation’s population and political elite. “In the end, the country’s future will not be determined so much by MINUSMA and the international community as by Mali’s inhabitants and its leaders,” write Boeke and Tisseron (2014, 38). This declaration illustrates that institutionalist explanations can overlook the ways outsiders incapacitate weak states and the extent to which structural forces constrain local abilities to effect meaningful change. As Sassen (2014, 85–​86) puts it, talk of failed states leaves out many of the negative effects that key actors of the international governance system, notably the IMF and the WTO, have had on program countries. Such language represents these states’ decay as endogenous, a function of their own weaknesses and corruptions. . . . But it is important to remember that it often is and was the vested interests of foreign governments and firms that enabled the corruption and weakening of these states.

The brutal impact of neoliberal policies on the state, the hollowing out of public institutions and the promotion of an illusory democracy, all under the watchful eye of donors, did not merely fail to promote good governance in Mali; this combination of exogenous factors actively subverted it (Sanankoua 2007) and empowered the country’s extractive rulers.

CONCLUSION In isolation, none of the three explanatory narratives reviewed in this chapter can properly account for the crisis Mali underwent in the second decade of the twenty-​first century. The forces that destabilized Mali did not materialize suddenly, but rather took shape over a very long period. They are too convoluted to be understood as primarily internal or primarily external. It is true that generations of leaders in Mali made poor choices that undermined the integrity of national institutions, but it is equally true that these negative consequences were magnified by external factors beyond those leaders’ control. Mali’s destabilization must be recognized as a co-​production of inside and outside forces—​a complex assemblage of self-​serving Malian elites, donor governments oblivious to their actions’ harmful consequences, and foreign actors pursuing their own ends. This assemblage took shape during the colonial period and continues to evolve. Just as importantly, the forces of destabilization continued to act on Mali well after concerted French, UN, and African efforts to stabilize the country began in 2013. They defied emergency measures and standardized approaches to conflict resolution

Mali: Collapse and Instability    141 precisely because they were the products not of an acute crisis but of the accumulation of tensions, injustices, and grievances over decades. And since the roots of these tensions were both internal and external to Mali, their solutions will similarly require the cooperation of people in Mali, in neighboring countries, and beyond. The future of Malian national unity and identity probably lies not in a return to its revolutionary days of the 1960s, nor in a strengthening of the secular republic and highly centralized state structure that Mali’s leaders inherited from colonial rule. That old order is beyond salvaging. Neither is whatever lies ahead likely to entail ethnic homogenization, as for centuries this society has been multi-​ethnic and open to the outside world. Instability in Mali and throughout the Sahel made the limitations of the Westphalian nation-​state apparent. It may be in this part of the world that new political frameworks will be invented, with the flexibility to accommodate difference and the resilience to guarantee citizens’ basic rights and well-​being.

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chapter 8

BURKINA FAS O Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open Ernest Harsch

As elsewhere in the Sahel, Burkina Faso’s history and development have been shaped by a combination of forces from within and without. External influences have weighed heavily not only because of ongoing French engagement, but also due to the landlocked nation’s location between its equally poor and arid Sahelian neighbors to the north and the more developed and fertile coastal societies to the south. Meanwhile, domestic political life has alternated between periods of seeming stasis and times of abrupt change. The turbulent first decades of independence, marked by coups and revolution, were followed by more than a quarter of a century of entrenched authoritarian rule. Then, in 2014, a dramatic popular insurrection ousted the autocrat Blaise Compaoré and, after a difficult transition, led to democratic elections and renewed constitutional government. The actors in that turnaround were motivated largely by national concerns, principally a desire for more democratic space and opposition to Compaoré’s corruption and crude efforts to hang onto power beyond the constitutional term limit. Opposition and civil society activists, however, also drew inspiration from elsewhere, mainly the popular movements that helped defeat comparable attempts at constitutional overreach in Niger (2009) and Senegal (2011). The demise of deep-​seated despotisms in North Africa in the Arab Spring also left an imprint. Those examples encouraged Burkinabè to press harder against their own regime. The year 2014 thus marked a watershed. It opened tentative new directions for domestic politics and for social and economic policy. Some dared dream that a “new Burkina Faso” was possible, as touted by public billboards in Ouagadougou and other cities. Yet while relations between the government and its citizens held the potential for greater interchange, they remained unsettled. The uncertainty was compounded by diverse challenges. Not least among them was the sudden escalation of regional jihadi attacks from 2015 onward. That threat reshaped national security concerns, and

148   Ernest Harsch placed a higher priority on strengthening the bonds between Burkina Faso and the rest of the Sahel.

SOCIETY AND NATION The societies that later became part of Upper Volta (as the French eventually named their colony) had almost no direct contact with European powers until 1888, when a French representative attempted to engage the Mossi empire, the largest and most populous indigenous entity. Mogho Naaba Wobgho, the highest Mossi traditional leader, spurned that overture, just as the Mossi had previously rebuffed earlier contacts by Christian missionaries and resisted large-​scale conversion to Islam (unlike most other Sahelian societies). Soon several French military campaigns were launched from the north, first annexing the Mossi principality of Yatenga in 1895 and the following year capturing Ouagadougou, the center of the empire. Since the reigning Mogho Naaba withdrew into exile rather than surrender, French commanders enthroned his brother, who promptly signed a treaty placing “the Mossi and all the territories that legitimately depend on it” (Mossi or non-​Mossi vassal states) under the “exclusive protection and absolute sovereignty of France” (Pacere 1981, 152; see also Bretout 1976). The Mossi (who comprise about half of today’s twenty million citizens) were at the core of the new colonial possession, given their numbers and central geographical location. There were other peoples too. Liptako, a theocratic Islamic emirate of the Peul (as West Africa’s Fulani are locally known), was incorporated into Upper Volta, formally established as a French colony in 1919. Because of extensive resistance, it took years for French forces to subjugate the Bobo, Samo, Lobi, Gourounsi, Gourmantché, Tuareg, and others, many of whom had either no traditions of chieftaincy or only local village chiefs (Kambou-​Ferrand 1993; Saul and Royer 2001). The Mossi, by contrast, had an extensive, hierarchical chieftaincy system throughout their home areas in the center (Skinner 1964). The early colonial authorities initially tried to disregard those Mossi chiefs, but ultimately saw the utility of enlisting their assistance, a French variant of “indirect rule” that enabled Paris to manage the colony with relatively few expatriates. Although Upper Volta’s subjects were from many different ethnic groups, the close ties between the colonial administrators and the Mossi chiefs gave a pronounced Mossi cast to the colony, stirring some resentment among non-​Mossi elites, although hardly any overt conflict (Beucher 2009, 18–​21). The French saw few exploitable resources other than Upper Volta’s labor. Under the French legal code for colonial subjects, the indigénat, labor and military service were compulsory and refusal punishable by fine or imprisonment. During World War I, France conscripted more than two hundred thousand troops from its sub-​Saharan colonies, a significant proportion of them from Upper Volta. The French authorities annually ordered tens of thousands to build roads, bridges, and other infrastructure in Upper Volta or dispatched them to work the plantations of Côte d’Ivoire or help lay

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    149 regional railway lines (Massa and Madiéga 1995). Those conscriptions helped establish the pattern of massive out-​migration that persists to this day, largely to Côte d’Ivoire. They also deprived domestic agriculture of much able-​bodied labor, hampering its development, except for the cotton sector, which also had its origins in compulsory colonial-​era cultivation. France was ambivalent about its colonial enterprise in Upper Volta. To cut administrative costs and make Voltaic workers even more available to neighboring French-​ ruled territories, Paris simply suppressed the colony in 1932, with the largest portion, in both territory and population, incorporated directly into Côte d’Ivoire (as Haute Côte d’Ivoire), the circles of Ouahigouya and a small part of Dédougou merged into Soudan (Mali), and Gourma and Liptako attached to Niger. After the end of World War II—​a time of wider change in France’s increasingly turbulent colonial empire—​the authorities in Paris decided in September 1947 to reconstitute Upper Volta as an “overseas territory” within its former boundaries. Although the Mossi chiefs had favored restoration, the primary French motivation had less to do with affairs in Upper Volta than a desire to play off the politically conservative Mossi chiefs against radical nationalists in Côte d’Ivoire, where Félix Houphouët-​Boigny was then allied with the French Communist Party (Balima 1996). The uncertain existence of Upper Volta as a distinct entity, the continued French reliance on the Mossi chieftaincy to maintain domestic order, and the exceptionally small number of indigenous Voltaics educated in Christian missionary schools and employed directly by the colonial state combined to hinder the emergence of a robust nationalist current. For the non-​royal Voltaic elites, it was hard to conceive a shared proto-​national “imagined community” (Anderson 1991) that could aspire to independent statehood, as occurred in many other colonial territories. The most prominent local political figure, Ouezzin Coulibaly, a Bobo from the west, was initially most active on a regional stage (serving as a deputy from Houphouët-​Boigny’s party to the French National Assembly) before returning home to Upper Volta. Upper Volta gained its sovereignty on 5 August 1960, not because of domestic pressure for independence, which was minimal, but because the French government itself had decided to shed its overt political control. By that point, Coulibaly had died and Maurice Yaméogo had ascended to head the largest political party, thus becoming the country’s first president. Although a Mossi, Yaméogo was of commoner background and had a conflictual relationship with the Mossi aristocracy. He also became very autocratic from the outset, using threats and bribery to force opposition deputies to join his party, and repression to drive out those who refused to submit. In such ways, Yaméogo initiated a pattern of heavy-​handed rule that was to persist for decades. Yet for Yaméogo himself, repression, electoral manipulation, and corruption worked for only a half-​decade. His regime not only angered ordinary citizens because of its arbitrariness and crude economic austerity policies, but also alienated important sectors of the elites, including the Catholic hierarchy and the traditional Mossi chieftaincy. With the well-​organized trade unions in the lead, a broad social and political alliance emerged to directly challenge Yaméogo. The movement culminated on 3 January 1966

150   Ernest Harsch with a general strike and a veritable popular uprising that paralyzed Ouagadougou. When Yaméogo ordered the military to disperse protesters with gunfire, the army commander, Lt. Col. Sangoulé Lamizana, refused. As protesters chanted “L’Armée au pouvoir!,” Yaméogo resigned and Lamizana took over (Guirma 1991, 139–​147). The events of that day had two lasting repercussions. They gave nongovernmental actors a sense of their power, subsequently inspiring trade unions, student associations, and others to repeatedly stand up to perceived injustices and arbitrary rule. But they also established a tradition of extensive military involvement in political life, sometimes with apparent public support or acquiescence, sometimes in conflict with organized civil groups. Lamizana’s regime was more durable. Although he and other officers usually played the dominant roles, pacts with the main political parties brought two periods of elected legislatures and civilian prime ministers. The latter government, elected in 1977–​1978, followed an abortive attempt by Lamizana to establish a single-​party regime, defeated by a union-​led general strike (Muase 1989). In fact, labor agitation, student protests, and other forms of popular discontent were regular features of social life throughout the 1970s, stoked by famine and difficult living conditions. Such pressures from below opened the way for a notable degree of political pluralism. They also contributed to rifts within the military command. Those differences resulted in two successive coups, one by conservative colonels in 1980 and another by an uneasy amalgam of conservative and radical officers two years later. Alarmed by the anti-​imperialist stance of the leading radical officer (and prime minister), Captain Thomas Sankara, France tacitly supported an internal coup by the more conservative wing in May 1983 to depose him. By that point, however, Sankara and his comrades had managed to build a strong base among the army’s junior officers and rank-​and-​file soldiers, as well as an alliance with several leftist parties, the most militant union federation, and student activists. The coup only further enflamed anti-​French sentiments and prompted Sankara’s supporters to mobilize in opposition. By August 1983 they were strong enough to march on Ouagadougou and install Sankara as president (Andriamirado 1987; Jaffré 1989). Sankara’s Conseil national de la révolution (CNR) lasted for just over four years. True to its name, the governing council sought to bring sweeping changes to most aspects of political, social, and economic life. In 1984, it renamed the country Burkina Faso (“land of the upright people”) and sought to project a new national identity that encompassed all ethnic groups. The old political parties were banned and many of their leaders, along with other public officials and military officers, were tried for corruption and imprisoned. Although predominantly military in composition, the CNR included representatives of a shifting array of Marxist-​inspired political formations. At the local level, it established thousands of neighborhood and village Comités de défense de la révolution (CDRs). Those committees facilitated the extension of the state to outlying areas that previously had little contact with the administration and provided potential avenues for social advancement for many youths, women, and members of previously marginalized ethnic and caste groups. During the revolution’s first two years in particular, the CDRs helped stimulate widespread community mobilizations to build

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    151 schools, health clinics, water reservoirs, and other basic infrastructure, although in some urban areas in particular undisciplined CDR activists also carried out serious abuses and rights violations (Harsch 2014). Eventually, a more coercive wing of the CNR emerged behind Captain Blaise Compaoré, drawing support from a diverse and contradictory assortment of actors: repressive Stalinist factions opposed to Sankara’s leadership, sectors of the Mossi aristocracy upset by efforts to sideline customary chiefs, and the now strongly pro-​French Ivorian government of Houphouët-​Boigny, whose adopted daughter Compaoré had married. On 15 October 1987, soldiers loyal to Compaoré assassinated Sankara, dissolved the CNR, and established a new government under Compaoré. Although the CNR was thus relatively short-​lived, it left a lasting imprint. The new national identity took root among many Burkinabè—​including critics of the revolutionary era—​who took pride in Burkina Faso’s distinctly African and multi-​ethnic character. For young Burkinabè, the memory of Sankara as a heroic revolutionary provided a frequent reference point for their expressions of discontent with the new order.

THE COSTS OF “STABILITY” Compaoré’s successor regime was long lasting, surviving for twenty-​ seven years through a combination of factors. The most important, especially in the early years, was the regime’s ruthlessness, with military and police action compensating for its unpopularity. The repression was directed against real and perceived opponents: anyone who remained loyal to Sankara’s revolutionary heritage, potential rivals within the new ruling circles (several of whom were assassinated or summarily executed), leaders of emergent opposition parties, and independent journalists, student leaders, or other activists who dared challenge the regime. The threat of death, imprisonment, torture, or exile silenced many others. The durability of Compaoré’s rule also lay in its political adaptability (Otayek, Sawadogo, and Guingané 1996). Within a few years the authorities jettisoned the remnants of their anti-​imperialist rhetoric, and in the early 1990s joined the shift across Africa toward elected multiparty political systems, a move that facilitated more overt support from France, the United States, and other major powers. While that formal democratic transition opened the way to important constitutional liberties—​including freedoms of the press, assembly, and association and the right to periodically elect government representatives—​the heavy hand of repression closed off any real possibility of political change through electoral means. Many scholars thus deemed the regime to be “semi-​authoritarian” rather than democratic (Hilgers and Mazzocchetti 2010). Also accounting for the system’s relative stability, Compaoré and his colleagues managed to fashion a formidable patronage machine, known by the mid-​1990s as the Congrès pour la démocratie et le progrès (CDP), incorporating the small political groups that had participated in the 1987 coup and segments of the elite parties of earlier decades.

152   Ernest Harsch The CDP drew its authority and resources from control of the state apparatus, with all civil servants expected to belong, party leaders permitted to embezzle from public enterprises and other state institutions, and prominent businesspeople awarded public contracts and monopolistic markets in exchange for financing the party. Unlike some of the looser forms of patronage prevalent elsewhere in Africa (and earlier in Burkina Faso itself), the system built around the CDP had a centrally controlled “quasi-​Prussian character” that channeled power and resources largely through the president’s office, according to the prominent Burkinabè academic Augustin Loada (1998, 73). Meanwhile, periodic elections lent a veneer of legitimacy. The CDP and its allies generated overwhelming victories for their candidates, initially with voting fraud, manipulation of the electoral code, and amendments to the constitution that permitted Compaoré to bypass the original two-​term limit on the presidency. Progressively over time the CDP had sufficient resources to lessen its reliance on outright fraud and could simply buy off key brokers. It also used corruption and state power to keep the opposition parties weak and divided among themselves. Foreign election observers, focusing narrowly on the balloting process, not the broader political and electoral system, almost invariably deemed those elections to be free and fair. Any criticisms from the Western powers were further muted after the Burkinabè government decided in the late 2000s to enlist in US-​led anti-​terrorist operations in the Sahel. The adoption of a facade of electoral democracy was accompanied in 1991 by the first of numerous economic liberalization programs promoted by the IMF and the World Bank (Zagré 1994). Those agreements led to the abrupt privatization of numerous state-​ owned enterprises, the wholesale liberalization of domestic and international trade, and sharp cuts in state spending. For ordinary Burkinabè, especially in the cities, the results were traumatic: jobs eliminated in the public sector, domestic manufacturers unable to compete with the influx of cheap imports (leading to more job losses), and health and education services constrained even further. Meanwhile, Burkina Faso became one of the donor community’s most favored recipients of financial aid and debt relief. Those funds partly offset the social repercussions of austerity, while the economy more generally managed to register relatively robust growth rates (averaging 5.9 percent a year between 2000 and 2013). That growth, however, was unbalanced. As services and the informal sector grew, manufacturing declined. Although cotton farming experienced a major revival, the rest of agriculture—​mainly small-​scale food farming—​stagnated. In the latter 2000s, gold and other mining suddenly took off. By 2013 Burkina Faso had become the fourth largest gold producer in Africa. Yet mining did little to stimulate other sectors of the economy and added only several thousand permanent jobs. Nor did the benefits of economic growth percolate downwards. Poverty rates scarcely budged during the 1990s and 2000s, stubbornly remaining in the 44–​47 percent range throughout those decades. In 2003, the UN estimated the country’s measure of income inequality, the Gini index, at 50.6, ranking Burkina Faso as one of the most unequal in Africa (UNDP 2007, 292). Not all suffered. The regime’s patronage methods not only diverted state resources toward narrowly partisan purposes, but also opened opportunities for personal graft

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    153 among top officeholders. CDP leaders and public officials from national to local levels frequently abused their positions to embezzle funds, speculate in real estate, and secure lucrative markets. Business financiers of the party were awarded favored import or construction contracts and received judicial immunity when they were caught in fraudulent deals or failed to complete projects. Over time, members of the president’s immediate family positioned themselves increasingly at the center of such schemes and enriched themselves considerably. Corruption also had a military side. In the 1990s and early 2000s the government’s support to various African rebel forces in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, and Côte d’Ivoire featured profiteering by parts of the army. Usually, diamonds and other precious commodities taken from rebel-​ controlled zones were channeled to key Burkinabè (including officers and presidential relatives) in exchange for help in arranging illegal arms shipments and other support for the rebels.

FROM DISSENT TO INSURRECTION Dissatisfaction with Compaoré’s rule and the country’s difficult economic and social conditions stirred resistance. With the main opposition parties unable to channel discontent through the electoral arena, labor, student, and civil society activists had little option but to take their grievances to the streets. Alongside countless local protests, often over specific economic and social issues, there were several major cycles of national agitation. The first wave erupted immediately after the assassination in December 1998 of independent journalist Norbert Zongo by members of the elite Régiment de sécurité présidentielle (RSP). Coming after numerous other killings, Zongo’s murder set off an unprecedented series of massive protests that lasted for months and reached most corners of the country (Hagberg 2002). The government and ruling party were forced to make major concessions and emerged from the crisis notably weakened. Pockets of dissent developed even within the state, mostly in the justice system, a few local governments, and the military. A second protest wave erupted in early 2011, sparked by the fatal police beating of a secondary school student. Initially led by students and directed primarily against police brutality, the agitation expanded over months into a series of labor marches, merchants’ protests, judges’ strikes, farmers’ boycotts, and community attacks on mining sites. Especially unsettling were rank-​and-​file army and police mutinies, hitting most major garrisons across the country. Even soldiers of the RSP revolted, attacking the home of their commander, Gilbert Diendéré, and firing rockets at the presidential palace, prompting Compaoré to flee the capital (Chouli 2012). Many new civil society organizations emerged, some of them, such as Balai citoyen (Citizens’ Broom), especially assertive and popular among youth. New opposition parties also formed, most notably the Union pour le progrès et le changement (UPC) of Zéphirin Diabré. Whether organized or spontaneous, protest became virtually endemic.

154   Ernest Harsch Yet rather than address people’s grievances—​or the fundamental flaws in the political system—​the authorities played for time. They also drew inward. Distrustful of the regular army, Compaoré relied heavily on his RSP. Many of the ruling CDP’s longtime figures were sidelined in 2012 and the party leadership was taken over by a small circle personally loyal to the president and his brother, François Compaoré. Oblivious to the erosion of his support, the president then provoked a final confrontation by trying to undermine Article 37 of the constitution, which specified the limit requiring Compaoré to step aside at the end of his term in 2015. Large demonstrations in defense of Article 37 swept the country, organized by a loose alliance of opposition parties, civic activists, and union federations. After Compaoré publicly announced that he would call a referendum to amend Article 37, the latent rifts within the CDP itself burst into the open. In January 2014, former party president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré led a significant segment of the party’s old leadership to walk out. Reversing their previous stance, they vowed to defend the constitution’s term limit and immediately joined the opposition-​led street demonstrations. Three months later they formed their own party, the Mouvement du peuple pour le progrès (MPP). That open split in the established political elite gave a direct boost to the broader protest movement, prompting many more people to turn out. Anti-​government agitation peaked during the last week of October 2014, when the authorities scheduled a National Assembly vote to directly amend Article 37 (without even resorting to a public referendum). Women, trade unions, opposition parties, and civil society groups organized a succession of rallies, with one in Ouagadougou reaching close to a million people and hundreds of thousands more hitting the streets in other cities (Bantenga 2015). Although opposition leaders still wielded some authority among the demonstrators, Balai citoyen and other activist groups assumed the practical leadership. On 30 October, large crowds massed in central Ouagadougou. One portion stormed the legislature and set it on fire, physically blocking the vote on the proposed amendment. Others seized the national television and radio studios and sacked the homes and businesses of prominent CDP leaders. After RSP soldiers and riot police shot into crowds of demonstrators (eventually killing more than two dozen), the protesters became even more enraged. A large march set out for the presidential palace on the outskirts of Ouagadougou to demand Compaoré’s immediate resignation, but RSP gunfire prevented the marchers from reaching their destination. The following day, with much of Ouagadougou and other major cities again occupied by demonstrators, Compaoré abruptly fled to Côte d’Ivoire (Harsch 2017). The sudden collapse of the Compaoré regime was greeted with widespread celebration, but also uncertainties over the future. Several military officers sought to step into the political vacuum and proclaimed themselves transitional leaders. The opposition parties and the international community opposed a military-​led transition, although some activist currents were open to military involvement if that would avoid further bloodshed. Two weeks of negotiations resulted in a compromise arrangement: a civilian president (former diplomat Michel Kafando), a predominantly civilian cabinet but with Lieutenant-​Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida (then deputy RSP commander) as prime

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    155 minister, and a composite transitional parliament of party representatives, military officers, and civil society figures. The transitional government was on shaky ground, facing both resistance from the still formidable remnants of the old order and pressures from mobilized activist networks to push ahead with sweeping reforms. It ultimately survived, not only initiating major reforms but also beating back a coup attempt by the RSP in September 2015, thanks to renewed popular mobilizations. Most importantly, in November 2015 the transitional government organized Burkina Faso’s most open and democratic election ever. In that poll, Kaboré won the presidency and his MPP took the largest share of National Assembly seats (although not a majority, leading to a coalition in both the legislature and government). By the start of 2016, constitutional order had been restored with the installation of a newly elected government that enjoyed broad recognition and legitimate authority—​ and with the military officially out of any direct political role. For many, the country’s emergence from a quarter century of autocratic rule seemed to promise a new beginning. Yet the potential pathways opened up by the events of 2014 were still not clear. Looking forward, Burkina Faso’s citizens and their new officeholders faced numerous questions. How would they tackle the legacies of poor governance, injustice, and corruption left from the past? How would they grapple with the economic, social, and environmental difficulties they shared with their Sahelian neighbors? And how would they face the new and unexpected security challenges posed by deadly insurgent attacks?

LEGITIMACY, REFORM, AND JUSTICE Long after the elections, a recurrent issue came up in political debates: Where did political legitimacy lie? To donor representatives and party leaders allied with the new government, the answer was obvious: it rested with those who had won an electoral mandate in 2015, in accordance with constitutional principles. But many Burkinabè had limited confidence in vote tallies or the formal letter of the law. For years they had experienced a dual reality, a “shadow play” of elections and constitutionalism designed to please donor agencies, and alongside it an unofficial political world ruled by crude power, monopoly, and arbitrariness (Hilgers and Mazzocchetti 2010, 11). Their skepticism was compounded by the backgrounds of Kaboré and many of his MPP colleagues, who for years had served and benefited from the old political system and who still engaged in comparable patronage practices. To critics of that order—​including many of the leading activists who helped bring down Compaoré—​genuine legitimacy lay elsewhere; it came from “the people,” whether expressed in civil society campaigns or street protests. Even moderate figures such as the transitional president, Michel Kafando, agreed that legitimacy did not come only from the ballot box, but was also held by those thrown to the fore by the insurrection, “the direct and spontaneous emanation of the people’s will” (Conseil national de la transition 2015, 5).

156   Ernest Harsch To some extent, the frequent strikes, sit-​ins, community agitation, and other forms of disquiet that continued to roil the country not only reflected the population’s high expectations of change but also common perceptions that ordinary citizens had an inherent right to express themselves, however they chose. Officials often characterized such unrest as disruptive and complained that it made their job of governing all the harder. But activists saw the ferment as signaling a vital new era of popular engagement that could check abuses of power. As the popular rapper and Balai citoyen leader Smockey argued: “It’s important to maintain some form of counter-​power, to force the government to respect its commitments. If this balance is allowed to disappear, there will be a risk of the old ghosts coming back” (cited by the Agence France-​Presse, 3 December 2015). Balai citoyen and other Burkinabè groups also believed that maintaining such counter-​power required building regional solidarity in the struggle against authoritarianism. Accordingly, they forged links with similar activist groups in Mali, Senegal, and elsewhere. Smockey explained, “We share the same visions and dreams for the continent” (author’s interview, 28 April 2016). Because mobilized popular pressure is difficult to sustain, reformers sought to strengthen institutional checks against arbitrary rule. In 2015, the transitional legislature—​led by its civil society representatives—​enacted several notable measures, from enhancing the power of the official anticorruption agency to revising the armed forces statutes to minimize military involvement in politics. Most significantly, the legislators amended the constitution. Among other things, the amendments “locked in” the presidential term limit as a permanent feature, allowed independent candidates in all elections, and permitted any citizen to challenge a law’s constitutionality. A constitutional commission was subsequently established to prepare a draft of an entirely new charter for the Fifth Republic, which, among other things, would further expand citizens’ rights and strengthen the powers of the legislature and other oversight bodies. Achieving greater justice was another major goal. Previously, only rarely were high-​ level officials or businesspeople suspected of misdeeds brought before the courts. As a small step toward overhauling the judiciary, an “estates general” of the justice sector agreed in 2015 to enhance judicial independence, improve training, impose strict sanctions against corrupt judges, and make the legal process more accessible to ordinary citizens. The constitutional amendments later that year sought greater independence for the judiciary by excluding both the president and the Ministry of Justice from the body that regulates court affairs and oversees judges’ assignments and promotions. To begin countering the legacy of impunity for high-​level crimes, both civilian and military courts started investigating, preparing, and scheduling major cases: a trial of a former customs director on bribery charges and a series of indictments against former RSP officers and soldiers, including General Diendéré and others for the assassinations of Sankara and Zongo and the deaths of protesters during the failed 2015 coup attempt. In addition, a murder trial of most ministers of Compaoré’s last cabinet was initiated (but then suspended) in 2017—​with the former president himself charged in absentia—​ for authorizing troops to shoot demonstrators during the anti-​government protests

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    157 of October 2014. Those judicial processes were excruciatingly slow, however, with the coup trial not concluding until September 2019 and the start of the others remaining uncertain. Many agreed that justice was also long overdue for ordinary citizens. One step in that direction was the installation in 2016 of a High Council for Reconciliation and National Unity, responsible for expediting action in more than five thousand unresolved cases of economic and “blood” crimes dating back to 1960. Since calls for justice were most prominent following the downfall of the Compaoré regime, the political polarization of the time left only limited room for notions of reconciliation. During the early transition period, dozens of leaders of the former ruling CDP and its allies were barred from running in the 2015 elections, a move that those parties and some independent analysts viewed as vindictive. The CDP itself emerged from the elections as the third largest party in parliament (after the MPP and UPC), demonstrating that it retained a notable support base despite its loss of state power. The CDP and several allied parties mounted a public campaign to promote national reconciliation. Supporters of the MPP and some of the more vocal activist groups reacted negatively, insisting that justice first had to be achieved before reconciliation was possible. Whatever its specifics or timing, many Burkinabè nevertheless agreed that some form of reconciliation would eventually be needed to move the country forward—​ especially as Burkina Faso confronted new security threats.

SECURITY TO THE FORE For years, the regional orientation of the authorities in Ouagadougou faced two directions. From independence onward, Côte d’Ivoire was the major foreign policy preoccupation since that country hosted so many Burkinabè migrants. For a time in the 1970s and 1980s, two brief border wars with Mali shifted some attention toward the Sahel. Then the Ivorian civil war of 2002–​2011 directly threatened Burkina Faso’s own security and economic health, reasserting that neighbor’s preeminence. Many Burkinabè were aware of other security challenges looming to their north, given the extent of armed insurgency afflicting Mali, Niger, Algeria, and eventually Libya. At the time, however, none of those conflicts directly touched Burkina Faso. Compaoré then served as a West African mediator in various regional conflicts, including Mali, and Diendéré maintained contacts with the leaderships of some insurgent groups, reportedly helping arrange ransom payments to free European hostages. As a result, an informal “non-​aggression pact,” as some analysts termed it, was observed by both the government and the regional insurgent forces (Bayiri, 18 January 2016). Whatever the nature of that arrangement, it came to an end with Compaoré’s overthrow and Diendéré’s imprisonment. Since mid-​2015 there have been many terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso, claiming hundreds of lives. The three most dramatic were in the heart of Ouagadougou in January

158   Ernest Harsch 2016, August 2017, and March 2018. The 2016 and 2018 assaults were claimed by fighters affiliated with al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or its broader alliance, the Groupe de soutien à l’islam et aux musulmans (GSIM). Most of the other attacks were in the far-​northern provinces. Some were carried out by AQIM or other regional groups (including an Islamic State affiliate) operating from across the borders. But from December 2016 onward many were the work of a new Burkinabè-​led jihadi group called Ansarul Islam (“defenders of Islam”), initially led by Ibrahim Malam Dicko, an Islamic preacher from the northern town of Djibo. Its first major strike was on a military base in the northern province of Soum that killed a dozen troops. From early 2017, Ansarul Islam fighters carried out other attacks on military, police, and gendarme targets. They also threatened civilians who were seen to be collaborating with the army or other state institutions, including teachers. Many primary and secondary teachers abandoned their classrooms in Soum, and some civil servants in neighboring provinces stayed home as well. Ansarul Islam was believed to number only around one hundred active fighters, yet the overall weakness of state institutions in the north contributed to an appearance that the government was losing control. The attacks and threats stirred national outrage and provoked public debate over the government’s seemingly slow response. Although additional army contingents had already been posted to the country’s northern border regions, it was not until after Ansarul Islam’s December 2016 attack on the army base that the authorities took more demonstrative action. Late that month they replaced the armed forces chief-​of-​staff and in February 2017 appointed dedicated ministers of defense and security. Then, in March, the army launched the first of several offensive actions, killing and detaining scores of suspected Ansarul Islam members and collaborators. Security was soon sufficiently restored to permit most schools to reopen and economic activity to return to a semblance of normalcy, but new attacks subsequently mounted dramatically, displacing hundreds of thousands of villagers. Meanwhile, Burkina Faso shifted much more attention toward its Sahelian neighbors. Burkinabè soldiers coordinated closely with Malian troops as well as French air-​support personnel from the regional African-​French Barkhane force. Additionally, the Sahel’s “Group of Five” (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania) agreed over the longer term to boost joint military training, intelligence sharing, and logistical infrastructure. Most dramatically, they formed a joint military force projected to eventually number five thousand troops to combat terrorism and drug-​trafficking in the Sahel, with its first operation in November 2017 at the confluence of the borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. As Kaboré explained to Defense Ministry personnel in Ouagadougou: “No country in the world can defeat terrorism on its own” (Bayiri, 17 February 2017). Domestically, it was painfully clear that fundamental reforms were urgently needed within the armed forces. The only major changes so far were revision of the military code pledging the army to stay out of politics and the dissolution of the RSP in the wake of its coup attempt. That dissolution, accompanied by the arrest of the RSP’s most compromised officers and troops and reassignment of the remainder to other army

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    159 units, was an important step. The RSP had been, as many termed it, an “army within an army” that bypassed regular command channels, stirred tensions with other branches, and undermined overall efficiency, coherence, and morale. Its elimination at least opened the possibility of wider changes. But the other components of the armed forces also had corrupt senior officers who originally got their positions through the old patronage system. As Balai citoyen argued, the Burkinabè people and army “deserve better than this politico-​bureaucratic and bourgeoisified command,” suggesting the need for a “clean up” across the military hierarchy (Le Pays, 20 December 2016). President Kaboré, however, appeared to conclude that confronting the army commanders directly was risky. His government thus adopted a piecemeal, gradual strategy that included a five-​ year military reform plan (2018–​ 2022). It projected reorganizing command structures, upgrading equipment and armaments, and providing training suited to the challenges of “asymmetrical warfare” posed by small groups of elusive and highly mobile insurgents. The ambiguous attitudes of the northern population toward the armed forces also suggested the importance of improving military–​civilian relations. Some villagers readily provided information about suspected insurgents, but others refused to cooperate because they lacked confidence in the security forces or feared the jihadis—​or possibly sympathized with them (ICG 2017). To enhance the population’s trust and cooperation, some authorities acknowledged that it would be important to eliminate extortion or other abuses by uniformed personnel. The growth of armed banditry in the north and across Burkina Faso also undermined people’s sense of security more generally, emphasizing the need to increase the police and gendarme presence in local communities. In the east, central, and southern regions, the inability of regular security and judicial institutions to control criminal gangs had already given rise to a proliferation of informal vigilante groups known as Koglwéogo (“guardians of the bush” in Mooré, the language of the Mossi). Some officials sought to accommodate the Koglwéogo, arguing that they helped make up for the state’s limited reach. Other authorities—​and many human rights activists—​criticized the vigilantes for their frequent abuses, as tragically demonstrated in January 2019 when Koglwéogo members massacred scores of Peul villagers in the north (L’Observateur Paalga, 14 January 2019). Besides strengthening local police and justice systems, reducing insecurity across the country would depend critically on addressing the economic and social drivers that have prompted some youths to join jihadi forces or criminal gangs. As early as 2014, researchers found evidence that young Burkinabè in the northern region had accepted offers of cash from extremist groups to fight in Mali (Loada and Romaniuk 2014, 18). Conditions in northern Burkina Faso in particular easily bred dissatisfaction. Arid, sparsely populated, and remote from the centers of political and economic power, the region had long been neglected. The poverty rate in the north reached 70 percent, as against the 40 percent national rate. All-​weather roads were rare, patients had to travel nearly twice as far as elsewhere to reach a health clinic, and the school attendance rate was just 53 percent, compared with 86 percent nationally. The authorities recognized

160   Ernest Harsch the need to begin redressing such grim realities by launching an emergency economic and social program for the north, with US$152 million actually spent in 2017 and nearly twice that budgeted for 2018 (Sidwaya, 26 March 2018).

MANAGING SOCIAL TENSIONS While the conflict between the Burkinabè state and the jihadi forces in the north was basically political, the insurgents’ particular ideology and aspirations also sought to invoke and heighten social and cultural differences that had thus far remained relatively latent. Most obviously, Ansarul Islam and the regional jihadi groups hoped to attract local support and collaboration by playing on Islamic beliefs. Yet while Muslims were a big majority of inhabitants in the north, they were only about 60 percent of the total population, according to the 2006 census, with Christians accounting for about 25 percent and “animists” (followers of traditional religions), about 15 percent (ICG 2016). Ethnicity and social status were likewise brought into the mix. Ansarul Islam, like its one-​time jihadi ally in Mali, the Macina Liberation Front, advocated creation of a separate Peul emirate along the two countries’ common border and some of its fighters targeted non-​Peul residents of the north as “strangers” (Sidwaya, 30 January 2017). Before he founded the group, Ibrahim Dicko’s sermons also sought to win popular support by appealing specifically to rimaïbé, the lower-​ranking descendants of former Peul war captives, slaves, and vassals, who were historically subject to the Peul aristocracy and who comprised most of the population in Soum province (ICG 2017). Evidently, the jihadis’ ethnic, religious, and caste appeals thus far demonstrated only a very narrow appeal to Burkinabè. Insurgent attacks, however, stoked strong reactions against certain ethnic groups. Although Peul villagers were often the victims of jihadi attacks, the ability of the jihadis to recruit among disillusioned young Peul led to them often being stigmatized and subjected to physical reprisals. While still limited, such expressions of hostility nevertheless served as warning signs, underscoring the importance of carefully managing the country’s social and cultural diversity, to avoid the kind of deadly cleavages that afflicted a number of Burkina Faso’s immediate neighbors. Regionally, Burkina Faso has been known for the generally amicable relations among its diverse ethnic and religious communities. Part of the reason was structural. The Mossi are about half the population, far more numerous than any of the sixty other ethnic groups. Only the Peul reach even 10 percent. The size of the Mossi population, plus its historical connections with the colonial and postcolonial states, placed them in a dominant position, but that seeming hegemony was meanwhile softened by a tendency to assimilate, ally, and intermarry with members of other ethnic groups, as well as a conscious orientation by most governments, including those with Mossi heads of state, to ensure a degree of multi-​ethnic inclusion (Englebert 1996, 119–​126). Moreover, ethnic affiliation generally does not coincide with religious adherence, which differs across and within ethnic groups. The Mossi themselves are divided almost equally among

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    161 Christians, Muslims, and animists (Hart 2014, 188, 191). As a result, Burkinabè cultural identities are rather diffuse, and conflicts among them usually do not quickly escalate. Still, tensions do exist. As one detailed study pointed out, while the peaceful coexistence of religions remains “robust” in Burkina Faso, it nevertheless is “beginning to erode around the margins” (ICG 2016, 1). Muslims have become more aware of their underrepresentation among the political and administrative elites and more vocal about perceived favoritism toward Catholics in education and other affairs. In January 2017, the Fédération des associations islamiques du Burkina (FAIB) protested a draft law on state regulation of places of worship and public religious expression, successfully prompting the government to withdraw the measure. Meanwhile, the small but growing movement of evangelical Protestant churches has sometimes been bellicose toward Muslims and animists and less inclined than Catholics or more moderate Protestants to participate in inter-​faith dialogues. More seriously, disputes over land between and within communities occasionally erupt into violence, some with loss of life. Most frequently across the country, semi-​ nomadic herders—​many of them Peul—​were drawn into deadly confrontations with Mossi or other settled farmers seeking to defend their cropland from encroaching cattle herds. Regional differences also came into play. Because of the high population density in the central Mossi plateau, Mossi had for decades migrated to the more fertile and less inhabited west. Although Bobo chiefs and others from the west often permitted the migrants to farm on traditionally non-​Mossi land, occasional disagreements were inevitable, and the resulting conflicts sometimes took on ethnic colorations. While the Koglwéogo vigilantes were popular among the Mossi, their attempts to expand into the west stirred resistance from Dioula and other ethnic groups. That concern, plus a perceived bias against the western regions in high-​level appointments and siting of new industries, prompted a controversial open letter to President Kaboré complaining about favoritism toward the center; while many anonymous online commentators dismissed the letter as an ill-​advised expression of divisive regionalism, some agreed with it, thus highlighting the existence of real underlying strains (LeFaso.net, 19–​23 March 2018). Demographic pressures and shifting environmental conditions will likely increase such occasions for conflict, due to heightened competition for fertile land and water sources in rural areas and for housing and amenities in the cities. UN population projections point to a rapid increase in the number of Burkinabè, from 18.1 million in 2015 to 27.2 million by 2030 and then 42.7 million just twenty years later (FERDI 2016, Vol. 2: 12). In many of the local conflicts in Burkina Faso in recent years, various forms of mediation and dialogue sought to resolve disputes, prevent their escalation into violence, or facilitate justice and restitution if injury and damage ensued. These often involved local traditional and religious figures, who generally had the greatest influence in local communities, as well as civil society actors and state and elected officials (Bertrand, Sindayigaya, and Deceukelier 2013). In parts of the north, a Muslim–​Christian civil association regularly organized inter-​faith dialogues to counter misunderstanding and promote cooperation (Le Monde, 13 April 2017). While the downfall of the Compaoré

162   Ernest Harsch regime seemed to have unleashed an upsurge of community agitation across the country, that move away from autocratic rule should nevertheless improve the long-​ term prospects for strengthening local mediation and conflict-​resolution mechanisms.

A STRUGGLE FOR GROWTH WITH EQUITY The politically turbulent years of 2014 and 2015, combined with somewhat weaker commodity prices for Burkina Faso’s main exports, slowed the economic growth rate to barely 4 percent (low by the country’s usual performance). But 2016 saw a rebound to 5.4 percent, with projections for 2017–​2021 exceeding 6 percent annually (IMF 2016). Those prospects were tenuous, however. Changes in low oil-​import costs, strong global prices for gold and cotton, rainfall patterns, or conditions for migrant remittances from Côte d’Ivoire could drastically alter that scenario. As long as the domestic political situation remained relatively stable, donor support for Burkina Faso would likely stay firm. After the government unveiled a new Plan national de développement économique et social (PNDES) in 2016, initially estimated to cost US$26 billion over five years, the authorities asked donors to contribute about US$10 billion of that amount. In fact, donors far exceeded that request, pledging more than US$14 billion (Sidwaya, 9 December 2016). Experience has demonstrated that grand plans and robust economic growth do not necessarily translate into tangible improvements for ordinary people. According to the national statistics institute, 40.1 percent of all Burkinabè were living in poverty in 2014, better than the 46.7 percent registered five years earlier, but still placing the country among the ranks of Africa’s poorest. Popular dissatisfaction over miserable conditions was stoked further by the visible contrast between the living standards of the wealthy elites and those of the vast majority. Then Prime Minister Paul Kaba Thiéba acknowledged that “the richest 10 percent of the population holds about a third of the national wealth,” while the poorest 10 percent accounted for less than 3 percent (Agence d’information du Burkina, 11 January 2016 and 20 June 2016). To begin overcoming the country’s stubborn legacies of poverty and inequality, government officials promised a “new social contract.” That included a pledge to reduce corruption and cronyism in economic management as well as to ensure that mining companies provide more benefits to local communities and the country’s overall development. It also included an emphasis on addressing pressing social needs, such as universal medical insurance and building many more primary health clinics, secondary schools, and teacher training colleges. Although much of the PNDES plan focused on infrastructure projects, it also had a notable social component, with more than a third of its investments allotted to health, education, water and sanitation, and job creation.

Burkina Faso: Beyond Autocracy, New Roads Open    163 Delivering on such promises will not be easy. Since 2014, Burkinabè have exhibited very high expectations. Inevitably, some judged that the authorities were falling short. But if the political process can consolidate its democratic opening and stave off the dangers of domestic and regional insecurity, then it may be possible to make some advances toward citizens’ dreams of a new Burkina Faso.

REFERENCES Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Andriamirado, Sennen. 1987. Sankara le rebelle. Paris: Jeune Afrique livres. Balima, Salfo-​Albert. 1996. Légendes et histoire des peuples du Burkina Faso. Paris: J.A. Conseil. Bantenga, Moussa Willy, ed. 2015. Burkina Faso: 30 et 31 octobre 2014. Au coeur de l’insurrection populaire. Ouagadougou: Presses universitaires de Ouagadougou. Bertrand, Eloïse, Adrien Sindayigaya, and Bruno Deceukelier. 2013. Identifying Opportunities for Civil Society-​Led Conflict Resolution in Burkina Faso. Washington, DC: Search for Common Ground. Beucher, Benoît. 2009. “La naissance de la communauté nationale burkinabè, ou comment le Voltaïque devient un ‘Homme intègre.’” Sociétés politiques comparées 3. Bretout, Françoise. 1976. Mogho Naba Wobgho: La résistance du royaume mossi de Ouagadougou. Paris: ABC. Chouli, Lila. 2012. Burkina Faso 2011: Chronique d’un mouvement social. Lyon: Tahin Party. Conseil national de la transition. 2015. Procès-​verbal de la séance plenière du mardi 27 octobre 2015. Ouagadougou. Englebert, Pierre. 1996. Burkina Faso: Unsteady Statehood in West Africa. Boulder: Westview Press. Guirma, Frédéric. 1991. Comment perdre le pouvoir? le cas de Maurice Yaméogo. Paris: Editions Chaka. FERDI (Fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international). 2016. Allier sécurité et développement—​Plaidoyer pour le Sahel. 2 Volumes. Clermont-​Ferrand, France. Hagberg, Sten. 2002. “‘Enough Is Enough’: An Ethnography of the Struggle Against Impunity in Burkina Faso.” Journal of Modern African Studies 40(2): 217–​246. Harsch, Ernest. 2014. Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Harsch, Ernest. 2017. Burkina Faso: A History of Power, Protest and Revolution. London: Zed Books. Hart, Amy. 2014. “Peace in the Land of Upright People: Religion and Violence in Burkina Faso.” Journal for the Study of Religion 27(2): 172–​194. Hilgers, Mathieu, and Jacinthe Mazzocchetti, eds. 2010. Révoltes et oppositions dans un régime semi-​autoritaire: Le cas du Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala. ICG (International Crisis Group). 2016. Burkina Faso: Preserving the Religious Balance. Brussels: Africa Report No. 240. ICG (International Crisis Group). 2017. The Social Roots of Jihadist Violence in Burkina Faso’s North. Brussels: Africa Report No. 254.

164   Ernest Harsch IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2016. Burkina Faso Country Report, No. 16/​ 390. Washington, DC. Jaffré, Bruno. 1989. Burkina Faso: Les années Sankara, de la révolution à la rectification. Paris: Editions l’Harmattan. Kambou-​Ferrand, Jeanne-​Marie. 1993. Peuples voltaïques et conquête coloniale, 1885-​1914, Burkina Faso. Paris: Editions l’Harmattan. Loada, Augustin. 1998. “Les élections législatives burkinabè du 11 mai 1997: des ‘élections pas comme les autres’?” Politique africaine 69: 62–​74. Loada, Augustin, and Peter Romaniuk. 2014. Preventing Violent Extremism in Burkina Faso: Toward National Resilience Amid Regional Insecurity. Goshen, IN: Global Center on Cooperative Security. Massa, Gabriel, and Y. George Madiéga, eds. 1995. La Haute-​Volta coloniale: Témoignages, recherches, regards. Paris: Editions Karthala. Muase, Charles Kabeya. 1989. Syndicalisme et démocratie en Afrique noire: L’expérience du Burkina Faso (1936–​1988). Paris/​Abidjan: Editions Karthala/​INADES Edition. Otayek, René, Filiga Michel Sawadogo, and Jean-​Pierre Guingané, eds. 1996. Le Burkina entre révolution et démocratie (1983–​1993). Paris: Karthala. Pacere, Titinga Frédéric. 1981. Ainsi on a assassiné tous les Mossé. Sherbrooke, Quebec: Editions Naaman. Saul, Mahir, and Patrick Royer. 2001. West African Challenge to the Empire: Culture and History in the Volta-​Bani Anticolonial War. Athens, OH/​Oxford: Ohio University Press/​James Currey. Skinner, Elliott P. 1964. The Mossi of the Upper Volta: The Political Development of a Sudanese People. Stanford: Stanford University Press. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2007. Rapport sur le développement humain durable: Burkina Faso. Ouagadougou. Zagré, Pascal. 1994. Les politiques économiques du Burkina Faso: Une tradition d’ajustement structurel. Paris: Karthala.

chapter 9

NIGER Precarious Stability Lisa Mueller

Countries with the most need for development solutions often receive the least aid and scholarly attention (ONE Campaign 2015). Niger exemplifies this paradox. Its adult literacy rate is the lowest in the world at 19 percent, and its GDP per capita the sixth lowest at US$897 (World Bank 2015). The landlocked former French colony regularly ranks last in terms of the UN Development Program’s Human Development Index (HDI), a composite measure of income, life expectancy, education, and other variables. Its semiarid climate, harsh in normal times, exhibits new extremes as global warming parches fertile land and creates food shortages. Terrorist groups like Boko Haram and al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb enter Niger from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Algeria. Refugees escaping turmoil in neighboring countries multiply the number of hungry people in Niger, where internal displacement and a fertility rate of 7.6 children per woman already stretch resources thin. While this situation might be expected to draw significant attention, the journal African Affairs published only three articles between 2007 and 2017 with “Niger” in the title. In contrast, “Nigeria” headlined almost thirty articles. Why do scholars pay so little attention to a country so in need of understanding? Two plausible explanations are political geography and the very underdevelopment that warrants attention. Niger is “large, sparsely populated, and hard to manage” (Club du Sahel 1995, 47). It has only 1.5 km of road per 100 km2 of land, compared with the African average of 20 km and the world average of 94 km (Coghlan 2014). Many Nigerien roads are unpaved and become impassable in the rainy season. Citizens who live outside the capital city of Niamey can go years without encountering a representative of the national government—​or a researcher from a university (Mueller and Bhandari 2017). Aid workers, security forces, and scholars face dangers and logistical impediments when trying to access Niger’s vast hinterland, as do ordinary citizens while trekking across what The New York Times characterized as a “road to nowhere” (30 March 2017). Although there are real hurdles to governing and researching Niger, depicting the country as “nowhere” only adds to the challenges. First, it erroneously equates territory

168   Lisa Mueller that is unfamiliar with territory that is vacant and available to exploit. This error dates back generations. In the late nineteenth century, European colonizers manipulated cartography to claim ownership of African land and resources (Branch 2014). Rather than interpret blank spaces on maps “as the limits of knowledge of African geography . . . imperialists presumed that the empty spaces were empty and awaiting colonists” (Bassett 1994, 334). Niger has been independent from France since 1960, but present-​day descriptions of the country as empty—​filled with vast “ungoverned spaces”—​still imply that uranium and other raw materials are free for the taking (Postar 2017). Nigeriens occasionally raise their voices about this injustice. In 2013, thousands protested against the AREVA uranium mine in the town of Arlit for embodying the “French neocolonial system” (Schritt 2015, 57). Even the scholarly literature at times fails to account for Niger’s specific cultural and political characteristics. Some scholars, for example, describe colonial Niger in terms of direct rule and assimilation, referring to the principal modes of colonialism in French West Africa (e.g., Miles 1987). Yet Niger was actually an exception to that policy, and indirect rule—​involving delegating colonial administration to indigenous elites—​was the norm (Kang 2015). Niger defies additional expectations that scholars extrapolate from medium-​and large-​sample studies. Analyzing 161 countries from 1960 to 1999, Collier and Hoeffler (2004) famously posited that a country is twice as likely to have a civil war if it has a dominant ethnic group comprising 45–​90 percent of the population. The Hausa make up roughly 56 percent of Niger’s population, but coexist peacefully with other ethnic groups. This amity even includes the Zarma, whom the French favored for supposedly being more compliant (Charlick 1991, 9). Ethnic tension in Niger is rare by African standards (Davis and Kossomi 2001, 81). Sporadic Tuareg rebellions in the north stop short of full-​scale secessionist war and have in some respects deescalated in recent years. Intermarriage across ethnic groups is common (Turshen 2010; Gosselain 2008). Despite some recent unprecedented incidents, religion has been less divisive than one might think given patterns elsewhere in the Sahel. Islamic fundamentalism has not taken root in Niger like it has in Nigeria, even though the majority of Niger’s predominantly Muslim society welcomes a larger role for Islam in politics (Elischer 2015; Sounaye 2009). In sum, the experiences of Niger’s neighbors are weak proxies for realities in Niger; there is significant national variation in the Sahel.

BUILDING A NATIONAL IDENTITY To a visitor’s eye, it is not obvious that Niger spent almost four decades as a French colony. Niamey’s boxy, brown skyline is a far cry from the ornate colonial architecture in coastal cities like Dakar, Senegal. The countryside likewise shows sparse vestiges of foreign rule. The French did not bother to delimit and demarcate all the borders between Niger and adjacent colonies, resulting in a series of rulings by the International Court of

Niger: Precarious Stability    169 Justice to define the borders only decades later (Oduntan 2015). Only an educated minority of Nigeriens speaks fluent French, and French is seldom spoken at home. French authorities preferred compliant chiefs in Niger as they did elsewhere, deputizing the most loyal Songhay amirus, Fulani lamidos, and Zarma alfaize as chefs de canton (Fuglestad 1983, 67). However, they intervened relatively little in Nigerien customary institutions such as those regulated by Islam (Kang 2015) or property rights for the first occupants of farmland and pastures (Lund 1998). Governing through existing laws and leaders shrank administrative costs in peripheral colonies. In terms of the distinction made by Acemoglu et al. (2001) between “settler colonies”—​where expatriates sought to replicate European institutions—​and “extractive colonies”—​ where the goal was to transfer a maximum of resources to the colonizer—​Niger was an extractive colony par excellence. It was valued for its coal, iron ore, and uranium, but was never a long-​term destination for very many French entrepreneurs, state-​makers, or missionaries. Although Niger briefly became a critical boundary between Vichy-​controlled territory and hostile powers between 1940 and 1945 (Fuglestad 1983, 67), France concentrated its presence along Africa’s western coast and allowed traditional, Islamic governance to endure in Niger. On the eve of independence, Niger seemed poised to join the radical strain of African independence movements that blossomed after World War II, and that hobbled France and Great Britain’s visions for their postcolonial relations. Djibo Bakary led a leftist faction in Niger called the Sawaba movement, arming peasants and using guerrilla tactics to promote socialism and a complete break from France (Van Walraven 2013). On the other side, Bakary’s cousin Hamani Diori, who was to become Niger’s first president, was an outspoken Gallophile. He represented the conservative strain of African independence movements, alongside elites in the privileged “Four Communes” of Senegal, who enjoyed the rights of French citizens and preferred to “perfect” the colonial system rather than to abolish it (Gellar 2013, 121). These conservatives formed a “semi-​ opposition,” advocating for a new policy emphasis but not fundamental regime change. With French support, Diori violently repressed the Sawabists, driving them underground and pursuing what Charlick (1991, 42) called “customary aspirations” (title, position, fortune, and clientelist leverage) over radical goals. In 1958, French President Charles de Gaulle proposed a referendum giving colonial subjects the choice of whether to join the new “French Community” or to seek immediate independence. Niger ultimately voted “yes” on de Gaulle’s referendum and joined the French Community, in line with all the other French West African colonies, with the sole exception of Guinea under the charismatic nationalist Sékou Touré. National identity flourished in Niger notwithstanding Diori’s assault on the Sawaba movement. Niger is a quintessential case of the “nationalist paradox” in Africa whereby people profess pride in nation-​states despite state weakness and the arbitrary, exogenous origins of African borders (Englebert 2009). Nigeriens are significantly more nationalist than their neighbors, as Miles and Rochefort (1991) revealed in an influential survey of two Hausa towns on either side of the Niger–​Nigeria frontier. The authors found that

170   Lisa Mueller while nationality was more salient than Hausa identity in both towns, the difference was more pronounced in Niger. Their results remain valid today. Nationally representative Afrobarometer surveys ask, “Let us suppose that you had to choose between being a [Nigerien/​Nigerian] and being a [respondent’s ethnic group.] Which of the following best expresses your feelings?” In the 2014–​2015 surveys, 56 percent of citizens in Niger said they identify only with their national identity, whereas only 37 percent of citizens in Nigeria said the same. Nigeriens with split identities were more likely to rank their national identity above their ethnic identity (16 percent), compared with Nigerians (11 percent). The national flag flies above remote villages of Niger where people receive virtually no services from the national government. Some Nigeriens had a chance to change their citizenship as part of a 2013 international court decision to redraw the boundary between Niger and Burkina Faso. In focus groups and surveys, hardly any respondents said they would become Burkinabè, even if switching would give them better access to public goods (Mueller and Bhandari 2017). Nigeriens’ strong nationalism may result in part from the period of military rule by Seyni Kountché from 1974 to 1987 (Miles and Rochefort 1991). Kountché, who ousted Diori in a coup d’état, instituted a “neo-​traditional corporatist” regime, of which national unity was a main tenet (Robinson 1991). He used nationalism to sustain popular compliance with agricultural production targets and co-​opted traditional leaders to execute state policies at the local level. His Supreme Military Council founded a youth movement named the Samariya (“youth” in Hausa) “to accentuate national identity and . . . facilitate communications between centralized power and influential individuals in the countryside” (Robinson 1991, 9). Kountché also raised the status and clout of the military, an institution that political scientists have long associated with nation building. His predecessor had reduced the military to a ceremonial body, given that Niger, like most African countries, achieved juridical sovereignty through diplomacy rather than armed struggle. Where Diori failed to forge Nigerien identity around a “cult of peace” (Aliou 2008, 53), Kountché revitalized the military and encouraged nationalist rhetoric. After Kountché’s death from a brain tumor in 1987, Niger oscillated between military and civilian rule with coups d’état in 1996, 1999, and 2010. Yet nationalism remains strong, as evident in the Afrobarometer polls and in Nigerien protesters’ cries against Boko Haram: “Don’t touch my country!” (Mueller 2016, 98). Exiled nationalist leader Bakary even made a feeble comeback during Niger’s democratic transition in 1991, reconstituting the Sawaba movement as the UDFP-​Sawaba party and winning a small number of presidential and parliamentary votes.

EXPERIMENTING WITH DEMOCRACY Following Kountché’s death in 1987, the Supreme Military Council appointed Ali Saibou, Kountché’s former chief of staff, as president. Saibou set about implementing Western-​ backed economic liberalization reforms such as civil service cuts, triggering relentless

Niger: Precarious Stability    171 protests. His last-​ditch attempt to consolidate his power by establishing the Mouvement National pour la société de développement (MNSD) in 1989 as a “democratic single party” with himself in charge was met with further protests and dissent (Villalón and Idrissa 2005). On 9 February 1990, his soldiers opened fire on a group of students marching toward the John F. Kennedy Bridge in Niamey. At least three youths died in the confrontation, which became known as Black Friday. The incident further fueled opposition to Saibou’s government, including strikes by previously quiescent labor unions, and inspired the founding of Haské, Niger’s first independent newspaper. Saibou eventually had no choice but to agree to popular demands for a National Conference to negotiate a transition to democratic rule—​one of several such conferences occurring in West Africa in the 1990s. Niger’s National Conference took place over one hundred days in 1991, bringing together 1,200 representatives from the ruling party, political opposition, labor and student unions, and civil society. Although the National Conference seemed like a victory for the masses, most delegates represented the elite of society—​politicians, wage earners, and university students (Villalón and Idrissa 2005). This fact would come to alienate the poor, who often cared more about putting food on the table than pursuing democratic ideals (Mueller 2018). The National Conference set in place a transitional government, with the mandate to oversee the writing of a new constitution and other core texts, and to turn over power to an elected government. The constitution, which was eventually approved in a referendum in late 1992, provided for a “Third Republic” with a semi-​presidential system and proportional party representation in a unicameral National Assembly. Mahamane Ousmane of the Convention démocratique et sociale-​Rahama (CDS-​ Rahama) became Niger’s first freely elected president in a 1993 runoff against MNSD candidate Mamadou Tandja. No party won an absolute majority in the legislature, thus requiring a coalition to rule. Tensions immediately arose, however, leading to a standoff between the president and the assembly when the coalition fell apart. Ousmane threatened to undermine Niger’s young democracy by reducing the powers of the prime minister, Mahamadou Issoufou of the Parti nigérien pour la démocratie et le socialisme (PNDS-​Tarayya). Issoufou resigned, and the National Assembly rejected Ousmane’s handpicked replacement with a vote of no confidence. In response, early legislative elections were called in 1995. These produced an opposition majority, and tenuous cohabitation between President Ousmane and new Prime Minister Hama Amadou of the MNSD. Ousmane’s worries went beyond interparty relations. Under pressure from other Western powers, France decided in 1994 to devalue the CFA currency, which was tied to the French franc and used in more than a dozen former colonies including Niger. Prices of primary commodities, including foods and medicines, skyrocketed at a time when low rainfall already strained Nigerien farmers and pastoralists. Protests flared, once again led by students demanding lower tuition and better study conditions. Students comprised the backbone of the PNDS, making it all the more difficult for Ousmane’s CDS to cooperate with the opposition.

172   Lisa Mueller In the context of this standoff and the social disarray, the military under the leadership of Colonel Ibrahim Mainassara Baré took advantage to seize power in a military coup in 1996. Despite his initial protests that he was only interested in solving the institutional impasse and continuing the democratic process by returning power to civilians, Baré eventually orchestrated his own continuity in power, resigning from the military and running in the elections he organized to inaugurate the “Fourth Republic” under a carefully tailored new constitution. Baré declared himself president following blatantly rigged elections in which the national electoral commission was replaced in the midst of voting, but he was never able to legitimate his hold on power, and he was himself killed in a counter-​coup in 1999. The new junta quickly made it clear that it intended to follow through on the promise of a return to democracy. The new constitution for the “Fifth Republic,” adopted in a referendum, granted amnesty to the coup plotters of 1996 and 1999. It also included additional measures to interrupt the backsliding of democracy by enhancing constraints on executive authority—​namely, presidents would require approval from a defense council to fill military posts and the legislature would be able to overturn a presidential veto (Moestrup 2007). Long-​time politician Mamadou Tandja became president in 1999 following two rounds of elections that international observers declared free and fair. He won re-​ election in 2004 while pledging to mitigate famine-​like conditions, although critics took him to task for backpedaling on that promise. As the end of his second term approached, Tandja’s partisans began a movement to have him run for a third term, something explicitly banned in the constitution. Although Tandja initially kept silent, in May 2009 he reversed himself and announced that he would in fact seek a third term to “satisfy the popular will” and to finish development projects (Baudais and Chauzal 2011). When the Supreme Court and the National Assembly attempted to block his efforts, he dissolved the National Assembly and proposed a referendum to adopt a totally new constitution for a “Sixth Republic,” with no presidential term limits. These actions, which he and his followers labeled tazartché (“continuity” in Hausa), sparked an opposition boycott and massive protests of ten thousand people (BBC 20 February 2010). Although international journalists portrayed the uprisings of 2009–​2010 as a democratic revolution, surveys indicate that many demonstrators in fact supported Tandja but took to the streets to demand better opportunities for upward mobility (Mueller 2013). In the context of continuing turmoil, on 18 February 2010, an army faction calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy arrested Tandja in what analysts labeled a corrective coup (Baudais and Chauzal 2011). The transitional junta quickly oversaw another transition to democracy and the writing of a new constitution for what was to now become the “Seventh Republic.” In elections in 2011, Mahamadou Issoufou was elected president in a second-​round runoff with 58 percent of the votes, and received a parliamentary majority for his PNDS party. Issoufou was eventually re-​elected in 2016, but under contentious circumstances and following an opposition boycott of the second round. While Niger was arguably more democratic following the 2011 transition, the military’s frequent intervention in politics and the continued

Niger: Precarious Stability    173 controversies surrounding elections underline the fact that despite two decades of efforts, Nigerien democracy was not yet consolidated.

CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES The 2010 coup exposed two important challenges facing Niger: the fragility of democracy and citizens’ economic grievances. Indeed, in 2015 a quarter of Nigeriens said that they were unsatisfied with democracy or that their country is not a democracy at all (Mueller and Matthews 2016b). Yet the usual sentiment of scholars who follow politics in Niger is, “It could have been worse.” Following the coup, the immediate post-​Tandja years did not see the complete breakdown of peace and democracy that befell other African countries around the same time. In Guinea, for example, a military faction disbanded the government and suspended the constitution after President Lansana Conté died from an illness in 2008. The junta delayed elections and massacred or raped an untold number of protesters before finally turning over power to Alpha Condé in 2010. Mali’s government fell in a coup in 2012 despite a strong record of democracy. The conflict started with soldiers complaining about the level of support they received in putting down northern rebellions involving Tuareg separatists and fighters who fled Libya after the 2011 death of Muammar Qaddafi. In Burkina Faso, mass mobilization forced President Blaise Compaoré to resign in 2014 after trying to extend his twenty-​ seven-​year tenure. The following year, soldiers from the Regiment of Presidential Security captured members of the interim government to contest a ban preventing Compaoré supporters from participating in elections. The coup attempt failed but prolonged social unrest and international censure. Niger’s leaders stress their resolve to avoid similar calamities. Responding to the events in Burkina Faso, President Issoufou said, “We are very preoccupied with how the situation in that country has developed. Niger is especially concerned given the dangers along our other borders. We have the situation in Libya, as well as threats along the border with Mali. I just mentioned the threat of Boko Haram on our border with Nigeria. So we hope there will not be a fourth border that might drag our region further into insecurity” (RFI 25 September 2015). In linking military coups and terrorism, Issoufou justified policies to fortify Niger’s borders and his own regime. The Nigerien military spearheaded a multinational counterterrorism effort with training and financing from France and the United States. Siding with Western powers seemed to improve Issoufou’s image among donors and some citizens, although it also brought controversy. In 2015, riots broke out in Niamey and regional cities after Issoufou participated in a solidarity march in Paris to mourn the casualties of attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Opponents accused him of being too close to France and of thus repeating the missteps of Niger’s first president (Mueller 2016). Events in 2017 showed once more that progress in the war on terror could not mollify citizens who were worried about bread-​and-​butter issues. On 10 April, state troops

174   Lisa Mueller killed fifty-​seven Boko Haram fighters in the southeastern region of Diffa. The next day, striking students at Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey staged protests related to poor living and study conditions. Security forces fired tear gas and shut down the university, prompting rebukes from civil society groups. Voicing economic grievances, the students echoed demonstrators from the 2009–​2010 uprisings and other social movements of the past (Bonnecase 2013). Issoufou stirred more controversy during his bid for a second term in 2016. Fifteen challengers entered the race, undeterred by the incumbent’s intent to deliver a “knock-​ out punch” and become the first Nigerien presidential candidate to win without a runoff. Reports of irregularities plagued the election months before official campaigning began. The Constitutional Court deemed four opposition candidates “morally inept” for philandering and other offenses. It alleged that Hama Amadou, Issoufou’s main rival, had illegally sold Nigerian babies to childless families in Niger for thousands of dollars each. By this point, Amadou had held almost every government post except the presidency, and had served as Issoufou’s prime minister until a falling out in 2007. He formed his own party, MODEN/​FA-​Lumana, while in prison under corruption charges, and he continued leading it in exile. When he returned to Niger in November 2015 to run for president, state authorities arrested him on the baby trafficking charge, despite protests by his supporters. Amadou remained in prison for the entire run-​up to the elections in February and March 2016, emerging only to receive medical treatment for mysterious ailments. His campaign via proxies made him a martyr for the opposition, earning him the nickname “Phoenix” for his numerous political reincarnations. Lawyers went on strike to denounce Issoufou for violating the rule of law, citing Amadou’s imprisonment and the arrests of journalists and suspected coup plotters. Pre-​election fact-​finding missions by the Economic Community of West African States and the International Organization of La Francophonie uncovered double counting on voter registration lists and three hundred “ghost” polling stations (Mueller and Matthews 2016a). The government complied with reforms, raising optimism that the elections would be clean and transparent. But three days before polls opened on 21 February 2016, the National Independent Electoral Commission approved a divisive “vote by witness” rule that would allow one and a half million citizens to cast ballots without identification cards as long as two witnesses could identify them. Public frustration with the electoral processes on this issue, and fears of terrorist attacks, might account for the resulting modest 11 percent turnout (Mueller and Matthews 2016a). Issoufou did not clinch a majority in the first round like he planned, but after opposition parties boycotted the runoff (although Amadou stayed in the race) he won the runoff in a landslide with 92 percent of votes. Issoufou’s PNDS party received a 36 percent legislative plurality, and with the support of most other represented parties it gave him a large governing majority. Once electoral drama subsided, attention turned back to the president’s ambitious economic and social development plan, “Niger Renaissance.” This suite of projects originated in Issoufou’s first term and revolved around eight pillars: cultural revival, democratic consolidation, national security, water provision, food security,

Niger: Precarious Stability    175 communication and energy infrastructure, health and education, and youth employment. In 2012, Issoufou had launched his complementary “3N” initiative, les Nigériens nourrissent les Nigériens (“Nigeriens feed Nigeriens”). The government pitched this as a response to a persistent food crisis that former President Mamadou Tandja had failed to alleviate. The High Commission of the 3N Initiative estimated that drought had affected 3.6 million people in 2004 and 2005, doubling by the time Tandja left office in 2010. The 3N initiative also underscored Issoufou’s willingness to collaborate with the international community by aligning with one of the UN Millennium Development Goals, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. A marked difference between Issoufou’s first and second terms is how counterterrorism came to dominate the national agenda and to rationalize previously infeasible policies. Although the president was quick to decry Boko Haram’s incursions as affronts to “national sovereignty,” he welcomed Western intervention to stymie terrorist attacks. In 2018, Issoufou became president of the G5 Sahel, a coalition of former French colonies that also includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Mauritania. The G5 supported Operation Barkhane, an anti-​insurgent mission to which France’s former president François Hollande committed three thousand soldiers. Challenged about Operation Barkhane, Issoufou argued: “No, that does not violate our sovereignty, because we have decided to accept aid from our allies to counter current threats. The day when these threats disappear, the foreign military presence will end. But imagine if there had been no Operation Serval in Mali! Imagine! Today, Bamako would be under the control of terrorists” (Boisbouvier 2015). Indeed, the United States reinforced French troops by installing a drone base in Niger in 2013 and quietly sending approximately eight hundred military advisors. When four American and four Nigerien service members died in a terrorist ambush on 4 October 2017 in Niger’s Tillabéry region near the Malian border, it brought significant public scrutiny to American ground missions, but signaled no end to military cooperation. Issoufou reiterated his pledge to boost development and security in an interview on the first anniversary of his re-​election. He further promised to oversee free elections in 2021, respect the constitution, and hand over power to someone else after his term expired. He denied having picked a successor, claiming that such arrogance would betray his “democratic soul.” Detractors in the Nigerien press speculated that Issoufou’s over-​eagerness to appear democratic signaled plans of foul play.

EMERGING TRENDS Whatever the political future brings, Niger’s leaders will contend with three emerging trends: climate change, migration, and new social movements. Each one threatens to destabilize not just Niger but also the entire Sahel. At the same time, these developments could become opportunities to strengthen state institutions and enhance interstate cooperation.

176   Lisa Mueller

Climate Change Climate change magnifies poverty and violence across Africa, but its consequences are particularly pronounced in the Sahel, a region that has suffered five of the ten worst droughts since 1970 (Heinrigs 2010). Niger in particular is a “climate hotspot” that could experience warming of up to 6oC by the year 2100. According to satellite monitoring, the 2009 rainy season brought an upswing in fodder production for most Sahelian countries but left Niger with a fodder deficit of more than sixteen million metric tons (CILSS 2010). Less than 13 percent of Niger’s land is arable and is located mainly in a narrow strip along the banks of the Niger River. Pastoralists increasingly encroach on farmland as they migrate in search of fields for their herds to graze. The roots of conflict between farmers and pastoralists fall into two related categories: “natural” problems associated with poor soil and droughts; and human-​ created problems associated with the strategic occupation of space, failure to vacate land after harvest, off-​season farming, and livestock theft (Maccatory et al. 2014). Resource scarcity forces some nomadic herders to become sedentary, while farmers adopt survival strategies such as over-​using arable land and internal migration (leaving an old village to settle a new one on land that is already claimed). Disrespect for pastoral rights and local authorities, combined with the weak representation of nomads in local decision-​ making, can unravel social ties. Policy interventions have not relieved the stresses on Niger’s mostly agricultural society. For example, the Private Irrigation Program Project—​a partnership between the government of Niger and the World Bank—​ fenced off parcels of land to protect farmers’ investments. This resulted in clashes between peasants and herders whose livestock was obstructed from reaching pastures (Ehrnrooth, Dambo, and Jaubert 2001, 63). Higher temperatures and lower rainfall exacerbate predicaments that pre-​date national independence. During colonial times, France prioritized the development of irrigable zones with the dual goal of exporting primary commodities to Paris and making its colonies self-​supporting. The first Hydro-​Agricultural Development Plans (Aménagements Hydro-​Agricoles, AHAs) transformed sparsely populated areas into booming trade hubs starting in the 1930s. Subsistence farmers and herders struggled to compete with an influx of migrants and real estate speculators (Walther 2015). Although the Nigerien government began revitalizing the agricultural sector after inheriting AHAs at independence, a collapse in uranium prices in 1982 and a drought in 1984 made generous farming subsidies unsustainable. Niger defaulted on loans that the government had taken out while uranium prices were high, forcing leaders to accept structural adjustment packages that required transferring irrigation projects from the state to the people. Farmers’ associations are ill-​equipped to manage AHAs that were conceived as top-​down enterprises. Hydraulic infrastructure (consisting of pumps, canals, dykes, and drains) is crumbling, and water is distributed improperly among rice farmers and small-​scale gardeners who have different water needs. Some

Niger: Precarious Stability    177 producers adopt temporary solutions like erecting dams in irrigation canals to raise water levels, but this comes at the cost of increasing pumping times and accelerating wear and tear on irrigation equipment. Other producers build informal water towers, which inflates energy prices and over-​irrigates upstream plots while cutting off water flows to downstream ones (Ehrnrooth et al. 2001). Low crop output leads to chronic hunger, which reached catastrophic levels with a locust infestation and a severe drought in 2005. USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network estimated that 2.7 million Nigeriens were highly vulnerable to extremely food insecure, with an additional 5.1 million people at risk for moderate food insecurity (Tsai 2010). The perceived government mismanagement of this crisis culminated in protests and contributed to the coup d’état of 2010 (Mueller 2013). Climate change interacts with longstanding policy dilemmas, stirring social conflict. Skirmishes at the local level are intertwined with regional instability. In 2016, the Diffa region in the southeast of Niger hosted more than 241,000 refugees from Boko Haram attacks in northern Nigeria (Action Against Hunger 2016). Heightened demand for water and the contamination of Diffa’s reservoirs decimated crops and fueled a cholera outbreak. Another hot spot is Lake Chad, which provides water to more than sixty-​eight million people in Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. The lake shrank from 25,000 km2 in the 1960s to just 2,500 km2 in 2016 (Magrin 2016). At the Paris Climate Conference in 2015, President Issoufou called for an international response to Lake Chad’s receding shoreline, citing Boko Haram recruiters who prey on desperate youths in farming villages.

Migration Agadez, in central Niger, is “the smuggling capital of Africa”—​a hub for transferring humans and drugs from coastal West Africa to Libya and finally to the European Union. Since the fifteenth century, when it was the center of the Tuareg civilization, the city has attracted caravans transporting salt, gold, ivory, and slaves across the Sahara (Destrijcker 2016). Selling passage through the desert comprises a new market for profiteers. Human smuggling differs from human trafficking in that the former involves hiring third parties to enable illegal border crossings, whereas the latter involves transporting people under coercion or deception to exploit their labor or sell them into bondage (Içduygu and Toktas 2002, 28). The distinction is often blurry in the absence of official oversight and regulation. Pacts between migrants and smugglers can turn exploitative even when they start as voluntary. The International Organization for Migration estimates that one hundred and seventy thousand migrants passed through Agadez in 2016 alone, exceeding the number of normal residents by fifty thousand (Destrijcker 2016). Many migrants resort to sex work to finance the next stage of their journey; others languish in squalid connection houses; some who cannot pay are left to die in the wilderness (Taub

178   Lisa Mueller 2017). Migration routes do not all lead through Agadez. National Route 1 in Diffa is the dead-​end for refugees from Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, numbering more than one hundred and thirty thousand in 2017, who struggle to survive in makeshift settlements on inadequate humanitarian aid. There are no definitive death counts, but analysts conjecture that more people perish crossing the Sahara than crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Niger is at the center of a global collective action problem. International cooperation is necessary to stem irregular migration, because the vague provenance of migrants in places like Agadez and Diffa makes national governments partially responsible for one another’s citizens. The legal principle of non-​refoulement (non-​expulsion) arose from a concerted effort during World War II to protect refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. It states that authorities must not return asylum seekers to a country where they are likely to be persecuted. Upholding non-​refoulement is difficult when intercepting a group of migrants, due to the time it takes to ascertain each person’s home country and make appropriate decisions regarding where to send them. Human rights attorneys argue that the most appropriate policy is to provide safe housing while awaiting a judicial procedure (Fischer-​Lescano, Löhr, and Tohidipur 2009). Social scientists add that leaders of countries hosting refugees should do more than police borders and arrest migrants; they should also crack down on smugglers who have economic leverage to bribe their way out of punishment. Such a multi-​pronged approach is necessary, as policing alone can displace smuggling to different areas or even spawn more sophisticated smuggling organizations (Andreas 2009). A collective action problem exists because comprehensive action is expensive, and leaders can free-​ride on their counterparts who invest in solutions. Catering to the welfare of refugees makes host countries more appealing to prospective migrants, further discouraging authorities from acting, and thus creating a “moral hazard” (Stark 2004). There is some hope for breaking out of this negative equilibrium. In 2015, Niger became the first country in the Sahel to pass a law authorizing the judiciary to prosecute smugglers for violating human rights. The Nigerien government also cooperated with the European Union’s multi-​billion-​dollar Emergency Trust Fund for Africa and the Migration Partnership Framework. These agreements included a pilot program to track down migrants, house them in temporary processing facilities, and offer them alternatives to continuing north. Legitimate asylum seekers received help bringing their cases to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, while others obtained free passage home or learned about options for staying in Niger. To avoid attracting more migrants, only the most vulnerable people—​children, the ill, and victims of human trafficking—​could access enhanced social services (Nielsen 2015). While the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs announced that migration rates were falling, skeptics questioned whether smugglers have simply retreated deeper underground (Tinti 2017). In any case, migration from and through Niger toward the Mediterranean will remain a central fact with which governments must contend (See Mounkaila chapter 39 in this volume).

Niger: Precarious Stability    179

New Social Movements Life in Niger is precarious for migrants, the poor, youth, and especially girls. Some 56.6 percent of the population is under the age of fifteen (IMF 2013, 55), and 76 percent of girls are married before the age of eighteen (UNICEF 2014). Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that ordinary Nigeriens are powerless. On the contrary, Niger is participating in a historic “third wave” of popular protest in Africa (Branch and Mampilly 2015). The first wave led to the end of colonial rule, and the second wave precipitated democratic transitions in the 1990s. The ongoing third wave began in the early twenty-​first century and ostensibly emanated from middle-​class demands for democracy, similar to the Arab Spring (Harsch 2012). Beneath the surface, however, current protests are about more than ruling regimes. They encompass diverse actors with mixed motives that are not always clear in news articles. Consider the uprisings of 2009 and 2010 in which some demonstrators who appeared to be resisting Tandja’s authoritarian maneuvers actually cared more about their material well-​being (Mueller 2013). New social movements in Niger relate to democracy (Ella 2017), economic development (Bonnecase 2013), religion (Mueller 2016), the environment, and a host of other issues. Nigerien civil society has been relatively slow to affiliate with progressive social movements such as the Senegalese Y’en a Marre (Fed Up) or the Burkinabè Balai Citoyen (The Citizen’s Broom), which have had transnational impact in the region (Savané and Sarr 2012; Gorovei 2016). While these groups were mobilizing citizens in Gabon, Congo, Cameroon, and Chad, there were no major protests during Niger’s 2016 elections despite purported irregularities. However, Nigerien activists show signs of becoming more confrontational. Niger now has an active chapter of Tournons La Page (Turn the Page), an alliance “that gathers members of African and European civil society with the goal of promoting democracy in Africa.” One of its leaders, Maikoul Zodi, was arrested in April 2017 after organizing unauthorized protests against corruption and bad governance. Some onlookers maintain that the United States and France have misaligned their priorities by investing billions of dollars in counterterrorism and government restructuring while neglecting grassroots movements that have more potential to advance citizen interests (Taoua 2016). The potential for change from new social movements should not be overstated. There is no guarantee that assisting protesters will yield liberal change. Not all grassroots movements are equally cohesive or efficient, and some are quick to sell their allegiance to the same state cadres that they claim to hold accountable (Giugni, McAdam, and Tilly 1998). A divided coalition of Nigerien women, for example, was unable to withstand unified conservative opposition to the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (also known as the Maputo Protocol). In 2006, the National Assembly voted to reject a ban on female genital mutilation and protections for women’s political participation, equality with men, and reproductive rights (Kang 2015). Conservatives sometimes absorb activists rather than defy them. The leader of Niger’s Coalition Contre La Vie Chère (Coalition Against the High Cost

180   Lisa Mueller of Living), Nouhou Arzika, ended up siding with incumbent Mamadou Tandja after leading opposition protests in 2005. It is possible that these movements would have had different outcomes with foreign support. Beaulieu (2014) finds that protests are more likely to spur democratic reforms when they receive international attention. Western pressures to liberalize capital markets in the 1980s and 1990s had some painful side effects, but allowed opposition parties to use independent financing to recruit members from a larger cross-​section of society. Economic liberalization widened access to funds and technologies for rallying in the streets, not just in the legislature. Autonomy from state patronage networks distinguishes the third wave of African protests from earlier ones in which protesters instrumentalized existing power arrangements rather than overturned them (Mueller 2018). Access to mobilization resources is limited in very poor countries like Niger, but cross-​border partnerships can compensate for resource deficits and sustain collective action in the name of democracy, human rights, and economic and environmental justice. Top-​down solutions have delivered scant relief for Niger’s troubles. Time will tell if Nigeriens can fashion better solutions from the bottom up.

REFERENCES Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2001. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review 91(5): 1369–​1401. Action Against Hunger. 2016. “Conflict Worsens Hunger Crisis in Niger.” 15 June. www. actionagainsthunger.org Afrobarometer. 2014–​2015. Round 6 Survey Data. https://​afrobarometer.org/​ Aliou, Mahamane. 2008. “La naissance de l’armée nationale au Niger: 1961–​1974,” in Kimba Idrissa, ed., Armée et Politique au Niger. Dakar: Conseil pour le développement de la recherche en sciences sociales en Afrique, 45–​92. Andreas, Peter. 2009. Border Games: Policing the U.S.–​ Mexico Divide. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bassett, Thomas J. 1994. “Cartography and Empire Building in Nineteenth-​Century West Africa.” Geographical Review 84(3): 316–​335. Baudais, Virginie, and Grégory Chauzal. 2011. “The 2010 Coup d’Etat in Niger: A Praetorian Regulation of Politics?” African Affairs 112(447): 1–​10. Beaulieu, Emily. 2014. Electoral Protest and Democracy in the Developing World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boisbouvier, Christophe. 2015. “Mahamadou Issoufou: ‘Nous sommes tous Charlie’.” RFI 12 January. Bonnecase, Vincent. 2013. “Politique des prix, vie chère et contestation sociale à Niamey: quel répertoires locaux de la colère?” Politique Africaine 2(130): 89–​111. Branch, Adam, and Zachariah Mampilly. 2015. Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change. London: Zed Books. Branch, Jordan. 2014. The Cartographic State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Charlick, Robert B. 1991. Niger: Personal Rule and Survival in the Sahel. Boulder: Westview Press.

Niger: Precarious Stability    181 Club du Sahel. 1995. Preparing for the Future: A Vision of West Africa in the Year 2020. Paris: Club du Sahel. Coghlan, Andy. 2014. “Africa’s Road to Riches.” The New Scientist 221(2951): 8–​9. Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler. 2004. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 56: 563–​595. CILSS (Comité Interétatique de lutte contre la sécheresse au Sahel). 2010. “Climate Change in the Sahel: A Challenge for Sustainable Development.” Niamey, Niger: AGRHYMET Regional Centre Monthly Bulletin. Davis, John Uniack, and Aboubacar B. Kossomi. 2001. “Niger Gets Back on Track.” Journal of Democracy 13(3): 80–​87. Destrijcker, Lucas. 2016. “Welcome to Agadez, Smuggling Capital of Africa.” Politico 17 December. Ehrnrooth, Alizée, Lawali Dambo, and Ronald Jaubert. 2011. “Projets et programmes de développement de l’irrigation au Niger (1960-​2010): Eléments pour un bilan.” Niamey, Niger: Centre d’Etudes et d’Information sur la Petite Irrigation. Available at: https://​reca-​ niger.org/​IMG/​pdf/​Rapport_​CEIPI_​Niger_​1960-​2010.pdf Elischer, Sebastian. 2015. “Autocratic Legacies and State Management of Islamic Activism in Niger.” African Affairs 114(457): 577–​597. Ella, Gaston. 2017. “Tournons la Page exige la libération immédiate et sans conditions de son membre Maikoul ZODI.” Libreville.com 6 April. Englebert, Pierre. 2009. Africa: Unity, Sovereignty & Sorrow. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Fischer-​Lescano, Andreas, Tillmann Löhr, and Timo Tohidipur. 2009. “Border Controls at Sea: Requirements Under International Human Rights and Refugee Law.” International Journal of Refugee Law 21(2): 256–​296. Fuglestad, Finn. 1983. A History of Niger: 1850–​1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gellar, Sheldon. 2013. “The Rise of Citizen Movements and the Consolidation of Democracy under the Abdoulaye Wade Regime,” in Momar-​Coumba Diop, ed., Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade: Le Sopi à l’épreuve du pouvoir. Paris: Karthala, 119–​151. Giugni, Marco G., Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds. 1998. From Contention to Democracy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Gorovei, Domnica. 2016. “Le rôle des mouvements citoyens dans le processus electoral en Afrique subsaharienne: Le cas du ‘Balai citoyen’ (Burkina Faso).” Romanian Political Science Review 16(4): 511–​592. Gosselain, Olivier P. 2008. “The Political Economy of Women in Africa,” in Miriam T. Stark, Brenda J. Bowser, and Lee Horne, eds., Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Boundaries. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 150–​177. Harsch, Ernest. 2012. “An African Spring in the Making: Protest and Voice Across the Continent.” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 45: 45–​62. Heinrigs, Philipp. 2010. “Security Implications of Climate Change in the Sahel Region: Policy Considerations.” Report for the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat. Paris: Organisation de coopération et développement économiques. Içduygu, Ahmet, and Sule Toktas. 2002. “How Do Smuggling and Trafficking Operate via Irregular Border Crossings in the Middle East? Evidence from Fieldwork in Turkey.” International Migration 40(6): 25–​54. IMF. 2013. “Niger: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.” IMF Country Report 13(105). Kang, Alice J. 2015. Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

182   Lisa Mueller Lund, Christian. 1998. “Struggles for Land and Political Power: On the Politicization of Land Tenure and Disputes in Niger.” The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 30(40): 1–​22. Maccatory, Bénédicte, Awal Baboussayé, Illo Abdoulkassoum, Issaka Oumarou, Sitou Lawali, Abdo Hassan Maman, Malam Souley Bassirou, Haouna Issaka, Saidou Abouda, Lawali Dambo, Moussa Dit Kalamou Mahamadou, Lawali Abdoulkadri, and Hannatou Adamou Yacouba. 2014. “Gouvernance des ressources pastorales.” Report prepared for a workshop hosted by the Groupe de Recherche en Appui à la Politique Belge, Tahoua, 25–​26 March. Magrin, Géraud. 2016. “The Disappearance of Lake Chad: History of a Myth.” Journal of Political Ecology 23(1). Miles, William F. S. 1987. “Partitioned Royalty: The Evolution of Hausa Chiefs in Nigeria and Niger.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 25(2): 233–​258. Miles, William F. S., and David A. Rochefort. 1991. “Nationalism versus Ethnic Identity in Sub-​ Saharan Africa.” The American Political Science Review 85(2): 393–​403. Moestrup, Sophia. 2007. “Semi-​ Presidentialism in Niger: Gridlock and Democratic Breakdown –​Learning from Past Mistakes,” in Robert Elgie, and Sophia Moestrup, eds., Semi-​Presidentialism Outside Europe. London: Routledge, 105–​120. Mueller, Lisa. 2013. “Democratic Revolutionaries or Pocketbook Protesters? The Roots of the 2009-​2010 Uprisings in Niger.” African Affairs 112(448): 398–​420. Mueller, Lisa. 2016. “Religious Violence and Democracy in Niger.” African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review 6(1): 89–​104. Mueller, Lisa. 2018. Political Protest in Contemporary Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mueller, Lisa, and Abhit Bhandari. 2017. “Familial Nationalism in Weak African States.” Presented at the Working Group in African Political Economy, NYU-​ Abu Dhabi, January 2016. Mueller, Lisa, and Lukas Matthews. 2016a. “The National Elections in Niger, February–​March 2016.” Electoral Studies 43: 203–​206. Mueller, Lisa, and Lukas Matthews. 2016b. “The Upcoming Niger Election and the Drama Surrounding It, Explained.” The Monkey Cage blog; The Washington Post 17 February. Nielsen, Nikolaj. 2015. “Expert Teams in Niger to Steer Migrants Home.” EU Observer 21 April. Oduntan, Gbenga. 2015. International Law and Boundary Disputes in Africa. New York: Routledge. ONE Campaign. 2015. “The 2015 Data Report: Putting the Poor First.” Postar, Stephanie. 2017. “The Half-​Lives of African Uranium: A Historical Review.” The Extractive Industries and Society. 4(2): 398–​409. Robinson, Pearl T. 1991. “Niger: Anatomy of a Neotraditional Corporatist State.” Comparative Politics 24(1): 1–​20. Savané, Vieux, and Baye Makébé Sarr. 2012. Y’en a marre: Radioscopie d’une jeunesse insurgée au Sénégal. Paris: L’Harmattan. Schritt, Jannik. 2015. “The ‘Protests against Charlie Hebdo’ in Niger: A Background Analysis.” African Spectrum 50(1): 49–​64. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2009. “Ambiguous Secularism: Islam, Laïcité and the State in Niger.” Intimités et inimitiés du religieux et du politique en Afrique 58(2): 41–​58. Stark, Oded. 2004. “On the Economics of Refugee Flows.” Review of Development Economics 8(2): 325–​329.

Niger: Precarious Stability    183 Taoua, Phyllis. 2016. “How the US Can Help Africa Fight Terrorism by Supporting Local Activists.” Mail and Guardian Africa 4 May. Taub, Ben. 2017. “The Desperate Journey of a Trafficked Girl.” The New Yorker 10 April. Tinti, Peter. 2017. “In Niger, Anti-​Smuggling Efforts Risk Trading One Crisis for Another.” African Arguments 13 January. Tsai, Thomas C. 2010. “Food crisis no longer taboo in Niger.” The Lancet 375(9721): 1151–​1152. Turshen, Meredeth. 2010. “The Political Economy of Women in Africa,” in Meredith Turshen, ed., African Women: A Political Economy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–​22. UNICEF. 2014. “Reimagine the Future: Innovation for Every Child.” Report on the State of the World’s Children 2015: Executive Summary. Van Walraven, Klaas. 2013. The Yearning for Relief: A History of the Sawaba Movement in Niger. Leiden: Brill. Villalón, Leonardo A., and Abdourahmane Idrissa. 2005. “Repetitive Breakdowns and a Decade of Experimentation: Institutional Choices and Unstable Democracy in Niger.” In Leonardo A. Villalón, and Peter VonDoepp, eds, The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 27–​48. Walther, Olivier. 2015. “Benin-​Niger: The Niger-​Mekrou Rivers and the Lété Island,” in Emmanuel Brunet-​Jailly, eds., Border Disputes: A Global Encyclopedia (Volume 3). Santa Barbara: ABC-​CLIO, 694–​704. World Bank. 2015. “World Development Indicators.” data.worldbank.org

chapter 10

CHAD Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation Ketil Fred Hansen

Since the formal end of French colonial rule on 11 August 1960, political developments in Chad seem to repeat themselves: Increasing presidential power together with rising political repression leads to a military coup d’état. If the coup is successful, the presidential change creates popular optimism about the future, but the lack of political deliveries leads quickly to disappointment. Successful or not, the coup is followed by the emergence of another insurgent movement, which splits into various factions due to quarrels over leadership positions and regime co-​option among the faction leaders. A period of relative peace then follows, before a new “politico-​military movement” helped by a foreign power makes another coup attempt. If successful, a new popular optimism follows, and the cycle repeats itself. Six decades later, this cycle is still operative, with the only difference being that since December 1990 all coup attempts have been unsuccessful. President Idriss Déby Itno has cunningly managed to stay in power using both co-​option and coercion of adversaries, as well as foreign diplomacy and proxy warfare. More than in any other country in the region, contemporary Chad has been defined by the personalization of power around Déby; the country’s trajectory is intricately linked to his own. This chapter discusses the political survival of President Déby and situates his strategies and tactics to stay in power in the political history of postcolonial Chad.

SERIAL COUPS AND DÉBY’S RISE TO POWER Idriss Déby took power on 1 December 1990, in a coup against his former boss, President Hissène Habré. In June 1982, Déby had been with then-​Prime Minister

186   Ketil Fred Hansen Habré when the latter ousted his former politico-​military collaborator, President Goukouni Oueddei. Déby subsequently held various important functions within the Chadian National Armed Forces (Forces armées nationales du Tchad, FANT), including commander-​in-​chief in 1984 during “Black September,” the start of the genocide to eliminate the Sahr and Hadjarai elites in southern parts of Chad. After graduating from the prestigious École de guerre in Paris in 1987, Déby served as Habré’s defense adviser. Suspected of plotting a coup against Habré on 1 April 1989, Déby and two cousins from his Zaghawa ethnic group, Minister of the Interior Mahamat Itno and army Commander Hassan Djamous, fled N’Djamena. While the latter two were captured, tortured, and killed by Habré’s forces, Déby made it to Sudan, from where he mounted a new rebellion, the Mouvement patriotique du salut (MPS). In response, Habré’s notorious political security organ, the Direction de la documentation et de la sécurité (DDS), arrested hundreds of elite Zaghawa. Dozens were executed before Déby and his MPS rebels—​trained in Sudan, financed by Libya, and helped by France—​succeeded in overthrowing the regime (Debos 2016b). When Déby reached the presidential palace in N’Djamena on the morning of Saturday 1 April 1990, Habré had already taken off with millions of dollars, cars, family, and close friends in a transport plane provided by the United States, traveling to his French-​negotiated exile in Senegal (Bronner 2014). In fact, no change in president in Chad has ever been the result of a democratic, inclusive process. Chad’s first president from independence in 1960–​1975, François Tombalbaye,1 was in fact a French creation, officially voted into office by all but twenty of the fewer than seven hundred Chadians with the right to vote in 1960 (Bangoura 2005, 130). Tombalbaye reduced Chad to a one-​party state in January 1962 by banning all political parties except his own Parti progressiste tchadien (PTT), and then imposed a state of emergency condemning political opponents to life in prison or death following political riots in 1963. These actions quickly made him many political enemies (Bangoura 2005, 135), and he soon created the Compagnies tchadiennes de sécurité (CTS), a body outside the presidential guard and the regular army that was used to surveil, control, and repress political adversaries. From 1965 onward, some of these political enemies created rebel groups, with the Front de Libération Nationale du Tchad, or FROLINAT, being the most important (Buijtenhuijs 1978). President Tombalbaye was killed by his own guards in a coup d’état on 3 April 1975. One of his former trusted men, turned enemy, General Félix Malloum, who at the time of the coup had been in prison since 1973 for sedition and an attempted coup, was sworn in as president. Upheavals and armed rivalries between various groups continued under Malloum’s presidency (1975–​1979). Two attempted coups, one by a FROLINAT squad in April 1976 and another by soldiers from the northern Bourkou-​ Ennedi-​Tibesti (BET) region in April 1977, were aborted (Nolutshungo 1996, 93). In 1976, FROLINAT split into two main factions. Goukouni Oueddai led one faction with support from Libya, while Hissène Habré, supported by Sudan, established the

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    187 Forces armées du Nord (FAN) as the military base for the other faction. In a reconciliation attempt, President Malloum made a fatal decision—​creating the new post of prime minister and nominating Habré to it in August 1978. Habré’s power as prime minister quickly became clear. When riots in N’Djamena in February 1979 escalated to civil war, FAN declared loyalty to Prime Minister Habré while the Forces armées tchadiennes (FAT), under the command of Colonel Kamougué, supported President Malloum (Dadi 1987, 144). On March 24, President Malloum resigned and fled to Nigeria. A Gouvernement d’Union nationale de transition (GUNT), headed by FROLINAT leader Goukouni Oueddei, replaced him. The government, however, never lived up to its name; there was never anything resembling “national unity” in Chad during Goukouni Oueddei’s reign (1979–​1982). In fact, various factions of FROLINAT multiplied, dominated by Muslims and northerners; Koulamallah (2014, 130) counts eleven different factions. Disagreements within the southern-​based resistance against the GUNT, led by former Colonel Kamougué and elements of FAT, also led to splintering into factions. In 1980, Hissène Habré, at the time minister of defense, abandoned Goukouni Oueddei and the GUNT and fled to Sudan, transforming the FAN into a rebel movement (Brachet and Scheele 2019). Qaddafi’s dream of a “Great Islamic State of the Sahel” came closer to realization when, in January 1981, President Goukouni Oueddei and Qaddafi announced the goal of bringing about complete unity between Libya and Chad. This announcement, however, quickly prompted French and US support for Habré as he and his men removed Goukouni Oueddei in a coup in June 1982. Still, Qaddafi continued to support Goukouni Oueddei, and GUNT took control of northern Chad in 1983 and held it until 1987. In fact, Goukouni Oueddei, supported by Libya, ran a parallel government in Bardaï (Tibesti) until Habré, with French help, managed to regain control of the north in 1987. The area had been a zone of contention since Qaddafi had declared the annexation of the “Aouzou Strip” in 1975 (Debos and Powell 2017, 24–​27). In 1989, Habré and Qaddafi agreed to put the border dispute before the International Court of Justice. In February 1994, the case was settled in Chad’s favor, and Qaddafi withdrew his troops soon after the verdict. Supported militarily with artillery, training, and intelligence by both France and the United States, Habré had the capacity to coerce individuals and entire ethnic groups by which he felt threatened. Some forty thousand people were killed during Habré tenure, many of them tortured to death in his infamous “prison-​piscine” in the center of N’Djamena. Habré often mistrusted his collaborators at the slightest sign of political disagreement. In 1984, for example, his popular minister of foreign affairs, Idriss Miskine, a Hadjerai, died suddenly under mysterious circumstances (Brody 2005, 11). The death created tensions and suspicion between the Hadjerai and Habré’s own Goran tribe, and Habré started to intimidate, imprison, torture, and kill Hadjerai en masse. In 1989, after Déby and his Zaghawa cousins abandoned him, Habré established a special death squadron within the DDS intended to eliminate Zaghawa elites, averted only when Déby put an end to his rule.

188   Ketil Fred Hansen

DEMOCRATIC ASPIRATIONS, DEPRIVED One sentence from Déby’s inaugural speech transmitted on the national radio on December 4, 1990, soon gained fame among the populace: “Je ne vous apporte ni or ni argent, mais la liberté” (“I bring you neither gold nor silver, but rather liberty”).2 At independence, Chadians were extremely poor monetarily and Chadians with Western higher education were exceptionally rare. In fact, most people were illiterate. The country had no university. Only one Chadian had an advanced degree in law, and only one had graduated from the École nationale d’administration (ENA) in France (Buijtenhuijs 1978, 84). When Déby seized power forty years later, Chadians were still among the poorest people in the world. Everyone in Chad knew someone who had died in arbitrary detention, been tortured, or just disappeared during Habré’s reign (Brody 2017).3 There is good reason to think that “liberty” was what Chadians most fervently desired when Déby seized power. By promising democracy, releasing political prisoners, allowing new political parties, and increasing freedom of the media during his first year as president, Déby seemed to live up to his original proclamation. However, various elites from different ethnic groups created their own political parties, seemingly more for personal benefit than as an alternative to Déby and his MPS. In fact, Chadians had difficulty in distinguishing any ideological difference between the various political parties, despite their leaders’ claims to be social democrats, liberals, or socialists (Comité de Suivi 2013, 49). All parties, including Déby’s MPS purported to stand for “development,” “justice,” and “democracy.” Coming to power in a context of international optimism for democracy economic liberalization, with structural adjustment programs imposed as a condition for financial and diplomatic support, was not easy. The IMF instructed Déby to cut the civil service from twenty-​five thousand employees to three thousand, and after Déby had reduced the army from forty-​seven thousand to twenty-​two thousand troops, France required the demobilization of an additional six and a half thousand former combatants (Nolutshungo 1996). With empty state coffers after twenty-​five years of civil war, and a corrupt president fleeing the country with what was left of cash and gold, Déby had no choice but to accept the imposed conditions. A very high unemployment rate, together with a deprived population, made these cuts particularly unpopular, and Déby’s good standing among the populace soon vanished. Eight hundred people, from traditional authorities and administrative delegates to representatives of the thirty-​four newly established political parties and civil society, participated in the National Sovereign Conference, which took place from January to April 1993. The disagreements during the conference on everything from language for voting procedures to the meaning of the word “sovereign” suggested that the transition to democratic governance would not be smooth. In addition, the presidential guard massacred some two hundred and fifty persons in the southern regions during the National Conference, engendering rage among many of the participants. Nevertheless,

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    189 by the end of the conference on 7 April, a provisional constitution had been adopted and an interim government had been established (Amnesty International 1993).4 A decade later, “democracy” still had not delivered according to expectations. There were some one hundred and forty political parties in Chad, yet the majority were closely associated with the ruling MPS, and a “democratic opposition” never managed to seriously challenge the “presidential majority.” While Déby received only 44 percent of votes in the first round in the 1996 presidential election, thus requiring a run-​off, in all subsequent presidential elections (2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016) Déby solidified his victory in the first round, winning at least 60 percent of votes. Chad’s first democratic constitution, adopted in 1996, imposed a two-​term limit on the presidency. Déby won the elections in both 1996 and 2001. In June 2005, in the face of loud critiques of a “constitutional coup” from many quarters, Déby used a combination of threats and bribes to parliamentarians to eliminate term limits from the constitution. In October 2005, many troops, including parts of the presidential guard, left Déby and N’Djamena together with high-​ranking civil servants. Installing themselves in Darfur and supported by the regime of Sudanese president al-​Bashir in Khartoum, they mounted various politico-​military movements. For the next four to five years, a proxy war raged as Déby provided diplomatic and military support to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and other Sudanese insurgents in Darfur, while Khartoum supported and reinforced various Chadian rebel movements. These rebel movements were to launch several attacks and two serious coup attempts, before the January 2010 peace agreement between Chad and Sudan eliminated both their financial support and training grounds. In March 2006, Sudan-​supported Chadian insurgent, the Rassemblement des forces pour le changement (RFC), led by Tom and Timane Erdimi, nephews and newly deserted Zaghawa collaborators of Déby, tried to shoot down Déby’s presidential plane. Then, on 13 April 2006, only three weeks before scheduled presidential elections, Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim led his 5,600 “troops,” mostly young Tama civilians who had taken up arms under the banner Front Uni pour le Changement Démocratique (FUCD), all the way from Darfur to the outskirts of N’Djamena. The national army was taken by surprise, but with the help of French troops in “Operation Épervier” they managed to regain control, though not before leaving some four hundred causalities. Accusing Khartoum of the attempted coup, Déby called the rebels “Sudanese mercenaries” and immediately broke diplomatic relations with al-​Bashir. Given this failure, however, Khartoum lost hope in Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim, and by the end of the year Nour had reconciled with Déby. Indeed, Déby named him minister of defense in March 2007, although he was then removed in December when his “troops” failed to integrate into the national army. The crisis led to negotiations with the civilian “democratic opposition” and eventually to the signing of the Accord du 13 août 2007, setting out the conditions for further democratic transition in Chad. Negotiations with the major politico-​military movements resulted in the Accord de Syrte, facilitated by Qaddafi and signed in the presence of

190   Ketil Fred Hansen Sudanese President al-​Bashir by four major rebel leaders on 25 October 2007. However, neither of these accords was to resolve the crisis. On 2 February 2008, three of the four signatories of the Accord de Syrte attacked N’Djamena. Some three hundred Toyota pickups loaded with roughly three thousand combatants, arms, and ammunition from Darfur entered the capital to popular applause. Easily making their way toward the presidential palace, the rebel leaders paused to discuss who among them should be Chad’s next president. General Mahamat Nouri, a Goran, was militarily the strongest, while Timan Erdimi, a Zaghawa, risked the loss of support of his Zaghawa combatants if he gave power to a Goran. As the French military waited for a decision, Erdimi and Nouri failed to reach agreement; the next day France sided with Déby and helped chase the rebels from the capital (Hansen 2013a; Koulamallah 2014). Some of the rebels negotiated positions within Déby’s regime, but others returned to Sudan to prepare for new coups. In the wake of this new failure to remove Déby, Khartoum also lost trust in Nouri, as they two years earlier in Nour, and Timan Erdimi was instead selected to lead a new union of rebels, the Union des forces de la résistance (UFR) in January 2009 (Hansen 2011b). A graduate political rapprochement between Déby and al-​Bashir, however, led eventually to the signing of a major peace agreement on 15 January 2010, ending Sudanese support for the UFR and leading to the expulsion of Erdimi from Sudan. In the years that followed Déby has only gained in military strength and international reputation. The army grew to include thirty to forty thousand soldiers, including around fifteen thousand in the presidential guard, the Direction générale des services de sécurité des institutions de l’État (DGSSIE), which is better equipped and trained than the rest of the army. The DGSSIE is led by one of the president’s sons, Mahamat “Kaka” Idriss Déby Itno, and it consists of the most trusted soldiers, most of them ethnic Zaghawa (Griffin 2016). By 2016 Déby could be characterized by a US Air Force employee as one of the “best performers in countering terrorism and violent extremist organizations in Africa” (Burgess 2016, 316), and both the United States and France expressed confidence in Déby and his ability to maintain regime stability in Chad. This situation represented a significant shift for Déby. In his first few presidential years, Déby spent relatively small amounts on the military. While Chad’s military expenditures were US$50 million the year Déby took power, they declined steadily every year to reach US$24 million by 1998. However, the sum spent on military increased tremendously in subsequent years as the regime experienced regular coup attempts, and following the near overthrow of the government in February 2008 it reached a high of US$640 million in 2009, and has remained consistently high since then (SIPRI 2017).

The Electoral Marketplace: Co-​option and Protest The major opposition parties boycotted the presidential elections in both 2001 and 2006, and heavily criticized the elections for fraud in 2011. Following much debate, the

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    191 2016 presidential elections tried to use biometric voter cards that were intended to reduce cheating, but once again Chadians were deprived of their aspirations;5 although citizens participated massively in the elections in anticipation of real political change, none of these expectations materialized (Debos 2016a). While the major opposition parties all took part in the elections, and an all-​time high of 76 percent of the 6.3 million registered voters participated, Déby won easily in the first round, gaining five times as many votes as his closest adversary, Saleh Kebzabo. Given the power of incumbency, every political opposition leader clearly anticipated that Déby would win; the MPS was in fact the only political party present in all districts in the country. Why did the political opposition not come together to present a common front long before the 2016 election? It is likely that some leaders within the “democratic opposition” actually preferred Déby to an unknown adversary in order to maintain some stability within the state administration. For others, personal gain played an important role. Many of them lived a good life as opposition frontrunners, taking personal advantage of Déby’s co-​option strategies. Saleh Kebzabo, Déby’s main challenger in 2016, for example, lived luxuriously in the center of N’Djamena, and was widely invited abroad as Chad’s leading opposition candidate. In addition, participating in the elections implied accessing public funds. And politicians were not the only ones who saw elections as a profitable endeavor. The total cost of the election, including training of personnel and all materials, was estimated at 47.5 billion CFA (some €72 million). While a French company received the €22 million contract to fabricate biometric voter cards (Debos 2016a), the remaining €50 million left many possibilities for others to benefit economically from the election. Most Chadians, however, saw little benefit in Déby’s reign and co-​option strategies. The sense of deprivation and popular frustration rose as Déby’s regime hardened; violence, corruption, and privatization of power became the norm. In addition, the persistence of the same old men as party leaders, within both the “democratic opposition” and the “presidential majority,” created mistrust in democracy itself. In fact, in 2013, the average age of a political party leader was sixty-​four, all were men, and nearly all had been party leaders since the creation of their party (Comité de suivie 2013). Many younger party and civil society activists unable to accede to party leadership criticized the lack of democratic practices even within the “democratic opposition” (Collet 2016). Political life in N’Djamena has thus come to be characterized less by a Muslim–​ Christian cleavage or by ideological divides than by a generational divide as student and workers movements together with other (more or less) organized civil society movements have gained strength and popularity. Many of the smaller movements have joined forces in umbrella organizations and gained both Déby’s and international attention. Among the most important is the Trop C’est Trop! movement, established in 2014 by nineteen different groups and headed by a woman, Céline Narmadj. Others, led by younger men, were subsequently founded and are very likely to influence political life in Chad. In early 2016, for example, former student leader Kaina Palmer Nadjo established Iyina (“we are tired” in Chadian

192   Ketil Fred Hansen Arabic) primarily to protest Déby’s candidacy in the 2016 elections. Along with Ça Suffit (“That’s enough”), led by the human rights activist Mahamat Nour Ibedou, Iyina organized various peaceful protest activities—​“villes mortes” strikes, rallies, Facebook postings, whistle blowing. These movements denounce how Déby’s regime dealt with students and universities, women, elections, and public sector jobs. At the same time, they also protest against the “untouchables,” the hierarchy of older men within both the political establishment and the opposition. Déby finds these movements so disturbing, provocative, and dangerous that he regularly imprisons their leaders for days or weeks (Eizenga 2018). Social media, however, are quick to react to an international audience, prompting both popular and diplomatic pressure to release prisoners. In response, the Déby regime turns to co-​option strategies. In October 2018, for example, first lady Hinda Déby invited Iyinas leader Kaina Palmer Nadjo to the presidential palace for discussions. It was rumored that he received an important monetary gift. When the first lady posted a photo of herself together with Palmer on social media Iyinas was immediately discredited, and by the end of 2019 had largely disappeared.

POLITICS AS A FAMILY AFFAIR Déby’s regime today “looks like an old family kingdom as his sons, brothers, and (Hinda) in-​laws have been appointed in state positions that give them access to wealth, power and coercion” (Marchal 2016, 4). In the neo-​patrimonial governance logic of much of Central Africa, President Déby has a moral duty to pay back family members and others who have supported him. This also secures personal and ethnic loyalty toward him. Some examples of Déby’s nominations by presidential decree include his older brother Daoussa Déby as minister of post and telecommunication, brother Saleh Déby Itno as customs director, brother Oumar Déby Itno as director of the DGSSIE security forces, his wife’s aunt Haoua Acyl as minister of aviation, his wife’s father Mahamat Abderahim Acyl as ambassador to Sudan, his son Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno as chief of the army, his uncle Mahamat Saleh Brahim as governor of Ennedi, brother-​in-​law Ahmat Khazali Acyl as minister of education, and brother-​in-​law Ibrahim Bourma Hissein and nephew Mahamat Guihini Guet as directors within the national oil company (see e.g., Tchadanthropus-​Tribune 2013; Rachid Ismael 2011). These appointments, however, serve at Déby’s pleasure; many relatives appointed to such positions are then shuffled to others, and those who become too powerful or greedy are disgraced. In fact, Déby thus balances the financial, military, and relational power of his kinsfolk and friends to secure his own power, ensuring their incapacity to attempt an internal coup. While adversaries of the Déby regime argue that the Zaghawa clan controls Chad, Nolutshungo rightly reminds us that “[the] Zaghawa are not homogenous” (1996, 251). Andrea Behrends argues that generations of intermarriage and economic interdependence among tribes in northern and eastern Chad have created a

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    193 porous ethnic reality and “cultural assimilations to the point of adopting new identities” (Behrends 2007, 100); in postcolonial Chad conflicts “often broke solidarities down to lineage or family level” (Foltz 1995, 17). Thus, explaining fighting over political power in Chad by ethnicity is much too simple (Hansen 2011a; Debos 2016b; Brachet and Scheele 2019). In fact, family quarrels and fights over prestigious public positions sometimes end with animosity or worse. After close family participated in a coup attempt in 2006 and another one in 2008, Déby had the daughter of his nephew and Zaghawa kinsman Timan Erdimi killed in February 2008 and then sentenced Erdimi himself to death in absentia in August 2008 (Hansen 2011b). When Brahim Déby, son of the president, was killed in Paris in 2007, rumors speculated about whether someone in the president’s close family was involved and whether Brahim was planning a coup against his father (Passalet 2009, 109–​113). When Saleh Déby Itno grew too greedy as the head of national customs, President Déby sacked and imprisoned his own brother in 2015 (Rainfroy 2015). Beyond giving public positions to family members, Déby steadily increases the size of his close family. In January 2006, he added his maternal grandfather’s name, Itno, to his own father’s name and became Idriss Déby Itno (IDI), thus trying to make all Itnos in Chad remember their family connection to the president. More importantly in terms of building family ties are Déby’s numerous marriages. When he married Chad’s official first lady, Hinda Acyl (twenty-​eight years his junior), on 2 October 2 2005, he already had numerous wives. He subsequently continued to marry additional wives. For example, in January 2012 he married Sudanese Amina Hilal, daughter of influential former Darfur Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal (Marchal 2016, 16). They divorced after seven months. In 2014, he was said to have had as many as fourteen wives (Dickow 2014b, 72). In August 2015, Déby reportedly married a young woman from his home region of Amdjaress to build relations with the Borgat clan from the Ennedi region. There was lively speculation that he may have done this to strengthen relations with Ali Ordjo Hemchi, head of the Mouvement d’action pour le changement au Tchad (MACT) rebel movement.

FOREIGN SUPPORT, REALPOLITIK, AND PROXY WARS As a relatively unimportant warlord in mid-​1989, Idriss Déby would never have managed to oust Habré if it had not been for the support of Libya, Sudan, and France. While Libya delivered cash, weapons, and vehicles, Sudan provided both men and training ground for Déby’s combatants. France’s main contribution was to withhold support from former protégé, Habré, although France also took an active role in Déby’s victory by providing intelligence and a military adviser (Nolutshungo 1996).

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Déby and Qaddafi Qaddafi never supported President Habré (1982–​1990), and became a political ally of Déby’s in 1989 when Libya supported Déby’s rebel movement in Sudan. This political friendship was to last until August 2011 when Chad recognized the new regime claiming power in Libya, only weeks before Qaddafi was killed (Hansen 2013b). Over the two decades, Qaddafi took an active part in Chadian politics, sustaining Déby with arms and heavy military equipment, investments, and development aid. In addition, Qaddafi continually facilitated negotiations between the Chadian regime and various politico-​ military movements. Sometimes, Qaddafi also directly paid off politico-​ military adversaries of Déby with cash to calm resistance in Chad. Both Qaddafi and the Libyan state invested substantially in Chad after Déby took power. Banks, hotels, oil, and telecommunications were the main areas of investment, but they also made more ideological investments such as financing mosques and Islamic learning centers. In addition, Libya provided development aid to Chad and financed projects such as drilling of wells and electrification of villages. Economic cooperation between Chad and Libya was at its peak when the “Arab Spring” uprising against Qaddafi’s government broke out in February 2011. Following Qaddafi’s death, however, it was difficult to distinguish the Libyan state’s investments from the private investments of Qaddafi and his family. This uncertainty has created many opportunities for political elites in N’Djamena to pursue personal economic interests (Hansen 2013b).

Déby and France Since independence, France has managed its dealings with the various regimes in Chad with unscrupulous realpolitik. Although France had helped Hissène Habré assume power in 1982 and offered Habré vital military support during critical situations in both 1983 (Operation Manta) and 1986 (Operation Épervier), in the changed political context of 1990 François Mitterrand abandoned France’s protégé in favor of Déby (Nolutshungo 1996, 308; Powell 2017). Following the end of the Cold War and Mitterrand’s new focus on democracy and human rights as announced at the Franco-​African summit in La Baule in June 1990, it had become impossible for the French president to maintain support for the authoritarian Habré, known for his excessive human rights abuses. Ironically, Qaddafi—​quite maligned in the Western world for his support of African dictators like Idi Amin in Uganda, Jean-​Bédel Bokassa in the Central African Republic, and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe—​also backed Déby. In September 1989, while Libya openly and France secretly supported Déby’s insurgents against Habré, Qaddafi’s close family and collaborators were responsible for exploding a French airliner on its way to Paris from N’Djamena. And yet France continued to support, and numerous times save, Qaddafi’s ally and friend, President Déby.

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    195 This was not the first time France had helped Libya in Chad. In the 1970s, under the reign of French-​supported Presidents Toumbalbaye (1960–​1975) and Malloum (1975–​ 1979), France’s realpolitik supported then-​rebel Habré. On 21 April 1974, Habré, at that time a FROLINAT rebel, had kidnapped Françoise Claustre, a French researcher working in northern Chad. France tried actively to find a solution to the situation, including sending a high-​ranking French negotiator, Pierre Galopin, to negotiate with Habré. Habré, however, kidnapped Galopin and after more than six months of fruitless discussions with France hanged him on 5 April 1975. In September 1975, French authorities, without the consent of President Malloum, delivered weapons, clothing, and food to Habré with the hope of getting Claustre freed, an offer rejected by Habré (Powell 2013). Another example is how France and Chad diverged in their stance toward Qaddafi in 2011. France eagerly supported a robust interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which allowed “all necessary measures” to protect civilians under threat of attack by Qaddafi, and was the first country to recognize the rebel leadership in the National Libyan Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people on 10 March. Chad, on the contrary, supported Qaddafi actively until 24 August, only abandoning him after Qaddafi had already fled Tripoli. Thus, Chad, more or less secretly, supported Qaddafi’s forces while France, Chad’s military ally, was among the most active bombers of Qaddafi’s forces. The diplomatic tensions between Chad and France produced by this situation lasted almost two years. Yet, in early 2013, Chad joined the French in fighting Islamic insurgents in Mali, and relations adjusted back to close collaboration (Heisbourg 2013). French–​Chadian relations have been full of contradictions and inconsistencies, not only in their dealings with Qaddafi (Marchal 2015, 34). Officially, all French presidents after Mitterrand have proclaimed an end to Franceafrique, the close personal form of politics between France and its former African colonies (see e.g., Mouric 1984; Foutoyet 2009). However, no one has managed to end it. At the same time, President Déby has repeatedly proclaimed that Chad is sovereign and does not accept the paternalistic, colonial French attitude (see e.g., Soudan 2017). Still, Déby knows that, for the time being, he is fully dependent on French support, both military and diplomatic, to stay in power. Thus, both the various French presidents and Déby continue to foster their conventional relationships, only aborted now and then for a few months when either party has to show its own populace that the discourses are consistent and firm or when other realpolitik issues overshadow the relationship. France was on the point of abandoning Déby in February 2008, as it had done with president Habré in December 1990. In fact, documents exposed in Wikileaks reveal that already in October 2006 President Chirac’s Africa adviser admitted to the US ambassador in Chad that “Déby could perish soon, even very soon,” describing Chad as “a fragile territory disguised as a state.” He also stated that “[its] leadership consists of warlords who project control but do not govern. A Southerner ought to rule Chad.” Yet a year and a half later, realpolitik made France actively support Déby during the February

196   Ketil Fred Hansen 2008 attempted coup, seeing no better alternative. France’s need for a military base to secure its interests in Central Africa and its need for an unrestricted training ground for military exercises made the country overlook Déby’s extensive human rights abuses and corruption. Since 2013, the fight against terror has been central to the French agenda in the Sahel, and this policy has converged with the realpolitik approach to Chad. Beginning in January 2013, when the Chadian army wholeheartedly participated in fighting the Islamist insurgents in Mali, Chad became an important French partner in the war against terror. In February 2020, Chad contributed 1447 troops to MINUSMA, the UN stabilization mission in Mali. France supports the Chadian army with expertise, advice, capacity building, and training. In 2015, a French parliamentary report argued that the French presence in Chad “truly favored the construction of a state and armed forces which are among the most solid in the region” (cited in Powell 2016). Two years later, in February 2017, official France characterized Chad as having a high degree of internal political stability and being an important actor, contributing to collective security in Africa (see France Diplomatie 2017). In addition, the headquarters of the French anti-​ terror Operation Barkhane, counting some four thousand troops by the end of 2017, is located in N’Djamena. Confronted with concrete human rights abuses committed in 2017 by Déby’s political police, the Agence nationale de sécurité, the response of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs clearly indicated that this was not a major concern (see France Diplomatie 2017). As long as France needs a military base in Central Africa, both to secure its own interests and to fight radical Islam, or any other ideological enemy, and as long as the Chadian president is at risk of a coup attempt, whoever is president in either country, France or Chad, are mutually dependent on each other. There is an ambiguous power game between France and Chad; no one can be sure that either country is the more powerful in their complicated relationship.

Chad and the United States The United States has actively supported the regimes in Chad more or less constantly since 1982, but for various reasons. Under President Ronald Reagan (1981–​1989) the United States strongly supported Habré’s rebellion against the pro-​Qaddafi regime of Goukouni Oueddei (Human Rights Watch 2016; Brody 2017). Following the success of his 1982 coup, Habré’s strong anti-​USSR discourse spurred the United States to further generous military aid and support, including a monthly payment of 5 million CFA to his notorious Direction de la DDS (Human Rights Watch 2016, 41). During Habré’s regime, Chad became a donor darling, especially supported by the United States and France. While in 1980 less than 5 percent of GDP stemmed from development aid, during Habré’s reign this increased to levels between 16 and 25 percent (Nolutshungo 1996, 248). President Reagan received Habré in the White House in June 1987, just after a joint French, US, and Chadian military effort drove Libyan forces

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    197 from northern Chad, which they had occupied since 1983. In a public speech, Reagan proclaimed that what Chad had achieved was admired by the entire free world and that Chad contributed seriously to regional stability.6 Under George W. Bush (2001–​2009) the United States was again ready to support Déby in his fight against the regime of al-​Bashir in Sudan. Especially from 2005 onward, when Déby openly supported Darfur rebels in their fight against Khartoum, the United States provided substantial military aid and assistance. This support was to continue under Barack Obama (2009–​2017) for two main reasons. First, Obama regarded Déby as a trustworthy collaborator in the US-​led Trans-​Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCP) in the Sahel. Secondly, was the US interest in securing its investment in the 1,020 km pipeline from southern Chad to the Gulf of Guinea that had been built by a US-​led oil consortium. The United States has a strong vested interest in regime stability in Chad (Pegg 2005; Massey 2009; Hansen 2017).

Balancing Relations in Africa and the Middle East Fourteen African heads of state were present in N’Djamena at Déby’s fifth inauguration on 8 August 2016. In 2016, no other African president made more official foreign visits than Déby, reflecting the regional and continental leadership role he came to assume. When Qaddafi took the initiative to establish the Community of Sahelo-​Saharan States (CEN-​SAD) in 1998, Déby quickly endorsed it and made Chad one of the founding members. Aiming at regional economic integration and heavily sponsored by Qaddafi, membership of CEN-​SAD eventually reached twenty-​eight states. After Qaddafi was killed in 2011, President Déby organized a CEN-​SAD summit in N’Djamena in February 2013 in a bid to assume the leadership—​an ultimately fruitless effort in the post-​Qaddafi context. From its founding in 2014, Déby also quickly became central to the G5 Sahel initiative, a regional security initiative to coordinate the fight against “radical Islamism,” with European and US support. Déby’s African outreach has paid off. At the UN General Assembly in October 2013, Chad narrowly gained, by a secret ballot vote of 191 to 186, a seat in the Security Council for two years (2014–​2015). A year later, the Assembly of the African Union (AU) voted Déby its chairperson for 2016. When Déby left the position at the end of January 2017, his foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, was elected general secretary of the AU. Despite (or perhaps because of) his bad reputation among some Western governments and publics, Déby and his regime retain broad support among their African peers. Given his ability to manipulate realpolitik considerations with diplomatic performance in managing his relations with powerful states like the United States and France, and as an oil producer and with one of the best equipped armies on the continent, Déby has imposed itself in Africa beyond Chad’s economic or demographic weight. Fostering relations with regimes in the Middle East and Asia has also been central to Déby’s efforts to balance and moderate his dependence on the West. He has traveled widely to the Middle East, especially to Riyadh and to Doha to keep close relations with

198   Ketil Fred Hansen both the Saudi Royal Family and the Emir of Qatar. In 2016, five thousand of Déby’s troops trained in Saudi Arabia. From 2010 to 2016, Qatar considerably increased its interest and investments in Chad. The Qatari Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization funded Islamic educational centers and mosques, while Qatar Charity also funded humanitarian needs and contributed with long-​term development aid (Ghiras Magazine 2015). Toward the end of 2016, however, relations deteriorated as N’Djamena accused Doha of supporting Chadian rebels training in Libya, eventually ordering the closure of the two countries’ respective embassies in August 2017. In February 2018, however, diplomatic ties were restored. Déby was heavily criticized in the early years of his presidency for seemingly promoting a radical form of Islam. Hassan Hissein Abakar, who Déby named imam of the Great Mosque in N’Djamena in 1990, initially sparked fear both among Christians and moderate Muslims (Dickow 2014a, 46). Hassan Hissein was in the end to serve as a close ally of Déby until his death in January 2018, endorsing Déby’s apparent move to promulgate a tolerant religious climate in Chad starting in the late 1990s. The official website of the Chadian presidency notes that both Déby and his wife Hinda are educated in both Qur’anic and secular schools (écoles laïques). At the same time, Déby has attempted to increase collaboration with the Middle East, accelerating after 2005 when many of his close family and collaborators abandoned him. Many of these political enemies themselves sought refuge in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and Déby is certainly afraid that these regimes may again support Chadian rebels, as they did in 2006–​2008. Reports in 2016 suggested that several of Déby’s longtime opponents had received financial support from Qatar to launch new politico-​military movements with the aim of toppling him. In February 2019, Déby’s nephew Timan Erdimi and his politico-​military movement, UFR, once more attempted a coup. Entering Chad from Libya with some forty pickups filled with men and arms, most probably supported by both General Haftar in Libya and by Qatar, they were only stopped 400 km into the Chadian territory with intensive French bombing. In August 2019, 243 UFR warriors were sentenced to ten to twenty years of prison. In absentia, Timan Erdimi was sentenced to life imprisonment (Hansen 2020; International Crisis Group 2019). The incident showed once more that as long as both the United States and France actively support Déby, he remains safe. However, fears linger that someone from his trusted inner circles within the presidential palace might someday manage to assassinate or poison him.

TOWARD A POST-​DÉBY FUTURE? Déby is the elected president of Chad at least until 2021. Given the range of political resources he has amassed, no rebel movement will be strong enough or coordinated enough to oust him by military means alone. While politico-​military rebel movements continue to be launched with the stated aim of topping Déby, they tend to be composed of poorly armed young civilian men without an income and with only a slight hope of

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    199 glory and a paying job. Judith Scheele has reminded us that, in the case of the Tubu speakers of northern Chad, “images of success are bound up with armed violence rather than education” (Scheele 2014, 37). The leaders of the new rebellion efforts resemble their troops in this respect; the most they can hope for in their efforts is to raise their status within their community, and perhaps to be co-​opted into the regime by Déby. It is true that the nonviolent and more educated younger leaders of the new civil movements attempting to pursue change in Chad by electoral or other means are gaining both in popular support and international attention. But while the most prominent civil society leaders may be impossible to co-​opt, Déby nevertheless successfully uses subtle carrots, like international scholarships or permanent jobs within the public sector, to attract less committed dissidents and hence divide the opposition. One factor totally out of Déby’s control but very important for his political survival is the price of oil. Increasing oil prices will facilitate Déby’s co-​option possibilities and allow him to mute dissent by making it possible to provide decent salaries to public servants and other services. Another factor, only partially dependent on Déby but still of prime importance for his political life, is the fate of Islamist inspired insurgents in the Sahel. If Boko Haram, AQIM, and other jihadi movements are crushed or driven from the region, there can be no guarantee of continued US or French interesting in maintaining Déby’s dictatorial regime. Cognizance of this fact feeds rumors that Déby’s government is both supporting and fighting the same Islamic insurgents in the Sahel. A third factor that will shape Chad’s future is Déby’s health. Since November 2013, there have been rumors in Chad that the president suffers from an untreatable cancer, and he is said to use morphine daily for his pain. When his close family applied for and received French citizenship in January 2017, the events sparked further rumors of his imminent death. If this were to happen suddenly, there is no indication that any of his sons or close relatives has the necessary authority to take over as president. Despite speculation that Mahamat “Kaka” Idriss Déby Itno could be his father’s choice for the next president, that scenario is unlikely given his profile and his leadership of the notorious DGSSIE presidential guard. Déby, it seems, has certainly not managed to accomplish what he told the French newspaper Le Monde on 5 June 2001: “It remains for me to prepare Chad for a succession” (“il me reste à preparer le Tchad à l’alternace”). Despite the fervent desire of so many for a Chad led by a non-​military president more respectful of human rights, it is hard to imagine the future of a country so closely defined by its president when he is no longer on the scene. Unfortunately, the sudden death or removal of Déby is most likely to result in an intense power struggle, and one that is at risk of being severely bloody.

Notes 1. Known as N’Garta Tombalbaye after a name change in 1973. 2. I borrow from Ted Gurr (1970) in suggesting that “aspirational deprivation,” as a form of “relative deprivation,” may be at the root of societal upheaval and political violence.

200   Ketil Fred Hansen 3. This was also eventually officially confirmed; after years of delay the Extraordinary African Chambers in Dakar convicted Habré of torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity on 30 May 2016, and sentenced him to life in prison. 4. A 2014 Tele-​Tchad report and debate on the National Conference is available on YouTube, under the title: “Débat sur la conférence nationale de 1993 du17 janvier sur tol.” 5. In fact, many of the polling stations lacked equipment to make use of the biometric voter cards and thus had to register voters manually. 6. See the text of Reagan’s speech of 19 June 1987, “Remarks Following Meetings with President Hissein Habre of Chad,” http://​www.presidency.ucsb.edu/​ws/​?pid=34455

REFERENCES Amnesty International. 1993. La Conférence nationale du Tchad adopte des résolutions pour empêcher les violations des droits de l’homme. London: Amnesty International. Bangoura, Mohamed Tétémadi. 2005. Violence politique et conflits en Afrique: le cas du Tchad. Paris: l’Harmattan. Behrends, Andrea. 2007. “The Darfur Conflict and the Chad Sudan Border.” Sociologus 57(1): 99–​131. Brachet, Julien, and Judith Scheele. 2019. The Value of Disorder. Autonomy, Prosperity, and Plunder in the Chadian Sahara. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brody, Reed. 2005. Chad: The Victims of Hissène Habré Still Awaiting Justice. New York: Human Rights Watch. Brody, Reed. 2017. Victims bring a Dictator to Justice. The Case of Hissène Habré. Berlin: Bread for the World. Bronner, Michael. 2014. “Our Man in Africa.” Foreign Policy 24 January. Buijtenhuijs, Robert. 1978. Le FROLINAT et les révoltes populaires du Tchad (1965–​1976). The Hague: Mouton. Burgess, Stephen F. 2016. “UN and AU Counterterrorism Norm Acceptance: Comparative Security Policies of Uganda and Chad.” Comparative Strategy 35(4): 315–​325. Collet, Pierre. 2016. Les défis d’une société civile qui s’éveille. Groupe de Recherche et d’Information sur la Paix et la Sécurité (GRIP). Comité de Suivi de l’Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation. 2013. Les parties politiques Tchadien. Quelle démorcratie pour quelle paix? N’Djamena. Dadi, Abderahman. 1987. Tchad: l’Etat retrouvé. Paris: L’Harmattan. Debos, Marielle. 2016a. “Biométrie au Tchad: nouvelles technologies et vieilles recettes électorales.” The Conversation 27 April. Debos, Marielle. 2016b. Living by the Gun in Chad. London: Zed Books. Debos, Marielle, and Nathaniel Powell. 2017. “L’autre pays des ‘guerres sans fin’: une histoire de la France militaire au Tchad (1960–​2016).” Les Temps Modernes 693: 221–​266. Dickow, Helga. 2014a. “Chadian Identity Cleavages and their Markers,” in Martin Leiner, Maria Palme, and Peggy Stöckner, eds., Societies in Transition. Sub-​Saharan Africa between Conflict and Reconciliation. Göttingen: Vandemhoeck & Ruprecht, 33–​46. Dickow, Helga. 2014b. “Autoritäre Structuren im Tchad: Macht aus Sich derer, die sie nicht haben.” Sociologus 64(1): 53–​78. Eizenga, Daniel. 2018. The Unstable Founadions of Political Stability in Chad. West African Papers. No. 12 (February). Paris: OECD.

Chad: Realpolitik and Aspirational Deprivation    201 Foltz, William J. 1995. “Reconstructing the State of Chad,” in I. William Zartman, ed., Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 15–​31. Foutoyet, Samuël. 2009. Nicolas Sarkozy ou la Francafrique décomplexée. Bruxelles: Tribord. France Diplomatie. 2017. https://​www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/​fr/​dossiers-​pays/​tchad/​relations-​ bilaterales/​# Ghiras Magazine. 2015. “Qatar Charity lays Foundation Stone for ISESCO Educational center in Chad.” Qatar: Qatar Charity. Issue 10 (April). Griffin, Christopher. 2016. “Operation Barkhane and Boko Haram: French Counterterrorism and Military Cooperation in the Sahel.” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27(5): 896–​913. Gurr, Ted. 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press Hansen, Ketil Fred. 2011a. “Conflicts in Chad: The Porous Boundaries between Politicians and Rebels,” in Anne Moseng Knutsen, Kristin Vold Lexander, and Chantal Lyche, eds., Pluralité de langues, pluralité de cultures: regards sur l’Afrique et au-​delà. Oslo: Novus. Hansen, Ketil Fred. 2011b. Military Rebels in Chad—​Changes Since 2008. Oslo: NOREF. https://​ noref.no/​Publications/​Regions/​Africa/​Military-​rebels-​in-​Chad-​changes-​since-​2008 Hansen, Ketil Fred. 2013a. “A Democratic Dictator’s Success. How Chad’s President Déby Defeated the Military Opposition in Three Years (2008–​2011).” Journal for Contemporary African Studies 17: 583–599. Hansen, Ketil Fred. 2013b. “Political and Economic Effects of Qaddafi’s Death on Chad.” Note de l’IFRI, Paris. https://​www.ifri.org/​sites/​default/​files/​atoms/​files/​noteifriocpkfhansen.pdf Hansen, Ketil Fred. 2017. “Oil for Education in Chad,” in Lisbet Holtedahl and Rahcel Djesa, eds., Savoir et Corruption. Paris: Karthala, 59–​72. Hansen, Ketil Fred. 2020. “Chad: Armed Presidents and Politics. Military power and politics in Chad since colonisation,” in W.R. Thompson and H.B. Nasif, eds., Oxford Research Encyclopedia of the Military in Politics. Heisbourg, François. 2013. “A Surprising Little War: First Lessons of Mali.” Survival 55(2): 7–​18. Human Rights Watch. 2016. Enabling a Dictator. The United States and Chad’s Hissène Habré 1982–​1990. New York: Human Rights Watch. International Crisis Group. 2019. Rebel Incursion Exposes Chad’s Weaknesses. https://​ www.crisisgroup.org/ ​ a frica/ ​ c entral- ​ a frica/ ​ c had/ ​ au- ​ t chad- ​ l incursion- ​ d es- ​ rebelles-​ devoile-​les-​fragilites-​du-​pouvoir Koulamallah, Abderaman. 2014. La bataille de N’Djamena. Paris: L’Harmattan. Marchal, Roland. 2015. Petites et grandes controverses de la politique francaise et europeenne au Tchad. Ndjamena: Comité de Suivi de l’Appel à la Paix et à la Réconciliation. Marchal, Roland. 2016. “An Emerging Military Power in Central Africa? Chad under Idriss Déby.” Sociétés Politiques Comparées 40: 1–​20. Massey, S. 2009. “Oil and War in Chad,” in Roger Southall, and Henning Melber, eds., A New Scramble for Africa? Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-​Natal Press, 213–​239. Mouric, Nelly. 1984. “La politique tchadienne de la France sous Valéry Giscard d`Estaing.” Politique Africaine 16: 86–​101. Nolutshungo, Sam C. 1996. Limits of Anarchy. Intervention and Stte Formation in Chad. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Passalet, Samy. 2009. Tchad: Deby vers une fin fatale. Paris: Publibook. Pegg, Scott. 2005. “Can Policy Intervention Beat the Resource Curse?” African Affairs 105(418): 1–​25.

202   Ketil Fred Hansen Powell, Nathaniel. 2013. “The ‘Claustre Affair.’ A hostage crisis, France, and civil war in Chad, 1974–​1977,” in Jussi M. Hanhimäki and Bernhard Blumenau, eds., An International History of Terrorism. Western and Non-​Western Experiences. London: Routledge, 189–​209. Powell, Nathaniel. 2016. “A Flawed Strategy in the Sahel.” Foreign Affairs 1 February. Powell, Nathaniel. 2017. “Battling Instability? The Recurring Logic of French Military Interventions in Africa.” African Security 10(1): 47–​72. Rachid Ismael, Ahmat. 2011. “Que Dieu sauve le Tchad!” Makaila.fr. Rainfroy, Claire. 2015. “Tchad: pourquoi Salaye Déby, le frère du président, a-​t-​il été limogé?” Jeune Afrique 27 October. Scheele, Judith. 2014. “The Values of ‘Anarchy’: Moral Autonomy Among Tubu-​Speakers in Northern Chad.” Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 21: 32–​48. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). 2017. Military expenditure by country, in constant (2015) US$ m. Stockholm: SIPRI. Soudan, François. 2017. “Idriss Déby Itno: ‘Au lieu de nous donner des leçons, l’Occident devrait écouter notre avis.’” Jeune Afrique 6 February.

Section III

T H E E N V I RON M E N T AND THE C HA L L E N G E OF C L I M AT E C HA N G E Section editor: Sarah McKune

  INTRODU C T I ON Sarah McKune

The Sahel’s distinct environmental features have determined the livelihoods, cultural traditions, and economic opportunities of its people for thousands of years. The unique north–​south gradient, across which annual rainfall ranges from 10 cm to 100 cm, has fostered the evolution of complementary and symbiotic livelihoods, as well as conflict, trade, and the growth of urban areas. From the edge of the Sahara southward, rainfall increases and corresponds to different livelihood strategies: beginning with the most arid northern Saharan-​Sahelian zone, where pastoralists reign, through the semi-​arid Sahelian center, where agropastoral farmers are settled and grow crops alongside livestock, to the increasingly humid Sahelian-​Sudanese southern stretches, where rivers and more regular rainfall drive agricultural production. Highly variable weather patterns historically typical of the region have inculcated practices that promote the resilience of rural livelihoods. This is exemplified among pastoral and agropastoral societies, where mobility allows herders access to pastures sufficient to support a livelihood dependent upon livestock. This resilience is also seen in the collection of long-​term livelihood adaptations employed by famers across the region, including livelihood diversification, international and urban migration, and on-​ farm practices of crop rotation, intercropping, and water harvesting. At the same time, chronic food insecurity and regular environmental shocks have forced the evolution of shorter-​term coping mechanisms, varying by location, which allow populations to endure in environmentally harsh and unpredictable conditions. Just as these characteristics of livelihood, daily living, and culture can be traced back to the unique environmental features of the Sahel, so too can the existing limitations of economic development. Colonial powers concentrated population and inputs into the most agriculturally productive lands. Areas around the Niger river were prized for their soil fertility and productivity, a legacy that lives on in the cities of Bamako and Niamey, as well as Mopti, Sévaré and Djenné, all of which are established around the unique Inner Niger Delta and the economic opportunities it presented. Outside the riparian areas and the Sahelian-​Sudanese climatic zones, the unforgiving environment of the Sahel, characterized by excessive heat and limited water, has limited many of the

206   Sarah McKune foundational elements of economic development, including infrastructure, governance, education, and basic health services. The Human Development Index (HDI)—​ an indicator of overall development compiled yearly by the UN Development Program that also considers measures of life expectancy, education, and income—​consistently places Sahelian countries at the bottom of global rankings. In addition to the historical constraints to development—​ many of which are not simply environmental, but political and institutional, as well—​ the region now faces new, increasing complexity driven by climate change. Much uncertainty exists surrounding what exactly climate change will look like in the region, yet there is general agreement that temperatures are likely to rise and that there will be increasing extremes in rainfall patterns. In addition, the frequency with which these extreme events will occur is predicted to increase—​meaning both more floods and more droughts than have occurred historically. Across the region, this is likely to translate into decreased crop production, increased animal disease, and increased flooding and drought. In a context of already high rates of fertility, food insecurity, poor health, and limited economic opportunity, climate change injects a new layer of complexity to a set of fragile social and political institutions. Agricultural production in the Sahel has increased in the past decades, though most of the increase in yields has come from increased land under cultivation, rather than increases in productivity per unit of land. In some areas, climate smart agricultural practices, such as those in Niger described in detail in Chapter 11 by Cotillon, Tappen, and Reji, are having a real impact on agricultural livelihoods. In this chapter, the authors explore how water harvesting techniques and tree planting is changing agricultural outputs and environmental impacts of these strategies. However, if climate change manifests in significantly higher average temperatures, both livestock and crop production will suffer, requiring a reconfiguration of how the systems interact. Already, across the semi-​arid agropastoral zone we are witnessing increased conflict between herders and farmers, as herders move livestock south during the dry season seeking water and, in doing so, encroach on or physically cross planted fields, often destroying them. At the same time, farmers are putting more and more land under cultivation, transitioning what was once grazing land into planted fields, often with marginal outputs. Livestock, as described in more detail in Chapter 15 by Eilittä, is the economic lifeblood of societies across the Sahel, constituting significant portions of countries’ GDP and of cross-​border trade. Massive numbers of livestock are moved on foot, by truck, and by train across borders within the region and, importantly, toward its more economically prosperous neighbors to the south. Mobility is fundamental to the success of livestock herding in the region, and yet urban growth, increasing amounts of cultivated land, and population pressure are all impeding livestock corridors. Thus, while the prospect of increasing livestock production and productivity through improved systems across the region, as described and explored by Eilittä, is promising, climate change remains an unpredictable and looming threat to that potential, as well as to crop production.

Introduction to Section III    207 As climate change threatens agricultural production across the Sahel, overall well-​ being of the population is likely to be affected in numerous ways. Perhaps most significantly, food and nutrition security may be jeopardized. Because so much of the region relies upon markets for food, climate related disruption of local, regional, and global markets will likely increase food insecurity for Sahelian populations. In rural areas, where rates of malnutrition are already among the highest in the world, both the short-​ term and long-​term negative impacts of malnutrition are likely to be even more consequential. In Chapter 12 on malnutrition, McKune describes food and nutritional insecurity and their consequences, as well as the unique underpinnings of malnutrition in the region. She then examines the unique potential that livestock-​derived animal source foods hold for addressing malnutrition in the Sahel. If the ultimate goal of societies is to support populations to their fullest sustainable potential—​as measured by health, longevity, and well-​being—​societies across the Sahel face a stark and challenging future. The challenge presented by climate change in the Sahel unfortunately overlaps in time and place with one of the most rapid population explosions in the world. Due in part to the success of concerted global health interventions and overall economic growth, children across the region are surviving at increasingly higher rates. Since 2000, under-​five mortality, defined as the number of child deaths before the age of five per 1,000 live births, has decreased dramatically from 224 to 86 in Niger, with comparable declines throughout the region. According to the UN Inter-​agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (2019), Mali’s drop in the same time period was from 220 to 106, while Chad went from 187 to 124. While it is almost always good news when more children survive, there are complex population dynamics when mortality rates drop but fertility rates remain high, as they have throughout much of the region. According to the World Population Review (2019), Sahelian countries occupied four of the top ten spots among nations with the highest fertility rates, with Niger maintaining the highest fertility rate in the world at 6.95 live births per woman. Combined with a decreasing mortality rate, these demographics generate a lot more people in the region and—​importantly—​a lot more mouths to feed. Simultaneously, in-​and out-​migration in the region are changing rapidly (see Chapters 38 and 39 on migration in Section IX of this volume). A 2019 report from the Agence Française de Développement indicates that the population of the region (without Senegal, in this analysis) could double, from 80 million to 160 million, between 2020 and 2040, with much of that growth happening in urban areas. As a strategy to curb extreme population growth Chapter 13 by Graves, Moumouni, and Potts examines the potential for, repercussions of, and contextual barriers to, reducing fertility rates of women in the Sahel. They present evidence that population pressure in the coming decades will exacerbate existing food insecurity, and stress existing infrastructure and resources to their limits, at just the moment when climate change is predicted to do the same. Certainly, not all of the Sahel is rural, and as previously indicated, much of the population growth in the coming decades is likely to occur in urban centers (see Boyer and Lessault Chapter 37 in this volume). But the challenges presented by climate change in the region will have roots in its rural areas. Farmers, pastoralists, and all those diverse

208   Sarah McKune populations whose livelihoods depend upon the land and have evolved in this environment over thousands of years will be challenged to new levels. The impact of environmental shocks and changes in production of livestock and crops will be felt in urban areas, where food security is largely dependent on markets whose goods come from these rural areas. To survive, and certainly to thrive, they will have to incorporate new adaptive strategies. Conflict, already a major issue throughout the region, is likely to increase, given the overwhelming number of youth in the population; Niger has the highest youth dependency ratio in the world and Chad, Mali, and Burkina Faso are in the top ten. This demographic fact is exacerbated by the poor prospects for employment, the rise of radical extremism, and the absence of strong state institutions. In his chapter Benjaminsen explores this crucial question of the potential for climate change to act as a driver of human conflict, presenting evidence that, by and large, conflict across the Sahel is driven by politics and history rather than climate change. The highly variable, extreme environment of the Sahel has long defined its people, livelihoods, and culture. Climate change is poised to force a rapid evolution of systems across the region, including agricultural production of livestock and crops. Given the synchronicity of climate change impact and rapid population growth in the region, the implications of how effectively and efficiently the region adapts to the changing environment will have far reaching impacts on the nutrition, health, and well-​being of its populations. The chapters in this section explore these multifaceted aspects of the regions’ challenges in more depth.

chapter 11

L AND USE C HA NG E AND CLIM ATE -​SMA RT AGRICU LTU RE IN T H E S A H E L Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappan, and Chris Reij

For the past forty years, major changes in land use have occurred in the Sahel. In many regions, the area under cultivation has expanded substantially mainly by destroying or depleting the natural vegetation. In the 1970s and 1980s, agriculture in the Sahel experienced recurrent drought, famine, and reduced soil fertility. This chapter looks first at some of the characteristics of agriculture in the Sahel. Then the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s is examined, and how smallholder farmers and their development partners reacted to the crisis by developing climate-​smart practices. These practices included water-​harvesting techniques to restore degraded land to productivity and farmer-​ managed natural regeneration (FMNR), which allowed farmers to build more complex, more productive, and more drought-​resilient farming systems. The focus of this chapter is on FMNR and its multiple impacts because this technique is a foundational practice that has already been scaled up in parts of the Sahel. For instance, FMNR is practiced widely in the densely populated parts of Niger’s Maradi and Zinder Regions, on the Seno Plains in Mali, and to some extent in parts of Burkina Faso and Senegal. FMNR also has the greatest potential for scaling up in the Sahel, and in other drylands and subhumid areas of Africa. FMNR helps farmers build more complex and productive farming systems, which are more resilient to drought. It can be argued that FMNR, which leads to the creation of new agroforestry parklands, is the gold standard of climate-​smart agriculture. There is no future for agriculture in the Sahel and in other drylands without a substantial increase in the number of on-​farm trees. Trees are essential to improving soil fertility, producing fodder for livestock, increasing crop yields, protecting crops from wind, providing partial shade and reduced temperature, and reducing the burden of women, who are responsible for supplying their families with fuelwood.

210    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij FMNR produces many positive impacts on rural livelihoods. However, experience shows that the combination of FMNR with mineral fertilizers and water-​harvesting techniques produces the greatest impacts on crop yields. Finally, smallholder farmers in the Sahel and their development partners have shown the way forward. They faced an existential crisis in the 1970s and 1980s. Some farmers began to experiment and to innovate, which produced vital technical breakthroughs. Although considerable dialogue has occurred in the current decade about climate-​ smart agriculture, we demonstrate in this chapter that millions of smallholder farmers in the Sahel already have long and relevant experience with climate-​smart agriculture.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF SAHELIAN AGRICULTURE 1975–​2015 The Sahelian region is dominated by a crop and livestock production system, combining crop (mainly millet, cowpea, sorghum, cotton, and groundnut) and livestock activities (cattle, sheep, goats, and camels) in different proportions. This agricultural system relies mainly on mobile livestock using rangelands and crop residues, from nomadic or transhumant mobile pastoral systems in the northern Sahel to more or less seasonally mobile livestock systems in the south. Most of the cropland production is rainfed, with localized production from irrigation. In the Sahelian countries, sorghum and millet are the major staples, while cotton and groundnuts are the major cash crops. Maize, cowpeas, and rice are also important crops grown and consumed in the region (Table 11.1). The agricultural sector employs about 60 percent of the active labor force but contributes only 35 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on average—​ranging

Table 11.1 Average harvested area of leading crops in the Sahel, 2010–​2013 (thousands of hectares) Country

Millet

Sorghum

Cowpeas

Maize

Burkina faso

1276

1815

1186

813

Groundnuts, with shell

Rice, paddy

Seed cotton

411

136

505

Chad

921

988

-​

248

458

166

175

Mali

1764

1272

250

662

349

631

433

Mauritania Niger Senegal Total

9

152

34

19

1

32

-​

7099

3219

5012

10

751

11

9

846

141

119

134

922

121

30

11916

7587

6601

1886

2892

1097

1152

Source: Compiled by authors from FAOSTAT 2015

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    211 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Chad Mali Mauritania

2010

Niger Senegal

2011

2012

2013

2014

Burkina Faso Average

Figure 11.1  Percentage of agriculture in the GDP, by country, from 2005 to 2014. Source: Compiled by authors from World Bank 2017

from more than 50 percent in Chad to less than 20 percent in Senegal (Figure 11.1). The disparity between contribution to GDP and share of population means that many Sahelian farmers are poor, producing close to subsistence levels and facing numerous physical constraints including low nutrient content soil organic matter, soil acidity, and degradation from wind and water erosion. Large variations in the amount and timing of seasonal rainfall, and periods of drought add to the challenges of agricultural development. Fueled by high population growth and a growing demand for food, agricultural expansion accounts for most land cover change across the Sahel. In 1975, cropland was widely scattered among the natural landscapes of the Sahel, covering about 18 million hectares (ha). By 2013, cropland had expanded rapidly across the whole region, reaching a total of 43.5 million ha (Figure 11.2). Agriculture spread into most of the suitable soils that were occupied by the natural Sahelian savanna, and cut into the traditional pastoral areas of northern Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Chad. Niger’s vast south-​central agricultural zone, already heavily cultivated in 1975, became fully saturated with cropland and stretched eastward into the pastoral zone. In Senegal, cropland expanded into the central and southern wooded savannas and woodlands, creating a new patchwork of farmland and settlements. While the main story is one of cropland expansion, some areas experienced contraction of cropland area. Senegal’s Peanut Basin is one such area, with a patchwork of areas converted to long-​term fallow, reverting to shrub and tree savanna. This is one of the manifestations of the agriculture crisis as cultivation is abandoned when young men and women leave the land to seek opportunities in urban areas (CILSS 2016). The most dramatic change, however, occurred in Burkina Faso where cropland became the dominant land cover, reaching 39 percent of the national area in 2013.

212    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij

Figure 11.2  Agriculture expansion between 1975 and 2013 in the Sahelian countries Source: Tappan et al. 2016

Figure 11.2 shows the expansion of cropland between 1975 and 2013, including rainfed agriculture, irrigated agriculture, plantations, agriculture in shallows, and recession. Strong demographic growth as well as changes in rainfall have been key drivers behind this process. As agriculture has often been expanded over land that was not suitable to agriculture, crop yields were low. At the end of the 1970s, agriculture in many parts of the Sahel was characterized by crisis. Rainfall was declining and food deficits were growing. One of the many regions affected was the Yatenga Region of northern Burkina Faso. During the 1960s, average annual rainfall in this region was about 700 mm, but in the 1970s and 1980s it was about 550 mm. The average rainfall for the 1982–​1985 period was only 381 mm (Dugué 1989). Low soil fertility and low rainfall led to low crop yields. Average yields of sorghum and millet during the early 1980s were below 300 kg/​ha for both sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and millet (Panicum sp.). Groundwater levels declined and in numerous villages on the northern part of the Central Plateau, wells dried up at the end of the rainy season. The situation in many parts of Niger at the end of the 1970s was no different from the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso. Luxereau and Roussel (1997) quoted farmers in the Maradi Region, who remarked “There’s no bush left, the wild animals have disappeared, there are many people now, rains have diminished and the land is tired.” Raynaut (1987) qualified the agricultural system in the Maradi Region as “blocked” and wrote of the breakdown of agriculture. By 1980, agriculture on Burkina Faso’s Central Plateau and in the densely populated parts of Niger, as well as in other parts of the Sahel, was in a deep crisis and no one seemed to know how to stop or reverse the negative trends. In those years, the standard recommendations for the modernization of agriculture in the

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    213 Sahel included the mechanization of agriculture by the promotion of animal traction for plowing and weeding, an increase in the use of mineral fertilizers, sowing on lines, respecting crop densities, integrating agriculture and livestock, and, wherever possible, expanding irrigated agriculture. In practice, animal traction was often not used to intensify agriculture, but to expand the area under cultivation. In some cases, farmers were subsidized to remove on-​farm trees to facilitate plowing. Smallholder farmers were often too poor to afford mineral fertilizers. Yet, farmers and their development partners began to respond to the crisis, leading to several technical breakthroughs in the 1980s.

CLIMATE-​SMART AGRICULTURE IN THE SAHEL Farmers in the Sahel and their partners—​nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, technical and financial partners—​had to find an answer to the devastating impacts of drought and degradation on their livelihoods and food security. In the early 1980s, they began developing two types of climate-​smart agricultural technologies. The first group consisted of water-​harvesting techniques to restore strongly degraded land to productivity. The second approach was FMNR, used to build new agroforestry systems. For water harvesting, we examine the Yatenga Region, because that is where two technical breakthroughs occurred in 1980, which catalyzed not only a process of agricultural intensification, but also helped farmers build resilience to drought. For FMNR, we focus on the densely populated parts of Niger’s Maradi and Zinder Regions, which is where the practice first emerged in the mid-​1980s.

The Emergence of Water-​Harvesting Techniques Around 1980, Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer based close to Ouahigouya, the capital of the Yatenga Region, improved a traditional planting pit called zai. The improvement consisted of increasing the diameter and the depth of the pits so they could store more water by capturing rainfall and runoff. Additionally, Sawadogo added manure to the pits and by doing so water and increased fertility were concentrated in one spot (Figure 11.3). Although the impact of improved planting pits on crop yields depends on rainfall and on the quality of soil fertility management by farmers, many studies have shown the positive effect of water-​harvesting techniques. Winterbottom et al. (2013) quote Sawadogo (2013), who found that average yield for control plots was only 323 kg/​ha in 2009–​2011. The average yields for a range of water-​harvesting techniques (stone lines, half-​moons, and zai), however, were 100–​200 percent higher than for the control plots. The increases in yields are impressive, but they underestimate the impacts perceived by

214    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij

Figure 11.3  Zai that have been dug during the dry season Source: Photo by Chris Reij [author]

farmers. Improved planting pits or zai are used to restore completely degraded land on which nothing has been produced. Farmers saw the benefits of rehabilitating degraded land, and were quite aware of the fact that crop yields were zero before they restored the land with zai. In addition, they observed many other benefits, such as the emergence of on-​farm trees on restored land and, in some cases, a replenishment of water levels in local wells. While Yacouba Sawadogo was improving the planting pits in the Yatenga Region of Burkina Faso, an Oxfam-​funded project in the same area was improving another water-​harvesting technique. Lines of stones were placed along topographic contours, which resulted in efficiently slowing down runoff and trapping sediments. The project also trained farmers in the use of a simple tool, which allowed them to determine topographic contours for themselves. Contour stone bunding was adopted rapidly in the northern part of Burkina Faso’s Central Plateau (Figure 11.4). Inspired by the technical breakthroughs in Burkina Faso at the end of the 1980s, a project funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) began promoting zai, half-​moons, and contour stone bunds in Niger’s Tahoua Region. The year 1990 was a drought year and only farmers who had invested in these techniques had a good harvest. As a result, use of zai (called tassa in Hausa) and half-​moons began spreading spontaneously across the region. In a unique time-​series study, Hassane et al. (2000) documented the impact of zai and half-​moons on crop yields over a six-​year period (1991–​1996) on the same fields. Under slightly lower rainfall conditions than in Burkina Faso’s Yatenga Region, for both zai and half-​moons, crop yields increased from

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    215

Figure 11.4  Contour stone bunds slow down and conserve rainfall and runoff Source: Photo by Chris Reij [author]

about 125 kg/​ha on control plots to slightly more than 500 kg/​ha. In all cases the addition of some mineral fertilizers increased crop yields by another 40–​50 percent. These results accelerated the adoption and spread of planting pits. Furthermore, it led to the emergence of a land market. Farmers began buying and selling degraded land with the intent to restore it. These examples speak to the extent that farmers and NGO technicians in the early 1980s innovated in water harvesting for increasing agricultural production. In Niger and in Burkina Faso alone, water-​harvesting techniques have been used to restore strongly degraded land to production on at least 500,000 ha since the mid-​1980s. While water-​harvesting practices were gaining ground in the mid-​1980s, another kind of green revolution was quietly developing—​FMNR. This new practice did not require much investment and it went largely unnoticed until 2004. Smallholder farmers in densely populated parts of Niger began to protect and manage woody species, which regenerated spontaneously on their farmland. By 2009, the scale of this phenomenon had reached 5 million ha in southern Niger. FMNR is the largest positive environmental transformation in the Sahel, and possibly in Africa. This fundamental practice and its multiple impacts are discussed in more detail in the next section.

216    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij

The Emergence of FMNR During an initial field visit to Niger’s Tahoua and Maradi Regions in June 2004, it became clear that many farmers were maintaining large numbers of on-​farm trees, many of which were still less than twenty years old. A first impression was that the scale of this young agroforestry parkland could be on the order of several hundred thousand hectares (Reij, Tappan, and Smale 2009). Field visits and aerial surveys revealed that farmers had not planted the trees on their farmland, but rather had protected and managed woody species as they emerged spontaneously from underground root systems that were still alive, or from the “seed memory” of the soil (seeds that remain dormant until the rainfall). Figure 11.5 shows an example of FMNR with Faidherbia albida in Niger. Farmers like high on-​farm densities of this species because they increase crop yields. The consensus is that farmers began protecting and managing natural regeneration of woody species on their farmland around 1985. One of the stories about what catalyzed this process in the mid-​1980s pertains to Tony Rinaudo, an Australian missionary and agronomist based in the regional capital of Maradi. Rinaudo offered farmers food aid in exchange for the protection and management of natural regeneration on their fields during the famine years of 1984 and 1985. He had been planting trees for some years,

Figure 11.5  FMNR of Faidherbia albida in Niger Source: Photo by Chris Reij [author]

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    217 but with little success—​all the planted trees died. However, through planting efforts, Rinaudo discovered the root systems of indigenous trees, and it was this discovery that set him on the track of FMNR. Thousands of farmers began to protect and manage natural regeneration in exchange for food aid. When Rinaudo stopped food aid in 1986, which was a year of normal rainfall, half the farmers cut down their young trees, but the other half did not. Soon the benefits became clear—​even to the farmers who had cut down their young trees. As a result, many farmers began to practice FMNR on a voluntary basis. The multiple impacts observed by farmers (e.g., increased availability of firewood, protection of the young crops against the wind, more litter that helped improve soil fertility) led to spontaneous adoption of this simple technique. These first findings led to several studies to assess the scale and impacts of FMNR (Larwanou et al. 2006), an analysis of satellite images supported with field observations (Reij, Tappan, and Smale 2009) and a study on the economics of FMNR (Place and Binam 2013). While the occurrence of FMNR is important in the broad valleys of the Tahoua Region, subsequent efforts to characterize FMNR and its impact have focused mainly on the Maradi and Zinder Regions with their vast areas of cropland, as will be discussed.

The Scale and Dynamics of FMNR in the Sahel A first effort to assess the scale of FMNR in the densely populated parts of the Maradi and Zinder Regions estimated the extent at 3 million ha. More detailed work by Reij, Tappan, and Smale (2009), sets the figure at 5 million ha, making it the biggest positive environmental transformation in the Sahel, and possibly in Africa. The 5 million ha estimate was based on direct systematic observation and measurement of tree cover using high-​resolution satellite images. It also included the eastern part of the Tahoua Region, adjacent to the Maradi Region. Since 2004 numerous articles and reports have been published about different aspects of FMNR in Niger. Some are peer-​reviewed publications—​for instance, Tougiani et al. 2009; Baggnian et al. 2013; Haglund, et al. 2011; and Sendzimir et al 2011—​but many are in the gray literature, including a large number of student theses from the University of Niamey. These reports cover a wide range of themes, such as impacts of FMNR on soil fertility management (Ado Maman 2009; Ado, A. M. 2011; Ali 2013), the impact on yields of millet and cowpea (Boube 2009), and household food security (Chaibou 2009). Other studies have been commissioned by donor agencies supporting FMNR (Francis and Weston 2015; Fritz and Graves 2016). Some of these studies were in response to the 2011 food crisis in Niger, such as the study by Yamba and Sambo (2012). In 2011, Niger experienced drought and a substantial national cereal deficit; the study examined whether communities with high on-​farm tree densities were also affected by a food shortage. To support the USAID Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) program, the US Geological Survey (USGS) mapped on-​farm tree cover across the Zinder and Maradi Regions in 2014 to provide a more recent and detailed look at the extent and distribution of FMNR in south-​central Niger.

218    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij

Open with isolated trees (0-2%)

Low density tree cover (2–5%)

Medium density tree cover (5-15%)

High density tree cover (15-25%)

Figure 11.6  Illustration of different tree cover densities within a 10-​hectare sample plot Source: DigitalGlobe

Several years ago, a team from the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center developed a practical technique using high-​resolution satellite imagery to map on-​farm tree cover density in the Sahel, where most tree cover is scattered and diffuse (Cotillon and Mathis 2016). Their method allows one to accurately estimate the percentage of tree density within a user-​defined sample plot (see Figure 11.6). Throughout their analysis, tree cover density is used as a proxy for the extent of adoption of FMNR across the Maradi and Zinder landscape. The on-​farm tree cover map indicates that 66.6 percent of the farmland has some degree of tree cover (4.2 million ha) in the Maradi and Zinder Regions, of which 32 percent is open with isolated trees, 23.3 percent is covered by a low tree cover, 11 percent by a medium tree cover, and 0.3 percent by a high level of tree cover (Figure 11.7). On average, the communes of south Zinder have the highest tree cover on farmland. To study the dynamics of FMNR in south-​central Niger, the USGS used the same methodology to estimate the tree cover density over the same area in 2005. Although, most of the sample plots (73.3 percent) showed no change in on-​farm tree cover density between 2005 and 2014, approximately 23.1 percent of the plots showed substantial increases in tree density across southern Maradi and Zinder Regions. Figure 11.8 highlights that increase in on-​farm tree cover, found mostly in southern Zinder, especially in the districts (called Departments) of Magaria, Kantché, and Mirriah.

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    219

Figure 11.7 On-​ farm tree cover density in south-​ central Niger, sample plots on a 2-​ kilometer grid Source: DigitalGlobe

The high-​resolution image pair shown in Figure 11.9 provides an example of the increasing tree density in the Zinder Region, comparing local areas in the dry seasons of 2002 and 2014. The images show relatively high on-​farm tree density in proximity to the large village of Mazanya. This area is located 31 km southeast of Matameye. Although the village has grown, tree density has also increased in the last decade. Less than 2 percent of the data indicate a decrease in on-​farm tree cover density. During the last decade, other cases have been identified in the Sahel where farmers have increased on-​farm tree densities. For instance, in 2011 it became clear that farmers on Mali’s Seno Plains had protected and managed natural regeneration of on-​farm trees on almost 500,000 ha (Figure 11.10). While many communities had been protecting trees for at least fifty years, the practice was reinforced after 1994 when Mali’s new forest law explicitly recognized the rights of farmers to the trees on their fields. Having a new forest law that recognizes the rights of farmers to their on-​farm trees is an important enabling condition, but the emergence of a new agroforestry parkland on the Seno Plains was also facilitated by the fact that a regional radio station in Bankass informed the villagers about the contents of the new law. As a result, farmers came to understand that they could refuse access to firewood traders who would arrive with a permit delivered by the forestry service, and then proceed to cut the farmers’ on-​farm

220    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij

Figure 11.8  Change in on-​farm tree cover density 2005 to 2014 in southern Maradi and Zinder Regions, sample plots on a 6-​kilometer grid Source: DigitalGlobe

trees (Botoni and Reij 2009). A survey among five hundred farmers interviewed in four villages in 2008, indicated that 69 percent of the farmers protected and managed natural regeneration (Sahel Eco 2008). Numerous projects in Niger, and elsewhere in the Sahel, are now supporting FMNR. One of the characteristics of FMNR in the Sahel, however, is that many farmers voluntarily adopt the practice. External support is useful to help catalyze FMNR, for instance through support for farmer-​to-​farmer study visits, but subsequently farmers continue at their own initiative.

The Impact of FMNR on Crop Yields and on Food Security The study by Reij, Tappan, and Smale (2009) estimated that southern Niger produces an additional 500,000 tons of cereal in an average year as a result of 5 million ha under FMNR. This estimate assumed that FMNR has increased cereal production by an average 100 kg/​ha. But how realistic is this assumption?

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    221 (a)

(b)

Figure 11.9  Satellite images showing typical increase in density of on-​farm trees in an area of high-​density tree cover Source: DigitalGlobe. Image dates: 7 March 2002; 13 January 2014

222    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij

Figure 11.10  Tree cover extent and density in agricultural parklands of the Seno Plains, Mali Source: DigitalGlobe

A positive impact of on-​farm trees on crop yields depends on tree densities, species, and age. In large areas of the Zinder Region, Faidherbia albida is the dominant species. Faidherbia albida is a nitrogen-​fixing tree, and farmers recognize that its impact on crop yields increases with time. Elsewhere, Combretum glutinosum, Guiera senegalensis, and Piliostigma reticulatum are dominant species. These species do not fix nitrogen, but according to farmers they do have a positive effect on soil fertility and, by extension, on yields.

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    223 Almost all available data show modest increases in crop yields. Yamba (2016) reviewed many student theses on the impact of FMNR on soil fertility and crop yields (Ado Maman 2009; Ado 2011; Boube 2009; Garba 2012; Ibrahim 2007; Illo 2011; Malam Kime 2000; Ousseini Maiga 2007). In numerous cases, the students established and monitored yield plots for one year. According to Boube (2009), fields in the Maradi Region with FMNR less than three years old increased millet yields by 32–​165 kg/​ha. Fields with three-​to six-​year-​old FMNR showed increases of 59–​221 kg/​ha, and fields with FMNR of six or more years old increased by 120–​209 kg/​ha. Under a Faidherbia albida parkland in the Zinder Region, average millet yields have been measured at 690 kg/​ha, whereas average yields in the same year on control plots were 350 kg/​ha (Malam Kime 2000). These data confirm that an average increase of 100 kg/​ha for the new agroforestry parkland in southern Niger is a reasonable assumption. The impact of FMNR on food security is much bigger than indicated by an increase in crop yields alone. The on-​farm trees also produce fodder, which allows households to keep more livestock. In drought years, farm households can literally survive on their on-​ farm trees, because they can prune or cut some trees and sell firewood, which generates cash and allows them to buy cereals in the market. In parts of the Mirriah district (eastern Zinder Region), baobab (Adansonia digitata) is a dominant tree species. The value of the leaves of a mature baobab ranges from 14,000 to 35,000 CFA Francs per tree (CFA Franc is the official currency of Niger). This means that the revenues of one mature baobab allow a farm household to buy 70–​175 kg of cereals on the market during the dry season (Yamba and Sambo 2012). This example demonstrates that the impact of on-​farm trees on household food security is greater than just increases in crop yields alone. FMNR generates fodder, firewood, fruits, and leaves that can be consumed by households as well as sold on the market. In 2011, Niger was greatly affected by drought and the national cereal deficit was estimated to be on the order of 600,000 tons. Areas with high on-​farm tree densities, however, appeared to avoid serious food shortages. A quick survey in two districts (Kantche and Mirriah) with high population densities and high on-​farm tree densities indicated that the Kantche district produced a grain surplus of almost 13,000 tons in 2011 (Yamba and Sambo 2012).

The Economic Benefits of FMNR In 2011, a team from the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) did a study on the economic impacts of FMNR in four countries in the Sahel: Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal (Place and Binam 2013. The following highlight some of their findings for Niger, based on interviews with 480 households in the Maradi and Zinder Regions: 1. In terms of harvested value, the mean value of FMNR products per household in Niger’s Maradi and Zinder Regions in 2011 were almost 126,000 CFA Francs (the exchange rate in December 2011 was US$1 = 501 CFA Francs), but the median

224    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij value was only 21,755 CFA Francs. This finding indicated that there was a rather skewed distribution of harvested value, with a few households obtaining high values (Place and Binam 2013, 27). 2. In terms of marketed value, the reported sales of tree products in Niger were low with a mean value of only 5,520 CFA Francs per household. The conclusion was that farm households in Niger’s Maradi and Zinder Regions harvest numerous FMNR products but sell very little, which means that most harvested products are consumed at the household level. This may well be the case for the poorest households with little land to cultivate. The poorest households need all the firewood from their on-​farm trees to meet their energy needs and most of the harvested fodder to meet their livestock needs. 3. In the ICRAF study, 50 percent of the 480 households interviewed had Faidherbia albida trees on their farms, 30 percent had Guiera senegalensis, and 18 percent had Piliostigma reticulatum. These trees enhance soil fertility and produce fodder. During the last several months of the dry season, livestock depend increasingly on fodder trees. Surprisingly, Place and Binam (2013) found a negative association in Niger between the number of fodder trees and the number of sheep and goats. They argued that a low number of sheep and goats may enable farmers to more easily regenerate trees on their farms; however, there may be another reason. If women were underrepresented in their interviews, this may have influenced the findings of Place and Binam (2013) since women usually own sheep and goats. It is useful to compare the findings of Place and Binam (2013) with those of a smaller study by Yamba and Sambo (2012) who interviewed 197 household heads in two districts in the Zinder Region with high population densities and high on-​farm tree densities. In January 2012, 87 percent of the household heads annually sold small quantities of FMNR products, which generated a cash income between 1,000 and 20,000 CFA Francs. Only one out of the 197 household heads generated a cash income of more than 100,000 CFA Francs. This result confirms the findings of Place and Binam regarding a skewed distribution of marketed value of FMNR products. Yamba and Sambo (2012) paint a slightly different picture about the total value generated by FMNR for what they call extremely vulnerable and vulnerable households. In four out of five villages studied, the extremely vulnerable households generated cash income from FMNR ranging from 22,500 to 58,000 CFA Francs. This income was similar to the FMNR revenue generated by medium-​wealthy households, and in two villages the amount was even greater. The extremely vulnerable households cultivate only small plots of land and they depend much more on their land than the wealthier families. Income from FMNR appears to be less skewed in the Place and Binam study than in the one by Yamba and Sambo (2012). Yamba and Sambo (2012) identified the same fodder-​producing tree species as Place and Binam (2013), but they found that households rely more on fodder produced by on-​ farm trees, because of the degradation of natural vegetation in the commons. Another aspect emphasized by Yamba and Sambo is the change in livestock management. Farm

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    225 households increasingly enclose livestock and provide them with fodder, thus reducing open grazing. To put the findings of Place and Binam (2013) and those of Yamba and Sambo (2012) into perspective, it may be useful to remember that 2011 was a drought year in Niger and crops failed in many parts of the country. These studies demonstrate the importance to households of income from FMNR products.

FMNR, Agricultural Intensification, and Demographic Growth In the 1980s, one of the key agricultural extension messages in the Sahel was to encourage farmers to better integrate agriculture and livestock. The idea was that livestock should be enclosed, stall-​fed, and all manure should be manually spread onto the fields to improve soil fertility. Most farmers ignored this extension message, however, because it required an additional and substantial investment of labor. The rapid spread of FMNR in the Maradi and Zinder Regions is a reaction to the environmental crisis of the 1970s and 1980s (Larwanou et al. 2006). The drought of 1968–​1973 and the multiple years of crop failures forced many farmers to cut trees to survive. Wherever possible, they expanded their cultivated fields to compensate for low crop yields. Farmers whose fields had few or no on-​farm trees were particularly vulnerable to the erosive effect of wind in the early rainy season. Their young crops were regularly destroyed by wind and shifting sand. Farmers often had to plant crops three or four times before they would succeed, which meant not only a loss of precious seed but also a shortened growing season. High population densities in the Maradi and Zinder Regions led to “wall-​to-​wall” agriculture as the practice of placing land in fallow declined. Because much of the natural vegetation had been destroyed in the 1970s and 1980s, women had to walk increasingly long distances to collect firewood. Increasing the number of on-​farm trees offered farmers a low-​cost way of intensifying agricultural production. It also helped improve household energy supplies as on-​farm trees require pruning to develop a trunk and a canopy. Pruning also helps accelerate growth. With the decreased option of leaving the land fallow to restore soil fertility and the lack of household resources to buy mineral fertilizers, it is no surprise that farmers in densely populated areas turned to managing trees. Farmers perceived trees as having a positive impact on soil fertility, particularly Faidherbia albida, and this may explain why major parts of the southern Zinder Region (Magaria and Kantche districts) are dominated by this species (Yamba and Sambo 2012). As mentioned earlier, FMNR has a positive impact on crop yields. However, demographic growth rates in Niger are the highest in the world (approximately 3.5 percent per year). This means that the population of Niger will double in about twenty years. Average cereal yields in Niger are low and data for the Maradi and Zinder Regions indicate a yield of about 400 kg/​ha. FMNR produces numerous benefits, one being the

226    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij increase in cereal yields, generally estimated between 100 and 200 kg/​ha. This increase in yield is important to smallholder farmers, but it is not enough to feed a rapidly growing population. Farmers in the village of Dan Saga, who have invested in trees, have also begun to use small quantities of mineral fertilizers, which allow them to double their crop yields.

FMNR, Local Institutions, and Conflict Management Individual farmers can protect and manage the regeneration of woody species on their farmland, but they risk being confronted with illegal wood cutting. The new tree capital is easier to protect and manage when communities organize themselves to do so. Baggnian et al. (2013) looked at the dynamics of FMNR in five villages in the Maradi and Zinder Regions from 2005 to 2012. In four of the five villages, the number of on-​ farm trees increased from an average of five to forty-​seven trees per hectare. One village, however, showed a strong decline in the number of on-​farm trees. The decline was attributed to the absence of a village organization in charge of protection and management of natural regeneration and the presence of a rural firewood market. The market offers villagers an opportunity for controlled cutting and selling of firewood, but in the absence of a strong local organization, it can lead to uncontrolled cutting. The village of Dan Saga has a village committee in charge of the management of on-​farm trees and it also has a rural firewood market. In this village, the average number of on-​farm trees is about 150 per hectare. Farmers investing in FMNR often identify illegal cutting and theft of trees by migrating livestock herders as the major constraint they face. This can lead to conflicts with the herders. The communities formulate by-​laws, which define the rules for management, and they also establish sanctions for those who do not respect the rules. The communities appoint local forest guards who have the authority to apprehend those who illegally cut trees. Violators usually must pay a fine. Village committees responsible for managing trees often have eight to ten elected members (Pye-​Smith 2013). The village committee of Dan Saga includes women as well as a representative of a herder camp in the area. The village committee quickly realized that if they built links with village committees in neighboring villages, it would be easier to control illegal cutting of trees. As a result, an inter-​village committee was created.

The Future of Rainfed Agriculture in the Sahel Despite substantial rural to urban migration, rural population densities in many parts of the Sahel continue to increase, which means that the average area cultivated by smallholder farm families will continue to decrease. This decrease in available cultivated area will force farmers to intensify rainfed agriculture, and the only way to do so at low cost is by increasing the number of on-​farm trees through the protection and management

Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    227 of natural regeneration (FMNR). Increasing rural population densities, will most likely lead to the emergence of new agroforestry parklands in many parts of the Sahel. The future of rainfed agriculture in the Sahel will be largely determined by whether low-​income smallholder farmers will manage to improve soil fertility. Farmers know exactly which tree species have a positive impact on soil fertility. Trees not only fix nitrogen on root systems they also drop their leaves, which increases soil organic matter—​ a major determinant in water-​holding capacity of the topsoil. Higher levels of soil organic matter also make the use of mineral fertilizers more feasible. Farmers in Niger’s Aguie district, most of whom are FMNR practitioners, are using mineral fertilizers, which has doubled their cereal yields from about 500–​600 kg/​ha to 1000–​1200 kg/​ha. Given the vital role that on-​farm trees play in improving soil fertility (and many other benefits), it can be argued that the future of agricultural production in the Sahel will depend on including substantial densities of on-​farm trees. The indications are that farmers in densely populated parts of the Sahel have been on the frontline of increasing on-​farm tree densities. The large-​scale regreening by farmers in Niger’s Maradi and Zinder Regions is literally a story of “more people, more trees.” The success in these regions implies that the greatest potential for FMNR—​where it is minimally or not currently practiced—​is in areas with high population densities. The high demographic growth rates in all Sahel countries has driven rapid expansion of cultivated land at the expense of many types of natural vegetation (CILSS 2016). This trend is likely to continue, further degrading the vegetation on the remaining natural landscapes. In contrast, the number of on-​farm trees is likely to increase. The challenge is to not only increase the number of trees but also their diversity. Water-​harvesting techniques to restore degraded land for plant production allow rainfall and runoff to infiltrate. These techniques effectively increase the quantity of moisture available for plant growth, and by doing so, they allow farmers to harvest a crop in all but the most extreme drought years. The average costs of implementing these techniques are around US$250 per hectare, which is much lower than the costs associated with irrigation, which are often on the order of US$10,000 per hectare. Use of water-​harvesting techniques has great potential in regions where rainfall is 400–​ 800 mm per year, and soils are barren and crusted. It is not a coincidence that these techniques have already been applied at scale in the Yatenga Region of Burkina Faso and in parts of the Tahoua Region in Niger, because severe land degradation in the 1970s and 1980s led to an expansion of barren, crusted soils. The construction of water-​harvesting techniques is labor-​intensive, which means that, like FMNR, use of these techniques has the greatest potential in areas with high population densities.

CONCLUSION Farmers and their development partners in the Sahel have been building resilience to drought since the early 1980s. They have developed climate-​smart agricultural practices,

228    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij such as water-​harvesting techniques and FMNR, which, as this chapter has shown, are already applied at scale and have great potential for further expansion. FMNR is a foundational practice. It is a starting point from which to add other practices. The multiple benefits of FMNR represent a real win–​win strategy, including improvement of soil fertility, increase in tree-​based fodder, more firewood, reduced wind speeds, and local moderation of high temperatures. It can be argued that FMNR is the gold standard of climate-​smart agriculture as it helps farmers adapt to drought and, at the same time, sequesters carbon. Many farmers in the Sahel already have experience with climate-​smart agriculture. The challenge is to accelerate the scaling up of climate-​smart practices in order to feed a rapidly growing population, reduce poverty, and create development perspectives for the many young people living in the Sahel. The World Resources Institute in Washington, DC has developed a scaling strategy for FMNR (Reij and Winterbottom 2015) that outlines what to do and how to do it. This strategy is largely based on experience in the Sahel. Niger has recently pledged to restore 3.2 million ha by 2030 in the context of a continental effort driven by New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its partners, to restore 100 million ha of degraded forestland by 2030. Other Sahel countries are expected to make similar pledges. Based on its experience, Niger is in a good position to achieve its ambitious restoration pledge, which will help feed a rapidly growing population, and it is poised to set a positive example for the other Sahel countries.

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Land Use Change and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Sahel    229 Chaibou, Nahomi. 2009. “Contribution des ligneux dans l’alimentation des ménages au niveau du Département de Madarounfa.” Mémoire de la Faculté d’Agronomie, Université de Niamey. Comité permanent Inter-​États de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS). 2016. Landscapes of West Africa—​A Window on a Changing World. Ouagadougou: CILSS. http://​ eros.usgs.gov/​westafrica/​ Cotillon, Suzanne, and Melissa Mathis. 2016. Tree Cover Mapping Tool—​Documentation and User Manual. US Geological Survey Open-​File Report 2016. Dugué, Patrick. 1989. “Possibilités et limites de l’intensification des systèmes de culture vivrière en zone soudano-​sahélienne: le cas du Yatenga (Burkina Faso).” Collection Documents Systèmes Agraires 9. Montpellier: Centre de Coopération International en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD). FAOSTAT. 2015. Statistical Databases: Rome, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://​faostat3.fao.org/​home/​E. Francis, Rob, and Peter Weston. 2015. The Social, Environmental and Economic Benefits of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). World Vision Australia. Fritz, Allyson, and Alisha Graves. 2016. Farmer-​Managed Natural Regeneration in the Sahel: a Literature Review. Report for the USAID-​funded Sahel Resilience Learning Project (SAREL). Garba, Abdourahamane. 2012. Adaptabilité et rentabilité économique des technologies vulgarisées en milieu rural par le projet de la promotion des initiatives locales pour le développement d’Aguié (PPILDA). Université de Niamey. Mémoire de la Faculté d’Agronomie, 58. Haglund, Eric, Jupiter Ndjeunga, Laura Snook, and Dov Pasternak. 2011. “Dryland Tree Management for Improved Household Livelihoods: Famer Managed Natural Regeneration in Niger.” Journal of Environmental Management 92(7): 1696–​1705. Hassane, Abdou, Pierre Martin, and Chris Reij. 2000. Water Harvesting, Land Rehabilitation, and Household Food Security in Niger: IFAD’s Soil and Water Conservation Project in Illela District. Amsterdam: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)/​ VU University Amsterdam. Ibrahim, Habidou. 2007. “Impact de la régénération naturelle assistée des ligneux sur la réduction de la vulnérabilité des ménages dans le Département d’Aguié: cas des villages de Dan Saga, Damou, Guidan Bakoye et Guidan Adamou.” Mémoire de DEA de la Faculté de Géographie, Université de Niamey. Illo, Sani. 2011. “Impacts de la régénération naturelle assistée sur la production agricole dans le Département d’Aguié.” Mémoire de la Faculté d’Agronomie, Université de Niamey. Larwanou, Mahamane, Mohammed Abdoulaye, and Chris Reij. 2006. Etude de la Régénération Naturelle Assistée dans la Région de Zinder (Niger): une première exploration d’un phénomène spectaculaire. Washington, DC: International Resources Group/​USAID. Luxereau, Anne, and Bernard Roussel. 1997. Changements écologiques et sociaux au Niger: Des interactions étroites. Paris: L’Harmattan. Malam Kime, Moustapha. 2000. “Impact de la régénération naturelle assistée sur la protection de l’environnement et la production agricole dans la zone d’intervention du projet PRIVAT.” Mémoire de la Faculté d’Agronomie, Université de Niamey. Ousseini Maiga, Halimatou. 2007. “Contribution de la régénération naturelle assistée dans les stratégies alimentaires et au niveau des ménages ruraux du Département d’Aguié: cas des villages de Guidan Bakoye, Guidan Adamou, et Dan Damou.” Mémoire du Diplome d’Etudes Supérieures Spécialisées (DESS), Université de Niamey.

230    Suzanne Cotillon, Gray Tappen, and Chris Reij Place, Frank, and Joachim N. Binam. 2013. Economic Impacts of Farmer-​Managed Natural Regeneration in the Sahel. End-​of-​project technical report for Free University Amsterdam and IFAD. Pye-​Smith, Charlie. 2013. The Quiet Revolution: How Niger’s Farmers are Re-​greening the Croplands of the Sahel. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre. Raynaut, Claude. 1987. “L’agriculture nigérienne et la crise du Sahel.” Politique Africaine 28: 97–​107. Reij, Chris, Gray Tappan, and Maleinda Smale. 2009. Agroenvironmental Transformation in the Sahel: Another Kind of “Green Revolution.” International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRPI). Reij, Chris, and Robert Winterbottom. 2015. Scaling Up Regreening: Six Steps to Success–​A Practical Approach to Forest and Landscape Restoration. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Sahel Eco. 2008. Gestion paysanne de la régénération naturelle assistée dans la zone de l’association Barahogon au Mali. Mali: Sahel Eco. Sawadogo, Hamado. 2013. “Effects of microdosing and soil and water conservation techniques on securing crop yields in northwestern Burkina Faso.” Working paper prepared for the Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (Burkina Faso). Sendzimir, Jan, Chris Reij, and Piotr Magnuszewski. 2011. “Rebuilding Resilience in the Sahel: regreening in the Maradi and Zinder Regions of Maradi and Zinder.” Ecology and Society 16(3): 1–29. Tappan, Gray, W. Matthew Cushing, Suzanne Cotillon, Mathis, Melissa, John Hutchinson, and Dalsted, Kevin. 2016. West Africa Land Use Land Cover Time Series: US Geological Survey data release. eros.usgs.gov Tougiani, Abasse, Chaibou Guero, and Tony Rinaudo. 2009. “Success in Improving Livelihoods through Tree Crop Management and Use in Niger.” Geojournal 74(5): 377–​389. Winterbottom, Robert, Chris Reij, Dennis Garrity, Jerry Glover, Debbie Hellums, Mike McGahuey, and Sara Scherr. 2013. “Improving Land and Water Management.” World Resources Institute Working Paper. Yamba, Boubacar, and M. Sambo. 2012. La régénération naturelle assistée et la sécurité alimentaire des ménages de 5 terroirs villageois des Départements de Kantché et Mirriah (Région de Zinder). Report for the Fonds International pour le Développement Agricole. Yamba, Boubacar. 2016. Echelle et impact de la mise en œuvre de la Régénération Naturelle Assistée au Niger. Niamey: Ministère de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable.

chapter 12

THE CHALL E NG E OF FO OD A ND NU TRITIONAL SE C U RI T Y Sarah McKune

The African Sahel is projected to be among the areas most affected by global climate change. In a region regularly facing food insecurity and high rates of malnutrition, the nutritional consequences of climate change are dire. Research projects the impact of climate change on child stunting—​a marker of chronic malnutrition and defined as low height for age—​to be substantial, and areas such as the Sahel, where stunting rates are already high, will likely be hit hard (Lloyd, Kovats, and Chalabi 2011). The impact of climate change on food security and nutrition will be highly variable across the Sahel, where livelihoods are highly diverse. Research and development efforts seek to translate increased agriculture production into increased consumption of nutrient-​rich food and a healthier population by addressing the links between nutrition and agriculture. Recent nutrition studies among children under five years of age (CU5), and particularly among children under two (CU2), underscore the significant positive effects that animal-​source foods (ASF)—​dairy, meat, and eggs—​play in long-​term development and growth among children. Given the intimate relationship between livestock and people throughout the Sahel, these findings hold important implications for nutritional security in the region. This chapter will examine current food and nutritional security, including consumption patterns, of people in the Sahel; the mechanisms by which climate change may exacerbate food and nutritional insecurity; and the unique potential of livestock to improve regional food and nutritional security.

232   Sarah McKune

FOOD AND NUTRITIONAL SECURITY IN THE SAHEL Food security is the condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO 2009). Nutritional security requires access by all people at all times to the adequate utilization and absorption of nutrients in food, required for a healthy and active life (FAO 2012), thus requiring the right foods and overall health sufficient to utilize and absorb those nutrients. The Sahel has long been characterized by low crop yields, intermittent drought, and limited access to water, and as such the management of herds, pasture, and water has dictated the interaction of human populations and the establishment of certain social organizations and regulations. Highly adaptive livelihoods allow populations to secure adequate food despite spatial and temporal variations annual rainfall. However, nutritional security also requires appropriate care and feeding practices, proper hygiene/​sanitation, and health services, all of which are limited across the region. Thus, in addition to poor food security, care-​based determinants that continue to constrain nutritional outcomes in the region include poor feeding practices of young children and non-​exclusive breastfeeding of children under six months of age. Other determinants include open defecation practices and close contact with livestock excreta—​both of which increase the risk of diarrhea and other diseases. Consequently, it is not surprising that despite increases in caloric intake (18 percent regionally between 1992 and 2016), the national rates of chronic malnutrition across the Sahel remain critical. Based on the most recently available Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data, stunting rates are: 20.9 percent in Senegal, 24.4 percent in Mauritania, 37.4 percent in Burkina Faso, 40.7 percent in Mali, and 44.8 percent in Niger (DHS 2018), compared to a global rate of 22.2 percent and a Sub-​Saharan Africa rate of 34.1 percent. Despite the magnitude of these rates, they reflect recent improvements as seen in both Senegal (from 29.7 percent in 2011) and Niger (from 56.8 percent in 2006). Malnutrition, in its various forms, is a significant risk factor for increased morbidity and mortality. For example, a study of children in Burkina Faso found a greater than two-​fold increase in overall mortality among CU5 who suffered from protein-​energy malnutrition (Müller et al. 2003). Iron deficiency anemia is associated with preterm delivery and subsequent low birthweight while supplementation of Vitamin A can significantly reduce overall risk of mortality. The duration of illness and the likelihood of mortality from illness are both associated with malnutrition, creating a feedback loop, within which malnutrition begets illness and illness begets malnutrition. A 2008 study estimates that moderate rates of chronic malnutrition increase the risk of mortality by 1.6 and severe chronic malnutrition increases the risk by 4.1 (Black et al. 2008). This cycle is important in the Sahel, where repeated acute food shortages occur on top of

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    233 chronic food production deficit, and where dietary diversity—​key to good nutrition—​is extremely limited.

REGIONAL DYNAMICS ON FOOD AND NUTRITIONAL SECURITY Climate change is projected to have significant impact on the Sahel and will consequently affect food and nutritional security. Characterized globally by an increase in frequency and severity of extreme events, climate change is likely to increase temperatures and rainfall, and may reduce the length of the rainy season in the Sahel. These variables are critical not only to crop production but also to livestock production. Of particular concern is the prediction of increasing temperature due to production implications from heat stress in livestock. Models show trends of increasing warm spells, warm days, and fewer cool nights (Mouhamed et al. 2013). Some climate scientists estimate an increase in temperature in the region of 3–​5oC by 2050 and up to 8oC by the end of the century (Potts et al. 2013). Shifts in temperatures will trigger other systemic climate changes. Some models predict that with a two degree increase in temperatures a small increase in rainfall is likely, while others predict a complete shift in the weather patterns, with increases in rainfall between 40 and 300 percent (Schewe and Levermann 2017). Even with less significant increases in temperature and rainfall, climate change is likely to directly impact livestock and crop production, triggering disruption in food security. The population of the Sahel is growing at a rapid pace, with estimates for the region at around 4 percent per year. Niger, which has the highest growth rate, had a national population of eleven million in 2004, reached twenty million in 2017, and continues to grow at a rate of 3.9 percent. Population growth in the region is driven by high fertility rates (intensified by early marriage and low educational opportunities for girls, see Graves, Moumouni, and Potts Chapter 13 in this volume) and rapidly decreasing infant and child mortality rates throughout the region. Child mortality in Mali dropped from 229 in 2001 to 95 in 2012/​2013. Burkina Faso and Niger, the other two countries in the region with historically high child mortality rates, saw rates drop from 219 to 129 (Burkina Faso) and from 274 to 127 (Niger) during that time. With fertility rates still quite high and children surviving through the critical period of the first five years, rapid population growth within the region will exacerbate food in security at both regional and household levels. Regional and global markets have an important role to play in affecting rural and urban food security, as two-​thirds of household food consumed is secured at markets (OECD 2016). Global food prices can have significant effects on national markets, as seen in the 2008 spike in food prices, which saw an 87 percent increase over the previous year (FAO 2008). In addition to the increase in cost of food consumed directly, regional and global markets impact the cost of animal feed, an ever-​growing portion of

234   Sarah McKune which comes from the production of grains. In their analysis of crop–​livestock production systems in the Sahel, Ickowicz et al. (2012) argue that the overlapping of markets across scales contributes to increased prices and price volatility, but that strategic efforts in public policy and in market configuration could mitigate the negative effects of these overlapping markets. The experience of the 2005 food crisis in Niger serves to demonstrate how policy decisions concerning regional markets, in this case trade between Nigeria and Niger, can serve to mitigate or exacerbate food insecurity during crisis. Cascading policy action concerning national and regional markets triggered widespread food insecurity, complex sets of coping strategies, reorganization of production systems throughout the region, and devastatingly high rates of malnutrition and mortality among children under five.

HISTORIC FOOD PATTERNS AND CURRENT CONSUMPTION TRENDS Access to and consumption of sufficient quantities of food will improve food security, but nutritional security is assured by the nutritional content of foods, which requires diversity of diet. Generally speaking, total caloric consumption in the region has been increasing over the past thirty years, with average growth rates per decade of 11.52 percent, 10.49 percent, and −1.95 percent (FAO 2016). Despite the extremely high rate of livestock ownership and thus the potential for ASF consumption, the region is heavily reliant on grains to meet caloric requirements (Lopriore and Meuhlhoff 2003). However, the experience of food consumption is neither static nor homogenous across the region. There are not only country-​specific patterns, both in terms of production (e.g., yams in Burkina Faso) and consumption (e.g., fish in Senegal), there are also regional patterns, the most obvious of which is the difference in urban/​rural consumption patterns. Haggblade, Me-​Nsope, and Staatz (2016) find that 40 percent of energy intake in rural houses comes from sorghum and millet, while urban households rely more heavily on rice. In addition, urban populations and wealthy rural populations consume notably more of these high-​value food products, including ASF and vegetables. Findings from Arimond and Ruel (2004) corroborate those findings, showing significant greater consumption of ASF among urban communities in Benin and Mali compared to rural communities. Dietary diversity is an important predictor of child nutritional and food security, as eating a range of fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and fats means consuming all the vitamins and minerals required for a healthy life. Research on the value of ASF underscores that dietary diversity ensures the macronutrients, micronutrients, and amino acids required for full growth and development but found only in certain foods. Thus, the link between consumption patterns and nutritional security is somewhat self-​ evident. But consumption patterns also have important associations with food security.

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    235 Not only does dietary diversity mitigate the potential negative impact of drought or other shocks that threaten the food supply of specific foods, but it also may be predictive of food security given the relationship between consumption of certain crops and specific types of shocks. In a paper investigating staple food substitution in the context of crisis in the Sahel, researchers demonstrate that the rural poor are most effected by drought in the region, based on their heavy reliance on sorghum and millet, compared to their urban or wealthier rural counterparts (Haggblade et al. 2016). By contrast, the study finds that global food price spikes of commodities such as rice would most significantly affect urban areas, particularly the urban poor, because urban populations throughout the Sahel have a much higher consumption rate of rice than their rural counterparts. This analysis underscores that consumption patterns and dietary diversity can be predictive not only of nutritional outcomes but food security as well. Another significant determinant of food consumption patterns for the region is income. The economic situation of a household has important implications on nutrition and health outcomes. Generally, wealthier households have better food and nutritional security, though the role of income or wealth on nutritional outcomes must be considered within the urban/​rural context. In many countries in Sub-​Saharan Africa, despite urban areas having consistently higher dietary diversity than their rural counterparts, urban households within the poorest quintiles experience equal or more severe food insecurity and undernourishment than rural households. Literature published in the wake of the 2005–​2008 global food crisis underscore that the urban poor may in fact be more vulnerable than the rural poor (Cohen and Garrett 2010; Verpoorten et al. 2013). Mothers’ educational status, which has been found to be predictive of dietary diversity, child feeding, health seeking, and caregiving practices, may explain part of the significant role of income on nutritional outcomes. Wealth has been found predictive of ASF consumption, with wide gaps between the portion of children in the top and bottom quintiles (Black et al. 2008). Red meat and dairy remain the major animal-​source proteins consumed in the Sahel, though specific efforts to increase poultry production has triggered some growth in chicken and egg consumption. It is important to note that, despite massive livestock herds throughout much of the Sahel, in general, very little meat is consumed. Besides variations between urban/​rural and rich/​poor, other important differences in food consumption patterns exist based on geographical and sociocultural underpinnings. For example, Senegal has historically consumed more fish than other countries. In 2010, Senegal had a per capita consumption of fish of 24.5 kg per year, or 43 percent of animal-​source protein consumed. This is much higher than the landlocked Sahelian countries, where per capita fish consumption is well below 10 kg per annum. The increased consumption of rice is notable across the region, though rates are highest in Senegal. Other notable patterns of consumption emerge around milk. Among pastoral groups including the Fulbe in Mali and the Wodaabe in Niger, milk consumption is greater than elsewhere in those areas. In Mauritania and Mali, rates of milk consumption are orders of magnitude higher (138 kg and 98 kg per person per year, respectively) than in the other Sahelian countries (ranging from 14 kg per person per

236   Sarah McKune year in Senegal to 27 kg per person per year in Burkina Faso, FAOSTAT data 2013). Thus, geographic, livelihood, and sociocultural realities of local populations also play a role in determining diets.

MECHANISMS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON HUMAN NUTRITION While nutrition implications are widespread, the negative impact of projected extreme events of drought, flood, and extreme heat are likely to be disproportionately borne by the poor. In one of the earliest pieces directly linking climate change to childhood undernutrition, Lloyd, Kovats, and Chalabi (2011) predict that the impact of climate change on livestock and crop production will lead to a deficit in caloric intake and will contribute a 36 percent increase in severe stunting in West Africa. As previously indicated, these rates are likely to be even higher in the context of the Sahelian countries, where higher rates of malnutrition and taxed production systems are already at play. Given the heterogeneity of the region, effects of climate change on the nutrition of people in the Sahel are likely to be highly variable across space, time, climate trigger, livelihood, and ethnicity. There are, however, important mechanisms by which climate change is likely to affect nutritional security, including decreased food availability; decreased food accessibility; altered consumption patterns; and increased disease. This section explores how these mechanisms are projected to affect populations across the region and will then explore how gender interfaces to exacerbate the negative effects of climate change on nutrition. Climate change is likely to affect crop yields and staple crop production. Because much of the ecological Sahel exists on the cusp of sufficient rainfall for crop production, agricultural yields are already low and the area suitable for cultivation of crops is relatively small. In a study of climate change impacts on African crop production, the feasibility of producing crops in the Sahel is reduced substantially under various models of climate change through 2100 (Ramirez-​Villegas and Thornton 2015). Despite potential increases in productivity of some crops (pearl millet, groundnuts, cassava), authors project large decreases in the yield (by 40 percent or more) in the Sahel for most of the crops currently produced in the region, including maize, common dry beans, bananas, and finger millet. In another study utilizing remote sensing data from satellites to measure climate-​driven environmental productivity, researchers found a significant association between environmental productivity and a reduced risk of mortality in Burkina Faso and in Mali, underscoring the necessary condition of environmental productivity for child health and nutrition (Johnson and Brown 2014). In the Sahel, climate change affects food availability not only by limiting crop production but also by limiting overall environmental productivity, including livestock, which produce milk and meat, but depend on rain-​fed pasture and forage.

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    237 Even when food is available, climate change may hinder its accessibility to some people. In the Sahel, important barriers to food accessibility include economic and geographic barriers for certain populations at certain times. One of the most important dynamics at play is the variability in terms of trade that livestock holders experience during environmental shocks that affect crop production. The typical terms of trade favor animal products, which have a greater caloric value than staples when exchanged at market. However, when an environmental crisis hits–​–​or any other event that leads to an increase in staple food price–​–​the terms of trade between animal protein and grains erode, triggering economic vulnerability of livestock holders. In addition to livestock holders, urban dwellers, particularly the urban poor, experience limited access to food. During times of rising food prices, unlike their rural counterparts, the urban poor must purchase their food and, thus, are reliant on the market. Unlike their rural counterparts whose vulnerability is somewhat limited to a climatic shock affecting their geographic area, urban consumers are subject to price variability that is the sum of the shock that affects production, transport, trade, and so on. As such, economic access to food among the urban poor is of significant concern. Populations in informal urban settlements often experience greater exposure to climatic events (floods, heatwaves, etc.) increasing the risk of limited economic access to food. In addition, newly settled urban poor often lack supportive social networks, also limiting their access to food. Climate change may additionally impact nutritional outcomes by changing the consumption patterns of populations. Sahelian populations are accustomed to highly variable climate and have a history of employing a constellation of coping strategies during times of crisis or lean periods. However, climate change is shortening the time between extreme events, therefore shortening the recovery time between crises. Furthermore, historic coping mechanisms used too often can have significant negative nutritional consequences. For example, many Sahelian populations limit consumption in a range of forms and severity as a coping strategy, including decreased portion size at meals, removal of nutrient rich and/​or expensive foods from the diet (such as meat or milk), a reduction in the number of meals per day by various members of the family, and full days of fasting. These practices have clear negative impacts on nutritional outcomes, but their repeated use may trigger a different set of negative repercussions, affecting overall health and long-​term productivity of individuals and the family. Another mechanism by which climate change may impact nutritional security is via disease. UNICEF’s widely used and modified conceptual model of malnutrition illustrates that the two immediate causes of malnutrition are inadequacy of dietary intake and disease (UNICEF 1990). Put directly, anything that increases disease within a population is likely to exacerbate malnutrition. During famine in the Sahel disease and epidemic are the cause of most mortality (Baro and Deubel 2006). Climate change induced events such as extreme rains or excessive heat are increasing the transmission and exacerbating the severity of certain diseases (Clifford et al. 2008; Haines 2008; Altizer et al. 2013), thus an increasing major underlying cause of malnutrition in the Sahel.

238   Sarah McKune Gender and a woman’s empowerment within the household are documented as playing a significant role in child nutritional outcomes, as women serve as primary caregivers, charged with securing and preparing food for the household and with feeding young children. Any increased demand on women’s time, such as those predicted under climate change scenarios, has the potential to disrupt food and nutritional security through changes in feeding and care practices within the household. Women are disproportionally affected by the negative impacts of climate change, and taking a gendered approach to understanding how climate change affects food security can highlight these different pathways of vulnerability (McKune et.al. 2015). Examples include women’s increased exposure to pathogens due to increased time for water or fuel collection, increased sensitivity to climate impacts due to increased nutrient requirements during pregnancy and lactation, and women’s (in)ability to modify the quantity or quality of food consumed within the household.

PASTORALISM AND THE ROLE OF ANIMAL SOURCE FOOD IN NUTRITIONAL AND FOOD SECURITY While it is widely accepted that nutrition of women and children is one of the most critical crosscutting areas of development, strategies currently employed for improving nutritional outcomes within the Sahel are not on track to reach globally agreed upon objectives (see Graves et al. Chapter 13 in this volume). One potential strategy for improving nutrition in the Sahel is through improved production and consumption of ASF. ASF play an important role in the physical and cognitive development of children, particularly during the one thousand days between conception and a child’s second birthday, likely due to the unique combination of energy-​dense, high-​quality digestible protein and essential amino acids and micronutrients found in ASF, including choline, Vitamin A, B12, iron, and zinc. A landmark study in 2017 found a 47 percent reduction in stunting among children aged six to nine months of age who were fed an egg a day (Iannotti et al. 2017). Other studies have found increased gains in child height associated with milk and egg consumption (Mosites et al. 2015). Experimental studies have shown increased test scores and performance, indicators of child cognitive development, when school children’s diets are supplemented with ASF (Neumann et al. 2007). Livestock ownership has been shown to increase ASF consumption. The West African Sahel is home to some of the largest livestock herds in the world, an estimated thirty million tropical livestock units in 2010 in Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mali, in addition to some of the highest national ratios of livestock per person. While animal husbandry has traditionally been the responsibility of men throughout the Sahel, women

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    239 have always played some role, and there is evidence that those roles are changing—​which may have important implications on ASF consumption, as female ownership or co-​ ownership of livestock is associated with improved child nutrition outcomes compared to male ownership (Jin and Iannotti 2014; Kariuki et al. 2013; Bachewe, Minten, and Yimer 2017). A study of resilience in the Sahel in the context of food crisis finds that women are increasingly responsible for household expenses and contributing to household food security. Following the 2005 food crisis, women are increasingly employing creative survival responses, despite having limited access to productive assets and weak levels of control over those they can access (Doka, Madougou, and Diouf 2014). Over the past decade, women’s associations in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Senegal have engaged in initiatives involving mini-​dairies that produce yogurt, milk, and butter, allowing women opportunities to contribute to income generation as well as food security (Kamuanga et al. 2008). Given the significant role of livestock in both nutritional outcomes and in rural livelihoods across the Sahel, increasing women’s engagement and control over livestock may hold important potential for improved ASF consumption and nutritional outcomes across the region. Numerous barriers exist to limit ASF consumption, some at scale across the region and others specific to certain groups. Income has been shown globally to be a major driver of ASF consumption. Black et al. (2008) found that children in the wealthiest quintile in East Africa were twice as likely to consume ASF as those in the poorest quintile. And as people become less poor and less rural, one of the first shifts to occur with increased spending power is increased ASF consumption (Smith et al. 2013). But rising incomes may not be keeping up with the rising costs of ASF. A 2017 study found that the prices of ASF were found to have increased 32–​36 percent over the past decade in Ethiopia, in contrast to staple cereals (Bachewe et al. 2017). The authors estimate that a price increase decreased ASF consumption by 25 percent, assuming other dynamics stayed constant. These findings indicate that the cost of production of ASF may need to be addressed to increase ASF consumption in developing countries. In addition to these more generalizable barriers, others may be rooted in cultural norms and taboos. For example, in Burkina Faso, among the Mossi, egg consumption is significantly limited by narratives that indicate children who eat eggs will become thieves; pregnant women in parts of Mali are told not to eat certain types of meat due to risk to their unborn child; and in Senegal, food taboos limit the consumption of poultry products among women and children. In summary, limited incomes, rising costs of ASF, and cultural norms and taboos combine to significantly limit ASF consumption in the Sahel. Despite high rates of livestock ownership and husbandry, ASF consumption rates remain extremely low throughout the Sahel. Grains and other starchy foods are by far the most consumed foods across rural areas in the region; ASF are rarely or never consumed (Cisse-​Egbuonye et al. 2017). Just how much ASF a person needs is still debated, with a range of targets from 58 g to 90 g of meat per person per day; FAOSTAT data from 2011 to 2013 indicate that national average daily intake of ASF is extremely limited: 9 g (Chad),

240   Sarah McKune 12 g (Burkina Faso), 14 g (Niger), 15 g (Senegal), 23 g (Mali), and 32 g (Mauritania) per person per day. Livestock systems play an important role in the economies of Sahelian countries, contributing significantly to the overall GDP, and often comprising most of the agricultural GDP. In Mali, more than 85 percent of the population is engaged in the livestock sector, which contributes 19 percent of the GDP, just after gold and cotton; unfortunately, it represents just 2 percent of agriculture expenditures and less than 1 percent of the national budget (World Bank 2017). In Niger, the livestock sector is the second largest revenue source among exports, after uranium, with pastoral and agropastoral systems producing 81 percent of these livestock (République du Niger 2011). In Chad, livestock make up 18 percent of GDP, 30 percent of exports, and 40 percent of all agriculture (Alfaroukh, Avella, and Grimaud 2011). Herds of cattle, sheep, and goats from four Sahelian counties (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal) comprise 42 percent, 43 percent, and 45 percent of the total number of those animals for all West Africa (Ly, Fall, and Okike 2010). Most of the livestock produced in these contexts are produced through expansive grazing or pastoral systems, where livestock consume food that people are not able to eat directly. Studies have estimated the amount of milk and meat produced globally through such systems, with estimates ranging from 7 to 12 percent of milk and 9 to 37 percent of meat (Herrero et al. 2010; McLeod 2011). Pastoral systems consistently have better returns per hectare than ranching systems (Scoones 1994), and human consumable proteins are produced more efficiently in countries where production is dominated by pastoral systems rather than intensive livestock farming (Steinfeld 2012). Well-​managed, mobile pastoral systems are understood to be the most environmentally compatible and sustainable form of agriculture on semi-​arid and arid landscapes (Behnke, Kerven, and Scoones 1993). They also contribute important ecosystem services in grazing systems, including bolstering biodiversity maintenance, water cycle enhancement, and carbon sequestration. Livestock systems have historically been intimately integrated through complex networks of kinship, collaboration, and co-​existence into the lives of sedentary farmers (see Wilson-​Fall Chapter 35 in this volume); These relations facilitate important contributions to mixed livestock and farming systems, particularly through their contributions to soil fertility (through manure), treading on soil, and trampling forage. This impact has been shown repeatedly to increase crop yields. Thus, livestock production, through its contribution to ASF as well as the synergistic effects it has on crop production, has important implications on the resilience and food security of people across the region and across livelihoods. Livestock play an essential role in current livelihoods and food security of a majority of people across the Sahel and there appears to be real potential in increased ASF production and consumption as a solution to the food and nutritional insecurity of the region. There are, however, three inherent risks that could undermine efforts to leverage ASF production as a solution: pastoral vulnerability to climate change and limitations of adaptation, environmental enteric dysfunction, and food safety.

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    241 Sahelians are historically accustomed to high levels of variability in climate, and thus have adopted a highly adaptive livelihood to ensure food security. Included in this, particularly among rural populations of small holder farmers, agro-​pastoralists, and pastoralists, is a complex set of coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms, or strategies employed to secure food in times when primary production has failed, include short-​ term activities such as food restricting (discussed earlier), collection of wild foods, borrowing from social networks, migration, reducing non-​food expenditures, pulling children out of school, sending children to live with relatives, and others. But livestock holders, particularly pastoralists, are vulnerable to climate change. One of the documented impacts of climate change in the Sahel, driven by the shortened periodicity of extreme events, is the ineffectiveness and/​or reduced efficacy of historical coping mechanisms. One such example is the collection of wild foods, many of which are no longer available, or only available at prohibitive distance, due to consecutive droughts requiring their collection in quick succession. For many pastoralists, reduced capacity to employ historical coping strategies during a crisis and have them work effectively could be the ultimate threat. In addition to short-​term coping mechanisms, livestock holders are adapting—​ making long-​ term changes—​ that have important implications for food security. Livelihood diversification is a well-​documented example of an adaptation that may increase wealth and reduce vulnerability. For farmers, such diversification, particularly out of agriculture and to include off-​farm activities, has shown to be protective. Among crop farmers, livestock production can provide liquid assets, particularly small-​stock and poultry, which may allow households to make ends meet, particularly in times of drought and food crises (Ayantunde et al. 2011). In mixed crop–​livestock systems, adaptations may include increased cropped area and decreased rangeland, decreased number of grazing cattle, and increased sedentary cattle, or increased herd mobility. Among pastoral livestock holders, adaptations may include shifting species composition in the herd (increased representation of small ruminants, generally, and camel in the northern areas), changing mobility patterns including longer distances, increased movement southward (risking conflict with sedentary farmers), and overall increase in livelihood diversification (Ickowicz et al. 2012). Again, many of these livelihood strategies have historically been part of pastoral resilience, but the frequency with which they are being employed has a compounding effect to increase overall pastoral vulnerability. Limited resources, land tenure reforms which limit rangeland management practices, breakdown of the pastoralist sociocultural framework, and the recent transition from complementarity of livelihood and production systems to one of competition over scarce resources (Krätli et al. 2013). Livestock-​holding communities are adapting to climate change and its sequelae, but not without consequence. Sedentarization of pastoralists, despite their livestock holdings, is associated with poor nutritional outcomes and high levels of food security (Fratkin, Roth, and Nathan 2004; Pedersen and Benjaminsen 2008). Thus, adaptation through sedentarization, or forfeiting of mobility, is not advantageous from a nutritional standpoint.

242   Sarah McKune Another important limitation of focusing on ASF as a solution for high rates of malnutrition in the Sahel is the increasing evidence that livestock may present a risk to malnutrition through increased exposure to pathogens. Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is an inflammatory disease of the gut that limits its absorptive capacity and reduces its barrier function. Importantly, it strongly influences nutritional status and growth of children. EED is established when children are small and has been associated with poor sanitation and certain enteric infections. However, studies that sought to improve growth and nutritional status of children through improved sanitation found no change in child growth under rigorous methodologies to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) conditions. This evidence, in combination with observational research associating child stunting with the presence of chickens in the household overnight, has led researchers to question the potential role of animal excrement as a driver of EED. Though additional research is necessary to determine if and which type of livestock excrement may be causing EED, the implications of a causal pathway between animal excreta and EED would have large implications for the Sahel, where livestock are a ubiquitous feature of most children’s lives. Finally, a focus on livestock as a mechanism to improve nutrition in the Sahel must also consider the negative impact of zoonotic diseases—​those that come from animals—​ and food-​borne diseases (FBD) associated with livestock keeping. Zoonotic disease transmission is common—​worldwide fully 60 percent of all diseases in people are of animal origin. Researchers have found that thirteen zoonotic diseases caused 2.2 million human deaths annually (Grace et al. 2012). Some of the zoonotic diseases that appear to be related to close interaction between Sahelian pastoralists and their livestock include echinococcosis, trypanosomiasis, rabies, Q-​fever, and brucellosis. Given that most of the livestock trade in the Sahel is made up of live animals, rather than meat, markets play an important role in the spread of zoonotic diseases, as well as herder or farmer interactions. Food safety is a major concern globally. Some of the organisms that commonly threaten food safety globally include salmonella, Campylobacter, and E. coli, all of which cause FBD in millions of people each year. The burden of FBD is disproportionally felt by children (40 percent of FBD is among children under five) and the greatest regional risk for FBD is in Africa, where 70 percent of the burden is attributed to diarrheal agents (Havelaar et al. 2015). Though not quantified for the Sahel, one may assume that based on identified risk factors of diet, unimproved water and sanitation, and other disease, the burden of FBD in the Sahel would be even greater. ASF pose unique risks for food safety, as they are not only superior sources of nutrition for people, they are also excellent media for the growth of pathogens, particularly compared to staple grains. While grazing production systems, if well-​managed with access to appropriate veterinary care, can minimize the risk of some FBD, the informal food production systems that characterize the Sahel afford several points of entry for cross-​contamination. Examples include the use of informal slaughter slabs or butchers for processing meat and the unregulated sale of ASF through informal markets. The potential for livestock to play a pivotal role in improving the nutritional and food security of the Sahel is established by overwhelming evidence of the unique nutritional

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    243 value of ASF and through consideration of the role of pastoral systems in increasing resilience and food security. This potential, however, is understood within a context of risk. Risks associated with livestock production, including vulnerability of pastoralists to climate change, the potential role of livestock in EED, and the burden of disease associated with zoonotic disease and food-​borne illness, must all be considered given their negative impact on human nutritional outcomes.

CONCLUSION Livestock play an essential role in the historic and current livelihoods of Sahelian populations, including agricultural, agro-​pastoral, and pastoral groups across the region. These groups have historically had very high levels of adaptive capacity, which afforded them successful livelihoods on highly dynamic and variable lands. Climate change is projected to dramatically affect the Sahel, though exactly how remains to be seen. Regardless, the increased exposure of these populations to severe and extreme events, combined with long-​standing marginalization and limited access to resources, means they will be highly vulnerable in the future, including to food and nutritional insecurity. Already characterized by high rates of food insecurity and extremely poor diet, nutrition outcomes are likely to worsen, despite some recent gains. The value of ASF, which come from the livestock on which so many Sahelian livelihoods are based, is an invaluable asset to the nutritional status and development of young children, namely through consumption, but also through increased income of the household. Where women control these assets, the impact on children is even greater. Livestock contribute directly to all three pathways established to improve household nutrition through agriculture: income, production, and women’s empowerment. In the context of climate change, demographic change, and global economic development, innovative technologies and approaches will be required to meet the nutritional demands of the Sahel over the next fifty years. The region has long been characterized by underinvestment, and the livestock sector even more so, despite its significant contribution to livelihoods and GDP as well as documented potential for livestock to reduce poverty and improve a slew of development indictors across the region. Investment in the livestock sector can improve outcomes through increased revenue among a host of actors, improved livestock production—​as well as crop-​based farming outputs through contributions to soil fertility and draft power—​and improved diet and nutrition. Investing in livestock systems to improve human nutritional outcomes across the Sahel should consider differences across production systems. Previous research underscores that certain regions of the Sahel would benefit from a health and economic standpoint by moving further into livestock production and becoming less reliant on crop cultivation (Thornton et al. 2011), but that will not be universally true for livestock producers across the region, for various sociocultural, ecological, and political reasons.

244   Sarah McKune Appropriate steps must be taken to identify the key points of entry where human and institutional capacity building and strengthening of the livestock sector can provide sustainable results to stakeholders across the sector, including small-​scale livestock holders, whose vulnerability may be exacerbated by poor institutions, access to markets, or overall remoteness. Policies to support improved livestock production and productivity must address the overlapping and imperfect markets that dominate the Sahel. The World Bank (2015) has identified the need for a regional trade agenda to stabilize food security, emphasizing that creating and reinforcing an integrated regional market would benefit all sectors, not simply staple foods. That report calls on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to facilitate the transition to an integrated regional agricultural trade market and presents evidence for how doing so would improve food security across the region. In a 2008 report, ECOWAS and OECD underscored the significant potential of an integrated regional livestock market to improve development outcomes in the Sahel and identified some of the challenges to doing so: national agricultural policies must be aligned and consistent to support regional trade, and appropriate policies must be in place to assure that trade in livestock is profitable through improved production, marketing, and processing for value added (ECOWAS 2008). The report argues for a regional system that takes advantage of the diversity of systems that exist within the region, each with its own limitations and intrinsic risks, creating a regional system that is based on the complementarity of these zones. If such a regional market were to be created, appropriate policies to improve production of pastoral areas would be vital. In these systems, which produce 60 percent of cattle meat, 40 percent of small ruminant meat, and 70 percent of milk for all West Africa and where herders’ ability to graze their animals across geographic space determines and often limits the productivity of their animals, policies to facilitate grazing and access to evolving appropriate grazing lands are essential. This issue of land rights and land tenure, particularly as it pertains to pastoral livestock and grazing and water rights, is highly contentious both within and across countries (see Wilson-​Fall Chapter 35 and Eilittä Chapter 15 this volume.). Future policies that aim to improve livestock productivity and production on pastoral lands will require engagement of communities and stakeholders across the agricultural and pastoral landscape. Policies would also be needed to ensure that ASF is affordable. Recent research from IFPRI underscores the significant role that price may play as a barrier to ASF consumption (Headey, Hirvonen, and Hoddinott 2017; Bachewe et al. 2017). Not only are ASF high-​value (thus priced) foods but the real price of these foods has risen significantly faster than non-​ASF foods, pricing them out of reach of many Sahelian households. Finally, evidence suggests that investments in the livestock sector that aim to improve human nutritional outcomes must also consider targeting improvement in animal management strategies to increase production, productivity, and access to ASF. Through appropriate management of feed, water, and animal illness, significant increases in ASF yields are possible. When production and productivity are increased, household consumption of ASF may increase. More research is needed to fully understand the

The Challenge of Food and Nutritional Security    245 relationship, particularly among livestock holders, between production of ASF and household consumption.

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248   Sarah McKune Ramirez-​Villegas, Julian, and Philip K. Thornton. 2015. “Climate Change Impacts on African Crop Production.” Copenhagen: Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. Schewe, Jacob, and Anders Levermann. 2017. “Non-​Linear Intensification of Sahel Rainfall as a Possible Dynamic Response to Future Warming.” Earth System Dynamics 8(3): 495. Scoones, Ian. 1994. “Living with Uncertainty: New Directions in Pastoral Development in Africa.” London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Smith, Jimmy, Keith Sones, Delia Grace, Susan MacMillan, Shirley Tarawali, and Mario Herrero. 2013. “Beyond Milk, Meat, and Eggs: Role of Livestock in Food and Nutrition Security.” Animal Frontiers 3(1): 6–​13. Steinfeld, H. 2012. “Global Environmental Challenges.” Paper presented at the ILRI World Bank Consultation on the Global Livestock Agenda by 2020, Nairobi. Thornton, Philip K., Peter G. Jones, Polly J. Ericksen, and Andrew J. Challinor. 2011. “Agriculture and Food Systems in Sub-​Saharan Africa in a 4 C+ World.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 369(1934): 117–​136. UNICEF. 1990. “Conceptual Framework for the Causes of Malnutrition,” in Strategy for Improved Nutrition of Children and Women in Developing Countries. New York: UNICEF. Verpoorten, Marijke, Abhimanyu Arora, Nik Stoop, and Johan Swinnen. 2013. “Self-​Reported Food Insecurity in Africa During the Food Price Crisis.” Food Policy 39: 51–​63. World Bank. 2015. “Connecting Food Staples and Input Markets in West Africa A Regional Trade Agenda for ECOWAS Countries.” Washington, DC: World Bank Group. World Bank. 2017. Project Information Document/​Integrated Safeguards Data Sheet (PID/​ ISDS). The World Bank Mali Livestock Sector Development Support Project. Report No: PIDISDSC21148. http://​documents1.worldbank.org/​curated/​en/​381401487363466910/​ ITM00184-​P160641-​02-​17-​2017-​1487363464632.docx.

chapter 13

DE MO GRAPHY A ND H E A LT H IN THE C ON T E XT OF CLIM ATE C HA NG E Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts

Over the last half-​century, infant and child mortality has declined steeply in the developing world, meaning more children survive into their reproductive years. In some countries, especially in Sub-​Saharan Africa, fertility has remained high—​leading to high rates of population growth in these countries. Food security, employment, economic progress, and governance are all likely to be affected by the uniquely rapid population growth occurring in the Sahel. Sahelian fertility rates are among the highest in the world, with women having between 4.1 and 7.6 children in their lifetime (World Bank 2017c). The UN population projections to mid-​century estimate that the population in francophone Sahel will increase by nearly two and a half times. These estimates are robust, as many of the women who will be mothers at that time are already born. Climate projections for the region are variable, yet most suggest that there will be more precipitation. Despite a likelihood of increasing precipitation, the region is projected to have an overall reduction in crop yield of most staple crops, due to further warming of an area that already sees exceedingly high temperatures (Smith et al. 2014). Based on current climate and population projections, the severity of food insecurity and its repercussions will undermine most metrics of progress in the Sahel. Given current migration patterns and trends, such insecurity would likely result in increased levels of migration to countries south of the Sahel and to Europe. This chapter gives a brief overview of climate change in the Sahel, followed by an overview of the demographic situation in the Sahel. The next section examines possible effects of rapid population growth coinciding with climate change on selected

250    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts health and development issues in the region. The chapter goes on to explore the policy implications of family planning policy and programming on the demographic trajectory of the region. The final section examines the potential impact of increased investment in the region and some concluding remarks.

THE CONTEXT Climate Change in the Sahel Since 1950, the Sahel as a whole has experienced variability in its climate. One likely driver has been the increase in atmospheric particulates drifting across the Atlantic from the industrial regions of North America where industries have been using increasing amounts of high sulfur coal (Chiang, Chang, and Wehner 2012). Until 1970, there was some increase in precipitation, but between 1970 and 1993, two decades of severe drought affected the whole of the region. Since 1993, there have been marked changes with some very wet years and very dry years, making climate forecasting more difficult. Temperatures across most parts of the Sahel are likely to increase by 2050. The business-​as-​usual scenario projects that by the year 2050, the average air surface temperature in Niger will be 2–​3°C hotter than it was between 1986 and 2005 (IPCC 2014), and by 2100, the temperature will be 4.5–​6.5°C hotter than the same reference period. Even conservative estimates for increasing temperatures will cause direct adverse health impacts on human and livestock populations. Climate scientists are less certain about predicting the future changes in rainfall including the magnitude and timing of precipitation (IPCC 2007). Even if rainfall increases, the available soil moisture that crops need is likely to decrease because of increased evaporation due to higher temperatures. Climate change is expected to have “robust negative impacts” on the region’s cereal yields (Schlenker and Lobell 2010). Environmental degradation, including biodiversity loss, and the degradation of land due to suboptimal use has already had a severe impact on productivity, as seen in eastern Burkina Faso, where crop yields have decreased up to 56 percent (Nana 2019). The projected temperature increase is going to limit production even further. The IPCC reported that in much of Africa food production will be severely compromised by climate change and this will “further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition” (IPCC 2007). It is important to note that the IPCC has named family planning as a mitigation and adaptation strategy with co-​benefits for climate and health. It specifically references the Sahel in its analysis as a high-​fertility region vulnerable to climate change that would benefit from meeting family planning services needs (Smith et al. 2014).

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    251

Unprecedented Population Growth in the Sahel The natural increase in human numbers in the Sahel is the fastest in all human history (May and Guengant 2014). In 1950, the francophone Sahel supported just over seventeen million people. By 2017, the population was nearly ninety-​five million. In 2050 the population projection assuming medium fertility is 232 million people, and by 2100, the United Nations projects an astonishing 500 million people (United Nations, 2017). The population growth rate—​or the average annual percent change in population—​has been very high in Sahelian countries for several decades. This is largely due to increased survival rates of infants and children coupled with some of the world’s highest fertility rates. In a joint statement in 1993, representatives of fifty-​eight national scientific academies concluded: “In our judgment, humanity’s ability to deal successfully with its social, economic, and environmental problems will require the achievement of zero population growth within the lifetime of our children” (Science Summit on World Population 1994, 8). It is increasingly apparent that rapid population growth is a variable that undermines progress in education, nutrition, and most other development indicators (APPG, 2007). Niger’s population pyramids in Figure 13.1 show the population by sex in ten-​year increments. Dramatic improvements in infant and child health in the late twentieth

Figure 13.1  Population pyramids for Niger Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2019.

252    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts century combined with persistent high fertility are driving rapid population growth. The ensuing “youth bulge” means a high dependency ratio—​the ratio of nonworking-​ age population (elderly or young) to working-​age population. High dependency ratios are associated with increasing difficulty in meeting people’s basic needs at a country level (Firebaugh 1999). The Sahel’s rapid population growth is creating great demographic momentum. This tendency for a population to continue growing even after fertility declines is inevitable when a country has a very high proportion of young people. As Figure 13.1 illustrates, the number of women entering their fertile years reflects the births occurring fifteen or more years earlier. The total fertility rate (TFR) is the number of children who would be born per woman if she were to pass through the childbearing years according to a current schedule of age-​specific fertility rates. To illustrate, the TFR in China (1.5–​1.8) is well below replacement, but the population of China continues to grow by over six million more births than deaths each year, largely because of population momentum. For countries with fertility greater than replacement level (roughly 2.1 children per woman), the year in which replacement level fertility is reached has major implications for the ultimate size of the population. The findings in Figure 13.2 were calculated using the population of Niger in 2010 (15.9 million) and assume no change in mortality rates. If Niger reaches replacement level fertility by 2060, the population will stabilize at 80 million people by around 2100. If replacement-​level fertility is not met until 2080, the country will stop growing at an estimated 120 million people around 2150. Accelerated economic growth may result from declines in mortality and fertility and subsequent changes to the age structure (Bloom et al. 2009). This so-​called demographic dividend is not possible without a fertility decline and can be leveraged via large scale investment in human capital, such as health and the closing of the gender gap in education 18,00,00,000 16,00,00,000 14,00,00,000

Population

12,00,00,000 10,00,00,000 8,00,00,000 6,00,00,000 4,00,00,000 2,00,00,000 0 1960

1980

2000

2020

2040

2060

2080

2100

2120

Year 2080

2070

2060

2050

2040

2030

Figure 13.2  Scenarios for year in which replacement-​level fertility is reached in Niger and consequent population sizes. Source: Compiled by the authors

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    253 (Eloundou and Shannon 2004). Currently, how to achieve a demographic dividend in Sub-​Saharan Africa is a subject of major debate at national and international levels. But globally, authors agree that “rapid and deep reductions in fertility must be a central part of the solution” to achieve a high ratio of active to dependent populations, which is the first step toward the demographic dividend’s accelerated economic growth (Cleland et al. 2006). Independent of any demographic dividend in the region, if countries maintain their current socio-​economic status, GDP would need to grow by 11 percent annually—​ an unrealistic goal—​just to keep up with population growth (Lanzer 2016).

The Demographic Transition Theory in the Sahelian Context The demographic transition theory suggests that countries will fall from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country or region develops from a pre-​ industrial to an industrialized economy. Until recently, the UN Population Division based their projection of future population growth to 2100 on the assumptions that the TFR in currently high fertility countries would fall to 2.1 children (replacement level fertility) and that the TFR in countries with below replacement fertility would rise to 2.1 (Demeny 1998). However, there is no empirical evidence to support these assumptions, especially in societies that are profoundly different from nineteenth-​ century Europe, on which the theory was based. Moreover, in making demographic projections, the United Nations does not consider any possible constraints on population, such as access to food and water (Warren 2015). Literature on the demographic transition in Africa indicates that the fertility transition has stalled—​a drop followed by a leveling-​off in fertility rather than continuing downward—​in many Sub-​Saharan Africa countries (Bongaarts 2008), a situation that European countries did not experience. UN population projections for Sahel countries continue to be adjusted upward, a product of inaccurate historical assumptions that fertility would decline continuously. Culturally and historically, the Sahel is unlikely to repeat the demographic history of Europe and North America, in a “self-​contained and inexorable” way (Dyson 2010). A context where male authority, high rates of early marriage, and low status of women are normative suggests the opposite; this context is more likely to reinforce large families, unless cultural shifts result in increased autonomy for women’s reproductive decision-​making, increased demand for family planning, and widespread access to accurate contraceptive information and methods. Another misconception related to demographic transition theory is that socioeconomic change is the primary driver of a falling TFR. Historically, many societies became richer and better educated when their TFRs fell. However, after reviewing family planning programs in Asia and Latin America, Bongaarts and Watkins concluded that there was not a “tight link” between development indicators and fertility (Bongaarts and Watkins 1996). Similarly, there is no evidence of a link between economic stagnation and stalls in fertility decline (Sandron 2013).

254    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts Importantly, there is a correlation between TFR and socioeconomic progress in many countries, but it is an association and not causal. Increasing girls’ enrollment in secondary education helps delay marriage and allows adolescent girls to gain the necessary skills to negotiate family planning with their partners and overcome barriers to accessing healthcare. Socioeconomic differences in TFR are largely driven by differences in knowledge of and access to family planning, rather than family-​size preferences (Campbell et al. 2006). Once barriers to family planning are removed, family size can fall even in less developed countries, as seen in Bangladesh and, more recently, in Senegal.

POPULATION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND HEALTH In 2015, countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—​a set of seventeen goals outlining a new development agenda. Among the goals aiming to tackle poverty, protect the planet and promote prosperity, is goal number three: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-​being for all at all ages. Slowing population growth by improving access to voluntary family planning and keeping more girls in secondary school would have a strong positive effect on sixteen out of seventeen SDGs (UK All Party Parliamentary Group 2015). For example, reaching universal access to water and sanitation becomes reinforced by universal access to reproductive health by reducing absolute numbers (easing demand) in regions with the largest gaps in water availability and most vulnerable to droughts. Without major shifts in demographic trends in current high-​fertility countries, like those of the Sahel, many of the SDGs will be unattainable (All Party Parliamentary Group 2015). As Bill and Melinda Gates wrote recently: To put it bluntly, decades of stunning progress in the fight against poverty and disease may be on the verge of stalling. This is because the poorest parts of the world are growing faster than everywhere else; more babies are being born in the places where it’s hardest to lead a healthy and productive life. If current trends continue, the number of poor people in the world will stop falling—​and could even start to rise. (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2018)

The remainder of this section explores some of the factors at the intersection of rapid population growth, climate change, and health in the Sahel.

Women’s Empowerment and Health Empowerment is “the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability” (Kabeer 1999). Among strategic life

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    255 choices, age of marriage and use of family planning are important determinants of fertility. Ethnographic studies from the region suggest that marriage and fertility rarely result from a plan, because girls’ and women’s decision-​making processes are undermined by uncertainty and lack of a sense of self-​efficacy (Johnson‐Hanks 2005; Perlman et al. 2017). A recent study by Hope Consulting in Niger found that only 36 percent of women aged fifteen to forty-​nine agree that they should be able to choose their family size (Nouhou 2016). The same study underlines the roles of religion and society in influencing women’s reproductive behaviors. Only 2.5 percent of women believe that religious leaders hold favorable views of limiting the number of births, and 5 percent believe they are favorable to using modern contraception methods. Women generally reported that their husbands were more approving of family planning than religious leaders, however, they tended to underestimate their husbands’ level of approval, perhaps due to limited communication between spouses on the subject. Overall, women accepted the idea of using modern contraception to space births, but most did not accept its use to limit family size. The pathways linking empowerment and health are complex, but gender inequality has been shown to have negative effects on women’s health (Sen, George, and Ostlin 2002). In Niger, 85 percent of women lack control over household resources, 75 percent were married before eighteen, and 71 percent condone wife-​beating (National Institute of Statistics 2006). While some of the links between domestic violence, child marriage, and health are self-​evident, the ways in which control over household resources impacts health are more nuanced. The degree to which a woman can determine how household resources are spent may affect, for example, her family’s nutrition (through quantity and diversity of food purchased), as well as whether and from where she seeks medical attention when a child is sick. To address very low levels of women’s empowerment, some argue that adolescent girls should be placed at the center of the Sahel development agenda (Temin and Levine 2009). Most adolescent pregnancies in the region are among married girls. Staying in school helps protect girls against early marriage and delays the age of childbearing (Banerjee, Glewwe, Powers, and Wasserman 2013) and could have a tremendous impact on the demography and development of the Sahel. Delaying childbearing and increasing birth spacing protects the health of women and children, such that in the Sahel increasing the age of marriage by five years could slow future population growth by at least 15–​20 percent (Bruce and Bongaarts 2009). One culturally sensitive way of promoting the healthy development of adolescent girls has been the creation of what are called safe spaces. Safe spaces are informal meetings of girls within communities that link them to local health services and enable them to cement friendships, interact with female role models, acquire basic health, literacy, and financial skills, and learn about their rights. Within safe spaces, adolescent girls are encouraged to discuss important issues, including sensitive matters such as reproductive health. Safe space programs have been implemented throughout Sub-​Saharan Africa with promising results. In northern Nigeria, the Centre for Girls Education offered six-​year scholarships paired with a low-​cost safe space component and brought

256    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts about significant changes in school enrollment and age of marriage (Perlman et al. 2017). According to the 2008 Nigeria Demographic Health Survey (DHS), only 38 percent of female rural primary school graduates went on to enroll in secondary school nationally, compared to nearly all graduates (97 percent) from the pilot communities. Participating girls, on average, married two and a half years later than girls from nonparticipating communities (Perlman et al. 2017). Despite these gains, gaps in the evidence base related to girls’ programming remain, especially regarding cost effectiveness, scalability, and empowerment of married adolescent girls.

Maternal Health Pregnancy and childbirth are dangerous times in the lives of poor women. Complications related to pregnancy and childbearing are the leading cause of death among fifteen-​to nineteen-​year-​old girls in Sub-​Saharan Africa (Patton et al. 2009) and women in the Sahel are at an especially high risk because of extreme poverty, low autonomy, and early, frequent childbearing. Chad and Niger have the highest rates of early marriage in the world, and across the Sahel childbearing in adolescence is common. Women in Chad, for instance, face a one in eighteen lifetime risk of maternal death, which is among the highest in the world (WHO 2015). Large families are the default for human reproduction, yet evidence shows that pregnancies that are too early, too late, too close, or too many (in lay terms) predispose women to maternal morbidity and mortality. Improved access to family planning can rapidly lower a country’s maternal mortality rate; in high fertility countries like those of the Sahel, family planning could reduce maternal deaths by 32 percent and child deaths by almost 10 percent (Cleland et al. 2006). Recent demographic reports from most Sahel countries, though, show only very small increases in CPR, implying a concomitant rise in the absolute number of maternal deaths. Access to antenatal care, skilled birth attendants, and emergency obstetric and newborn care is extremely limited in the Sahel. In Mali, there are two nurses or midwives available for every ten thousand people. In low resource settings, health professionals work mainly in urban areas. Even if more could be trained, they would be unlikely to work in rural areas lacking in basic services, with few schools for their children or jobs for their partners. Breastfeeding has numerous maternal and child health benefits and provides natural protection against pregnancy. In Sub-​Saharan Africa, ovulation can be suppressed for eighteen to twenty-​four months after delivery if the woman is breastfeeding her child. The Quran recommends breastfeeding for two years, longer than but in alignment with the WHO recommendations of twelve months. In the Sahel breastfeeding is almost universal, but studies show that supplementary feeding (providing food other than breast milk, recommended at six months) is often introduced early. This not only increases exposure of the infant to infectious agents; it also accelerates the premature return of ovulation. Because nearly all women breastfeed, a small change in the length

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    257 of exclusive breastfeeding, by extending the naturally occurring period of postpartum infertility, will have a significant demographic impact in addition to the maternal and child health benefits. Thus, policies and practices that promote exclusive breastfeeding for six months hold important potential far beyond but inclusive of improving infant health and maternal health.

Hunger and Nutrition “Demographics . . . will largely determine development, and food and nutritional security in the (Sahel and West Africa) in the coming decades” (AGIR 2013). According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), as of December 2017, 32.4 million people in the Sahel (including Nigeria and Cameroon) are food insecure. Pastoralists and small subsistence farmers face many challenges—​ described in more detail in McKune Chapter 12 in this volume. Across the Sahel rapid population growth and climate change are undermining food security (Ajetomobi 2016). Cereal production in the region increased by an average of 2.71 percent per year over the period 1961–​2005, and roots and tubers production increased by 1.72 percent; neither of these increases in production are keeping pace with the average annual population growth rate of 3.18 percent (Traoree and Dabo 2012). Despite the progress in reducing child mortality from malnutrition in developing countries in the past three decades, the number of children stunted by low caloric intake and micronutrient deficiency is on the rise in Sub-​Saharan Africa. Regionally, the proportion of stunted children ranges from 27 percent in Senegal (ANSD and ICF International 2012) to an alarming 43 percent in Niger (World Bank 2012). Children of mothers who are stunted are more likely to also be stunted, leading to an intergenerational cycle of poor health and nutrition. Stunting is also associated with poor cognitive development, thus there are important societal implications of such high levels of stunting. One way to appreciate how rapid population growth outstrips development is to examine goals related to reducing hunger worldwide. The first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. MDG target 1C aimed to cut in half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger globally. Undernourishment is defined as the inability to acquire enough food to meet the daily minimum dietary energy requirements, over a period of one year (synonymous with suffering from hunger, per the FAO). Table 13.1 shows that three of five Sahel countries for which data is available achieved this goal, while Burkina Faso and Chad made “slow progress” toward it. The World Food Summit (WFS) target, in contrast, aimed to “reduce by half the number of undernourished people.” Table 13.1 shows that only three countries made “slow progress” on the WFS target. In these countries, slow overall progress toward tackling hunger, combined with rapid population growth, meant that two countries in the region actually had greater numbers of people undernourished in 2014–​2016—​with

258    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts Table 13.1. Progress toward MDGs in the Sahel* Country

MDG Target 1C: reduce by half the proportion of undernourished in total population (shown in percentage) 1990–​ 2014–​ 1992 2016 Progress

World Food Summit target: reduce by half the number of undernourished people (shown in millions) 1990–​ 2014–​ 1992 2016

Progress

Burkina Faso

26.0%

20.7%

Not achieved, with slow progress

2.4

3.7

Not achieved, with deterioration

Chad

59.1%

34.4%

Not achieved, with slow progress

3.6

4.7

Not achieved, with deterioration

Mauritania

14.6%

5.6%

Target achieved

0.3

0.2

Not achieved, with slow progress

Niger

27.7%

9.5%

Target achieved

2.2

1.8

Not achieved, with slow progress

Senegal

24.5%

10.0%

Target achieved

1.9

1.5

Not achieved, with slow progress

* Data for Mali unavailable Source: Compiled by the authors from The State of Food Insecurity in the World: The FAO Hunger Map 2015.

an additional 1.3 million people undernourished in Burkina Faso and 1.1 million people undernourished in Chad. The latest UN medium-​scenario population projection for Niger in 2050 is 68 million, over three times the population in 2018 (est. 19.9 million). If Niger were to reduce by half the proportion of people undernourished by 2050, the absolute number of people undernourished would be one and a half times greater, due solely to projected population growth. The analysis is similar for other indicators, including access to water. In 2015, about 33 percent of the population of the six West African Sahelian countries did not have access to improved water sources, reflecting significant improvements compared to 61 percent in 2000 (World Bank 2017d). However, despite the halving of the percentage of people without access to water, the actual number of people without access has increased from 24.5 million to 27.5 million, due to population growth. Smallholder farmers constitute an important majority in Sahel countries. Smallholder farming is the primary source of revenue for 80 percent of Niger’s population (Haut Commissariat à l’Initiative 3N 2016) and is practiced by 87 percent of the population in Burkina Faso (Yameogo and Guissou 2014). Most Sahel countries practice a system of land inheritance, passing down land from one generation to the next. In its simplest form, the number of children a couple has is in direct inverse relation to the size of the plot that each child will inherit. Across the globe, the amount of arable land per person has been in steady decline. Except for Mali, all Sahel countries’ arable

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    259 land per capita (measured in hectares per person) declined between 1961 and 2014. In Chad, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal, this reduction in current and potential farmland decreased by over 62 percent (World Bank 2017a). Net primary production (NPP) is defined as the amount of carbon that is accumulated as biomass in vegetation, including food, fuel, and feed (Abdi et al. 2014). In the Sahel, the supply of NPP is nearly constant, varying just 1.7 percent year to year. Population and the demand for NPP, on the other hand, are growing at annual rates of 2.8 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively—​quickly outpacing availability. This vulnerability means that when supply drops suddenly, such as in 2002 when NPP supply dropped by 9.7 percent below the average due to droughts, there will be less and less carbon per capita to support the population. As the population continues to grow, the demand for carbon will exceed the supply, especially as climate change will likely lead to a decrease in NPP. According to a 2012 study that modeled climate change, food production, and population growth in Ethiopia, achieving low fertility by 2050 might fully make up for climate change’s negative effects on Ethiopian agriculture (Moreland and Smith 2012). A lower overall population means more calories are available per person. Underscoring this possibility, some rural women in Ethiopia report choosing smaller families to help better face the negative effects of climate change (Rovin, Hardee, and Kidanu 2013), and others in Niger say that smaller families mean less competition for food during the lean season (Doka, Madougou, and Diouf 2014).

Conflict and Terrorism Conflict and terrorism arise as a result of a combination of factors, not all of them fully understood, but recurrent themes are population growth and access to resources. The latter is affected by climate change, and while there is a growing body of literature investigating links between climate change and conflict, Benjaminsen, Chapter 14 in this volume, calls into question this relationship in the Sahel. People in the Sahel do face the threat of resource-​driven war, as, indeed, vulnerable dry ecosystems have been the scene of 80 percent of society’s major armed conflicts (UNCCD 2014). As rainfall becomes less predictable, heat rises, and extreme events become more intense and occur more often, the Sahel is increasingly vulnerable to conflict over resources such as land and water. Over the past sixty years, 40 percent of all intrastate conflicts in the Sahel were linked to land and natural resources (UNCCD 2014). With growing populations, cultivation of land has expanded to new areas across the region. But arable land has limits, and as population continues to increase rapidly, so too will competition for land (Snorek, Stark, and Terasawa 2014). For many pastoralists who raise livestock, mobility is a key aspect of climate adaptation (Turner 2010). As lands become degraded, or blocked by new urban development, they alter migration routes, sometimes moving through or onto agriculture lands where they may destroy crops or increase competition for scarce resources, such as water. Simultaneously, farmers have continued to push northward to find new land, attempting to cultivate

260    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts land in historically pastoralist territory. As both groups search for new land and new livelihood strategies, conflict can ensue (Snorek et al. 2014). This type of conflict is being fueled by population dynamics. Studies have shown a correlation between societies with a high proportion of young men and increased violence (Cincotta, Engelman, and Anastasion 2003). Youth bulges—​like those pictured in the population pyramids for Niger (Figure 13.1)—​appear to be more volatile in societies where women are socially and politically excluded (Cincotta et al. 2003). When women have a greater degree of autonomy and smaller families, they tend to play a greater role in government and civil society, and their nations are measurably less bellicose (Potts and Hayden 2010). These demographic features may constitute risk factors for ongoing conflict in the Sahel. In 2015, the number of international migrants from the francophone Sahelian countries increased 77 percent from the year 2000, to 2,175,500 people (UN Population Division 2015). UN Special Envoy for the Sahel (2015) warns that unless efforts to improve education, employment, and integration of youth are put into place, the Sahel will be the center of mass migration and particularly vulnerable to the rise of terrorist groups. Rapid population growth in the Sahel will compound the negative effects of climate change, migration, and conflict and may increase the incidence of terrorism and humanitarian crisis in the region. Even if the frequency of humanitarian crises does not change, the number of people affected is likely to increase as the overall population of the region nearly triples by 2050. The 2016 UNOCHA Sahel response plan states that—​ compared to the preceding five-​year average—​harvest yields increased by 1 percent overall, but are actually a 13 percent reduction in availability when adjusted for population growth. It is uncertain how UNOCHA will be able to respond to future needs in the context of the world’s fastest population growth.

Policy Implications of Family Planning Rights-​based approaches to slowing population growth are a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for improving public health and enabling improved adaptation to climate change in the Sahel. Evidence indicates that delaying marriage and childbearing and scaling up family planning—​ including the traditional method of lactational amenorrhea—​may be the most effective mechanisms for slowing population growth in the Sahel. Family planning is one of the most cost-​effective development interventions and can successfully slow population growth (Kohler and Behrman 2015), triggering the positive sequelae discussed earlier. Family planning offers women and men the ability to manage their fertility. Decades of evidence shows that upholding women’s rights to make choices about their family size results in meaningful changes in national-​level demography. Voluntary family planning can reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions and avert maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. When birth-​to-​pregnancy intervals fall less than

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    261 five months apart, women are 2.5 times more likely to die from complications than women with birth-​to-​pregnancy intervals between eighteen and twenty-​three months (Conde-​Agudelo and Belizan 2000). One compelling metric summarizing the impact of family planning is that children born into a small family (four children or under) live on average three years longer that those born into a large family (five or more) (Johns Hopkins 2016). Family planning has measurable and significant life-​long impacts, because mothers are healthier, parents have more time for each child, and small families enjoy better education and job opportunities than large families (Sing, Darroch, and Ashford 2014). A woman is said to have an unmet need for contraception if she is married or in union, of reproductive age, does not wish to be pregnant for at least two years or never wants another child, and is not currently using any form of contraception (which may include modern or traditional forms). Modern contraception includes all technical advances, such as the birth control pill or an intrauterine device, that allow couples to have intercourse with diminished risk of pregnancy (Hubacher and Trussell 2015). Across the Sahel, the unmet need for contraception is greater than the current use of modern contraception. In Burkina Faso, 24.5 percent of married women have an unmet need for family planning, while only 15 percent use modern contraceptive methods. Chad’s statistics are even more disparate, with only 5 percent of women using modern methods and 28 percent with an unmet need (MacQuarrie 2014). It is true that both women and men in the Sahel report large desired family size, yet these statistics indicate that there exists unsatisfied demand for family planning, that is, a large proportion of women who would like to limit or space childbearing but are not using contraception. Numerous sociocultural factors hinder Sahelian women’s use of family planning, yet there are examples where uptake has increased rapidly. A recent study found that when injectable contraceptives were offered at health centers in rural Niger and advertised through an intensive radio campaign, 70 percent of women who lined up for their injection in the first quarter of the pilot were first-​time users of modern contraception (PATH 2016). This suggests that there is a high latent demand for family planning among rural Nigerien women. In Senegal, the Ministry of Health launched the National Family Planning Action Plan in 2012, and has raised contraceptive prevalence from 13 percent in 2011 to over 23 percent in 2016 (ANSD and ICF International 2012, 2017). Despite persistent preferences for large families, these examples suggest that as more women have improved access to information and contraception, its use may spread rapidly—​as seen in Bangladesh, Iran, and other conservative, predominantly Muslim societies. In low resource settings, family planning should be the priority in primary care, because it is an investment in health. A study from 2011 found that if the unmet need for family planning in West Africa was gradually met by 2030, the potential savings to the social sector would be nearly three times the cost of meeting the unmet need for family planning over the course of those twenty years (Health Policy Project Futures Group 2011). The cost of meeting family planning needs in the region was estimated at US$84 million, which is more than recouped in savings on maternal health and education, estimated at US$63 million and US$31 million, respectively. Other savings would

262    Alisha Graves, Nouhou Abdoul Moumouni, and Malcolm Potts include malaria treatment (US$63 million), immunizations (US$55 million), and water, sanitation, and hygiene (US$31 million). Raising the level of CPR in the Sahel, though difficult, has significant potential for development. No low-​income country has transitioned to middle income with a fertility rate greater than five. To achieve this, family planning should be integrated into maternal and child health initiatives, nutrition and food security programs, and women’s empowerment approaches. Due to very low numbers of trained healthcare providers, poor health infrastructure, and a high unmet need for family planning, contraceptive distribution in the region must not be overly medicalized. Integrating, equipping, and supporting community health workers is a proven high-​impact practice for family planning service delivery. Given the gaps in information on how to best meet current needs and generate demand for family planning, as well as the imperative to slow population growth, there is critical need for research in this area. In particular we need to better understand factors contributing to misinformation and sociocultural and other barriers to family planning, and then design, test, and improve ways to overcome them.

CONCLUSION In 2012, the Bixby Center at UC Berkeley and the African Institute for Development Policy hosted the first international, multidisciplinary conference examining population, climate change, and the role of women in development in the Sahel. This led to the creation of the OASIS Initiative (Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel). The consensus of the meeting was that the threat posed by population growth and climate change is a real and present danger and that evidence-​informed policies and major international assistance need to focus on three areas: (i) helping pastoralists and farmers adapt to climate change, (ii) making family planning accessible, and (iii) keeping girls in secondary school. Like a three-​legged stool, if any of these priorities is neglected then we predict state failure in the region in the coming decades. Improving development indicators of the Sahel will require higher levels of outside assistance (see e.g., FERDI 2016). In 2015, 9 percent of Development Assistance Committee countries’ foreign aid was spent on refugees, and this amount is expected to rise (OECD 2016). Yet the countries of the Sahel, which are certain to see increasing rates of migration, receive relatively little foreign aid. According to OECD and World Bank data, Turkey receives US$6,645 in foreign aid per person living on less than US$1.90 a day. In contrast, Nigeria receives only US$27 per person living below the same poverty line. Further, family planning programs receive only 1 percent of total overseas development assistance (ODA). Among the twenty countries with the highest fertility (including Niger, Mali, Chad, and Burkina Faso), this drops to only 0.31 percent of total aid (Wu 2013). It has been suggested that the proportion of ODA allocated to family planning should be raised to 2 percent and developing countries expand their own funding proportionately (Bongaarts 2016). Given family planning’s return on investment (described

Demography and Health in the Context of Climate Change    263 earlier), this goal would reinforce investments in other sectors and thus should be politically achievable. Over the past forty years, HIV/​AIDS has killed about 35 million people and another 35 million carry the virus. There is a likelihood that unless there are urgent, large scale investments in the Sahel, the burden of human disease in that region over the next forty years could be greater than the global impact of AIDS. Annual international aid to combat HIV/​AIDS in the early 1980s—​when it could have had the greatest leverage—​ was roughly equivalent to one day’s expenditure for the disease in 2011. The story of global investment for HIV/​AIDS in Africa can be characterized as too little, too late. It would be a coup for humanity if we can avoid the same mistake in the Sahel.

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chapter 14

CL IMATE CHA NG E A ND HUM AN C ONFL I C T I N THE SAH E L Tor A. Benjaminsen

In the policy domain of “climate change and conflict,” the dystopia of Mad Max is imagined to belong to a not too distant future. In this popular movie series, a presumably climate change-​induced disaster has left a few remaining people on Earth who fight over scarce resources. This scenario resonates with the relatively new international attention to the “securitization of climate change” (Brown, Hammil, and McLeman 2007). For instance, according to future scenarios in journalist Gwynne Dyer’s widely acclaimed book on “climate wars,” an “apocalyptic crisis” is “set to occupy most of the twenty-​first century” with “a probability of wars, including even nuclear wars, if temperatures rise two to three degrees Celsius” (Dyer 2010, xi–​xii). In a similar vein, another popular book also entitled Climate Wars carries the subtitle Why People Will Be Killed in the 21st Century (Welzer 2012). In parallel to most contributions to this literature, Welzer’s book does not see climate change as the direct cause of conflicts, but more as one of the underlying factors creating declining food production, increased land degradation through more droughts and floods, increased health risks, and more people on the move. Hence, “the consequences of climate change will reinforce and deepen survival problems and the potential for violence; they will interact with political, economic, ethnic and other social-​historical factors and may also lead to open use of force” (Welzer 2012, 75). This thinking is in line with numerous other security analysts writing on this topic and it is frequently referred to as a “threat multiplier,” or a “catastrophic convergence” resulting from a collision of political, economic, and environmental disasters (Parenti 2011). The highest international policy levels have also been attracted to the securitization of climate change. When the UN Security Council debated the links between resource scarcity, development, and conflicts in 2007, the UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett

270   Tor A. Benjaminsen concluded that “climate change is transforming the way we think about security,” while the French Ambassador to the United Nations stated that “the Security Council cannot ignore the threats to international security caused by global warming” (cited in Verhoeven 2014, 785). In fact, this international attention to the securitization of climate change is found in particular among policy, military, and NGO actors, while relatively few researchers advocate this idea (Selby and Hoffman, 2014). “In this, the climate security field diverges sharply from other areas of climate change policy, where scientists have played formative . . . roles in pushing forward national and international action” (Selby and Hoffmann 2014, 749). Referring to the Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Nordås and Gleditsch (2007, 628) stated that “even the IPCC, which rightly prides itself of being a synthesis of the best peer-​reviewed science, has fallen prey to relying on second-​or third-​hand information with little empirical backing when commenting on the implications of climate change for conflict.” With the publication of the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC in 2014 there was, however, considerable improvement in how human security is discussed, but still with some inconsistencies between the various chapters depending on varying authorship (Gleditsch and Nordås 2014). In a historical perspective, this new “climate reductionism” (giving climate the role of the main variable predicting social change) may be compared to the “climate determinism” of the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Hulme 2011). As in the heyday of climate reductionism, when the agency of colonial subjects was reduced to being a product of African climates, there is also a particular focus on Africa in today’s climate reductionism. African drylands, and in particular the Sahel, are usually pointed out as the most prominent example where there is “a volatile mix of climate change, drought, food shortages, migration and immobility, armed insurrection and heavy weapons proliferation.”1 The Sahel was also used by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as the prime example of the link between climate change and conflict when former US Vice President Al Gore and the IPCC were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. This narrative about the climate–​conflict link in the Sahel consists of two elements. The first says that global climate change leads to drought and desertification, which in turn lead to resource scarcity, while the second holds that this resource scarcity causes migration and the emergence of new conflicts, or it triggers existing, latent conflicts (Benjaminsen 2016). This narrative is also deeply Malthusian (Hartmann 2014; Selby and Hoffmann 2014) in its focus on resource scarcity as a cause of environmental degradation, poverty, and an escalating struggle for resources, and with roots in the “environmental security” school that emerged in the 1990s (Homer-​Dixon 1994). Traditionally, this literature has primarily been concerned with “overpopulation” and the associated “overuse” of renewable natural resources (Homer-​Dixon 1999), but with global warming and the subsequent climate security narrative, the anticipated impact of anthropogenic climate change on the security of societies and livelihoods has gained prominence.

Climate Change and Human Conflict in the Sahel    271 This chapter continues by first briefly reviewing historical variations in the Sahelian climate and future prospect based on what recent climate models tell us. Thereafter it compares the idea of desertification to the regreening of the Sahel that has taken place since the drought of the mid-​1980s, before it discusses the climate change–​ conflict narrative and finally the historical and political causes of current conflicts in the Sahel.

DROUGHTS IN THE SAHEL: A BRIEF HISTORY AND FUTURE PROSPECTS It is generally agreed that during a period from 30,000 to 20,000 B.C.E., the Sahara was moist with large lakes. Then during the period 20,000 to 12,000 B.C.E., the climate was much drier. The savannah at that time reached all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Thereafter, there was another moist period from around 12,000 to 4,000 B.C.E., with lakes in the Sahara and with vegetation that today is found near the Mediterranean before desiccation gradually took place (Nicholson 1989). In addition to these long-​term dry and wet periods that have been of importance to how large the desert has been, there have also been swings in rainfall during medium-​ range periods. Nicholson (1989) identified different such dry and wet medium-​range periods since the ninth century. In more modern times, both oral tradition and written sources testify to the fact that there have been several drought periods since the seventeenth century (Webb 1995). There have, in other words, always been droughts from time to time in the Sahel, and droughts may be seen as part of the region’s climatic system. Medium-​range variations in rainfall can be tracked using earlier descriptions of the natural vegetation and of what people planted. After Columbus’s journey to America, corn was brought from the “New World” to Europe and from there to West Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was reported that corn had become the dominant cultivated plant along the Senegal River. However, around 1750, agriculture along the same river consisted of a mixture of corn, millet, and sorghum, and around 1850, millet and sorghum again were dominant, while corn was almost not planted at all. This shift is explained by the fact that corn needs more rainfall than millet and sorghum. When there is enough rainfall, farmers prefer corn because it produces a better crop. But with less rain, farmers will, with time, change to crops that are more drought resistant. In other words, it was getting gradually drier in the Sahel from the beginning of the eighteenth century to around 1850. Thereafter, there was a moister period until about the turn of the century (Webb 1995). While the twentieth century was overall relatively dry, the 1950s were unusually wet. Hence, rainfall in the Sahel varies considerably from year to year and with wet

272   Tor A. Benjaminsen and dry periods. According to Descroix et al. (2015), the periods 1900–​1950 and 1995–​ 2015 can be considered as periods with average annual rainfall in the last century in the Sahel, while 1951–​1967 and 1968–​1995 were humid and dry periods, respectively. There has since been at least a partial recovery of annual rainfall. Dakar, which is one of the meteorological stations with the longest records, demonstrates this trend (Descroix et al. 2015). Since it is largely rainfall that drives the Sahelian ecosystem, global warming might in the long run lead to desertification—​if it reduces rainfall. However, as demonstrated by Buontempo, Booth, and Moufouma-​Okia (2010), there is considerable uncertainty about rainfall trends and projections in the Sahel. There is much less uncertainty related to temperatures, as all models project increases of surface temperatures in future scenarios (Buontempo et al. 2010). This uncertainty relating to future rainfall scenarios is underlined by the IPCC in its Fourth and Fifth Assessments (Boko et al. 2007, 444; Niang, Ruppel, Abdrabo, Essel, Lennard, Padgham, and Urquhart. 2014). The former points out that the various models do not concur concerning future climate scenarios for the Sahel. While some models support the theory that this region will become drier, other models suggest that there may be more rain in the Sahel in the future (e.g., Haarsma et al. 2005; Odekunle, Andrew, and Aremu 2008). Buontempo et al. (2010) also highlight the inability of current generation climate models to capture processes driving Sahelian climate in the twenty-​first century, precipitation in particular. They advise against basing assessments of future climate change in the Sahel on the results from any single model in isolation. Until the processes responsible for the projected changes can be understood and constrained, the long-​term future will remain uncertain. However, Biasutti (2013) finds that most models conclude that the rainy season will be “more feeble at its start” and “more abundant at its core.” Hence, the overall trend seems to be toward wetter conditions, but with rainfall more concentrated in time and with higher average temperatures. Of twenty models investigated by Biasutti (2013), only four are outlier models coming to other conclusions. But the Fifth IPCC Assessment accords low to medium confidence in these projected changes of heavier rainfall (Niang and Ruppel, 2014). Giannini (2016) discusses the causes of drought in the Sahel during the late twentieth century reviewing the power of two competing explanations that have been hotly debated. The first posits that human induced land degradation increases the albedo effect from the land surface that again feeds back into the regional climate. The second relies on the influence of the oceans and the monsoon to explain rainfall variation and is therefore more connected to a global climatic system. In line with this second explanation, Giannini (2016, 281–​282) concludes that “drought was caused by large-​scale, if subtle, shifts in oceanic temperatures, not by local anthropogenic pressure on the environment.” Given this conclusion, Giannini (2016) also opens up the possibility that the droughts in the late twentieth century have been affected by global warming associated with emissions of greenhouse gases.

Climate Change and Human Conflict in the Sahel    273

DESERTIFICATION OR REGREENING? Claims about desertification in the Sahel are as old as the European presence in the region. Already in the middle of the nineteenth century, the idea of desertification was established in France and other European countries, and there were debates in Europe about the causes of this process in the interior of Africa (Davis 2016; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux 2019). In the early twentieth century in France, there were two camps in this debate; one arguing that desertification was a man-​made process and another that it was caused by natural desiccation (Benjaminsen and Berge 2004a, 2004b; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux 2019). But the view that it was created by local overuse of natural resources dominated and, even during the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, this view informed international policy and media debates. From the late 1980s, claims of widespread degradation and desertification in the Sahel have been undermined by a number of studies. For instance, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States have studied satellite images of the southern limits of the Sahara and concluded that the edge of the desert moves back and forth as a direct result of annual rainfall (Herrmann and Sop 2016; Tucker, Dregne, and Newcomb 1991; Tucker and Nicholson 1999). Furthermore, a number of studies published from the late 1980s led researchers increasingly to question the idea of desertification in the Sahel. Some of this research was summed up in a New Scientist article entitled “The Myth of the Marching Desert” (Forse 1989). This research led to what has been deemed a paradigm shift in drylands research (Warren and Khogali 1992; Behnke and Scoones 1993; Benjaminsen 1997). It recognizes the resilience and variability of drylands and stresses the need for flexibility in coping with a highly unstable environment. These ideas have led to the questioning of ecological theory based on notions of equilibrium, carrying capacity, succession, and climax as applied to tropical drylands. Instead, non-​equilibrial ecological theory states that the vegetation in drylands varies with the annual rainfall and that external factors such as climate, rather than livestock numbers, tend to determine the vegetation composition and cover (Ellis and Swift 1988; Behnke, Scoones, and Kerven 1993). Moreover, unavailability of forage in bad years may depress livestock populations to the point where the impact of grazing on vegetation is minimal (Sullivan and Rohde 2002). Therefore, in areas of fluctuating climates, rainfall rather than density-​dependent factors related to herbivore numbers may ultimately be the most significant variable determining herbivore populations. Wet season pastures such as in the West African Sahel, with its short rainy season, domination of annual grass species, and high resilience, is a good example of a non-​equilibrial system (Hiernaux 1993; Turner 1993). The herders’ use of pastures is adapted to the seasonal changes in these drylands. During the rainy season, when the grass grows, herds often move, and therefore exercise little pressure on the vegetation. Throughout the Sahel, there has been, as mentioned, a partial recovery of rainfall since the droughts of the 1980s, which has led to a process of regreening. For instance,

274   Tor A. Benjaminsen in 2005, the Journal of Arid Environments published a special issue on “The Greening of the Sahel” (Hutchinson et al. 2005). A recent book critically revisiting the idea of “desertification” also contains several chapters demonstrating this greening (Behnke and Mortimore 2016). In one of the book chapters, Hiernaux et al. (2016) report from long-​term ecological research in northern Mali where the research team observed strong resilience and recuperation of the vegetation on sandy soils, while they also detected a transformation and thinning of the vegetation on shallow soils. This latter process is linked to stronger and more concentrated runoff resulting in increasing water levels in temporary streams and lakes that in some places have become permanent. Hence, while there is a general regreening of the Sahel caused by stronger rainfall trends since the droughts of the 1980s, there has also been the opposite process, a thinning of vegetation on shallow soils in some areas, which again leads to more runoff and increased water bodies. In a similar vein, and in parallel to the myth of the marching desert, the drying of Lake Chad, the largest lake in the Sahel, is also largely a myth according to Géraud Magrin (2016, 1) who says that “the supposed ‘disappearance’ of the Lake through water extraction and climate change is a popular myth that endures because it serves a large set of heterogeneous interests . . . meanwhile scientific investigations show substantial and continuing Lake level fluctuations over time, and do not support its projected disappearance.” Both these observed and opposing trends (regreening as well as increased run-​off and water bodies) are in fact contrary to received wisdom and the dominating policy narrative on the Sahel represented for instance by the Great Green Wall Initiative, which aims to make the Sahel green and thereby to fight desertification by establishing a 15 km wide and 7,100 km long green wall of trees from Senegal to Djibouti. This is an initiative taken by heads of state of the Sahel and it is funded by the Global Environment Facility at the tune of over US$100 million. In addition, at the climate summit in Paris in December 2015, this gigantic project was promised another US$4 billion from donors, as well as additional support from France. Hence, even though international research during the last few decades has undermined the desertification narrative it still lives on in policy initiatives. Climate change may indeed lead to drier conditions and desertification in the long term if rainfall declines. But it is problematic to conclude that current rainfall trends are on the decline. Uncertainty remains characteristic of climate scenarios for the Sahel.

THE CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONFLICT NARRATIVE The idea that climate change leads to violent conflicts in general can be regarded as a continuation or revised version of the Malthusian concept of scarcity of resources as a

Climate Change and Human Conflict in the Sahel    275 cause of environmental degradation, poverty, and an escalating struggle for resources. Thomas Homer-​Dixon is regarded as the leading proponent of the so-​called environmental security school, which sees resource scarcity as a result of population growth, environmental degradation, or social inequality (Homer-​Dixon 1994, 1999). Arid regions in Africa are often perceived as particularly prone to scarcity-​induced conflicts, and Homer-​Dixon (2007) has also focused on climate change as a cause of resource scarcity and war. A team of Swiss researchers associated with the Swiss Peace Foundation have also been prominent representatives of the environmental security school, and they have had an even more pronounced focus on the Sahel as a crisis area (Bächler and Spillmann 1996; Bächler 1998). According to Bächler (1998), the Sahel is a typical example of an area where conflicts are caused by environmental degradation. In this region, animal husbandry and farming have led to erosion of the landscape (69), population growth has led to deterioration of the vegetation (67, 70), and livestock herding has led to general overgrazing (69). Bächler (1998) presents a list of eleven conflicts that allegedly demonstrates the link between environmental degradation, socio-​economic change and violence in the Sahel. A major criticism of the environmental security school is that the term “resource scarcity” is defined so vaguely and broadly that it loses all meaning (Gleditsch 1998; Fairhead 2001; Richards 2005). Since armed conflicts are almost without exception about control over land, such conflicts will necessarily have a resource dimension. However, it does not follow that this dimension explains the conflicts. It is also misleading when such different processes as environmental degradation, increased population pressure and inequitable access to resources are forced together into a single concept of resource scarcity. In this way, the concept loses its analytical power, critics argue. Peluso and Watts (2001) also hold that conflicts cannot be understood on the basis of a simple chain of events triggered by resource scarcity, via reduced economic activity and migration, to a violent outcome. Instead, violence is context-​specific, and at the same time it is a result of overarching power and production relations. Some critics also claim that population growth can actually serve to increase the resource base and lead to sustainable agricultural intensification in keeping with the theory of Danish agricultural economist Ester Boserup (1965). There are in fact examples from dryland Africa of increases in population combined with favorable government policies that have led to increased investments per unit area in the form of work and capital and thus an improved resource base (e.g., Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki 1994; Mortimore 1998; Benjaminsen 2001). While until recently, the focus in the scarcity literature was on “overpopulation” and the associated “overuse” of renewable natural resources, climate change has come increasingly in focus as a prime cause of conflicts since the early 2000s. As mentioned, the Darfur conflict is then often presented as the best example of the correlation between climate and conflict (e.g., Sachs 2007). A report published by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 2007, which received extensive media coverage and obtained political influence, also claims that

276   Tor A. Benjaminsen there is a close link between climate change, desertification, and the conflict in Darfur (UNEP 2007). The report attaches a great deal of importance to the fact that the average rainfall in some parts of Darfur has decreased by 16–​34 percent, if the periods 1946–​ 1975 and 1976–​2005 are compared. However, the report fails to mention that since the mid-​1980s, rainfall has increased again. For example, if we look at the thirty-​year period prior to the conflict breaking out in 2003, there is no decreasing trend (Kevane and Gray 2008). In fact, there is no evidence of a falling or a rising trend in rainfall in Darfur in the period from 1972 to 2002. However, some still insist that Darfur is a climate change conflict. For instance, Mazo (2010, 85–​86) argues that although climate change was not a necessary or sufficient condition for the conflict, it was “a critical factor underlying the violence” and that “to say that other factors were equally, or even more, important politically or morally is not to deny that Darfur was a climate-​change conflict.” He supports this argument primarily by referring to the above-​mentioned UNEP report as well as an article by Burke et al. (2009). The latter study focused on temperature instead of rainfall and reported a strong correlation between annual temperature and the incidence of civil war in Sub-​Saharan Africa in the period from 1981 to 2002. However, according to Buhaug (2010), there are reasons to be skeptical about the results of Burke et al. (2009). The study applies an unconventional definition of civil war, studying only years that generated at least one thousand battle deaths and failing to distinguish between lesser war episodes and peace. This restricted sample implies that many relatively large conflicts are excluded from the analysis. In addition, Buhaug shows that the original findings are easily influenced by small changes in the climate parameters and model specification. Finally, he points out that since 2002, the final year of the sample, civil war had decreased in incidence and severity in Africa, while warming had persisted.

WHAT CAUSES CONFLICTS IN THE SAHEL? The Sahel is often seen as a hotspot of violent conflicts, typically between farmers and pastoralists or between the state and armed groups. More recently, jihadi violence has reinforced this image, in particular by groups associated with ISIL and al-​Qaeda in Mali, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-​Shabab in Somalia. So, what is behind land-​related conflicts in the Sahel? In reviewing the causes of farmer-​herder conflicts in the Sahel, Turner (2004, 885) notes that, “resource-​related conflicts are not simply struggles over resources but reflect a broader set of tensions within agropastoral societies, many of which have moral dimensions and which cannot be seen as simply derivative of in-​the-​moment struggles to subsist. In fact, these conflicts may result from manipulation for political gain or in fact be orchestrated actions for higher political purposes.”

Climate Change and Human Conflict in the Sahel    277 Most empirical research points to such political and historical factors as the root cause of land-​use conflicts in the Sahel and questions the role of resource scarcity and climate change as we have already seen. In Mali, farmer-​herder conflicts are linked to the state’s pastoral and land tenure policies and legislation (Benjaminsen and Ba 2009; Benjaminsen et al. 2012). These generally favor farmers and tend to lead to pastoralists being squeezed out of access to dry season grazing land. This research in Mali concludes that there are structural factors that tend to drive these conflicts: • agricultural encroachment that has obstructed free movement for herders and livestock; • opportunistic behavior by farmers and herders that moved to fill a political vacuum left by the disintegration and withdrawal of services following the state’s decentralization policy; • corruption and rent seeking among government officials. In the African studies literature in general, agricultural policies and land legislation favoring farmers and resulting in pastoral marginalization is a well-​known phenomenon. A Fulbe from Burkina Faso, interviewed by Hagberg (2005, 51), expressed perhaps a general feeling among many African pastoralists: “the government is supporting the farmers, and only God is supporting the Fulbe [the pastoralists].” Studying farmer-​ herder conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire, Bernardet (1984) also pointed at insufficient pastoral land rights as a key cause of these conflicts, while Bassett (1988) argued that the conflicts came from the state’s ambition to develop export-​oriented meat production attracting pastoralists from Burkina Faso and Mali to Côte d’Ivoire. In his study of farmer-​herder conflicts in northern Cameroon, Moritz concluded that what Bayart (1993) called “the politics of the belly” and rent seeking were the main causes of conflicts and that local authorities are “exploiting competing interests over natural resources to create, mediate, and perpetuate conflicts over land” (2006, 117). Pastoralists are flexible and opportunistic in how they use their resources, meaning they can more easily adapt to climate variability than many other groups. But at the same time, state policies that favor settled agriculture in many countries in the Sahel at the expense of mobile and flexible livestock production undermine not only pastoralists’ access to land but also livestock-​keeping—​still one of the region’s most important economic activities (see Chapter 15 by Eilittä in this volume). Pastoral marginalization was also at the root of the Tuareg rebellion that triggered Mali’s civil war in the 1990s, and the drought of the 1970s and 1980s only played an indirect role in the rebellion (Benjaminsen 2008): it led to the migration of young Tuareg men to Libya, where they were hired as soldiers and exposed to Qaddafi’s revolutionary ideals. There was already a strong feeling among Mali’s Tuareg and nomads in general that they were being marginalized by state policies of modernization and by policies that encourage fixed settlements. Alleged embezzlement of drought relief funds by government officials in Bamako added to the anger—​and young Tuareg in Algeria and Libya

278   Tor A. Benjaminsen took up arms against the Malian state in 1990. The rebellion would have likely taken place without the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. The first Tuareg rebellion in Mali, for instance, took place in 1963 following an unusually humid period (Benjaminsen, 2008). In January 2013, Mali hit international headlines when jihadi forces moved south after having conquered northern Mali in 2012. In 1998, the Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, GSPC) had been established in Algeria (Harmon 2014; Lounnas 2014). Following Algeria’s policy of reconciliation and amnesty, the GSPC remained as the only active jihadi group in the country by 2003. In addition, it was suffering from heavy losses and setbacks from Algeria’s security forces as well as problems recruiting new people to the organization (Lounnas 2014). However, the 9/​11 al-​Qaeda attacks in New York City and Washington, DC and the US invasion in Iraq in 2003 changed the GSPC from an “Islamo-​Nationalist” organization to one joining a global jihad (Lounnas 2014). Hence, from 2003 the GSPC extended its presence to northern Mali, and in 2007, the organization announced its allegiance to al-​Qaeda and became al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) (Daniel 2012; Harmon 2014; Lounnas 2014). Since then, AQIM has strengthened its economic position in northern Mali especially through the kidnapping of foreigners and receiving millions of euros in ransom, but also through the involvement in large-​scale smuggling of cigarettes and drugs (Daniel 2012; Harmon 2014; Lounnas 2014). By 2011, this had made it possible for AQIM to build up a core unit of almost five hundred men in northern Mali in addition to local people who have been paid to undertake various assignments for the organization. While most of the fighters in the core unit have been Algerians, there has been an increasing attempt to also include Malians, especially local Tuaregs (Lounnas 2014). Simultaneously, following NATO’s bombing of Libya and the killing of Qaddafi in October 2011, between one thousand and four thousand Tuareg soldiers in the Libyan army had returned heavily armed to Mali (Keenan 2013). This sparked a new Tuareg rebellion. Due to the Malian army’s lack of resources and low morale, already in March 2012 it fled back to Bamako and instead committed the coup of 21 March, while northern Mali, including the towns of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu, were occupied by rebel forces (Giraud 2013). In addition to AQIM, these forces consisted of Ansar Dine, a Tuareg-​based jihadi organization led by Iyad Ag Ghaly originating in Kidal and demanding autonomy for Azawad (northern Mali) and that Mali become an Islamic state; the Mouvement pour l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest (MUJAO), a rather ambiguous Salafist organization with unclear leadership but with a base mostly among Songhay and Fulani; and secular Tuaregs fighting for autonomy for Azawad within the Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad (MNLA). However, from June 2012 the MNLA became increasingly marginalized by the jihadists because of lack of resources (Giraud 2013). In addition, the MNLA soon became unpopular among the local population due to its looting of local businesses (Harmon 2014; Bøås 2015). With the marginalization of the MNLA and its retirement to its stronghold in Kidal, the rebel troops moving south in January 2013 consisted of fighters from

Climate Change and Human Conflict in the Sahel    279 AQIM, Ansar Dine, and MUJAO. This led the Malian president to call Paris for help, and on 11 January, four thousand French troops and 1,500 vehicles stationed in Chad were dispatched to Mali (Hanne 2014). At the battle of Konna in the Mopti region in central Mali (11–​18 January), combined French and Malian forces managed to push back the jihadi troops, and within a few weeks reconquer most of the northern parts of the country. As of 2019, Malian, French, and African forces still control the towns in northern and central Mali, while the state and its representatives are largely absent from rural areas (Benjaminsen and Ba 2019). In the Mopti region, this means that most of the rural areas are controlled by various armed groups associated with MUJAO, Ansar Dine, or AQIM. For instance, the annual entry of livestock into the inland delta of the Niger river in November has since 2016 been controlled by jihadi groups and not the state. This is an important yearly event in the delta when hundreds of thousands of livestock enter the dry season burgu pastures at specific dates and in a pre-​determined order. This event is usually administered by the traditional managers of pastures (jowro) in cooperation with state representatives. Herders usually pay fees per head of livestock to the jowro at the various entry points, and at the entry dates, key politicians and public administrators have tended to show up to claim their shares of the income (Benjaminsen and Ba 2009; Turner 2006). However, since 2016 the state representatives and politicians have been absent, and the jowros have been told by the jihadists not to collect any fees. Hence, in this way the jihadists manage to play on anti-​government and anti-​elite feelings among the peasantry that have emerged due to decades of rent seeking by government officials and politicians at the expense of small-​scale farmers and pastoralists (Benjaminsen and Ba 2019). The neopatrimonial state that is the main reason for many of the land-​use conflicts in central Mali has in this manner prepared the ground for a gradual jihadi take-​over, this time not through military conquest, but through gaining the hearts and minds of the rural populace (Benjaminsen and Ba 2019). Hence, currently, it seems like a large part of the rural population sees jihadi rule as a lesser evil than the corrupt state.

CONCLUSION While the climate change and conflict narrative is dominant in international politics and media debates, and while the Sahel is often presented as a typical example of this postulated link, empirical research on the Sahel tends to question this narrative. Instead of climate change, the main causes of conflicts in the Sahel are in general associated with state policies, which result in the marginalization of pastoralists, and with rent seeking by government officials and politicians. While climate scientists generally stress that there is a great deal of uncertainty as to how global warming will affect the climate in the Sahel, most climate models predict more but also more concentrated rainfall. Since the drought of the 1980s, there has actually been an

280   Tor A. Benjaminsen increase in rainfall, which has led to a general regreening. An association between climate change induced scarcity and increased conflict levels cannot, however, be entirely dismissed. Given the uncertainty in climate scenarios for the region, if rainfall declines, increased scarcity of natural resources will follow. Whether people will fight over scarce resources or cooperate more, is, however, an open question. The implied Malthusianism and climate reductionism in the dominant narrative seem, however, to assume simple causal mechanisms where in reality there may be complex webs of explanation. Climate change is without doubt one of the greatest global challenges of our time. But to suggest it is responsible for causing conflict in the Sahel is overstretching its impact. This risks undermining long-​term public engagement in climate change. It also risks overlooking the political factors that drive disputes. Glossing over the root causes could hinder efforts of finding effective solutions to conflicts.

Note 1. Cited from the website of The Center for Climate and Security from a blog on the situation in Mali https://​climateandsecurity.org/​2012/​04/​23/​mali-​migration-​militias-​coups-​ and-​climate-​change/​

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chapter 15

DRIVERS OF GROW T H A ND DECLINE IN S A H E L IA N L IVESTO CK SE C TORS Marjatta Eilittä

One of the essential features of the Sahel is its livestock. This region of ninety-​two million human inhabitants is currently rearing an estimated 192 million goats, sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, and pigs, and 182 million chickens. These animals are an indelible visual feature of Sahelian landscapes—​whether grazing, searching for feed or water, migrating, or resting in the shade. Livestock, one can argue, defines the Sahelian sphere, and it is therefore essential to understand what the future of livestock in the Sahel may look like—​what and where are the drivers for change, and what kinds of emerging changes and adaptations may we already be witnessing as a result of those drivers? So rich is the tradition of livestock husbandry and trading in the Sahel that the region yields livestock products greatly in excess of its needs and has for centuries exported livestock to the neighboring coastal region where, due to reasons of agroecology and tradition, the primary focus of agriculture has been on annual and perennial cropping. The Sahel’s comparative advantages in livestock production are partly a result of agroecology, with large tracks of land available for grazing and less disease pressure. Also, one cannot underestimate the contribution of Sahel’s complex livestock systems, involving seasonal movement of the animals and multi-​faceted trading and processing systems capable of supplying domestic and neighboring country markets. How livestock will continue to affect the future lives, livelihoods, and landscapes of the Sahel will be played out in the context of diverse, and often conflicting and contradictory, drivers. While a large part of the region’s livestock production, trading, processing, and marketing continue to follow traditional practices, they are under significant pressures to change. Alternative systems and practices are already emerging, as a response to changes in markets, domestically and regionally, and transformations in the Sahelian landscape. These changes simultaneously provide great opportunities and pose grave threats to the Sahel’s livestock producers, traders, and processors. An

286   Marjatta Eilittä essential question is whether, and under what conditions, will this impoverished region be able to find increased benefit from its livestock? This chapter analyzes the Sahel’s livestock sector from a development perspective, with a focus on economic benefits that the region’s livestock producers can gain from the increasing demand for livestock products. The focus will be on the impacts and emerging adaptations resulting from increasing domestic and regional market demand, expansion in crop cultivation and in human settlements, and the factor with the most unpredictable impacts: climate change. The chapter will not attempt to assess the impact of security threats on the Sahel’s livestock sector. Although their impacts may be immense, their causes, complexities, and potential future directions are discussed elsewhere in this volume.

TAKING STOCK OF SAHELIAN LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION AND MARKETS Importance of Livestock Livestock production is an important primary or secondary livelihood option for the majority of the Sahelian population. The great majority of Sahelian households own livestock, especially sheep, goats, cattle, and poultry. Livestock ownership has been estimated for Burkina Faso at 93 percent of households, for Senegal 81 percent, Niger 80 percent, Mali 75 percent, and Chad 71 percent (ODS and ORC-​Macro 2001; Kaur, Graham, and Eisenberg 2017). For these mostly very poor households, livestock is an important income earner, acts as bank where funds, commonly derived from sales of crops at the end of cropping season, can be invested, and is an important source of food. Livestock is also important for religious, annual, and family festivals, and for many ethnic groups has significant cultural value. The livestock sector of course provides occupations and incomes, not just through production but also through livestock trading; processing and sales of livestock products (milk, meat, and eggs) and by-​products (such as leather); as well as through other value-​adding activities, such as butchering and grilling of meat and small-​scale catering. As with food processing in West Africa, these economic activities are largely informal and there is very little data on them (Allen and Heinrigs 2016). Although most traders and brokers (who witness livestock trades in markets) are small in operations, these two groups include some large, regionally influential actors. In official export statistics, which commonly account for only a portion of true volumes, livestock is the second most important export earner for Niger (after mining products) and the third most important export earner in Burkina Faso and Mali (after mining products and cotton). Again, although official GDP calculations usually

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    287 underestimate the contribution of livestock to economies, its estimated share of GDP is 10 percent in Mali, 13 percent in Niger, 11 percent in Burkina Faso, and 7.5 percent in Senegal (APESS 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d). In Mauritania, the World Bank estimates that conservatively, livestock accounted on average 16 percent of GDP in the 2005–​ 2015 period. Most Sahelian countries are self-​sufficient in meat and imports are occasional. Only in Senegal there are significant imports (10 percent of consumption according to official statistics). In poultry, most local consumption needs are met by domestic production, mainly from smallholder and medium-​size producers. A portion of poultry consumption in the cities is covered with imports. As discussed by McKune (Chapter 12 in this volume), consumption of animal-​source foods (ASF) is low among the poor, including the livestock producers themselves.

Livestock Numbers According to official statics from in the six focus Sahelian countries, Mali, at fifty-​one million heads, has the largest population of large livestock (for this purpose defined as cattle, camels, donkeys, sheep, goats, and pigs) in West Africa after Nigeria, followed by Niger (forty-​four million), Burkina Faso (thirty-​seven million), Chad (twenty-​four million), and Mauritania (nineteen million). At 15.7 million, Senegal’s livestock population is the smallest. In all countries but Senegal, the livestock population is considerably larger than the human population, from almost double in Chad, to almost five times in Mauritania. Household accessibility tends to vary by livestock species. Sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry are cheaper, and therefore more commonly owned by poorer households and by women (see e.g., Nkwake, Magistro, and Horjus 2014). As presented in Table 15.1, sheep and goats constitute on average over two thirds of the livestock populations; most of the remaining are cattle. These shares are relatively similar for each country, with some exceptions. Only Burkina Faso has a significant and increasing pig population (2.3 million), which is associated with its larger Christian population. The data on livestock numbers needs to be considered cautiously, as full livestock censuses have generally not been conducted for decades. For example, between 2000–​ 2012, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger each conducted one survey of 7,500–​10,500 sample households (Pica-​Ciamarra et al. 2014). Annual livestock numbers are estimated with the use of multipliers to previous year’s figures (e.g., 2 percent and 3 percent growth for cattle and sheep/​goats, respectively, in Burkina Faso).

Production Systems Three main Sahelian livestock production systems may be identified: pastoral, crop-​ livestock, and peri-​urban/​commercial. The systems differ in the types of producers,

288   Marjatta Eilittä Table 15.1 Livestock populations in the Sahel, with human populations for comparison (in millions) Livestock species

Burkina Faso

Goats

14.69

6.88

22.14

6.21

16.10

5.38

71.40

Sheep

9.81

6.92

15.90

9.60

11.90

5.92

60.05

Cattle

9.40

8.11

10.94

1.84

12.78

3.54

46.61

Camels

0.02

1.59

1.03

1.48

1.77

0.00

5.89

Donkeys

1.18

0.50

1.00

0.33

1.80

0.48

5.29

Pigs

2.35

0.03

0.08

0.00

0.04

0.41

2.92

Total

37.45

24.04

51.09

19.45

44.39

15.74

192.16

Poultry

45.62

5.91

58.09

4.61

18.71

48.78

181.71

Humans

18.65

14.45

17.99

4.30

20.67

15.41

91.48

Chad

Mali

Mauritania

Niger

Senegal Total

Source: compiled by the author from data from the national agriculture/​livestock ministries.

agroecological zones, methods of production, and market orientation. Pastoral livestock systems are commonly in the arid and semi-​arid areas, but their reach extends to sub-​humid and even humid areas through human and animal migration. They are practiced by the Fulani, Tuaregs, Toubou, and other groups. The majority of livestock is reared and sold in this system (excluding poultry and pigs, of course). For example, in Burkina Faso, pastoralists are said to own 80 percent of the livestock, which supplies 77 percent of the meat, and 92 percent of the milk (APESS 2014c). Livestock fulfills multiple functions for the pastoralists, and decisions to market animals are more commonly dictated by need for cash or by distress, not for profit maximization (Wane et al. 2017). The majority of the livestock feed in the pastoral systems comes from natural range, through grazing. As the availability and quality of the natural range varies by season, the pastoralists rely on seasonal movement of animals. As a response to reduced natural range and changing climate, pastoralists have adopted strategies such as moving further south, sedentarization, and starting crop production (Nugteren and Côme 2016), and rearing sheep and goats at the expense of cattle (Dossa et al. 2015). For example, in parts of Niger there now exists a “reorganized” traditional system by Tuareg, Arab, and Toubou pastoralists who now only raise camels and goats, having abandoned cattle husbandry (FEWSNET 2017). Indeed, pure pastoralist systems are dwindling. Of family production units analyzed by the Association for the Promotion of Livestock farming in Sahel and Savannah (APESS), 80 percent also depend on extra-​pastoral activities. In contrast, mixed crop–​livestock systems are found both in semi-​arid and sub-​humid production zones. Importantly, livestock benefits from integration with crop cultivation as livestock fertilizes cropping fields with manure and crop residues can be fed to

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    289 animals. As with the pastoral system, livestock in these mixed systems continues to heavily rely on natural range. These systems are rapidly increasing and are expected to continue to increase in the future as pastoralists are becoming increasingly sedentary and integrating farming activities, and agriculturalists are rearing more livestock. For example, although in Niger the transhumance pastoralist zone still has the largest amount of livestock, the agropastoral zone has 60 percent of the cattle (FEWSNET 2017). In cases such as in Niger, agriculturalists are also moving to pastoralist areas to practice combined livestock and agriculture. Importantly, livestock of the agropastoralists often migrates in the herds of the pastoralists and therefore continues to be dependent on distant grazing lands. Finally, a small, but an increasing share of Sahel’s livestock is reared in intensive and commercial systems, some of which are found in peri-​urban and urban locations. Management is often by nontraditional producers, including by retired civil servants or by large-​scale livestock traders. Urban production also takes place in family compounds, commonly for sheep, goats, and (in Burkina Faso in particular) pigs, and typically for reasons similar to those of rural farmers, that is, income generation, insurance, economic security, social/​religious functions, and prestige (Dossa et al. 2015). At the other end are large peri-​urban dairy herds or rural herds of up to thousands of cattle. The most intensive of these systems rely entirely on purchased feeds while others combine purchased feeds and natural range. For poultry, the majority is produced in small-​scale, backyard operations although large-​scale, commercial units are common especially in Senegal, and to a lesser extent in Mali and Burkina Faso. Such units have been growing in West Africa at rate of 8–​10 percent per year. In Burkina Faso, smallholders have an important and increasing part in the marketed poultry production (Schneider et al. 2010). Livestock production is mainly determined by offtake rates (i.e., proportion of animals sold or consumed annually) and animal productivity (live weight gain for meat, liters for milk). In most of the production systems of the Sahel, both offtake and productivity are low. Reasons for low offtake are complex, involving sociocultural factors such as importance placed on herd building, low prices, and poor market signals; these are discussed under marketing. The main reasons for low animal productivity are insufficient quality and quantity of animal feed, animal diseases, and, increasingly, poor access to water. Purchased feeds are usually expensive, and feeds and veterinary products and services are mainly available in urban areas, and therefore are more accessible to peri-​urban holders. Water is also becoming a scarcer commodity, and an increasing number of producers are now purchasing water for their animals during dry season.

Livestock Marketing For centuries, and with rapid acceleration in the past fifty years as the population growth and urbanization have boosted demand, the Sahelian livestock producers and market

290   Marjatta Eilittä networks have successfully supplied increasing numbers of livestock to growing domestic and regional markets. These markets handle great volumes of animals during the year, particularly during religious or other festivals. Perhaps the greatest evidence of such supply response are the vast sheep sales around the Muslim holiday of Tabaski (Eid al-​Adha), when hundreds of thousands of sheep are sold from the Sahel to the coastal countries, as well as domestically. Prices for good quality animals during Tabaski double and triple, and quality is greatly rewarded as large animals with certain qualities (white color in particular) fetch very high prices. The livestock market networks follow a rough pyramidal pattern, with village markets at their base, typically linking to successively larger markets, starting with collection markets that bring together livestock from local village markets, and thereafter export and consumption markets (Torres et al. 2017). All higher-​level trading markets can also play the role of consumption market, with numbers of livestock slaughtered in a nearby slaughterhouse or more informal settings. Producers usually sell in village markets to the brokers who then sell to traders or to collectors who come to the village to buy, operating with their own or with a trader’s funds. The successive order of the markets can be bypassed, and even export traders may at times buy directly from smaller, even village, markets to procure cheaper animals. Butchers also sometimes buy directly from producers, to increase profits. Sales based on contracts are extremely rare. An important change of the recent decades has been the increase in the transportation by truck (and to lesser extent by train, especially from Burkina Faso to Côte d’Ivoire). The share of animals transported by truck varies by route and by time of year. In Mauritania, based on a survey by Gaëlle et al. (2018), on average only 18 percent of animals were transported by truck. Trucking in this survey greatly increased in importance during the Tabaski festival (Eid al-​Adha), when large volumes of animals, in a short time period, had to be moved. For example, a survey by Apollini et al. (2018) documented the movement of 900,000 sheep and goats in Mauritania due to Tabaski. Generally, live animals in the market are being traded for three purposes: (i) for meat sales, to be slaughtered in slaughterhouses or slabs, (ii) for live animal sales, for religious and family festivities, and (iii) for reproduction. These market segments are little studied. Although overlapping, they operate according to different pricing criteria. For example, whereas in live animal sales characteristics such as color, size, and breed matter greatly, they have little importance in sales for meat. Their shares in the market also varies by time of year, with live animal sales most important during major religious and other festivals. More minor products include milk from Sahelian cattle, typically sold or traded informally in the Sahelian villages and towns, or during transhumance. In contrast, powdered milk from especially the European Union dominates in the formal urban markets, as low, seasonal, and dispersed local production puts a hamper on profitable formal dairy sector; in Burkina Faso, extra-​regional milk imports are one quarter of the annual domestic milk production, estimated at

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    291 300 million liters, which is almost entirely marketed through the informal sector (GIZ 2018). Trade in chickens and eggs is mainly domestic, with small-​scale farmers typically selling to collectors. The size and importance of the Sahelian livestock sector is difficult to understand without considering the importance of regional trade. The Sahel has for a long time produced an important share of the animal-​source food consumed in the coastal countries. Historically the largest destination has been the regional giant Nigeria, along with two medium-​sized economies, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. There are numerous other, smaller trade routes from Mauritania and Mali to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; and from Burkina Faso and Mali to Benin and Togo. An important factor explaining these exports to the coastal countries is their high human populations and relatively high incomes. The human population of Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Togo (256 million) and their GDP per capita are three times those of the Sahel, but their large livestock population is only 92 percent of that of Sahel. Income elasticity of meat, milk, and eggs is high, that is, their consumption increases with increased income (Zhou and Staatz 2016). In contrast, poultry numbers exceed those of the Sahel by nearly a factor of two. During the colonial period and the early years of independence, livestock trade was facilitated by being left relatively free of government interference, instead of passing through government monopolies as was done for cereals. Due to population and income growth, as well as reorientation of markets following independence, importance of regional food trade has greatly increased since independence. Allen and Heinrigs (2016) estimate that non-​producing food consumers (i.e., those relying on markets entirely) in West Africa in 1960 received a similar share of calories from extra-​regional imports as from regional trade, but by 2010 the share of extra-​regional imports was only 12 percent. These trading patterns have also shown great adaptability in the face of changing political and market conditions. For example, the prolonged civil war in Côte d’Ivoire during the 2000s prompted the Burkinabe traders to switch increasingly to Ghanaian and Nigerian markets, where market demand was increasing due to economic growth. The most recent large adaptation has been due to plummeting demand for Sahelian livestock by Nigeria, due to devaluation of the naira in 2017. Various authors have tried to draw conclusions about current livestock markets and regional trade in the aggregate. For example, Josserand (2013) compared trade data collected by a USAID-​funded Agribusiness and Trade Promotion (ATP) project and market surveys conducted by the same project to official data. For Mali and Burkina Faso, Josserand estimated that exports of cattle, sheep, and goats may annually total US$616 million, that is, three times the value of official livestock export data. Within the total zone of ECOWAS, World Bank estimates exports of our US$800 million annually (Maur and Shephard 2015). These figures come with important caveats, due to the generally poor quality of data on livestock production, marketing, and exports.

292   Marjatta Eilittä

ACCELERATING PRESSURES ON THE SAHELIAN LIVESTOCK SECTOR In the following, we highlight the expected dramatic future growth in market demand for Sahelian livestock and two other drivers that have major roles in defining the future directions of the livestock sector in the Sahel: agricultural expansion and expansion of livestock ownership, and climate change.

Increasing Demand for Livestock Products In the Sahel and worldwide, demand for animal-​source food is rising quickly and is expected to continue rising in the future (Robinson and Pozzi 2011), due to population growth, higher incomes, and urbanization. The Global Perspective Studies Unit at FAO estimates that Sahel’s domestic consumption between 2000 and 2030 will increase 181 percent for beef, 152 percent for milk, 172 percent for mutton, 230 percent for poultry meat, and 207 percent for eggs. Increases in destination country consumption for Sahelian livestock products are generally equally high or higher. For example, Nigeria’s consumption, again between 2000 and 2030, is expected to rise by 215 percent for beef, 118 percent for milk, 139 percent for mutton, 285 percent for poultry meat, and 196 percent for eggs. In absolute terms the expected increases in the major coastal markets are particularly significant, given their large total demand in 2000, explained by larger population and higher incomes. African Livestock Future’s project predicts a six-​to seven-​fold increase in poultry meat and egg and pork consumption in West Africa by 2050 (Herrero et al. 2014). Four characteristics of this expected increase in demand will strongly impact future development in livestock sector. First, it will mainly result from increase in population, rather than per-​capita consumption. The Global Perspectives estimates show that 75–​86 percent of the increased consumption of beef, milk, and mutton, and 33–​75 percent of poultry consumption in the six Sahelian countries will be the result of more people. This has clear nutritional consequences in a population with high childhood malnutrition rates. Second, urban demand growth will be dominant, increasing 2.4–​2.7 times more than rural consumption in the Sahel and four to five times in the importing countries, according to the Global Perspectives Studies. Large cities such as Accra and Dakar will dominate an important part of the demand growth. Third, growth in processed foods and those with high level of value addition will be particularly rapid, resulting in job creation in both rural and urban areas (Allen and Heinrigs 2016). Interestingly, job creation will likely be particularly among women who traditionally process foods in the region (Gnisci 2016). Currently, already 39 percent of all food consumption in West Africa is of processed foods (Allen and Heinrigs 2016). And finally, as incomes grow, it can be

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    293 expected that consumers will place increased emphasis on foods that are hygienic, of high quality, and (for meat) are presented in standard cuts. This type of shift can already be seen in the popularity of packaged meats in regional supermarkets (although most still rely on meat procured from ordinary abattoirs). Given the wide livestock ownership in the Sahel, including by the very poor, the demand growth could result in tremendous positive impacts on livelihoods. Two other major factors are impacting the future prospects of the Sahelian livestock sector: large concurrent expansion of croplands and livestock ownership among traditional agriculturalists groups, on the one hand, and climate change, on the other hand.

Expansion of Croplands and Livestock Ownership In the past decades, the area under crops has vastly expanded in the Sahel. From 1970 to 2012, area cultivated in Sahel increased 2.5-​fold (Nugteren and Côme 2016). The average annual expansion rate between 1975 and 2013 was highest in Mauritania (6–​7 percent, albeit from a very low base) but also high in Burkina Faso (4–​5 percent), Malawi (3–​4 percent), and Niger (2–​3 percent). In Burkina Faso, cropland has become the most dominant land cover, covering 39 percent of land (USGS 2018). The vast majority of this expansion came about from increased cultivation of low-​ yielding food crops, mainly cereals (sorghum, millet, and maize) and grain legumes (cowpeas, groundnuts). Although area under cash crops also grew greatly, the base for all cash crops was far lower. Between 1983 and 2012, yields per hectare grew relatively little in the region, and of the sorghum production increase, 60 percent was due to area expansion, and of millets, 33 percent (BMGF 2018). These yields are half to a third of averages for other regions in the world. The expansion of cropping has most severely affected the pastoralists by curtailing animal access to grazing lands in the Sahel and making animal movement during transhumance more difficult, by decreasing grazing lands next to the corridors, and by cutting existing livestock corridors. Increasingly, agriculture has been expanding to more marginal lands, including to the pastoral areas. This has happened in southern Niger where, despite lower rainfall, agricultural yields may surpass those in the southern belt due to the higher soil fertility, as these lands have been little cultivated historically. This increasing shift to more marginal lands has been evident in the increasing importance of millet, a crop better suited for marginal conditions. For example, in Mali, in 1992 area in millet exceeded area in sorghum area by only 11 percent, but in 2012, by 100 percent (BMGF 2014). Similar expansion of agriculture is happening in the coastal countries where the Sahelian livestock migrates during the dry season. The Sudanian zone in the coastal countries, traditionally an important grazing land for the pastoralists, is now almost entirely an agricultural landscape. Countries such as Nigeria, Togo, and Benin have had

294   Marjatta Eilittä some of the highest increases in agricultural expansion, in particular in their northern parts. Today Nigeria, at 41.5 percent, has the highest share of agricultural land in the entire West Africa region (USGS 2018). Increasing livestock production by the Sahelian agriculturalists has presented a double jeopardy for the pastoralists, by taking land away from the grazing land and hindering mobility, by reducing availability of crop residues that are now needed by the crop farmers’ animals, and by reducing the need by crop farmers for manure from pastoralists, since their own animals are producing manure. Consequently, in a study of the 2014–​2015 transhumance, livestock feed was by far the largest household expenditure, using up 44 percent of the cash spent during the transhumance, twice as much as food for the household (22 percent) (Thebaud 2017). Conflicts between the farmers and pastoralists that are partly related to the dwindling availability of feed and grazing land for pastoralists are discussed by Alidou in Chapter 31 in this volume. Concurrently with agricultural expansion, there has been a rapid increase in urban and settled areas. Whereas in 1975 urban areas in West Africa were mainly in the coast, today there are significant urban centers across all Sahelian countries. Both cities and smaller towns and settlements grew, resulting in increases of 140 percent in land area settled between 1975 and 2013. In 2013, 7 percent of Burkina Faso’s land area was covered by settlement, and 4–​5 percent of Senegal’s (USGS 2018).

Climate Change Impacts There is a high level of uncertainty of how climate change will affect West Africa. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted increasingly dry conditions in the western part of Sahel, affecting Senegal, Mauritania, and western Mali, and increasingly wet conditions in the eastern part, but other models show different results (USGS 2018). There is a great deal more consensus on increasing temperature and greater rainfall variability. Direct impacts from high temperatures and floods and droughts include changes in the survival, productivity, and mortality of animals. Indirect effects involve changes in quantity, timing, and species of pasture and feed production, changes in severity and incidences of various diseases and pests, and changes in availability of water for livestock consumption. These changes and their impacts will continue to be highly complex and specific to particular site, systems, event, and livestock species. For example, a review of sixty journal articles by Younan and Simpson (2014) shows vast differences by particular disease, livestock species, and whether climate becomes more humid or dry. Almost all diseases and pests were expected to increase if conditions were to become hotter and wetter, but anthrax was expected to increase with a drier climate. Changing rainfall will also change the timing, quantity, quality, and species composition in grazing lands, thereby affecting animal growth in unpredictable ways.

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    295 Differences in rainfall will likely result in hard-​to-​predict groups of winners and losers in the livestock production and trade.

PROSPECTS FOR ADAPTATION BY THE SAHELIAN LIVESTOCK SECTOR The question about future prospects for the Sahelian livestock will not only be whether the demand can be met but also in what ways. Given the widespread ownership of livestock in the region and the large number of mainly small actors in marketing and processing of the livestock products, the increasing demand can become a major driver for improved incomes and nutrition, if these actors can respond to the markets through products that it requires, and be well remunerated for them. Consumers can profit by getting lower prices if markets become more efficient. Reduced prices and increased incomes could eventually increase the consumption in the region, alleviating undernutrition. A range of scenarios can be imagined. Various authors predict future shortfalls in supply of livestock products in West Africa. An Africa Livestock Futures report (Herrero et al. 2014) predicts that even when modeling with improved productivity, red meat production will not be sufficient and by 2050, 40 percent of the red meat will need to be imported. With pork and poultry, self-​sufficiency at the levels of year 2000 can be maintained, with imports needed for 10–​15 percent of demand. Similarly, Zhou and Staatz (2016) predict in projections to 2040 that demand will exceed supply, especially for meat, but also milk. In addition to producers, the entire system, that is, livestock traders, butchers, dairy caterers, food sellers, marketers, and processors will have to upgrade, in conditions where infrastructure and capabilities are already outstretched. An increasingly important part of the livestock supply in the Sahel may also be produced by large-​scale actors. In Niger, livestock ownership is moving to wealthier households (FEWSNET 2017). Throughout the Sahel, commercial livestock production has increased. In processing, increased interest by private large-​scale actors in building abattoirs is already evident, including in the Sahelian countries. Markets will have a key role in how the diverse Sahelian producers will be able to respond to the increased demand, and how their incomes and livelihoods will be shaped by that response. The potential role of markets as a factor prompting changes in the Sahelian livestock systems has been poorly studied, and assessment of such factors is made difficult by the relative absence of detailed data on the function of the Sahelian markets. As an exception, Gautier et al. (2016), in examining markets as a social construction in Ségou and Niono of Mali, observed that adaptive strategies as a response to various factors, including increased market demand, have reduced the vulnerability of the producers who adopted particular behaviors. Gautier et al. (2016) concluded

296   Marjatta Eilittä that such changes are likely to have winners and losers, as adaptive capacities require resources that not all have. In the following, we consider changes that will be necessary if Sahelian producers and other market actors are to take advantage of the development potential that the increased markets offer, while coping with the challenges of climate change and expanding croplands and urban settlements. It is clear that for the Sahel’s livestock sector to respond to these opportunities, traditional practices of trade and production will need to evolve.

Markets Factors Two features of traditional markets pose particular threats to positive evolution: market signals do not reach the producers and transaction costs are high.

Market Signals for Producers If producers know the demand and understand and receive the true market prices, including for quality products, they are more likely to further invest. Yet numerous features of the traditional marketing system reduce the effective transmittal of market signals to producers, which may negatively impact future response by these producers. First, brokers, instead of buyers, commonly negotiate directly with livestock producers in the market, acting as intermediaries. The role of these brokers, as witness to confirm that the animals sold belong to the person selling, has historically been an important factor reducing risk in successive transactions that connect villages in northern parts of the Sahel with the coastal megacities of Lagos and Abidjan. The institution also reduces market transparency, keeping information on market prices away from producers. Second, quality and size of animals in the market are subjectively assessed in the markets, which disadvantages especially smaller producers with little ability to bargain. Third, market information often transmits poorly from one market to another. Food prices tend to greatly differ among markets in West Africa, which usually indicates market inefficiencies (Allen 2017). For example, discussions with traders in markets in Niger (prior to the Nigerian naira devaluation in 2017) revealed that the main factor determining if the day’s prices would be high was whether Nigerian traders were present. A study by FEWSNET (2017) showed better correlation between cattle prices than sheep prices among Nigerien markets, perhaps because cattle traders are usually larger and have better information networks. Williams, Okike, and Spycher (2006) also found lack of market integration in some cases in Mali. Finally, even though prices may be high, the response by producers may not be as expected. As mentioned, livestock fulfills multiple functions and sales are often prompted by need for cash. For example, in the study by Gautier et al. (2016), 67 percent of the households sold livestock when they had unexpected health expenses, and all 58 percent of the respondents who had recently lacked money for buying food had sold their livestock. Wane et al. (2017) argue that for pastoralists, who sell animals when cash

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    297 is needed and for whom market fundamentals are not primary drivers in decision to sell, “bounded rationality” results in lower quantities sold. This is one factor that explains why during the lean season when demand tends to be high, prices stay low. At the same time, positive signs of the potential for change are evident. Great increases in sales by producers, as a response to higher prices during festivals demonstrate that market signals are being passed on to producers, and in fact, Wane et al. (2017) argue that during Tabaski bounded rationality is replaced by homo oeconomicus, (economic human) allowing for larger supply. Prices in general have been increasing since 2012, as reported by traders in various markets of the Sahel, and by traders and by producers surveyed by Gautier et al. (2017). Data for cattle, sheep, and goats in Niger would seem to indicate a positive trend, albeit with large variability (FEWSNET 2017).

High Transaction Costs High transaction costs for Sahelian livestock constitute another constraint on market responsiveness, for various reasons. Trading networks have been traditionally defined by ethnicity and kinships, and less by ability and competition. Such networks have been seen as ways to reduce risk, improve new market access, pool skills that are complementary, and uphold property rights without contracts (Meagher 2005). However, these networks have been considered to reduce access for some, by favoring those with connections, not those most qualified. In addition, the practice of moving livestock through numerous markets increases final prices to the consumers, while adding additional handling and transport costs, including trader and broker earnings. In a study by Williams et al. (2006), the producers received 65–​70 percent of the prices, a similar share as in studies conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. The profits of the typically large cross-​border traders were high, at 11.6 percent, compared to those by typically smaller domestic traders, at 2.5–​5.5 percent. Higher profits were explained by higher risks in regional trading, but also to lack of competition. Also, the costs of transport and trade currently are high due to poor road infrastructure, trucks that are not properly configured for livestock transport, as well as delays, uncertainties, and extra costs associated with poorly developed systems of accessing trucks. Transport costs are further increased by numerous corrupt charges that transporters and traders have to pay. Transport and handling costs were 40–​61 percent of the marketing costs in the study by Williams et al. (2006). Particularly high were costs from one country to another: Per kilometer charges were 230 percent higher than cost of ship transport from Europe to the West African coast. Needless to say, such high transport costs will drive imports from outside of the region. As we have discussed, positive changes that result in reduced transaction costs are evident. Trader networks have in the recent decades started to expand and become more diverse (Ufford and Zaal 2004), likely increasing competition and openness to change. Gautier et al. (2016) report numerous other adaptations in marketing Niono and Ségou, as a result of increasing demand for quality products, as well as climate change. Traders are increasingly ensuring that a deal with a buyer precedes animal purchase. In addition, the rapidity of the trader’s response to market opportunities is now more important, as

298   Marjatta Eilittä locations to buy and load animals have expanded, even to farm level, due to decentralization and cooperatives, and due to expansion of road networks, bank offices, and mobile phone offices. Finally, as mentioned, the new, private operators for butchering and marketing, now emerging in the Sahel and in the coastal countries, are less bound to the traditional marketing patterns, looking to procure as close to the producers as possible. Although written contracts between different actors are currently all but non-​existent, even they may, in the future, be used.

Production Factors Prospects for increasing productivity will largely depend on whether Sahel’s livestock sector will manage to improve access to the key resources for livestock production—​ feed resources, veterinary inputs, and water—​to the majority of its livestock holders. Intensification of production will be an important option to improve opportunities to earn income. It will also facilitate adaptation to climate change, as improved access to other feeds than grazing will shield against frequent droughts, and improved animal disease management will protect from unpredictable new outbreaks and pathologies. The competitiveness of the smallholder sector will likely be greater in the cattle, sheep, and goat production as increases in poultry meat and egg and pork consumption are more likely to be covered by the commercial sector (Herrero et al. 2014). As an exception, production of backyard chickens may continue to have good prospects in the Sahel, due to the high consumer preference for the local poulet bicyclette (bicycle chicken). Again, there are signs for positive changes. First, farmers are increasingly supplementing grazing with other feeds, mainly crop residues, purchased agricultural by-​products (e.g., cotton cake), and other locally available feed materials. Such change is evident in the landscape: In many areas, such as in Maradi and Zinder of Niger, all crop residues are collected after harvest and stored for future use. In fact, in a study by Nkwake et al. (2014) on climate change adaptation, most widely adapted practices in the study regions of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali were fodder storage and production. Attesting to the important role of markets to lead to change, more of such practices were adopted near market. Women on average had adopted fewer practices. Equally Gautier et al. (2016) report that producers reported receiving higher prices, but also having to spend more for feed and shepherding in Niono and Ségou, Mali. Second, in the past decades, fattening of animals has greatly increased, an indication that better quality animals fetch a better price in the markets. Fattening typically integrates many practices for intensified production: better feed, reliable access to water, more sedentary conditions, and vaccinations. Fattening of sheep and goats has particularly provided women an income-​earning opportunity in the Sahel. As it reduces reliance on unpredictable grazing, it is also an important climate change adaptation. In the study by Gautier et al. (2016) in Mali, half of the irrigation farmers and pastoralists had changed marketing practices by animal fattening (mainly the irrigation farmers), or by

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    299 reducing time between buying and selling of animals, and/​or by increasing marketing of dairy products to afford animal feed purchases (mainly the pastoralists). Feed storage, feed production, and animal fattening were the three important areas for livestock climate adaptation in the study by Nkwake et al. (2014). Finally, an important signal for recent change is that feed companies and small-​scale feed producers are increasing in the Sahelian countries to respond to growing demand. Such adaptations have already been extensively documented in studies such as one involving 421 households in Niger (Oyekale 2014). However, capacity to increase productivity will vary greatly, both by type of producer and by agroecological zone and production system. In a study in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, households were more likely have greater adaptive capacity if they had access to media and credit, had received assistance during flooding, and were led by younger individuals. Unsurprisingly, potential adaptation strategies are fewest for the arid zone, and only include shift away from cattle to sheep, goats, and camels, moving livestock to other zones, and changing to alternative livelihoods (Zougmoré et al. 2016). Choices for the semi-​arid zone producers are more numerous, including better integration of crop and livestock production, and conservation of crop residues. Finally, producers in sub-​humid areas can also initiate fodder production (Zougmoré et al. 2016). Options for capacity to adapt to climate change will also vary by livestock production systems. Crop–​livestock farmers have typically more options available, as they can increase cropped area, change crop species, and increase sedentary animals at the expense of grazing ones. For grazing-​only based livestock producers, options are fewer, involving changing species (more sheep, goats, and camels; fewer cattle), migrations of longer distances and durations and toward more humid areas, and income diversification (Ickowicz et al. 2012).

CONCLUSIONS Clearly, increasing demand can be an important economic opportunity for the Sahel, given the wide livestock ownership and the numerous other actors in the livestock sector. Many of the developments discussed in this chapter are almost certain to continue, such as continued sedentarization of pastoral livestock producers as transhumance becomes more difficult and expensive and continued expansion of livestock ownership by agricultural producers. Cropping lands may eventually even shrink as a result of decreased rainfall due to climate change, and urban areas and other human settlements will grow, reducing livestock mobility. Finally, it seems certain the livestock producers will continue their integration into the market economy, as sufficient rewards for quality production will become obtainable year-​round, not just during Tabaski. The Sahelian markets have demonstrated capacity to supply growing markets, and they are showing signs of emerging adaptations to changing circumstances. The increasing demand for quality products has already resulted in changes in production and trading, which are certain to further evolve. Likely future changes will include rapid

300   Marjatta Eilittä increase in production of feeds, commercially and on farms, both for home consumption and for sale. This intensification of livestock production will go hand-​in-​hand with increased market orientation of the producers. This will likely first favor producers with some initial monetary resources, but improved access to feed could be facilitated through policies. Equally, increased pressure for new trading practices that result in rapid supply of quality animals will also likely favor certain traders. Increase in direct procurement of livestock from the producers will likely eventually significantly improve market transparency and producers’ understanding of market requirements. Such repeated purchases could result in an arrangement (“value chain finance”) where the buyers would supply producers with needed inputs for livestock production, that is, feed, veterinary inputs, and water. This would have vast impacts on productivity, quality, and risk reduction for the producer. It could also allow an increasing number of poorer producers to produce markets, by capitalizing on their skills to manage livestock. And finally, although infrastructure for trade, including more hygienic markets and abattoirs, and improved retail locations for meat, will probably show some improvements, trade in animals, rather than meat, will likely continue for quite some time, given the infrastructure and transport constraints. What is clear is that in the situation of rapidly changing markets as a response to increasing demand, climate change, and crop expansion there is a need to better understand the adaptations by producers, traders, and other livestock sector actors to the changing circumstances. Such studies will yield valuable understanding on the changing relationships between the livestock actors and continuous redefinition of Sahelian marketplaces and livestock systems, and will be invaluable input into policy processes in the region, at different levels.

REFERENCES Allen Thomas. 2017. The Cost of High Food Prices in West Africa. Paris: OECD. Allen, Thomas, and Philipp Heinrigs. 2016. Emerging Opportunities in the West African Food Economy. Paris: West African Papers, No. 01, OECD. APESS (Association pour la Promotion de l’Elevage au Sahel et en Savane). 2014a. Eléments de bilan du soutien public à l’élevage au Niger depuis Maputo. Ouagadougou: APESS. APESS (Association pour la Promotion de l’Elevage au Sahel et en Savane). 2014b. Eléments de bilan du soutien public à l’élevage au Mali depuis Maputo. Ouagadougou: APESS. APESS (Association pour la Promotion de l’Elevage au Sahel et en Savane). 2014c. Eléments de bilan du soutien public à l’élevage au Burkina Faso depuis Maputo. Ouagadougou: APESS. APESS (Association pour la Promotion de l’Elevage au Sahel et en Savane). 2014d. Eléments de bilan du soutien public à l’élevage au Senegal depuis Maputo. Ouagadougou: APESS. Apolloni, Andrea, Nicolas Gaëlle, Caroline Caroline Coste, Ahmed Bezeid EL Mamy, Barry Yahya, Ahmed Salem EL Arbi, Mohamed Baba Gueya, Doumbia Baba, Marius Gilbert, and Renaud Lancelot. 2018. “Toward the description of livestock mobility in Sahelian Africa: Some results from a survey in Mauritania.” PLoS ONE 13(1): e0191565

Drivers of Growth and Decline in Sahelian Livestock Sectors    301 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 2018. Multi-​crop Value Chain Phase II. Burkina Faso/​Mali, Sorghum/​Millet. Dossa Luc Hippolye, Mamadou Sangaré, Andreas Buerkert, and Eva Schlecht. 2015. “Production Objectives and Breeding Practices of Urban Goat and Sheep Keepers in West Africa: Regional Analysis and Implications for the Development of Supportive Breeding Programs.” SpringerPlus 4:1–​12. FEWSNET. 2017. Niger Staple Food and Market Fundamentals. Niamey: FEWSNET. Gautier, Denis, Bruno Locatelli, Christian Corniaux, and Véronique Alary. 2016. “Global Changes, Livestock and Vulnerability: The Social Construction of Markets as an Adaptive Strategy.” The Geographical Journal 182:153–​164. GIZ. 2018. The Dairy Sector in Burkina Faso: The Capacity of the Sector and Impact of European Milk Powder Exports. Sector Project Agricultural Trade and Value Chains| Policy Brief 02. Gnisci, Donatella. 2016. “Women's Roles in the West African Food System: Implications and Prospects for Food Security and Resilience.” West African Papers, No. 03. Paris: OECD Publishing. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.1787/​5jlpl4mh1hxn-​en. Herrero, Mario, Petr Havlik, John Murray McIntire, Amando Palazzo, and Hugo Valin. 2014. African Livestock Futures: Realizing the Potential of Livestock for Food Security, Poverty Reduction and the Environment in Sub-​Saharan Africa. Geneva: Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Food Security and Nutrition and the United Nations System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC). Ickowicz Alexandre, V. Ancey; C. Corniaux, G. Duteurtre, R. Poccard-​Chappuis, I. Touré, E. Vall, and A. Wane. 2012. Crop-​livestock Production Systems in the Sahel—​Increasing Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Change and Preserving Food Security Building Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Agriculture Sector. Rome: FAO/​OECD. Josserand, Henri. 2013. “Assessment of Volumes and Value of Regionally Traded Staple Commodities.” Paper prepared for the Food Across Borders Conference, Accra, United States Agency for International Development, January 29–​31. Kaur, Maneet, Jay P. Graham, and Joseph N.S. Eisenberg. 2017. “Livestock Ownership among Rural Households and Child Morbidity and Mortality: An Analysis of Demographic Health Survey Data from 30 Sub-​Saharan African Countries (2005–​2015).” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 96(3): 741–​748. Maur, Jean-​Christophe, and Ben Shephard. 2015. Connecting Food Staples and Input Markets in West Africa: A Regional Trade Agenda for ECOWAS Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank. Meagher, Kate. 2005. “Social Capital or Analytical Liability? Social Networks and African Informal Economies.” Global Networks 5(3): 217–​238. Nicolas Gaëlle, Andres Apolloni, Caroline Coste, William Wint, Renaud Lancelot, and Marius Gilbert. 2018. “Predictive Gravity Models of Livestock Mobility in Mauritania: The Effects of Supply, Demand and Cultural Factors”. PLoS ONE 13(7): e0199547. Nugteren, Henk, and Catherine Le Côme. 2016. Libérer le potentiel du pastoralisme pour développer l’Afrique de l’Ouest, edited by Fred Zaal, Thea Hilhorst, and Jacqueline Sluijs. The Netherlands: KIT and SNV. Nkwake, Apollo, John Magistro, and Peter Horjus. 2014. Sahel’s Changing Climate: Local Approaches and Economic and Technical Feasibility Analysis of Adaptation Techniques in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. New Orleans: Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (DRLA) Research Team.

302   Marjatta Eilittä ODS and ORC Macro (Office National de la Statistique Mauritanie and ORC Macro). 2001. Enquête Démographique et de Santé Mauritanie 2000–​2001. Calverton, M.A. Oyekale, Abayomi. 2014. “Impacts of Climate Change on Livestock Husbandry and Adaptation Options in the Arid Sahel Belt of West Africa: Evidence from a Baseline Survey.” Asian Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances 9: 13–​26. Pica-​Ciamarra, Piga, Derek Baker, Nancy Morgan, Alberto Zezza, Carlo Azzarri, Cheikh Ly, Longin Nsiima. Simplice Nouala, Patrick Okello, and Joseph Sserugga. 2014. Investing in the Livestock Sector: Why Good Numbers Matter. A Sourcebook for Decision Makers on How to Improve Livestock Data. Washington, DC: World Bank. USGS, 2018. Landscapes of West Africa: A Window on a Changing World. https://​eros.usgs.gov/​ westafrica. Robinson, T.P., and F. Pozzi. 2011. Mapping Supply and Demand for Animal-​source Foods to 2030. Rome: FAO. Schneider, Kate, Mary Kay. Gugerty, C. Leigh Anderson, and Robert Plotnick. 2010. Poultry Market in West Africa: Mali. Evans School Policy Analysis and Research (EPAR). Brief No. 85. Seattle: University of Washington. Thebaud, Brigitte. 2017. Portrait of the 2014–​2015 and 2015–​2016 Transhumance (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger). Dakar: Nordic Consulting Group in collaboration with ISRA-​BAM and CIRAD. Torres, Carmen, Jeske van Seters, Karim Karaki, and Rivaldo Kpadonou. 2017. An Exploratory Analysis of Measures to Make Trade Facilitation Work for Inclusive Regional Agro-​food Value in West Africa. Maastricht: European Centre for Development Policy Management. Va Ufford, Quarles, and Fred Zaal. 2004. “The Transfer of Trust: Ethnicities as Economic Institutions in the Livestock Trade in West and East Africa.” Africa 74: 2, 121–​145. doi.org/​ 10.3366/​afr.2004.74.2.121. Wane, Abdrahmane, Aliou Diouf Mballo, Ibra Touré. I., and Nelly Njiru. 2017. Analysis of Sahelian Herders Market Behaviors to Facilitate Moving Towards Structural and Sustainable Transformation of Pastoral Economies. Contribution presented at XV EAAE Congress, “Towards Sustainable Agri-​food Systems: Balancing between Markets and Society.” August 29–​September 1, 2017. Parma, Italy. Williams, Timothy, I. Okike, I., and Ben Spycher. 2006. A Hedonic Analysis of Cattle Prices in the Central Corridor of West Africa: Implications for Production and Marketing Decisions. Contributed paper prepared for presentation at the International Association of Agricultural Economists Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, August 12–​18, 2006. Younan, Mario, and Brent Simpson. 2014. Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change in the Sahel: Expected Impacts on Pests and Diseases Afflicting Livestock. Burlington: TetraTech. Zhou, Yuan, and Staatz, John. 2016. “Projected Demand and Supply for Various Foods in West Africa: Implications for Investments and Food Policy.” Food Policy 61: 198–​212. Zougmoré, Robert, Samuel Partey, Mathieu Ouédraogo, Bamidele Omitoyin, Timothy Thomas, Augustine Ayantunde, Polly Ericksen, Mohammed Said, Abdulai Jalloh. 2016. “Toward Climate Smart-​agriculture in West Africa: A Review of Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation Strategies and Policy Developments for the Livestock, Fishery and Crop Production Sectors.” Agriculture & Food Security (5): 1–​16.

Section IV

T H E C HA L L E N G E S OF DE V E L OP M E N T Section editor: Renata Serra

INTRODU C T I ON Renata Serra

The current dynamics of the Sahel, more so than in other parts of the world, defy the tenets of mainstream development theories. As the region undergoes rapid social and economic transformation in response to complex demographic, environmental, and political dynamics, its development trajectories seem to deviate from historical patterns elsewhere. Several characteristics capture the uniqueness of the transformations of contemporary Sahelian countries. First, the demographic transition, and its implications for socioeconomic development, are out of line with the experiences of most other developing regions. The combination of a rapid decline in mortality during the second half of the twentieth century with persistently high fertility rates has resulted in record high rates of population growth, with projections suggesting a doubling of the population between 2020 and 2050. Growing populations put pressure on both renewable and nonrenewable resources, thus leading to continued low per-​capita income levels (already among the lowest in the world), as well as weakened environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the increased proportion of children and youth in the population generates growing demand for already limited public services, especially education and health, and for more jobs. As current systems are unequipped to absorb these higher demands, they generate unemployment and youth dissatisfaction. A second key anomaly is that, whereas by many measures the economies in the Sahel are growing, this economic growth has led so far to only limited structural transformation. Modern theories of economic development posit that increases in per-​ capita incomes and investment rates will lead to the expansion of manufacturing and other high-​productivity sectors, with more gains in income growth and investment. Furthermore, increased economic development is expected to be accompanied by improved bureaucratic performance. Economic growth and exports in the Sahel, however, are mainly driven by extractive industries, especially oil in Chad, gold in Mali and Burkina Faso, iron ore in Mauritania, uranium in Niger, and phosphate in Senegal. Extractive sectors benefit first of all the foreign companies that extract the resources. Domestically, gains are concentrated in limited areas of the economy—​accruing to

306   Renata Serra capital owners rather than fostering large-​scale employment and other positive linkages to the rest of the economy. Furthermore, growth in extractive industries creates opportunity for rent creation and appropriation, limiting incentives for government accountability and leading to large-​scale corruption. When investment in the economy is concentrated in extractive industries that fail to create jobs, the majority of the population will remain employed in agriculture, or forced into informal sectors. In Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, the shares of the populations for whom agriculture is the main source of livelihood are among the highest in the world; in these countries between half and two thirds of the population is employed in agriculture. The economy’s dependence on primary production is also reflected in an undiversified economic structure, with agriculture contributing between one third and one half of GDP, much more than in most other developing countries. Of the six countries in the Sahel, only Senegal and Mauritania boast some degree of economic diversification away from agriculture. In Senegal, about 60 percent of the GDP is provided by services, and 24 percent by industry—​with 13 percent attributable to manufacturing, which makes Senegal the only Sahelian country with a noticeable manufacturing industry, somewhat above the Sub-​Saharan Africa average of 11 percent. In Mauritania, services and industry represent an approximately equal share of the GDP—​almost 40 percent each—​but most of the industrial output is contributed by mining rather than by manufacturing. Despite these modest differences between countries, agriculture remains a pervasive feature of Sahelian lives. This is true not only in rural areas, but also in peri-​urban and urban areas, where garden growing and livestock keeping are expanding in order to supplement the meager and uncertain incomes derived from informal urban occupations. As a result, rural-​urban ties, and the associated exchange of commodities, capital, and labor, remain strong across the Sahel, providing economic security and social connections for geographically dispersed family members. The economic pattern governing the Sahel can be characterized as economic growth without development, in which per-​capita income growth does not translate into corresponding improvements in social indicators, environmental sustainability, or overall quality of life (Badiane and Macombe 2015). Dependence on extractive industries and large informal and agricultural sectors generates few incentives for the state to extend its reach and develop other economic sectors and thus results in tenuous state–​society relations. The chapters in this section examine the specific characteristics associated with these unique development patterns, and the ways in which these impact—​or are impacted by—​the state and other institutions over time. One main challenge associated with a pattern of growth without development is the rising informality of the economy. If the key formal economic sectors are not creating employment, the majority of workers will be driven to join the bulging informal sector, both in rural and urban areas, including self-​employment in agriculture. The consequences of the extraordinary growth of the informal sector have been hidden by the lack of appropriate methods and efforts to calculate its size and impact. Building in part on their own research, Guèye and Mbaye help to fill this gap by providing more

introduction to Section IV    307 reliable estimates of the size and distinctive characteristics of Sahelian informal sectors. As Chapter 16 shows, across the region the informal sector contributes at least half of the national income, and accounts for 80 percent or more in terms of the share of employment. More importantly, the informal sector is more diverse than has often been thought. Next to a myriad of micro enterprises that barely survive, there are also enterprises that are quite large and successful, but that choose to remain informal due to the poor enforcement of state regulation, and the low level of institutional support. This situation, however, also results in limitations; even when some firms become quite large, informality is associated with limited possibility to make use of technology transfers, or to access financial and insurance markets. This condition limits both the further growth of firms, and the extent to which they can in turn benefit the economy at large. Another challenge for Sahelian economies is how to best ensure food production in the face of growing populations and increased urbanization. Since reliance on food imports is expensive, the alternative is to devise appropriate policies to promote domestic agricultural production. Agricultural development can not only support the livelihoods, nutrition, and well-​being of small-​holder farmers, many of whom are women, and their families but it can also stimulate productivity increases and the growth in investment, which could then propagate to the rest of the economy. While there is enormous potential for investment in agriculture to pay off, neither governments nor the private sector in the Sahel have so far sufficiently invested in agricultural development. Indeed, inadequate agricultural policies represent one aspect of economic growth without development. The political economy factors that are responsible for the limited prioritization accorded to agriculture, such as the low political weight of rural populations and their limited organizational skills, are the subject of Chapter 17 by Serra. As is often the case, complex domestic and international dynamics produce variations in the general patterns. Thus, policymakers in some Sahelian countries have more recently exhibited a willingness to invest in some key value chains. This has been favored by the convergence between elite interests and those of more powerful interest groups, such as producer associations, which have emerged in most countries during the democratization processes. Given this new scenario, the priority accorded to agricultural sectors will continue to depend not only on economic but also on political considerations. Another key aspect affecting economic policies is a country’s relationship with donors, and a particular challenge affecting Sahelian countries is the high dependence on external aid. Receiving aid is not negative per se. Given the low levels of socioeconomic development in the Sahel, and the high risks posed by environmental, demographic, and social dynamics, the influx of external finances can in principle represent an important stimulus for unlocking the required investment and fostering development. However, as described by Bergamaschi in Chapter 18, prevailing aid modalities tend instead to reinforce the cycle of state aid dependence and weak governance. For one thing, the Sahel is among the most aid-​dependent regions in the world and successive governments, regardless of their political leanings, have always adopted strategies intended to ensure the continuation of external financial support. Furthermore, aid systems tend to reproduce themselves through their entanglement with bureaucracies, the creation of

308   Renata Serra donor-​sponsored industries of experts, and the cooptation of NGOs and civil society. The aid system in the Sahel gives all indications of having adapted and morphed into a unique and persistent social, economic, and political space, leaving no immediate prospects of countries ending their dependence on aid. Finally, governance and corruption represent another key development challenge. An economy based largely on the informal sector, on the production and export of raw commodities, and on external aid is one over which the state will have limited control, including very limited scope for levying income taxes, and for utilizing them to provide public services. As a result, state accountability to citizens is diminished. In Chapter 19, Blundo describes how systemic corruption emerged in the Sahel out of the particular historical and institutional trajectories of state-​building efforts, and in the absence of alternative means for the state apparatus to ensure its survival and legitimacy. Building on a broad range of studies, the chapter exposes the limitations of blanket analyses of the phenomenon of corruption, arguing that what uniquely characterizes the Sahel is the extraordinary propagation of “everyday corruption,” as distinct from “big” corruption. Daily practices of corruption manifest themselves in a variety of forms, and underpin a vast array of social transactions in the public sphere, especially at the local level. Understood as an institutionalized way of managing people and exercising power, the connections between corruption and other aspects of social and economic systems in the Sahel become more apparent and intelligible. Indeed, informal governance and corruption emerge as the flip side of the coin of an informal and aid-​dependent economy. By focusing, respectively, on the unique governance and institutional challenges affecting economic sectors (Guèye and Mbaye Chapter 16; Serra Chapter 17), the relationships with external donors (Bergamaschi Chapter 18), and the running of the state machine itself (Blundo Chapter 19), the chapters in this section collectively provide a framework for understanding the Sahel’s development challenges. A common theme that runs through the chapters is the weakness of state institutions, the proliferation of cumbersome regulations, and the insufficient provision of essential public services. Indeed, malfunctioning and adverse institutional conditions push firms into the informal sector, dwarf the developmental impact of agricultural interventions, limit governments’ ability to exit aid relationships, and lead to the pervasiveness of petty corruption. Paradoxically, however—​and an equally important key point that emerges from these studies–​such institutional fragility coexists with a significant capacity for resilience. In the contexts discussed in this section, resilience implies, respectively, that some informal firms grow in size and profits while eschewing regulations; that selected agricultural value chains take advantage of state support by exhibiting attractive characteristics; that governments bypass or delay donors’ recommendations through processes of appropriation and extraversion; and that public servants find ways to support at least a minimum level of service provisioning, even in the absence of public resources. Simultaneous fragility and resilience are central features of life in the Sahel. This becomes most apparent when considering the challenges facing the large youth

introduction to Section IV    309 populations. The new generations are destined to be the largest losers from the uncertain economic and political outlooks. At the same time, they are living in a context that encourages learning of strategies for resilience, and thus may well have the tools to engage more creatively than previous generations in processes of positive transformation.

REFERENCE Badiane, Ousmane, and Makombe, Tsitsi. 2015. “Agriculture, Growth, and Development in Africa: Theory and Practice,” in Celestin Monga and Justin Yifu Lin, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics. Volume 2: Policies and Practices. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 307–​324.

chapter 16

INFORM AL EC ONOMI E S OF THE S A H E L Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye

While the countries of the Sahel share many features of other Sub-​Saharan African economies, they face some unique economic challenges, which merit particular scrutiny. Per-​capita income levels are very low, exports are concentrated on few commodities, climates are mostly dry, and four of the six countries are landlocked. With fertility rates and population growth in the Sahel hitting world-​record highs, the youth—​defined as people aged fifteen to twenty-​four—​now make up more than 65 percent of the total labor force and are mostly either unemployed or underemployed (Mbaye and Guèye 2018a). These exceptional demographic trends are putting further downward pressure on living standards, as well as on access to infrastructural services and decent jobs. Poverty incidence is higher in the Sahel than in other African regions, with up to 80 percent of the population living on under US$2 per day. The picture is further darkened by critical governance weaknesses, political turmoil, and radical Islamist threats, which, as discussed in other chapters in this volume, have caused serious security challenges within and across national borders. These factors have contributed to the downsizing of the formal economic sector and the expansion of the informal sector, which represents a significant, yet underestimated, share of national production and employment. This chapter proposes to assess the relative weights of the formal and informal sectors in Sahelian national economies, focusing in particular on the dynamics of the informal sector’s expansion, and on its consequences for employment, firm productivity, and economic growth. These issues have far-​reaching implications for Sahelian economies and societies, as they impinge on the nature and quality of institutions and governance, on the degree of social inclusion and stability, as well as on long-​term fragility and policy responses.

312    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye

LONG-​TERM TRENDS IN GROWTH AND POVERTY IN THE SAHEL While the 1980s were characterized as the lost decade for Africa (Easterly and Levine 1997), and the 1990s were marked by uneven performance, since the turn of the millennium the African continent has experienced a remarkable economic growth pattern, with some countries distinguishing themselves at times as among the world’s fastest growing economies. The countries in the Sahel follow this general trend. Thus, according to World Bank World Development Indicators (WDIs), after negative economic growth rates during the 1990s, all six countries experienced positive, and sometimes considerable, growth rates, which were above 5 percent in several of the years and at times reached peaks close to 15 percent—​as was the case in Chad in 2010 (World Bank 2016). While these positive performances are unanimously recognized and documented in an abundant literature, it is worth mentioning two rather remarkable accompanying paradoxes. First, poverty has not significantly declined, neither in Africa as a whole nor in the countries of the Sahel. In the latest available surveys after 2010, poverty headcount poverty ratios in Sahelian countries range from about 38 percent to 49 percent, whereas the Human Development Index (HDI), a summary measure of development computed by the UN Development Programme, shows ranges from 0.4 to 0.51, among the lowest in the world, and low even by African standards. The corresponding figures for the world as a whole are, respectively, a headcount poverty of 10.7 percent and an HDI of 0.72. Second, despite positive economic growth rates, the questions of unemployment, underemployment, and precariousness remain a matter of urgency, especially when it comes to the youth, who represent the largest demographic group. The unsatisfactory performance in terms of poverty reduction and the creation of decent jobs is due to multiple factors, plaguing both the labor supply side (exponential demographic growth, low level of training and professional qualification) and the labor demand side (lethargic private formal sector, and paucity of good quality jobs) (Golub and Mbaye 2015). A key underlying problem is the pattern of limited specialization of these economies. The growth that the countries of the Sahel experienced after the 2000s has been mainly based on the production and export of oil and minerals (Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso), or primary products from agriculture, livestock, and fishing (all six countries). Oil and mining generally use technologies that are very capital-​intensive and therefore use relatively little manpower. In addition, the modes of financing and operating in these sectors are such that their direct impact on social welfare is quite limited. Agriculture, livestock, and fishing are characterized mostly by low productivity, a limited degree of commercialization (since a high share of smallholders’ production is reserved for self-​consumption rather than the market), and high levels of risk and underemployment. Furthermore,

Informal Economies of the Sahel    313 world markets for mineral and agricultural commodities are characterized by volatile or sluggish demand and prices when compared to a more dynamic and sustained demand for manufacturing products. Exporters of primary commodities are penalized in world markets, and this is evident from the variable and sometimes declining time trends in the ratio of exports to GDP for all the Sahelian countries (World Bank 2018). By contrast, manufacturing and some of the high-​end service sectors have great potential to serve as major source of productivity growth, employment, and income generation. However, the role of the manufacturing sector has remained very limited, with the share of manufacturing in GDP under 10 percent in most of the Sahelian countries. The service sector is mostly characterized by a low productivity informal sector which, due to the atrophy of the formal sector, has greatly expanded, and has come to play more the role of a safety valve against unemployment and precariousness than that of an engine for development.

COLONIAL LEGACIES, POST-​INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTIONS, AND GROWTH The quality of domestic economic institutions is an important determinant of nations’ prosperity (North 1990; Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2005). The countries of the Sahel share a colonial legacy that has left a profound mark in institutional terms, and considerably contributed to forging the current social contract and economic relations (see also Bergamaschi Chapter 18 in this volume). In addition to a common language, five of the six Sahelian countries share several economic institutions inspired by France, which have led them to broadly harmonize their economic policies through membership in regional organizations to which many member states’ economic prerogatives are transferred. Mauritania, which claims an Arab-​Berber heritage, has gradually distanced itself from the other countries of the Sahel, notably through a policy of Arabization affecting all segments of the country’s socioeconomic life. Leaving aside Mauritania, four other countries of the Sahel are members of the West African Financial Community, governed by one central bank, the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) headquartered in Dakar, while Chad is member of the sister financial community of Central Africa. The franc of the West African financial community, together with the franc of the corresponding financial community of Central Africa (under the same name of Communauté Financière Africaine, CFA franc), were, soon after independence, pegged to the French franc on a fixed parity basis, and, since the advent of the euro, to the European currency. The CFA franc’s peg to the euro was fixed at 655.957 CFA to €1, and has remained unchanged since. The French Treasury still offers guarantees as to the CFA’s unlimited convertibility to international

314    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye currencies, through the euro. In exchange, African countries are required to deposit at least 50 percent of the Central Bank’s foreign currency holdings in a special account (compte d’opération) held at the French Treasury. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of extremely critical positions toward the CFA franc, based on arguments supporting increased Africans’ sovereignty and condemning the continued French economic domination over its former colonies in West and Central Africa (Nubukpo 2011). The economic arguments put forward against the perpetuation of the CFA franc system are based on two negative consequences for African economies attributed to the fixed exchange rate: the low degree of competitiveness, and the low level of financing (Mbaye, Diop, and Guèye 2017). First, as the exchange rate between the CFA and the US dollar appreciated in real terms by well over 50 percent from the mid-​1990s to mid-​2010s, there was a resulting loss of international competitiveness as the Sahelian countries found it challenging to increase their exports of traditional goods and services, while it became easy for foreign imports to crowd out domestic production, especially in manufacturing. Second, the stringent discipline associated with monetary policy in the CFA franc zone area restrains the volume of loans available to the private sector, hence deterring domestic investments and limiting growth potential (Mbaye, Diop, and Guèye 2017). Nevertheless, a more nuanced assessment of the impact of the CFA franc arrangement on member countries’ economies should also take into account potential positive effects, and the fact that, when one compares CFA and non-​CFA African countries, their respective performances with respect to the two indicators of competitiveness and level of financing do not exhibit significant differences. While it is beyond doubt that the institutional rigidities intrinsic to the CFA zone are penalizing, to impute the economic difficulties faced by the economies of the Sahel solely to their membership of the franc zone seems too simplistic. There are other factors of inefficiency in these economies, partly due to questionable domestic economic policy choices, which also explain their poor economic performances. Other economic institutions in the African CFA franc zone are the regional organizations, respectively the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA) and the Communauté Économique et Monétaire de l’Afrique Centrale (CEMAC), which are in charge of harmonizing macroeconomic and trade policies among former French colonies.1 These countries also have common external tariffs, fairly harmonized tax and sectoral policies and a common source of business law (Organisation pour l’harmonisation du droit des affaires en Afrique, OHADA). The Development Bank for West Africa (Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement, BOAD) contributes to the project of economic development and integration by financing development projects in the areas of infrastructure, agriculture, tourism, and services. The French colonial legacy has widely shaped the economic structure of these countries, well beyond these common economic institutions. The colonial economy was based on a division of labor and a specialization of territories, as dictated by

Informal Economies of the Sahel    315 the growth strategies of the metropolis, rather than the developmental needs of the colonies. Thus, cash crops were gradually introduced as substitutes for traditional food crops, while imports of staples, such as rice, were expected to substitute for domestic food production, to make sure productive resources were mainly used to produce cash crops. New firms doing light manufacturing were set up, under complete control by the French, in the capitals of colonial French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa to transform locally available raw materials and to supply the rest of the colonial empire. Consequently, at independence, most of the countries in question inherited cash-​based economies with a production structure and exports based on raw materials and a highly extroverted model of consumption (Ka and van de Walle 1994). This economic structure inherited from the colonial era profoundly affected the trajectory of growth and income distribution during the 1960s and 1970s, and proved to be very persistent during the subsequent decades. Hence, to the present day, a very small number of agricultural and mining products continue to dominate both production and exports. Increasingly, services, which are often informal and low-​productivity, account for greater shares of the national economies. As a further component of the colonial legacy, Sahelian countries have inherited a sizable public administration inspired by the generous labor and employment policies traditional in France. The relatively generous wage grid applicable to the public sector (when compared to the low per-​capita income) has in turn pushed up wage levels in the private sector, creating an additional burden to the already exorbitant production costs and the lack of competitiveness of private enterprises (Amin 1973; Golub and Mbaye 2015). The colonial legacy is not only limited to the structure of the economy, but also affects the relations of power based on patronage and clientelism (as amply discussed in Blundo Chapter 19 in this volume). Under the pressure of an ever-​demanding political clientele and increasingly powerful political and social actors (students, civil servants, marabouts, unions), governments have adopted economic policies for political motives, with negative consequences for economic growth and social welfare (Bathily 1989; Boone 1991). State control of the economy has been heavy at least until the 1990s, and included central administration of market prices, prohibitive tariff and non-​tariff trade barriers, and parastatals or quasi-​public monopolies overseeing the marketing and processing of key commodities. Such heavy control of the economy has led to inefficiencies in the public and private domains, such as a sprawling and non-​performing public administration and a market system that has been for the most part deficient or malfunctioning since the post-​independence era. Thus, while it is undeniable that the colonial legacy played an important role in shaping the weak structure of Sahelian economies, it must be recognized that the economic choices made by governments after independence have contributed very little to reversing the trends, and have failed to diversify the economies.

316    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye

DEMOGRAPHY, YOUTH, AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE SAHEL The demographic structure of a country’s population plays a central role in the domestic labor market, since it is the most important determinant of household labor supply. The size of the labor force is directly influenced by fertility and population growth rates, and in the Sahel these are among the highest in the world. In most of these countries, the rate of population growth is well above 2 percent, with Niger witnessing a peak of 4 percent between 2010 and 2015, establishing a world record. Migratory fluxes, mainly from rural to urban areas, further compound these trends and contribute to significantly increase the number of job seekers in cities. In Senegal, for example, it is estimated that each year more than 250,000 people join the workforce as first-​time entrants (Golub, Mbaye, and Chwe 2015). Statistics on unemployment in Africa should be interpreted with great caution. Official unemployment levels are surprisingly low (often below 5 percent), which may lead one to believe that the labor market is performing well; in actual fact, it is not. The fact is that employment statistics include anyone who is engaged in the production of goods and services, even if it is for only one hour, during any specified reference period (e.g., one week); and encompasses all employment situations, including casual labor, short-​term work, and all forms of irregular employment. Since the official unemployment rate does not sufficiently account for the quality of employment generated by the economy, it is increasingly common to calculate the underemployment rate, or the vulnerable employment rate—​respectively defined as the percentage of those who work fewer hours not out of choice or below the minimum wage; and those household and own-​account employment—​in order to have a better picture of the employment situation in Africa (Golub and Hayat 2015; Mbaye and Guèye 2018a). When the unemployment rate is added to that of underemployment, the figure is close to 50 percent in most Sahel countries, while vulnerable employment rates achieve proportions close to 90 percent of the working age population. These figures would suggest that policies aiming to control unemployment ought to set objectives not only in terms of the creation of new jobs, but also for the consolidation and improvement of the quality of existing jobs (Golub and Mbaye 2015).

THE INFORMAL SECTOR: BACKBONE OF SAHELIAN ECONOMIES Official data indicate higher magnitudes of informality in Sub-​Saharan Africa than in other developing regions (ILO 2002). The majority of private firms are small, and mainly

Informal Economies of the Sahel    317 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Burkina Faso

Chad

Mali

Mauritania

Share of Informal sector (%GDP)

Niger

Senegal

Sub-Saharan Africa

Share informal employment (% total employment)

*Informal sector data for Chad and Mauritania is not available

Figure 16.1  Share of informal sector in GDP and total employment* Source: Authors’ calculations from World Development Indicators 2016.

defined as household-​or nano-​enterprises, with a high-​incidence of self-​employment. Altogether, these modalities represent 81 percent of total employment in Sub-​Saharan Africa excluding South Africa (Becker 2004). Recent results from Mbaye and Guèye report vulnerable employment rates around 89 percent. As access to employment is the surest way out of extreme poverty but formal labor markets are sluggish and unable to absorb the demand, most workers in the Sahel tend to enter the informal sector. The share of informal sector in total employment is above 80 percent in Burkina, Chad, and Mali, with a peak of 96 percent in Chad (Figure 16.1). When considering the share of the informal sector in total GDP, this is also well above 50 percent, with a peak of 85 percent in Niger. Another characteristic of the informal sector is a strong female presence, with women’s share in informal employment ranging between 43 percent and 59 percent of total informal employees in Sahelian countries, figures comparable to other West African countries (see Table 16.1). Informal employment exhibits a number of distinctive socio-​ demographic characteristics that differentiate it from formal employment. Most managers in the informal sector, for instance, have a much lower level of education than their formal counterparts (La Porta and Shleifer 2008). As a result, there are also important salary gaps between these two categories of entrepreneurs. In addition, work in the informal

318    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye Table 16.1 Percentage of informal sector workers who are women Countries

Percentage

Sahelian countries Burkina Faso

47.3

Mali

48.2

Mauritania

59.0

Niger

44.6

Chad

48.7

Senegal

42.9

Other countries Côte d’Ivoire

50.5

Benin

61.1

Togo

59.6

UEMOA countries

50.9

Source: Authors’ compilation from UEMOA (2008), ONS (2014) and INSD (2013) data.

sector exhibits large job insecurity, low degree of unionization, and long work hours with minimal to no social security. Informal economic activities are usually clustered around sectors that require rudimentary technology and limited capital, such as retail trade, handicraft, and small-​scale services. The patterns of transition from firms’ informal to formal status are not well understood, partly because such transitions are very rare. Usually, very few informal actors formalize. A more common feature is the emergence of formal jobs along with informal jobs, or formal sector employees choosing to engage in some kind of informal activities as a second job. Thus, how firms in the Sahel transition from micro to medium size enterprises, from being less productive to more productive, and from informal to formal status, is still largely an open question due to lack of data on such changeovers (Benjamin and Mbaye 2012).

EXPLAINING THE PERSISTENCE OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR Several arguments have been developed in the literature to explain the determinants of informality. Institutions are found to play a critical role (North 1990; Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001). Some authors invoke the mismatch between modern

Informal Economies of the Sahel    319 institutions—​mostly imported from Europe—​and traditional African culture and ways of doing business (Golub 2012). Without wanting to overlook the importance of culture and cultural settings in shaping up the business environment, our view is that empirical evidence lends weak support to these arguments. For example, countries that are found to be very similar, by several standards, come up with varying accomplishments in terms of economic modernization and formalization (e.g., see Gelb et al. 2009 on evidence from southern and eastern Africa). Based on a review of the literature and new data and analysis, Mbaye and Guèye (2018b) point to three main factors affecting the persistence of the informal sector: government enforcement capabilities, the quality of the business environment, and access to public services. Even if it is not possible to establish a clear line of causality between such factors and informality, they play an important role in explaining the informalization of Sahelian economies. State failures stands as a central factor contributing to the spread of the informal sector in Africa. Firms choose to be informal based on the set of regulations and institutions they face—​and on government’s ability to enforce those regulations (Perry et. al. 2007, Kanbur 2009; Benjamin and Mbaye 2014; Benjamin, Golub, and Mbaye 2015). A comparative analysis in several countries in eastern and southern Africa finds that firms opt for formality when access to public utilities and credit are favorable and where tax and registration rules are enforced (Gelb et al. 2009). At the other end of the spectrum, an analysis using data from West and Central Africa identifies challenges in enforcing rules as the main drivers of informality and low productivity (Benjamin and Mbaye 2014, 2016). The environment within which private businesses operate has significant influence on their choice to be formal or informal. When regulations applicable to private enterprises are not business-​friendly, compliance becomes difficult and costly, so firms are implicitly encouraged to seek refuge in the informal sector, where level of compliance is minimal or inexistent. Macroeconomic and fiscal policies, labor regulations, and trade and exchange regimes, all contribute to making the business climate favorable to private sector development, or not. In Africa, and in Sahelian countries in particular, policy interventions and regulations tend to deter private investment and incentivize informality, due to distortionary rules, excessive levels of taxation and administrative hurdles. Surveys reveal firms’ strong negative perceptions of the high rates and number of taxes applicable to them, as well as of the burdensome procedures to file and pay taxes (Benjamin and Mbaye 2014). In Senegal, firms were found to spend up to 600 hours per year filing taxes and queuing to pay their taxes (MCC 2017). On top of distortionary tax policies, very stringent labor regulations represent another constraint to firms’ development in Sahelian countries. The level of salaried employment as a share of total employment is very low in the Sahel, ranging from 19.6 percent in Chad to 6 percent in Mauritania. These low levels are a consequence of the rigidities of the labor market regulations and of the difficulties firms encounter in complying with them, as well as of other regulations that deter job creation and growth (Golub, Mbaye, and Chwe 2015).

320    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye The high costs of public services, and low access to them, are an additional burden for private enterprises. In Francophone Africa, and in the Sahel in particular, most infrastructural services are inadequate, especially roads, electricity, water, and telecommunications. Not only are these services costlier to users than in other developing regions, but also their supply is unreliable and unevenly distributed. Education, especially of a vocational type, does not satisfy the private sector’s demand for human resources, and the costs of financing it is prohibitive. These factors add to the costs of doing business and are strongly associated with informality, since education and training are important factors in assisting informal firms to grow and transition toward formality. Skill shortage is, for instance, negatively associated with firm productivity in Senegalese manufacturing (Mbaye 2002). The share of informal firms with access to varying types of public services is shockingly low. Informal sector surveys in Mauritania show that 89 percent do not have a fixed workplace, and this figure is only a bit better in the other Sahelian countries (50 percent), underscoring the preponderance of street hawkers and other ambulatory activities in the economy. The percentage of informal actors who have access to water is 5.7 in Burkina Faso, 6.9 in Chad, 8.0 in Mauritania, and only 1.4 in Mali. The percentage of informal actors who have access to electricity is inferior to 20 percent anywhere in the Sahel. The rate of landline telephone access is higher in Senegal, at 80 percent, contrasting with only 0.5 percent in in Chad and 0.9 percent in Mali (Benjamin and Mbaye 2012; ONS 2012; INSD 2013).

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND GROWTH From the discussion so far, it is apparent that cumbersome regulations and failing infrastructure services come into play to make the business environment rather hostile for private firms. While informal actors are usually exposed to higher per-​unit costs and lower quality of infrastructural services, they can also more easily avoid compliance with costly and burdensome regulations. According to some studies, this creates an unequal level playing field to the detriment of formal enterprises. Gonzalez and Lamanna (2007) find that formal firms in Africa that are exposed to competition from informal ones tend to have lower levels of productivity than otherwise. Moreover, in Senegal, a large share of formal sector entrepreneurs consider competition from informal firms as one of the biggest challenges they face. Nonetheless, while there are some areas where formal firms are facing severe competition from informal ones, there exist also positive interactions between these different categories of firms, either in the form of trading or in subcontracting (Mbaye, Diop, and Guèye 2017). Bohme and Thiele (2014) identify two types of positive interaction between formal and informal firms: forward linkages and backward linkages, with backward linkages being more

Informal Economies of the Sahel    321 frequent. Ali and Najman (2016), using World Bank Enterprise surveys for thirty-​ three Sub-​Saharan African countries, move a step further and argue that greater informal competition is positively correlated with the labor productivity of formal firms. Thus, the correlation between informality and the business environment to formal enterprises is rather ambiguous. The effect of informality on growth is also a burning issue. While informal enterprises contribute a considerable share in value added level and growth, they exhibit low productivity, hence reducing GDP growth below its full potential. Several empirical studies in developing countries show a strong negative correlation between informality and productivity of firms. In their review of the factors explaining firms’ growth, Steel and Snodgrass (2008) acknowledge an important productivity differential between formal and informal firms and explain it by the latter’s unequal access to social services. Benjamin and Mbaye (2014) found a pretty clear negative correlation between firms’ informal status and their productivity level, using alternatives measures of informality.

INFORMALITY, FRAGILITY, AND CONFLICT IN THE SAHEL In situations of conflict and state fragility, the informal economy is often the main source of livelihood and the space where most enterprises and jobs are concentrated, especially for vulnerable and marginalized groups. A wide range of activities and actors are implicated in these informal spaces, including informal credit systems, artisanal mining and manufacturing, trade networks based on kinship between members, smuggling, informal workers’ associations, informal enterprises and service providers, informal land transactions and the economy of refugee camps. Scholars’ renewed attention to the relationship between conflict, informality, and youth unemployment is the result of an emerging consensus that the process of development in fragile contexts must also consider informal institutions and non-​state actors (Schoofs 2015). Within the Sahelian context in particular, new and salient economic aspects to such relationships have attracted increased interest, although at least until recently data have been scant. The dominant feature of the informal sector in the Sahel historically has been the lawful nature of the activities undertaken. However, the political instability that has recently escalated, especially in Mali, but also in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Niger, has gradually transformed parts of these territories into war economies, where the absence of state authority coupled with a drastic decline in licit productive activities has contributed to the development of drugs, arms, human trafficking, and other illicit trade, in turn helping to stir up violence. Thus, the once flourishing but lawful trans-​ border trade in the Sahel has given way to international criminal activities, with these

322    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye countries becoming major new hubs (Anderson 2015). There is a sad irony in this evolution. Prior to the emergence of the jihadist movements, cross-​border trade in West Africa tended to strengthen and integrate state structures and economies. By contrast, the traffic networks currently underway, motivated by illicit trafficking in mining products and weapons, tend to weaken states in the region (Meagher 2015). Among the factors accounting for the strong predisposition of the Sahelian region to harbor illicit activities, the place of the informal sector is certainly key, but the fragility of the state, the lack of economic opportunities and the increasing concentration of income at the very top are ultimately the underlying causes (Blattman and Ralston 2015). Extrapolating the results of the studies performed in behavioral economics on the causes of domestic violence, several authors find that the lack of economic opportunity is the main explanatory factor of political conflicts and civil wars (Cincotta, Engelman, and Anastasion 2003; Heinsohn 2003; Urdal 2004). According to Urdal (2006, 2012), Collier and Hoeffler (2002), and Miguel, Shanker, and Sergenti (2004), unemployment and underemployment explain countries’ political and economic instability, so that once incomes decline and poverty sets in, the risks of violent conflict in fragile contexts become real. Using a multi-​country analysis of the relationship between social precariousness and political instability, Azeng and Yogo (2013) show that the risk of conflict and violence is exacerbated by a rising proportion of young people in the population: when the proportion of youth in the population reaches 35 percent or more, the risk of armed conflict becomes 150 percent higher than in countries with a demographic structure similar to those in developed countries. Similarly, Brett and Specht (2004) interviewed young soldiers in African countries in conflict and found that poverty, lack of access to education, and limited economic opportunities were important motivations for them to join rebel groups. Cramer (2010) defends a similar point of view, when claiming that political violence is the direct result of the incomplete demographic transition in developing contexts like the Sahel. The strong pressure on the few employment opportunities in these countries can then give rise to the emergence of conflicts. Overall, the view that violence is strongly correlated with a lack of opportunity seems to be dominant in the literature. One of its variants emphasizes that poor people have a low opportunity cost of violence. Those who do not have access to a decent income are thus supposed to maximize their utility by resorting to violence and extortion.

The Case of Mali and Niger Mali and Niger are cases in point for better understanding the nexus between fragility, violence, and the informal sector. Mali is landlocked and among the least developed countries in the world, with an incidence of poverty of 47.2 percent (INSTAT 2015). Social indicators are particularly low, even with respect to other countries in the region; the proportion of Malians with access to potable water is only around 72 percent, child mortality is 10.2 percent, and life expectancy is only fifty-​three years. The informal sector contributes 53 percent of the GDP,

Informal Economies of the Sahel    323 mainly in agriculture (98 percent of value added to the primary sector) and services (66 percent of value added to the tertiary sector). Since 2012, Mali has been undergoing a period of violence and political instability, mainly affecting its northern regions. As a consequence, the country is now split in two: the north, mainly composed of the Sahara Desert and three main administrative regions (Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu), makes up about two-​thirds of the national territory but only about 10 percent of the total population; and the south (most of the Sahelian region and the southern Savannah tip) in which most economic activities are concentrated, as well as some 90 percent of the national population (Coulibaly and Lima 2013). In between, the river town of Mopti has become the de facto frontier between the jihadist-​occupied or otherwise rebellious northern part of the country and the south, which is under the central government’s rule. For a long time Mopti has been the backbone of the Malian economy, concentrating such diverse activities as tourism, agriculture, and trade, as well as inland navigation. Most of these, however, were very adversely affected by the crisis that began in 2012 (Boisvert 2012). Transportation flows on the Niger river have dramatically slowed down. Since AQIM began the practice of kidnapping foreign tourists, the hospitality industry has become likewise troubled. International tourist arrivals dropped by 22 percent between 2008 and 2013, and flight arrivals declined by 92 percent between 2011 and 2013. While several international flights used to connect Mopti directly with many European cities to transport tourists, nowadays very few airline connections remain, mainly transporting goods destined for humanitarian assistance. Most hotels and restaurants have closed due to the crisis. The number of people directly affected by the conflict is estimated at around 2.24 million, including 366,000 who have been displaced (OCHA 2012). Job losses and lockouts have become pervasive (Malinet 2018). According to a World Bank (2013) report, the only sectors that are sustaining growth in Mali are agriculture and gold mining, both of which tend to be informal. The dual relationship between informality and violence is thus reinforced: while the formal sector further shrinks with political violence, the rise of informality moves the bulk of jobs seekers to more vulnerable activities, consequently also making them potentially more likely to join jihadi rebel forces. The town of Diffa, in eastern Niger, is another illustration of how the vicious circle of violence and precariousness plays out to make the economy increasingly informal. Agriculture, livestock, and continental fishing have been traditionally the bulk of economic activities in Diffa. Flourishing activities including horticulture and rice cultivation used to take place along the Komadougou river, which is 195 km long. It is this fertile area, in many regards, that Boko Haram first targeted in Diffa. While the main sources of livelihoods were drying up as a consequence of the attacks, the government responded by setting up security measures, which resulted in further restricting economic activities in the area. For example, they forbade the use of bicycles, closed schools, restricted the cattle trade in some areas, and relocated the inhabitants of up to 108 villages along the Komadougou river. These decisions triggered the development of a parallel economy within the already widely informal rural economy of Diffa. Public officials in charge of implementing the policies started to demand bribes in exchange for allowing people to

324    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye continue their business as usual, creating much frustration among those who complied. At the same time, Boko Haram offered to pay around US$300 per month to whoever decided to join their movement, as well as provide a motorcycle, which allowed some to earn money by providing informal means of public transportation. Others wishing to undertake trade activities were offered payment in-​kind. Increasingly, the Niger–​ Nigeria border has become the site of flourishing informal trade of goods and all kind of trafficking under the control of Boko Haram. Before the insecurity perpetrated by jihadi movements set in at the beginning of the 2010s, the incidence of poverty was actually lower in Diffa (which enjoys more fertile lands than other regions of Niger) than in the capital city of Niamey. With growing insecurity, traditional means of livelihoods became threatened, and the main sources of income in Diffa became the ones offered by Boko Haram. Between 2005 and 2011, the incidence of poverty increased in Diffa by more than fifteen percentage points to 34 percent, compared to the decrease by fourteen percentage points at national level (from 62 percent to 48.2 percent) and the even sharper decrease, by nearly seventeen percentage points, to almost 10.2 percent in Niamey (INS 2014). These relative changes in poverty levels as well as the increase in informal economic activities can thus be seen as both causes and consequences of political violence and institutional fragility.

FINAL REFLECTIONS Inadequate or detrimental economic policies, such as the heavy reliance on commodity production and export in order to drive economic growth, are observed both in the Sahel and in other African countries. What is peculiar to the Sahel is a unique congruence of multiple factors that are collectively serving to increase poverty, vulnerability, and conflict, at a level not seen anywhere else in Africa. These factors are varied, including adverse geography, a semi-​arid climate, limited coastline and access to ports, explosive demographic growth, business unfriendly institutions inherited from the French colonial power, and domestic security challenges some of which are sparked by unstable neighboring Arab countries. Taken together these factors all concur to determine poor economic and social indicators. That the informal sector represents in this context a significant and increasing share of national production and employment should be no surprise. In situations of conflict and state fragility, the informal economy is often the main source of livelihood, where most enterprises and jobs are concentrated, especially for vulnerable and marginalized groups. While the informal sector in the Sahel was for a long time historically dominated by lawful activities, this situation has changed since the 2010s, and the trends are worrying. Thus, the once flourishing and often informal but lawful trans-​border trade has progressively given way to international illicit activities, for which these countries have become major new hubs, as illustrated clearly by the examples of Mopti in Mali and Diffa in Niger.

Informal Economies of the Sahel    325

Notes 1. Guinea-​Bissau, a Lusophone country, has also been a member of UEMOA since 1997, whereas Equatorial Guinea, a Hispanophone country, is a founding member of CEMAC.

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328    Fatou Guèye and Ahmadou Aly Mbaye Union Economique et monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA). 2008. “Le secteur informel dans les principales agglomérations de sept pays membres de l’UEMOA: Performances, Insertion, Perspectives,” www.uemoa.int/​sites/​default/​files/​bibliotheque/​rapsectinform2_​ 0.pdf Urdal, Henrik. 2004. “Demographic Change, Resource Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of India.” Presented at the 45th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Montreal, 17–​20 March. Urdal, Henrik. 2006. “A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence.” International Studies Quarterly 50: 607–​629. Urdal, Henrik. 2012. “A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence.” Expert Paper No. 2012/​1. United Nations Population Division, New York, http://​www.un.org/​esa/​ population/​publications/​expertpapers/​Urdal_​Expert%20Paper.pdf World Bank (2013). “Artisanal and Small-​scale Mining,” www.worldbank.org/​en/​topic/​ extractive industries/​brief/​artisanal-​and-​small-​scale-​mining World Bank. 2016. “World Development Indicators.” Washington, DC: The World Bank (producer and distributor), https://​data.worldbank.org/​products/​wdi World Bank. 2018. “World Development Indicators.” Washington, DC: The World Bank (producer and distributor). https://​data.worldbank.org/​products/​wdi.

chapter 17

AGRICULTU RAL P OL I C I E S AND DEVEL OPME NT I N THE SAH E L Renata Serra

The Sahel is one of few regions in the world where the majority of the population is employed in agriculture, and where farming, fishing, and livestock activities not only constitute people’s main livelihoods but also shape their social, cultural, and political relations. Agriculture in the Sahel is dominated by thousands of smallholder farmers, operating with minimal level of capital equipment and relying on family labor. Due to the low productivity and low growth of these activities, farmers are for the most part poor and agricultural contribution to national income and welfare is well below potential. Economists have long maintained that agricultural development is the precondition for overall economic development in low-​income countries (Johnston and Mellor 1961), but this wisdom was lost during decades of policy emphasis on industrialization in postcolonial Africa. Research evidence has recently revived the case for agriculture as key contributor to economic growth, arguing that more productive and sustainable farming and livestock activities can dramatically improve food security and nutrition, as well as address the intertwined challenges of population growth, environmental degradation, and youth unemployment (World Bank 2008). Agricultural potential in the Sahel is limited, however, by several challenges, both internal and external. While demography, technology, and geography all play an important role, some of the constraints are far beyond the technical, and are rather due to complex political dynamics and historical legacies from colonial and postcolonial periods. By drawing on the secondary literature as well as on the author’s own work in the region, this chapter summarizes the key facts underlying the salience of agriculture in Sahelian economies and examines how political dynamics affect the scope, nature, and impact of agricultural sector interventions.

330   Renata Serra

OVERVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL SECTORS The main indicator of the economic importance of agriculture in a country is the share of the GDP contributed by farming, livestock, and fishing activities combined.1 These shares are 49 percent in Chad, 40 percent in Niger, 38 percent in Mali, and 29 percent in Burkina Faso—​among the highest in Africa. Mauritania and Senegal have more diversified economies, and the shares of GDP in agriculture (23 and 16 percent, respectively) are closer to the average for Sub-​Saharan Africa as a whole, which is 16 percent. When examining employment patterns, Chad and Burkina Faso exhibit the highest proportion of people working in agriculture (close to 80 percent), followed by Niger (62 percent), Mali (57 percent), Senegal (51 percent), and Mauritania (40 percent). Another indicator of a country’s dependence on agriculture is the percentage of the value of agricultural exports over total exports, which is the highest in Burkina Faso (44 percent) and Mali (23 percent). Considering that export taxes represent the main sources of government revenues in these countries, given the low incidence of income taxation, these figures give a measure of the extent of states’ dependence on agricultural sectors in order to finance their most basic functions. The most important export crops in the Sahel are cotton, peanuts, livestock, fruits, and vegetables; while maize, rice, millet, and sorghum represent the main cereals produced for domestic consumption, together with legumes such as cowpea. A notable feature of farming systems in the Sahel is the ubiquitous smallholder production unit, which exhibits strong interdependence between cash and subsistence crops and integration between crop and livestock activities. Unlike in Eastern Africa, where colonists settled in large numbers and dispossessed farmers of their land to create cash crops plantations and forced labor, rulers in the Sahel relied on coercing or incentivizing smallholder farmers in order to promote cash crops (Isaacman and Roberts 1995). While exploited and brutalized, the productive structure of rural households thus survived colonization, and cash crops were integrated into the food production system rather than developing in parallel as an antithesis to it. Furthermore, as animal power in these semi-​arid areas is the main productivity-​enhancing technology, livestock became highly integrated into farming. In mixed crop–​livestock systems across the Sahel, farmers use livestock as draft power to cultivate fields and pull water, recycle animal manure as fertilizer, and exploit crop residues as animal feed—​all of which characterize the high level of social and productive system adaptation to existing ecological conditions. Despite challenges presented by youth migration, climate change, and insecurity in the region, the smallholder household typology still remains the dominant mode of production, and is now expected to meet unprecedented expansion in the demand for food. Demand for high-​quality food, such as fruits and vegetables and animal-​source food (meat, fish, dairy and eggs), is projected to rise at an exceptional rate in Africa, more than doubling in the case of poultry (Robinson and Pozzi 2011). In the Sahel, this pattern will be exacerbated by the region’s extraordinary population growth, which is

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    331 already creating pressure to scale up food production and other operations across the food system, including food storage, transport, processing, and marketing. Agriculture is thus destined to remain a fundamental economic sector in the Sahel, even more so than in other African countries.

THE POLITICS OF AGRICULTURE INTERVENTIONS In low-​income settings, there is a tendency to frame economic development problems as mainly technical in nature, and to advocate solutions that transfer technology, resources, and knowledge. To some extent, agricultural development is indeed conditional on the availability of resources and implementation of technologies that reduce crop and animal diseases, increase yields, and ease market transactions, among others. However, no agricultural development can occur without an enabling policy and institutional environment, where key actors within government and beyond have the will and the capacity to make things happen. Understanding the conditions for catalyzing political support for agriculture is a precondition for enhanced effectiveness of any financial, human, or institutional investment. Economic policy processes are complex, because decision-​ makers and other stakeholders—​a term that encompasses all relevant actors who can be affected, either positively or negatively, by a particular policy decision—​often entertain different views about an issue, the goals to be attained, or the means for pursuing them. Even when there is agreement on policy objectives, policymakers may disagree on the means or timing of interventions. Political economy analyses rely on a number of analytical tools to examine the perspectives, goals, and actions of relevant stakeholders, as well as to identify the conditions under which greater consensus is likely to emerge for given interventions or outcomes. This can help identify which policy processes are more conducive to pro-​agriculture interventions, and how support is directed to specific commodities and sub-​sectors.

Agricultural Taxation and its Determinants For most of the post-​independence period, African policymakers neglected smallholder agriculture, with adverse consequences particularly in economically and socially fragile regions such as the Sahel. Within the study of the political economy of African agriculture, the prevalent explanation for the observed low agricultural development is known as “urban bias.” According to this argument, African ruling elites use an array of policy instruments to consistently penalize agricultural sectors, much as the colonial administrations before them. Upon independence, state-​controlled companies (known

332   Renata Serra as parastatals or marketing boards) were given exclusive rights to purchase, process, sell, and export the most important crops, such as dry cereals, maize, cotton, and peanuts. By forcing farmers to sell only to these companies at prices below the world market price and by heavily restricting alternative market channels, the marketing boards and the governments behind them implicitly extracted much of the agricultural sector surplus or profit. Other instruments used to “tax” agricultural sectors included food price ceilings, administrative controls of agricultural markets and traders, and overvalued exchange rates that discourage exports (Anderson and Masters 2009). This set of economic measures to extract maximum surplus from agricultural sectors served to generate economic rents for political elites, guarantee low food prices that benefit urban constituencies in exchange for political support, or fuel ambitious and elusive industrialization targets (Anderson, Rausser, and Swinnen 2013). If colonial institutions provided the apparatus for agricultural rent extraction, postcolonial governments only changed them in name, substantially preserving their nature. Several motives underpin governments’ taxation of the agricultural sector. An important factor is that agricultural surplus extraction represents the main source of public revenues for governments that are unable or unwilling to levy broad-​based income taxes (Anderson 2010). Macroeconomic instability due to high public debt and inflation may also increase agricultural taxation (Swinnen 2010). Yet, political factors can be influential independent of economic or budgetary circumstances. Classical explanations for the persistence of interventions penalizing agricultural sectors rest on the fact that African rural populations are too geographically dispersed and too weakly politically organized to exercise any credible pressures on governments (Bates 1981); or that African governments, regardless of their political colors and degree of democratization, have been quite successful in insulating themselves from civil society pressures (Van de Walle 2001). Structural adjustment reforms—​the economic reforms that international financial institutions requested as conditions for receiving development loans during the 1980s and 1990s—​aimed to dismantle the systems underpinning agricultural taxation. These policies included privatization of parastatals, liberalization of prices and market exchanges, and reduction in export tariffs. Empirical data show that these measures managed to reduce the natural rate of assistance (NRA), an indicator commonly used to measure the degree of support to the agricultural sector. The average NRA in Africa went from its peak of 22 percent in 1970–​1974 to 9 percent in 2000–​2004 (Anderson and Masters 2009, 27). However, the expected benefits to farmers were much lower than anticipated, due to simultaneous cuts in agricultural extension budgets and the lack of complementary interventions (infrastructures, credit) that could enable farmers and other private actors to fill in the gaps left void by the public sector (Akiyama et al. 2003). Furthermore, the rate of agricultural taxation and its impact on sector performance and farmers’ incomes were very uneven across countries, as well as commodities. This raises the crucial question of why some countries support, while others penalize, agricultural sectors, and what prompts them to change course of actions over time. Some explanations for country differences rely on economic and structural factors, such as

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    333 the relative importance of agriculture in the GDP. Others focus on political and institutional variables, such as the type of political regime, constitutional rules and electoral systems, or on the role of ideologies (see reviews by De Gorter and Swinnen 2002; Birner and Resnick 2010). Given the rise of democratic governments and the growing mobilization of rural civil society organizations throughout Africa, a relevant question is whether this wave has affected the degree of agricultural taxation in Africa. While some studies argue that the effects of elections on agricultural policies remain uncertain (Poulton 2014; Rausser and Swinnen 2011), others find that a country’s NRA increases with the transition to democracy (Olper and Raimondi 2011), as well as in countries holding regular elections, when the farming population size is large (Bates and Block 2011). Given their population structure, if political elites become motivated to try to win votes from rural areas where the majority of the population lives (Kjaer and Therkildsen 2013), then Sahelian countries emerge as uniquely positioned to see the implementation of policies that favor agriculture. Other literature looks at specific configurations of elites’ interests relative to other interest groups—​by drawing on theories of political settlements and its variants (Khan 2010) to derive a more general principle explaining which particular commodities and/​ or regions receive support within a country and which ones do not. A comparative analysis across a number of case studies in West and East Africa argues that two sets of conditions underpin elites’ incentives to implement policies that improve agricultural performance: institutional characteristics of the sector in question, such as the degree of rents and/​or prestige it provides to the elites; and the ability of producer or processor organizations to organize and create sufficient political pressures (Kjaer and Serra 2015).

Emerging Political Support for Agriculture Several broad trends have contributed, in the last decades, to create a more favorable climate for African agricultural sectors. The global commitment to end hunger and halve poverty, enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2000 (UN 2000), galvanized greater attention to the importance of food security in poor countries. In turn, this generated a richer understanding of the role that small-​scale agriculture can play in generating economic growth, reducing poverty, and improving food security in poor countries (Staatz and Dembélé 2008). Official aid to agriculture and rural development substantially increased during the 2000s–​2010s, from its low point in the late 1990s to almost US$10 billion in disbursements from bilateral and multilateral donors in 2012–​2013 (OECD/​DAC 2015). With increased financial flows has come a stronger commitment by the international development community to support more comprehensive interventions, which not only encourage productivity but also provide infrastructures and access to financial markets, build household’s asset basis (including equipment and livestock), expand climate and health information, and facilitate community dialogue to overcome conflict and enable inclusive decision-​making processes.

334   Renata Serra From 2000, African governments have quickly embraced the new evidence (and rhetoric) about the role of small-​scale agriculture as an important pillar for their growth and development strategies. At the second ordinary Assembly of the African Union, held in Maputo in 2003, African Heads of State signed the Maputo Declaration, which contained several important decisions regarding agriculture, including the launching of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), a continent-​wide initiative aiming to increase food security, economic development, and growth. The Maputo Declaration committed all African governments to devote at least 10 percent of the national budgets to agriculture and rural development. This goal implied the need to double, on average, government efforts, since the share of public expenditures to agriculture had declined by 2002 to an all-​time low of 5.3 percent of total government spending (Akroyd and Smith 2007). In addition, five Sahelian countries (not Mauritania) are tied to the ECOWAS Common Agricultural Policy, adopted in 2005, which commits member countries to reducing the region’s dependency on imports by giving priority to local food production; and to promoting fair trade and economic integration of domestic producers in national and international markets (Kamuanga et al. 2008). Sahelian countries have stepped up to embrace these regional commitments more than any other. Thus, Mali and Burkina Faso are among the only four countries who have met, on average, the target from 2008 to 2017, followed closely by Senegal and Niger (Makombe, Tefera, and Benin 2018). If these figures bode well for the fate of agricultural sectors in the Sahel, they are insufficient indicators of the degree to which resources are used effectively. Understanding the latter requires one to delve into the realities of specific commodity sectors.

COMMODITY CASE STUDIES Support for, or taxation of, agricultural sectors vary across sub-​sectors, depending on the characteristics of the commodity sector and wider political dynamics. This section discusses three important commodities in the Sahel: cotton, rice, and livestock. Through comparison, it will seek to explain why some commodities receive greater policy support (cotton, rice) than others (livestock); why interventions that affect agriculture are sometimes inconsistent with one another; and the important role of non-​ state actors, particularly producer associations.

White Gold: Cotton in Burkina Faso and Mali Cotton is an important and ancient crop in Africa, with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad among the top African producers and exporters. In the Sahel, cotton grows in rain-​fed conditions using minimal technology in the zone stretching from

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    335 central-​eastern Senegal to southern Chad, where rainfall is between 800 and 1,200 mm per year. French colonial administrators pushed cotton cultivation in their colonies after the American Civil War and consequent decline of its slavery system disrupted supply from the Americas and left European textile industries in need of raw material (Roberts 1996). Cotton cultivation was first enforced through coercion, but given its limited success, the French then introduced contract schemes that provided incentives to small farmers (Isaacman and Roberts 1995). The so-​called approche filière (integrated value chain) conferred to a parastatal ginning company (the French company for textile development or Compagnie Française pour le Développement des Textiles, CFDT), the exclusive rights to buy seed cotton from farmers, process it into cotton lint and other by-​products, and export to the international market. The cotton monopoly controlled, directly or indirectly, other firms in the cotton value chain, operating in the transport, seed processing, and export sub-​sectors. This monopolistic structure together with the continued orientation to exporting cotton lint, rather than expanding textile industries in the producing countries, continued after countries’ independence. Even when governments nationalized the domestic cotton companies, the CFDT retained its vital role in the cotton sectors of main producer countries, through a model of joint venture and tight business and trade relationships. This governance structure enabled governments to derive huge revenues from cotton exports—​to the detriment of cotton farmers in the region, who received, on average, lower than the international market price (Bassett, 2001; Moseley and Gray 2008). However, cotton in francophone Africa is also, from many angles, a development success story (Gabre-​ Madhin and Haggblade 2003). Cotton production boomed during the 1970s and 1980s, thanks to expansion of cultivated land, increases in yields, farmer mechanization, and innovative research and development (Bassett 2001; Fok 2007; OECD 2006). Hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers, organized in cooperatives, benefited from preferential access to credit, equipment, and extension services. As revenues from cotton sales partly returned to cooperatives, entire rural communities witnessed an improvement in infrastructures, such as schools and wells (Bingen 1998). In Mali, the national cotton company represented a “state within the state,” and it was the most important engine of development in the southern regions, spurring rural investment, promoting literacy campaigns, and fostering agricultural cooperatives (Serra 2014). During the 1990s, even the high appropriation of surplus profits to the detriment of farmers loosened up. In contrast to the finding that cotton continued to be one of the most heavily taxed commodities in Africa (Anderson and Masters 2009), data for Burkina Faso and Mali show that the negative trend in the NRA started to reverse in 1994, and price support to cotton became positive in most of the 2000s, as governments in Burkina Faso and Mali started to subsidize inputs, condone farmer debts, and provide other types of financial and technical support (Serra 2012b). A comparison of sector policies in Mali during 2005–​2010 finds that seven of the eight most important crops

336   Renata Serra in the country exhibited considerable levels of taxation, but cotton was the only sector where farmers received better prices than that which market forces alone would have determined (MAFAP 2013). Such empirical evidence raises the question of what may prompt a different set of incentives in the case of cotton in the Sahel, and why governments who could just extract rents would be willing to somehow contribute to the overall development of the sector. One general explanation for the cotton success story in the Sahelian countries is that, due to the integrated way in which the value chain was structured, the political and economic rents from cotton were a function of production volumes and the quality of extension, processing, marketing, and transport systems (Kjaer and Serra 2015; Serra 2012a). It is also plausible that, given the close ties between cotton elites and political elites, government interventions favored such developments for self-​serving purposes (Kaminski and Serra 2011), but also that national pride and the prestige attached to a widely recognized, successful institutional model shaped the preferences of policymakers (Serra 2014), thus confirming that ideologies matter in policymaking (Birner and Resnick 2010). During the 2000s, another influential factor is the implementation of institutional reforms, which international donors pushed for and governments implemented as a way to shift responsibilities to producer associations in a period when the state was incapable of fulfilling its core economic functions (Serra 2012a). As a result of these reforms, farmer organizations became stronger and increased their bargaining power, a factor that contributed to redefining the rules for sharing cotton profits in ways that became more favorable to rural demands. Finally, the crisis affecting West African and global cotton sectors since the 1990s and through the 2000s was in itself a pivotal factor. Declining world cotton prices, charges of corruption and mismanagement within African cotton parastatals, and spontaneous farmer protests all contributed to mounting costs to elites for extracting rents from cotton farmers. This was also the period of the boom in gold extraction in Mali and Burkina Faso, which provided the state with alternative economic revenues. These critical junctures paved the way for a new phase in cotton sector institutions and policies, which have become less extractive. However, while cotton still plays a positive role in the rural areas of the Sahel, and sector performance has been better than in the previous decade, including in Mali despite the protracted political crisis, this change of course has not been sufficient. Deep structural problems facing Sahelian cotton sectors remain unsolved, including the environmental challenges linked to current practices and the widespread poverty in the cotton growing areas.

The Golden Crop: Rice in Mali and Senegal Cultivation of African varieties of rice is at least 3,000 years old, and it has been characterized, especially in West Africa, by a long process of selective breeding and technological adaptation to suit a variety of agro-​climatic conditions. In the Sahel,

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    337 rice is grown under both rain-​fed conditions and in the irrigated areas, such as along the Senegal and Niger rivers. Colonial administrations developed infrastructures for irrigated areas, which postcolonial governments subsequently inherited and in which they established farmer contract schemes that closely resemble the ones described for cotton. Rice has become the main cereal consumed in Sahelian cities, while rural communities continue to rely on millet, sorghum, and maize. Demand for rice has exploded in the last decades, in West Africa and particularly in the Sahel, due to rapid globalization, urbanization, and the rise of the urban middle class, with its consequent predilection for “modern” diets. To farmers in the region, therefore, rice represents more of a cash crop than subsistence crop. The main rice producing countries in the Sahel are Senegal and Mali, the latter being the second largest producer in the whole of West Africa after Nigeria. Domestic rice production, however, falls short of satisfying the increasing demand, with the gap met by substantial imports, mainly from Asia. The consumer market is characterized by competition between domestically produced rice, which is richer in nutrients, and imported Asian varieties, which many urban consumers prefer as they are easier to cook and mild in taste. Few powerful traders dominate import markets, tied to political power in exchange for favorable access to credit and low import tariffs (Roy 2010). The significance of rice among rapidly growing urban populations and the power of rice importers and their political connections are sufficient arguments to explain the state’s interest in controlling, directly or indirectly, rice marketing and distribution. Nonetheless, the double status of rice as both an important cash crop and the main urban staple is also at the root of the ambivalence of national rice policies in the Sahel. As aptly articulated by Roy (2010, 87), rice generates excessive and generally contradictory expectations, as it is regarded, on the one hand, as the pillar for urban food security and pacification and, on the other hand, as a means for improving farmers’ incomes and well-​being. Policies that help reduce consumer prices by favoring imports will, for instance, counter interventions that encourage domestic production through trade protection. The 2008 global crisis, which led to the doubling or tripling in the price of wheat, rice, and maize in the world markets, brought these contradictions to the fore. Like other countries throughout Africa, Sahelian governments put in place measures that protected consumers through subsidies and import facilitations. In addition, the governments of Mali and Senegal also launched ambitious Rice Initiatives, which were meant to resuscitate colonial and postcolonial ambitions to scale up domestic production and attain rice self-​sufficiency. In Senegal, as part of the PRACAS (Programme d’Acceleration de la Cadence de l’Agriculture Senegalaise), the government committed to boost national paddy rice production up to 1.6 million tons (correspondent to more than a million tons of milled rice) of which 60 percent would come from irrigated rice (along the Senegal River valley) and 40 percent from rain-​fed rice production (Republic of Senegal 2009). Mali’s ambitious plan aimed to raise domestic rice production up to two million tons of rice paddy

338   Renata Serra within the first year, and up to ten million tons by 2018, through scaling up adoption of high-​potential rain-​fed rice varieties (Nerica) and further investments in the Office of Niger zone. The latter, situated in the Niger vast inner delta, is one of the largest water control system in the whole of West Africa, established by the French in the 1930s initially for cotton and subsequently converted to irrigated rice cultivation. Both strategies committed significant budgetary resources, initially to subsidize inputs and later to provide infrastructures, extension, and low-​cost credit. Mali’s subsidization program in 2008 (estimated at 45 billion CFA, or about US$77 million) was the precursor of a renewed agricultural interventionist stance in the Sahel, subsequently adopted by other governments in the region. Despite sizable increases in rice production in the two countries, none of the expected quantitative targets were met. Among the factors responsible for these failures, internal dynamics of political economy meant that powerful groups of traders reaped most of the resources accruing to the sector at the expense of farmers. Regardless of resource use, experts maintain that the goal of rice self-​sufficiency in Senegal is destined to be elusive, due to technical and cost constraints on the supply side, and increasing population growth and urbanization on the demand side. In Mali, opaque implementation of procedures for importation of inputs, commercialization, and transport and speculative transactions by traders were responsible for the failure of consumer prices to sufficiently decline in response to the supply increase. The weak results of the Rice Initiatives raise questions about the opportunistic goals behind it. First, one can argue that the goal of food security in the Sahel would be better served by other, more effective strategies, for instance, by investing resources in improving yields and markets for sorghum and millet, as well as vegetables (Hummel and Mas Aparisi 2017). Second, the Rice Initiatives expose the trade-​off between measures that help keep cereal prices low and measures that promote producers’ incomes. The extent to which countries have leaned on one side or the other depends, among other things, on the significance of the cereal in people’s diets. Thus, while Senegal has protected consumers from high prices by favoring cheap imports, Mali, where rice production is strategically as important, has been more neutral on that account. On the other hand, Burkina Faso, where rice is not as widely consumed, even in urban areas, has focused on maintaining minimum prices paid to farmers in 2009 through an external tariff of 13.5 percent (Guissou and Ilboudo 2012). Third, the strategy of rice self-​sufficiency runs against ECOWAS policies and regulations, including those aimed to lower external trade tariffs. Senegal’s low tariff on rice imports stifled domestic interventions to revamp irrigated rice in the Senegal River valley and high yield rice variety in the dry areas. This lack of coherence is the product of the coexistence of multiple and contradictory political pressures, even within the same government. On one hand, the Ministry of Agriculture tries to appease farmer organizations (such as when it agreed to cancel rural cooperatives’ debt); but on the other hand, the Ministry of Commerce is pressed by the powerful rice importers’ lobby to negotiate lower trade tariffs. Moreover, urban consumers can become a very noticeable constituency, as manifested by the

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    339 weight that increasing rice prices and consequent consumer discontent had in the news and the public debate in 2008 and beyond. The case of rice demonstrates that the commitment of substantial resources to an agricultural sector is not sufficient to produce long-​term benefits, because the motives of policymakers are not necessarily aligned with what is required for a sustainable development of the sector. As an eminent political crop, rice well exemplifies the contradictory pressures that governments are subject to, and the costs that derive from the inability or unwillingness to negotiate the associated trade-​offs. One interesting development recently has been the emergence of institutional rice purchases in Senegal, Mali, and Niger, by state-​operated emergency reserves, schools, or prisons. Not only do these initiatives lead to a greater appreciation for domestically produced food—​in Senegal, schools publicize their purchase of local rice as matter of national pride—​but they also provide good prices to farmers and ample market access to rice producer groups, giving them incentives to get organized. For institutional rice purchases to become more sustainable, however, they would need to rely less on external financing (in 2016, the Islamic Development Bank provided US$19 million in credit to Mali) to instead draw on state budget resources earmarked for building emergency cereal stocks.

The Untapped Cash Cow: Livestock Sectors in Niger and Senegal After crop farming, livestock is the second most important agricultural activity in the Sahelian countries in terms of its contribution to the economy, employment, and exports. In the driest areas, livestock is ubiquitous, with cattle, sheep, goats, or camels providing the main source of livelihood. Livestock contribution to agricultural GDP is the highest in Chad (53 percent), followed by Mali (48 percent), and Mauritania (44 percent), and is still above 30 percent in the other three Sahelian countries. These averages are far higher than in most other African countries, and higher than for the whole of West Africa, where the corresponding figure is 17 percent (Ickowicz et al. 2013). Estimates indicate that the Sahel and West Africa contain 25 percent of the cattle, 33 percent of the sheep, and 40 percent of the goats found in all of Sub-​Saharan Africa (Kamuanga et al. 2008). Besides representing a key economic activity, livestock also has far-​reaching social and cultural ramifications, as it defines people’s identity, fosters social relationships and marriage alliances, and provides security against unforeseen circumstances (see Eilittä Chapter 15 and Elischer Chapter 22 in this volume). Furthermore, consumption of products from livestock represents the main source of protein and micro-​nutrients for many families and communities, ensuring a more nutritional and balanced diet. It is a paradox that, while the Sahel region has such an important stock of domesticated animals, it still needs to import large quantities of animal-​source foods. For instance,

340   Renata Serra Senegal imports more than 35 billion CFA (or US$60 million) worth of dairy products, while Mali and Niger about 12 billion CFA (US$20 million) each (Kamuanga et al. 2008). Even accounting for the rapid evolution in the demand for animal-​source foods due to population growth and improved household incomes, experts maintain that Sahelian countries could meet this rising demand by increasing the productivity of their animals and expanding markets for animal-​source foods. However, the majority of livestock keepers in the region face enormous challenges, such as low availability of water and animal feed, limited access to veterinary services, and insufficient support to improve management practices. Further constraints down the value chains include low access to credit, transport, and commercialization opportunities, thus reducing the availability of animal-​source foods through the markets. The root of this paradox lies in the inferior status of livestock keeping in social and political domains when compared to crop farming and the consequent absence of bold policies to support the development of livestock sectors. Colonial administrations and postcolonial governments alike have mainly invested in cash crops, thus marginalizing both subsistence crops and pastoral activities. Government resources devoted to livestock are paltry figures compared to its wider economic contribution. In Senegal, where the livestock sector contributes more than 30 percent to agricultural GDP, it received less than 8 percent of the budget expenditures to agriculture in 2013–​2016 (Hummel and Mas Aparisi 2017). In Niger, where livestock contributes to 11 percent of the national GDP, 35 percent of the agricultural GDP, and represents the main source of income for a fifth of the population (Republic of Niger 2013), the share of agricultural budget for livestock is only 10 percent (Ministry of Livestock, 2014). Furthermore, governments lack reliable methods for comprehensively calculating livestock economic contribution, further reducing accountability as well as the possibility to trace progress over time. The governments in the Sahel, as well as their development partners, have recently undertaken efforts to place livestock development at the center of their agricultural and social development strategies. Niger has promulgated the Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Pastoralism (Stratégie de Développement Durable de l’Elevage) with a 2035 horizon, as well as the 3N Initiative, the “Nigeriens Feed Nigeriens” (“Nigériens Nourrissent les Nigériens”), which is largely funded by external development partners and has an important livestock sector component (Republic of Niger 2015). Such strategies combine incentives for a more productive and more sustainable livestock value chain, with initiatives that empower women and encourage consumption of low-​ cost, nutrient-​dense food (such as dairy products and eggs) among poorer households. Even when political support exists, however, interventions in the livestock sector suffer from many problems. In Niger, lack of coordination between the various agencies working in livestock sectors, despite the 3N Initiative being deputed to do just that, implies weak implementation and limited effectiveness of existing policy documents. Furthermore, livestock producer associations are weakly organized and, despite their attempts to the contrary, they are unable to create any credible pressure on the government. As a result, governments lack sufficient incentives to devote greater resources and investment to the sector.

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    341 The dairy value chain in Senegal provides a different example of policy incoherence, as the government ambition to incentivize domestic milk production runs against other policy priorities and social realities. On the one hand, the government has tried to promote domestic milk production, which surpassed import volumes for the first time in 2012 (FAOSTAT data). Yet, on the other hand, a differentiated trade tariff system favors milk processors rather than producers. The 5 percent import tax on powdered milk ensures low-​cost input to the milk processing industry, while the 35 percent imports tax on processed dairy products shields domestic companies from foreign competition. As it is often the case, the industry lobby is more powerful and vocal than farmers and consumers lobbies, which explains the limited progress in terms of developing the Senegalese milk industry, despite all good intentions. Another complicating element in the picture is that consumers exhibit strong preferences for powdered milk, and fresh milk is not part of the common diet for adults. Interestingly, all six Sahelian countries have started to conduct marketing campaigns (under the common rubric “my milk is local”) that advertise the nutritional benefits of consuming fresh milk, as well as its positive impact on rural development. It is certainly possible that, through opportune education messages, local demand of domestically produced milk will be expanded, so to sustain national production and marketing of fresh milk—​however, this will require a more coherent political will and strong convergence of interests.

LOOKING AHEAD: AGRICULTURAL SECTORS’ CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS Two recent crises—​the sharp decline in world cotton prices in the late 1990s into the early 2000s and the rice price spikes in the aftermath of the 2008 global crisis—​have provided the push for Sahelian governments to refashion their roles in the most strategic agricultural sectors, such as cotton and rice, and retrieve a more interventionist policy stance. The conditions for this shift have been eased by a renewed debate on the role of the state in economic sector development. The tenet of minimal state interventions that was typical of the structural adjustment era has been challenged from different angles, mainly based on poor performance records and weak incentives for farmers, processors, and other key actors (Kirsten et al. 2009). The pendulum has shifted toward the argument that the state has an important role in the provision of extension, training, research, and development, as well as animal health and infrastructure development (roads, energy, water), which are all fundamental to enhance productivity, market access, and sector growth. Sahelian countries have recently become more supportive of the goals to promote national food security and food self-​sufficiency, especially Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mali, which possess traditionally stronger agricultural sectors and

342   Renata Serra exhibit greater technological and institutional capacity in their key cash crop sectors. In Niger, despite the political will, implementation has been more constrained, due to weaker institutional and technical capacity and the absence of formally structured, performing value chains. Even in the more favorable countries, however, contrasting objectives, priorities, and paradigms contend with one another, as exemplified by the trade-​off between the objectives of securing cheap rice imports and promoting national rice production in Senegal. Another dilemma is posed by the fact that agricultural support in the form of government subsidies—​a common practice among Sahelian countries—​has both direct and indirect costs, since those budget resources could be potentially allocated to more efficient uses, in turn generating greater economic and social benefits. It has been thus argued that the budget support provided by Mali and Burkina Faso to cotton sectors during times of stiff international competition could have been better diverted to the livestock sector, where the potential for growth is much higher (Gourichon et al. 2015). The pursuit of efficient resource allocation, however, is impeded by both practical and political hurdles, which Sahelian governments may find it difficult to overcome. It is easier and cheaper to economically support a vertically integrated cotton value chain rather than a decentralized, scattered and mostly informal livestock sector. Furthermore, cotton farmer organizations are highly organized and have been influential in policy processes in these countries, whereas livestock producer organizations are weakly organized, divided by geographical, livelihood, and ethnic differences among others. This state of affairs is further aggravated by ineffective economic structures inherited from colonial and postcolonial governments, the low legitimacy of state institutions, the paucity of financial and human resources, and, last but not least, high exposure to risk factors. Ever present in the Sahelian landscape, risk represents a hindrance to agricultural governance and performance. Climate and weather risks affect agricultural production and rural transportation routes; market risks from international price and exchange rate fluctuations reduce producers’ incomes as well as export tax revenues; and security risks stifle the state’s capacity to control its territory or prioritize expenditures for development. Exposures to risk is known to be particularly consequential at low levels of income: when people are poor and governments have limited resources, their options to cope with risks are much diminished—​thus setting in motion a vicious cycle of high exposure to shocks and low resilience (World Bank 2015). Risk exposure and limited resources favor a mode of intervention geared toward coping with the short term rather than planning for the long term, and a mindset of low expectations and cautious attitude. Given current security concerns in the Sahel region, governments are likely to face new and greater institutional challenges, which will further reduce their capacity to follow through and implement economic strategies that consider the long term. When looking ahead at which institutional mechanisms might best contribute to agricultural and livestock development, the rise in weight and power of producer and professional associations appears to be one of the few positive scenarios. The Sahel has a long history of powerful producer associations, which have been able to

Agricultural Policies and Development in the Sahel    343 influence political dynamics, such as the democratic transitions in Mali and Burkina Faso (Bingen 1998), and stage critical mobilization efforts, as in the cotton boycott of 2008 in Mali (Roy 2010). Well-​known problems of legitimacy and representations affect most of these organizations, so their capacity to influence policies has been weakened by political cooptation of leaders of producer associations, who have often become so powerful and close to political power at the expense of the interests of the base (Roy 2010). Furthermore, producer organizations in the Sahel are marred by low institutional capacities, low levels of resources, and limited opportunities for forming coalitions with politicians and parties seeking popular support. Indeed, political mobilization around economic interests is limited by the salience of other factors, such as ethnicity or traditional party allegiance. Small-​scale farmers, herders, traders, and processors undoubtedly continue to represent the vast majority of the population in Sahelian democracies. This implies not only a sizable political constituency, but also a needed set of allies to be engaged in any food production and economic strategy that is charged to meet the needs of a booming population. The degree to which the rural world will be able to overcome its political marginalization and create a coalition of interests in favor of agricultural sector development will thus represent a key factor in the Sahel region’s ability to respond to the impending challenges of food security, environmental sustainability, and youth migration in the decades to come.

Note 1. All data in this chapter, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the World Development Indicators database, available online from the World Bank, and refer to the year 2017 or latest available.

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chapter 18

T HE P OLITICAL E C ONOMY OF AID IN TH E S A H E L Isaline Bergamaschi

For many years, foreign aid—​ official development assistance, or ODA1—​has represented a significant share of the gross national income (GNI) of the countries of the Sahel: 5 percent in Mauritania in 2014, 5.74 percent in Chad, 9.45 percent in Mali, 12.23 percent in Niger, 6.49 percent in Senegal, and 9.11 percent in Burkina Faso in 2015.2 From 2013 to 2015, Mali was the largest aid recipient in volume (in millions of US dollars) followed by Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Niger; while Chad and Mauritania received the lowest aid volumes. In 2015, the ratio of ODA to GNI for the countries under study in this volume were much higher than the average for Sub­Saharan Africa (2.85 percent) or for the African continent as a whole (2.36 percent) (OECD 2016). This chapter addresses two key questions, respectively, about the conditions that have led to such high levels of aid dependence in the Sahel, and about the political consequences that derive from it. We will examine how aid dependence in the region is the result of a historical process whose roots are found in the colonial experience. In terms of political implications, aid has become a permanent feature of state budgets, so that state public policies are co-​produced with international actors. Furthermore, in reaction to the promotion of austerity and standardized policy measures, elites in the Sahel shape political strategies and processes of appropriation in order to protect their interests. Finally, the chapter shows that this “aid regime” reproduces itself through four drivers that are inherent to, and recreated by, these historically determined aid relationships. The analysis presented here focuses on the aid provided by so-​called traditional donors, that is, bilateral aid from developed countries and multilateral aid from the European Union and the international financial institutions (IFIs), that is, the World Bank and the IMF, since they are the most prominent aid providers in the Sahel. In 2015, the International Development Association (a division of the World Bank that lends to the poorest countries) was among the top five donors in Chad, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Senegal and Mauritania stood as exceptions, since the Arab Fund for Economic

348   Isaline Bergamaschi and Social Development (a multilateral regional fund composed of Arab countries) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among their biggest donors. Policy-​wise, this does not translate into major differences, however, since the UAE is a member of the OECD/​ DAC and is committed to the so-​called post-​Washington consensus (Al-​Mezaini 2017). Via its trust funds, the IMF was represented on the list of the five main donors only in Niger and Chad. However, it remains highly influential in all of these countries since it sends signals about the state of the economy that very often impact the aid decisions of all other donors. In 2015, the EU was the main donor in Mali and Niger, and the second biggest donor in Senegal, Mauritania, and Chad. In terms of bilateral donors, the United States and France were among the five biggest donors in the region to all Sahelian countries, with the exception of the United States in Mauritania (OECD 2016). In the following sections, I will discuss Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to a greater extent than Chad and Mauritania. This is both because aid is comparatively less important in quantitative terms in these two latter countries, and because they are under-​represented in the existing literature.

AID DEPENDENCE AND PUBLIC POLICIES Since independence, aid has gone hand in hand with the (trans)formation of postcolonial Sahelian states, the pursuit of development, and the reform of the economies, bureaucracies, and societies. Aid has accompanied the formation of “international states,”3 and is a key modality of the Sahel’s insertion into the global political and economic system. The prevailing aid regimes have become institutionalized, leading to the co-​production of public policies by national and international actors enmeshed in policy processes. Aid in Africa finds its roots in colonization itself, in particular in the ideological and material investments made by the colonial powers after World War II. This is when the concept of development was initially purported to “reinvigorate colonialism” at a time when colonial metropoles increasingly felt the need to justify their possessions overseas, and to “find a progressive basis for continued colonial rule in an era when major powers had made ‘self-​determination’ a slogan of international policies” (Cooper 1997, 64, 69). Furthermore, metropoles badly needed to “open Africa” and get access to more of the continent’s resources to finance the reconstruction of Europe (Cooper 1997, 70). Social investments and the monitoring of social welfare indicators intensified during the 1930s and 1940s (Bonnecase 2011, 24–​26, 79–​81). However, neither Haute-​Volta (today’s Burkina Faso) nor Soudan (today’s Mali) or Niger had been priorities for French investment during colonization, largely due to the fact that they were landlocked territories (Bonnecase 2011, 15–​16). Niger, the empire’s poor cousin, was administered by the military, and excluded from investment programs (Bonnecase 2011, 15). Burkina Faso was considered a mere source of labor for cocoa and coffee plantations in Côte d’Ivoire, and played a subaltern, sub-​contracting role

The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel    349 (Guissou 1996). Deprived of the most valuable natural resources, Mali was of slightly greater interest due to the cotton industry and the rice irrigation schemes administered by the Office du Niger (Bonnecase 2011, 15; Diarrah 1986, 100). In this panorama, Senegal stood as the exception; given that Dakar was the capital of the entire French West African colony, at independence in 1960 the country inherited a “relatively well-​ developed physical and social infrastructure,” as well as a large public administration (World Bank 1994, 290, 322). After 1960, aid channeled the peaceful transition of resources from the colonial to the newly independent states (Van de Walle 2001, 189). Cold War dynamics further affected post-​independence relationships in the Sahel as aid, which was mostly bilateral, served goals that actors themselves framed as (geo)political (e.g., the propagation of socialism for the Soviet Union) or postcolonial interests (in the case of France). In the 1960s therefore, in the context of modernization projects, aid was “an integral component of the planning paradigm” and considered by the first independent governments as a temporary tool designed to support national development plans in all six countries (Van de Walle 2001, 193–​194). The 1970s marked a turning moment for the history of aid in the Sahel. The severe droughts of the decade were followed by an unprecedented humanitarian aid campaign which involved new actors, such as international organizations (UN agencies) as well as French and American NGOs. Sahelian heads of state were now active in trying to attract international aid flows and ensure their continuity during the following decade (Bonnecase 2011, 253). Two fundamental and perennial consequences derived. First, foreign aid became a significant element in shaping the international identity of the region (Bonnecase 2011; Mann 2015, 167), portrayed as a united geographical, economic, and political entity with common needs and realities. According to geographer John Caldwell (quoted in Bonnecase 2011, 219), it is during the drought that it became common, for the United Nations among others, to speak of “Sahelian countries” when referring to Senegal, Mauritania, Haute-​Volta, Mali, Niger, and Chad. Until then, the “Sahel” was not a geopolitical, but only a bioclimatic term, referring to the transition zone between the Sahara and the Sudanic areas (Bonnecase 2011, 9–​10; see also Mann 2015, 4). Second, transnational organizations and activist movements started to assume functions usually considered as prerogatives of the state, leading to what Mann (2015, 167) has termed “nongovernmentality,” a condition characterized by protracted emergency relief delivered by NGOs. ODA continued to represent an increasing share of national budgets and public investments in the Sahelian countries (Bonnecase 2011, 194–​195). In Mali, 83 percent of the triennial program under military rule was guaranteed by donors, including socialist countries (Diarrah 1990, 166–​168). As Western donors became increasingly critical of national plans, they started to bypass them, establishing their own, parallel development projects through ad hoc entities administered by aid agencies and with a limited time and space mandate (Van de Walle 2001, 201–​204). These projects posed a substantial burden on already weak local managerial systems, and had a nefarious impact on the state’s developmental role (Van de

350   Isaline Bergamaschi Walle 2001, 201–​204). In Senegal fewer than half of all projects were receiving a formal evaluation by the Ministry of Planning by the mid-​1990s, while the majority were “conceived within the donor agencies with little or no attention to the local planning context” (Van de Walle 2001, 204–​205). This trend was consolidated during the 1980s, when the economic and debt crises hit Sahelian countries. Planning was questioned as a practice; and national plans virtually ceased to exist as countries were placed under structural adjustment programs (SAPs). This decade marked the rise of multilateral aid provided by the IFIs and the fading of the idea of state-​led development. SAPs’ major instruments were the reform of the public sector, the liberalization of trade, and the elimination of domestic price control and marketing boards (Herbst 1990, 1). In 1979, Senegal became the first country in Sub-​ Saharan Africa to adopt a SAP (Van de Walle 2001). Mali followed in 1982, Mauritania in 1984, Niger in 1985, Burkina Faso in 1991, and Chad in 1995. SAPs marked the end of nationalization as a policy (World Bank 1994, 316). For example, the government of Senegal reoriented economic activity toward export markets, cut public expenditures, lowered barriers for imports (especially for rice and sugar), initiated the process to privatize eighteen major state enterprises, and scaled back labor laws and protection (Hesse 2004, 4). During the 1980s, ODA disbursements to Senegal more than doubled (World Bank 1994, 332) and the country was presented as “adjustment’s good pupil [le bon élève de l’ajustement]” in IMF reports (Diouf 1992, 69). No longer a tool for planning, aid was instead intended to provide support for economic adjustment. In Niger in the 1980s, adjustment aid represented over 20 percent of total aid (Decoudras 1990, 87). From 1981 to 1991, adjustment aid in Senegal was nearly two-​thirds of the ODA received (World Bank 1994, 292). Multilateral donors started to attach strict economic policy conditionalities to aid, which paved the way for a massive re-​engineering of politics in the Sahel. Adjustment resulted in “a growing role for the donor agencies in day-​to-​day decision-​making and the increasing marginalization of central state decision-​making bodies” (Van de Walle 2001, 61). SAPs had deep, political consequences as they undermined the image of the state as a provider of jobs and security, as well as a major source of resource distribution for the postcolonial regimes (Herbst 1990). As a result, by the 1990s, the Sahel’s relationship with the international economy was in great part mediated by public aid flows (Van de Walle 2001, 189). Adjustment, initially conceived as an emergency response to the debt crisis and a “shock therapy,” progressively became a daily reality, placing Sahelian economies and states on a path of permanent reform. President François Mitterrand’s speech at La Baule, France, in June 1990, during which he announced to his African counterparts that French aid would from then on vary according to the progress they made in reforming and opening up their political systems, did not imply major changes in France’s aid policy in the Sahel. On the contrary, the doctrine Balladur (1994) resulted in a rise in the power of IFIs as authorities in Paris announced that they would align their aid disbursements more systematically with the IMF evaluation of recipient economies (Samuel 2011, 134).

The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel    351 SAPs had a mitigated impact on policies and growth in Africa, and the 1980s were sometimes referred to as a “lost decade for development.” Did SAPs fail because the objectives were incorrect in the first place, or because SAPs were insufficiently implemented? Actors had different answers to this question (Van de Walle 2001, 11–​ 12), yet the fact remains that the World Bank’s assessments underestimated the social consequences of adjustment, which in Senegal meant the destruction of about twenty thousand jobs between 1981 and 1989 (almost 15 percent of employees in the country, especially parastatal managers, industrial workers, doctors, and dentists) and crowding of schools (Diouf 1992, 74–​76). Following the harsh criticisms against SAPs, by the late 1990s the IFIs announced a reform of their policy approach (Bergamaschi 2016, 5). The so-​called post-​Washington consensus that emerged is based on the principle of “ownership”—​understood by IFIs as governments’ commitment to reform (Johnson and Wasty 1993, 10–​11)—​and poverty reduction. Within this new framework, economic restructuring is to be accompanied by the provision of services (basic education and healthcare), social safety nets (Fine, Lapavistas, and Pincus 2001), good governance, and increased participation of civil society organizations. In order to access the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative for debt relief launched by IFIs starting in 1996, Sahelian governments adopted Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), that is, multiannual national plans geared toward poverty reduction—​a move that was coined the “new conditionality” of aid by Gould (2005). Senegal, one of the biggest recipients of aid in Africa, accessed HIPC relief in 2001 and had its debt substantially reduced in 2004. Burkina Faso and Mauritania followed in 2002, Mali in 2003, Niger in 2004, and Chad in 2015. In 2000, Burkina Faso was among the first African countries to adopt a PRSP, followed by Mauritania (2001), Mali and Niger (2002), and Senegal and Chad (2003). Finally, the Millennium Development Goals, which were adopted under UN auspices in 2000, and whose goals were to cut the rate of extreme poverty in the world by half by 2015, guided and reshaped public policies in the aid-​dependent countries of the Sahel. In line with the MDGs, health and education were among the top five sectors of aid concentration in all countries except Mauritania in 2015 (OECD 2016). Some differences between countries can be noticed, however. Humanitarian interventions represented the sector of greatest concentration of aid in Chad (56 percent of total ODA), Niger, and Mauritania. Debt management represented aid’s second sector of concentration in Chad. In Senegal, and to a lesser extent Burkina Faso, aid focused relatively more on economic activities, while in Mali it targeted mostly social sectors. Practitioners have pointed to the rise of procedures and the technocratization of aid management during the past decade (Jacquemot 2007), as well as to the widespread standardization of quantifiable follow-​up indicators. The Education System Performance in Francophone Sub-​Saharan Africa (PASEC), created in 1991 in Senegal, is a good example. The initiative’s objectives were to identify cheap and efficient school systems, develop an endogenous and permanent capacity to assess the educational system in each country, and expand the use of evaluation methods and instruments. The system has, however, led to what has been called “evaluation fever,” with “learning

352   Isaline Bergamaschi abilities” being reduced to, and measured by, quantified thresholds and averages, as well as to new educational engineering inspired by new public management models together with the benchmarking and ranking of students (Charton 2017a). The following section argues that the implementation of uniform, donor-​sponsored policies in the Sahel has generated different strategies and processes of appropriation of aid by public actors, which are partly specific to the political context of each country.

BEYOND STANDARD POLICIES: THE APPROPRIATION OF AID According to Whitfield’s (2009) typology of recipient government strategies for dealing with donors, Sahelian governments have adopted weaker negotiating strategies vis-​à-​ vis IFIs. Unlike some Latin American countries in the 2000s and a few other African countries, Sahelian countries have not attempted to gain autonomy, or promote nationally owned policies based on nationalism, ideology, or indigenous worldviews (in the case of Mali, see Bergamaschi 2016, 12). Countries like Nigeria, South Africa, and arguably Algeria and Morocco have reached sufficient levels of income and wealth to self-​finance, thus reducing their aid dependence, whereas Ghana and Rwanda have embraced a plan for economic emergence and exit from aid in the medium run. Authorities in Rwanda, Kenya, and Ethiopia have opted for a bold, assertive strategy with donors, which is protective of the state’s sovereignty and claims to get inspiration from Asian experiences of late industrialization. By contrast, successive governments in the Sahel have adopted strategies of compliance with donors,4 consisting of sending the necessary signals of commitment and good will, avoiding direct conflict while protecting space for maneuver in the implementation phase of the reform package (Bergamaschi 2009). While donors are desperate to foster the “ownership” of reforms by Sahelian governments through “policy dialogue,” “capacity-​ building” exercises, and conditionalities, the strategies of recipient are better described by “appropriation” (De Certeau 1980), an anthropological notion which, in the context of aid encounters, describes a process whereby the recipient molds and gears the aid project toward their own worldviews, interests, and objectives (Diakon 2006). The Sahelian governments have thus appropriated the SAPs and then the post-​Washington consensus for themselves, bending the standardized recommendations to follow given trajectories. One reason for this difference in comparison to other countries is that Sahelian elites have calculated that the cost of an exit strategy from the IFIs would be too high, and thus prefer to manage dependence. At the turn of the 1980s, Niger strongly felt the bite of IFI conditionalities. After the uranium boom and a subsequent rise in public spending (by 185 percent between 1976 and 1980), the ensuing global economic recession and a sharp decline in international uranium prices caused budget deficits (Gervais 1992, 237–​238).

The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel    353 While the first SAPs entailed austerity measures, leading to cuts in students’ stipends and workers’ wages in 1989, “the state of Niger bypassed the SAPs’ most problematic policy measures” (Gervais 1992, 116). Thus, the government resisted measures that could compromise its control over major resource allocation, as in the mining and infrastructure sectors, or that could jeopardize the regime’s stability. It protected civil servants via programs of promotions and bonuses, opted not to target rich players in the informal or private sector, and consequently allowed an increase in the deficit and accumulated arrears (Gervais 1992, 116, 244–​245). Nonetheless, the demands by students and unions angered by the policies soon turned into “organized opposition to the authoritarian regime and a collective struggle for democratization” (Gazibo 2005, 75). According to Bonnecase (2017), at the end of the 1980s, “demonstrators protested against the military and their violence, but also against IFIs.” After Niger’s first pluralist election held in 1993, Mahamadou Issoufou, who had participated in the marches against SAPs, was appointed prime minister. Yet, three months after the election, he signed a second SAP and accepted the devaluation of the CFA in 1994, which led to a dramatic rise in the price of consumption goods (Bonnecase 2017). Aid decreased significantly from 1991 to 1996. A vicious circle started: inflation and external trade imbalances increased, cuts in public spending triggered military mutiny and social unrest, the marginalization of people in rural areas, as well as unemployment, became more pronounced while social services further degraded. According to some views, austerity measures deprived governments of the possibility to sustain the democratic opening with economic gains, and aid donors did nothing to support a democratic turn in Niger (Gazibo 2005, 74, 81, 76). Instead, the devastating outcomes of liberalization generated frustrations regarding democratization itself (Bonnecase 2017), possibly creating favorable conditions for the military coups in 1996 and 1999. In a context of asymmetric relationships with the IFIs, and because ideological battles were lost in the past, Sahelian heads of states learned to master the logic and grammar of “extraversion”—​a term coined by Bayart (1999, 218–​219) to describe how African leaders and societies have “mobiliz[ed] resources derived from their (possibly unequal) relationship with the external environment.” In his words, “Africa may have played an active role throughout this long process of reduction to a state of dependency.” In this vein, Sahelian elites have managed aid dependence through processes of appropriation. Appropriation implies tactics of bypassing, emptying, and delaying the implementation of aid recommendations, or using them for purposes other than those prescribed by donors. In Senegal, austerity measures were selectively implemented, and their impact mostly fell on the weakest economic actors. External debt and deficits decreased (also due to external factors), but public spending did not, and the number of ministers in office as well as the number of parliamentarians increased. While agricultural input subsidies were eliminated and the cost was transferred to farmers, the per diem in high-​ranking public administration increased by 33 percent (Diouf 1992, 69). Taxes on consumption increased, with the consumer price index rising by 7.2 percent (Diouf 1992, 76).

354   Isaline Bergamaschi Another important trend has to do with the continuity of state intervention in the economy. If states in Sub-​Saharan Africa have formally undergone a process of privatization since the 1990s, their role has in fact been transformed rather than eliminated (Van de Walle 2001; Hibou 2004). In many cases and sectors, the delegation of core functions to the private sector was nominal rather than substantial, with states managing to maintain control over economic activities (Hibou 2004). For instance, the regulatory power of the state in the agriculture sector in Chad was consolidated since the 1990s (Arditi 2008, 50–​51). In Mali as well, the state came “back” with democratization, while “food security” got increasingly politicized and was personally controlled by the president, most visibly during the 2004–​2005 food crisis (Bertout and Crouzel 2011). In Burkina Faso, SAPs were not just imposed from the outside but also stemmed from national political dynamics. Cuts in public spending and anti-​corruption measures were promoted by successive governments well before SAPs, in what Guissou (1996) coined as “revolutionary self-​adjustment.” After 1983, the National Committee of the Revolution, led by Thomas Sankara and inspired by the doctrine of class struggle and anti-​imperialism, pursued a radical purge of public bureaucracies. Four years after Sankara was toppled by a coup, a SAP was negotiated in 1991 (Guissou 1996). Economic policies were remolded into the formal language of adjustment, and authorities and public administrators have since learned to “master the use of different repertoires and rationalities, from technocratic to political and managerial” (Samuel 2011, 122, 348, 368), in order to access aid resources and at times use them independently from budgetary rules (Samuel 2011, 203–​204). In Mali in the 2000s, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers were “reworked locally” (Bergamaschi 2016) by political leaders, public servants and civil society representatives. Since 2002, “the PRSP has shifted from being a ‘World Bank thing’, that is a mere conditionality, to being treated by public actors as a ‘reference framework’ ” (Bergamaschi 2016, 8). The PRSPs were totally assimilated by the political system of “consensus,” that is, a coalition of parties and civil society representatives set up by President Amadou Touré between 2002 and 2012 (Baudais and Chauzal 2006). However, despite donors’ initial enthusiasm, the government proved unable or unwilling to pursue the key donor-​ promoted reforms (Bergamaschi 2016, 19). For instance, the privatization of the national cotton company, announced as early as 1998, has never been fully implemented because it deals with a key economic sector and hence triggered opposition by social movements (Bergamaschi 2009, 2011; Serra 2014). If the aid regime established since the 1980s has not reached its stated economic objectives, then why and how does it hold? Aminata Dramane Traoré, a prominent representative of the global justice movement in Mali, underlines that aid dependence is a paradox and a contradiction vis-​à-​vis the dominant social values in Sahelian societies. In Bambara, she recalls, the word “debt” also means “bond” and, in a less positive understanding, a “rope” (juru) (Traoré 1999, 27). How, she asks, can we account for the fact that aid dependence is accepted as a normal reality in countries where “not leaving debt to one’s family is the common man’s last wish before they die” (Traoré 1999, 28)? In other words, how does the system reproduce itself?

The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel    355

PILLARS AND DRIVERS OF THE REPRODUCTION OF THE AID REGIME Four pillars and drivers of the reproduction of the aid regime can be identified. First, aid resources and personnel are fully and deeply embedded in bureaucracies and politics (Whitfield 2009, 329, 354) to such an extent that it is difficult, and even irrelevant, to distinguish between “national” and “international,” “inside” or “outside” actors. Looking just at the numbers, external resources in 2016 represented, for instance, 62.92 percent of the state’s special investment budget in Mali (Republic of Mali 2015, 3) and 42 percent in Senegal.5 In the same year, aid represented 45 percent of the whole national budget in Niger (as estimated in European Union/​External Action 2016). There is also an important qualitative dimension to aid dependence, best characterized by its far-​reaching effects on policies, political leaders, the bureaucracy, and the elites more generally. In Mali today, “any significant economic action . . . cannot be carried out without external finance” (Lê Châu 1992, 37–​38). At play is a phenomenon of “delegation” by the state (Hibou 2004) of the development strategy to outside actors. According to van de Walle (2001, 189, 229–​230), aid is “responsible for a large proportion of the development work that does take place” but has also “served to protect and sustain weak governments in the region, . . . exacerbated the neopatrimonial tendencies in decision making” and “emasculated” national development institutions. Aid generates a loss of responsibility by political leaders, together with resignation and passivity among national technocrats (Naudet 2000, 100). Bureaucrats are demotivated by the impossibility to negotiate better terms of aid with donors, by the presence of externally funded “technical assistants” in key public entities, and by the involvement of ad hoc foreign consultants in the drafting of national development strategies. On the one hand, the aid regime creates a saturation of national institutional capacities and deepens policy incoherencies (Naudet 2000, 113). With its consultants, per diems, and projects, the aid regime is deeply entangled in the public administration and political game in Mali (Bergamaschi 2016, 16), and has structural effects in Niger (Lavigne Delville 2013). While limited public financial revenues and IFI conditionalities keep their salaries low, civil servants develop rent-​seeking strategies, whose targets are aid funds and related material items (including vehicles, per diems, oil coupons, training and “capacity-​building” workshops.). The creation of donor-​sponsored “bureaucratic enclaves,” that is, semi-​autonomous entities at the margins of the public service, in conjunction with higher salaries paid in aid agencies and foreign NGOs, generates competition for the country’s best human resources and a sort of internal brain-​drain within national borders (Roll 2014). These incentives explain the reproduction of the aid regime and its entanglement in public administrations. Aid is visible in urban landscapes and in the rural areas through projects, houses for expatriates, and four-​wheel drive vehicles, and present in the everyday imaginary of citizens. The aid sector with all its ramifications could well be the second job provider in Senegal (World Bank 2006) and

356   Isaline Bergamaschi shapes the career prospects of youth in a country where unemployment is rife. In all Sahelian countries, the main aid agreements and programs are advertised in the news broadcast on the radio and on national television every evening, which contributes to naturalizing and normalizing the aid business throughout the different layers of society. On the other hand, international tools, recommendations, and funds are seemingly incorporated into the domestic institutional game, and are both causes and stakes of the competition for state power and resources in Sahelian countries.6 In fact, this incorporation is a condition for and vector of their appropriation. In Burkina Faso, current reforms have led to the increase of positions for economists and financial experts in administrations since their abilities are crucial to access development financing (Samuel 2011, 483). The PRSPs in Mali have fueled the “palace wars” (Dezalay and Garth 2002) opposing the social ministries (education and health) to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Economy (Bergamaschi 2011). In the context of the educational reforms, technical advisors in Senegal adopted PASEC so as to increase their technical capital, and secure their institutional survival and hegemonic position within the regional program (Charton 2017a). Consensus is systematically sought via legitimizing discourses and capacity-​building initiatives, and is practically promoted via a “policy dialogue” that includes trade unions, NGOs, local representatives, and parents’ associations and restricts the spaces and possibilities for institutional resistance and mobilizations (Charton 2017b). The second pillar enabling the reproduction of aid dependence in the Sahel is the co-​ option of social movements, thus excluding them as potential critics of governments’ development policies and partnerships with donors. Since the 1990s, Western and multilateral aid donors institutionalized the participation of civil society organizations in the design of public policies. However, civil society is a broad notion that covers heterogenous movements. Combined with fading job opportunities in the public sector, international support for civil organizations has led to the ad hoc creation of social movements that are deprived of a grassroots base and legitimacy, and are not necessarily independent from the state economically and politically (Van de Walle 2001, 165). In the context of the adoption of the first PRSP in Mali in 2002, for example, the participation process consisted of joint meetings between government and civil society organizations, and faced many weaknesses: technocrats selected the less radical NGOs and the more powerful urban organizations closer to the government, while rural women’s associations as well as cotton growers’ unions were kept at bay (Cissoko and Touré 2005). At the same time, procedures for policy consultation prevented NGOs from being influential: they did not have access to draft documents much in advance, and did not always master the language and tools to discuss the macroeconomic model used by IFIs as well as by technocrats and economists in the civil service. The model itself could not really be amended by national actors, so that participation was “biased” (Cissoko and Touré 2005 144–​147). The design of PRSPs is a node of the bureaucratic depoliticization of social movements and NGOs via aid-​sponsored workshops, national consultations, payments of per diems for participants, and training sessions. For example, in 2012 the Confédération syndicale

The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel    357 des travailleurs du Mali (CSTM), a platform of trade unions critical of governmental policies, produced an alternative “trade union strategy for growth and poverty reduction” to the governmental draft PRSP. The document included labor and workers’ rights, as well as references to job creation and “decent work” in the formal and informal sectors (Bergamaschi 2016, 20). However, unions admittedly adopted a “constructive” approach of “partnership” in a context when, because of President Touré’s political system of “consensus,” the co-​option of both parties and social organizations was rife (Roy 2010). As a result, the document appeared as an ambiguous ideological patchwork, and its format was very similar to the PRSP with its suggestions to identify “best practices,” set up a technocratic monitoring committee, and propose a list of follow-​up indicators (Traoré 2012, 64). When the document was presented to ministries at a meeting, the CSTM demanded to benefit from capacity-​building initiatives and a specific budget line geared toward trade unions (Bergamaschi 2016, 21). Another modality that contributes to the co-​option and debilitation of civil society organizations, yet has drawn little attention in the literature so far, is their bureaucratization. The world of associations and NGOs appears as a “non-​governmental bureaucracy”7 (Siméant 2014, 121), which is linked to the state, Western NGOs, or multilateral institutions, and adopts the formats of their activities and engineering techniques (Siméant 2014, 122). As they are dependent on international funds to promote their causes, Malian NGOs have, for instance, strategically focused, at least partly, on causes that can raise attention and funding, partnering up in cooperatives or networks and learning the jargon of fund-​raising (Siméant 2014, 127–​132). This does not mean, however, that civil society in Mali or elsewhere in the Sahel is completely depoliticized; nor that NGOs and their workers are cynical opportunists searching for foreign money (Siméant 2014, 122). For example, political issues such as cotton reform, migration, gold extraction, or the family code have generated vibrant, autonomous, grassroots social mobilizations in the last decade (Siméant 2014, 149–​174; Bergamaschi 2014). Yet these causes and movements are often ignored or marginalized by political parties, the state, and donors alike, and their representatives end up being co-​opted (see Roy 2010 for the case of cotton trade unions in Mali). The third vector of acceptance of aid dependence in the Sahel can be traced down to development “brokers.” While their role in facilitating aid projects has been described at length by anthropologists over fifteen years ago (Bierschenk, Chauveau, and Olivier de Sardan 2000), their work’s precarious nature has only recently been considered in political sociology research. In Senegal, development experts and consulting firms are instrumental in the aid system, as they translate donors’ demands, operationalize the implementation of development projects, and facilitate interactions between aid workers and African states (Jampy 2012, 42–​43, 307, 372). They also “hold the aid system together” (Jampy 2012, 431) by contributing to the circulation of public policies and “best practices” between the countries of the Sahel or West Africa more broadly (Jampy 2012, 326). Ségalini (2014, 29) has shown how, in Senegal in the 2000s, local civil servants, consultants, and experts interpreted the standards of coastal zone management

358   Isaline Bergamaschi promoted by the World Bank. Senegalese consultants are in a situation of relative professional precarity, and have to accumulate contracts or “missions” so as to ensure a continuity in their revenues and access to social security and pension schemes. In this context, Senegalese fishery and conservation professionals get material and symbolic benefits from their collaboration with the World Bank. Their work’s precarious nature led them to pay more attention to the means of the project rather than to its ends, seeking thereby to improve their own work conditions and socioeconomic situation (Ségalini 2014, 100, 101, 107, 276). The fourth enabling condition in the reproduction of the aid system stems from the limited de facto constraints imposed by aid agencies. If donor conditionalities can bite hard, sanctions for noncompliance are rare and donor flexibility greater than usually purported. Conditionalities attached to aid are numerous, but the actual freezing of disbursements is rare and limited in time. As noted by van de Walle (2001, 239), Senegal, for instance, “has managed to reschedule its debt-​service obligations more than a dozen times since 1981 . . . despite . . . actual policy adjustment.” In 2005, the government of Mauritania admitted to falsifying their macroeconomic data for the previous fifteen years, yet aid did not stop after that (Samuel 2011, 106–​107). Two main factors enable aid to be renegotiated in practice: recipient marketing strategies and the weakness of the data informing donor decisions. Being engaged in negotiations and agreements with the IFIs since the 1980s, Sahelian governments have developed distinctive styles of negotiations and produced diplomatic narratives aimed at marketing their country within the donor community. In Burkina Faso in the 2000s, authorities promoted a model combining managerial sophistication with a developmental strategy that guaranteed the continuous flow of aid funds in the country (Samuel 2011, 345). After audit reports highlighted major anomalies in the use of some European Commission’s funds in 2002, 2005, and 2007, authorities promulgated a new code for public procurement, thus showing good will (Samuel 2011, 381). In Senegal in the 2000s, Abdoulaye Wade (2000–​2012) became a master in gaining donor trust and, consequently, flexibility regarding the state’s budget by supporting the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), engaging in multilateral fora such as the G8 and anti-​terrorism meetings, and acting as a mediator in conflicts in Madagascar and Côte d’Ivoire (Dahou and Foucher 2004, 16–​17). Thus starting in 2003, the state created fifteen thousand jobs in three years, increased salaries in the public sector, and satisfied some of the demands of the student movement, despite the World Bank’s reluctance (Dahou and Foucher 2004, 19–​20). In addition, the share of budget support in total aid increased to the benefit of the state and provided legitimacy to Wade’s regime (Dahou and Foucher 2004, 21–​23). Before a deep, multidimensional “crisis” hit Mali in 2012, the country was treated as a “donor darling” by the aid community for its democratic regime, supposedly peaceful culture, political system of consensus, acceptable governance indicators, and commitment to reforms (Bergamaschi 2014). Chad’s image in the international community has also improved in recent years, due to the perceived risk of religious radicalization and worsening security crisis in the Sahel. Chad has never been a donor

The Political Economy of Aid in the Sahel    359 darling, but Idriss Déby (in power from 1991 to early 2021) benefited from continued French support, and recently aid came as a political reward for the Chadian military’s engagement on the side of French troops in Mali, against Boko Haram in Nigeria and in the Central African Republic (Debos 2013). On the other hand, the relative flexibility of donors about conditionalities and the negotiability of aid draw on the weakness and vagueness of the data informing policymaking. Sophisticated new public management techniques introduced in public administrations in the Sahel build on partially informed and not very reliable assessments of the state of the economy. In Burkina Faso, economic researchers noted that “the data used to assess growth and development is actually soft,” and that “it is common for the IMF mission to “clean” data to make them acceptable, in ways contradictory with the standards that the IMF promotes” (Meier and Raffinot 2005, 633). Samuel adds that, despite its apparent sophistication, the macroeconomic framework sustaining development and aid policies is “the outcome of experimentations, improvisations and negotiations rather than of a rigid technique” (2011, 102). Finally, it is worth noting that most aid workers are partly evaluated on their ability to disburse funds and implement project activities, which gives them an incentive to adjust their expectations, lessen their criticisms, and thus reproduce the aid regime. Donors are also dependent on their clients, as they need to establish partnerships with recipient authorities and show progress. As Asian and Latin American countries have reached higher levels of socioeconomic development and/​or have secured greater autonomy vis-​ à-​vis IFIs, Africa remains an important “market” for IFIs. This chapter has described how aid dependence has become entrenched in the apparatus of states and in the way politics is played out in the African Sahel. It has argued that the sheer magnitude and significance of aid as well as the close vigilance of donors have led to a standardization of public policies throughout the region. In turn, Sahelian governments have appropriated aid recommendations and resources for themselves in ways that serve their own interests, strategies, and the logic of the political systems in which the recommendations are promoted. On many occasions, aid regimes have also protected some aspects of the prerogatives of the state’s interventions in the economy. The rise of nontraditional aid providers—​such as China or Arab states—​and the resulting competition in the donor community are giving Sahelian governments greater leverage in negotiating aid (Whitfield 2009, 364); but not necessarily more incentives to do without it, as yet.

Notes * I thank Hélène Charton for our stimulating discussions on this project; and Bruce Whitehouse, Renata Serra, Leonardo Villalón, Johanna Siméant, and Sidney Leclercq for their comments on an earlier draft of the chapter. 1 According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/​ Development Assistance Committee (DAC), ODA is made of the “flows . . . provided by official agencies . . . administered with the promotion of the economic development and

360   Isaline Bergamaschi welfare of developing countries as its main objective; and . . . is concessional in character.” http://​www.oecd.org 2. The volumes of aid received do not automatically correspond to the GNI of recipient countries: indeed, Senegal and Mali have the largest economies in the Sahel (as measured by GNI) and also receive the highest volumes of aid (OECD 2016). 3. This phrase was used in reference to the role of legal actors in the international system by Slaughter (2002, 28) in Dezalay and Garth (2002). 4. The term “compliance” was used by Bergamaschi (2009) for the case of Mali and can be extended to all the Sahelian countries. 5. This proportion has decreased in the past fifteen years: indeed, in 2000, external resources represented 78 percent of the special budget in Senegal. See Moussa Diop, “Sénégal: le budget 2016 fixe à 3.000 milliards de francs CFA,” Le 360, 8 October 2015. 6. This statement is inspired by Dezalay and Garth (2002). 7. “Bureaucratie associative” in French.

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362   Isaline Bergamaschi Lavigne Delville, Philippe. 2013. “‘Déclaration de Paris’ et dépendance à l’aide: éclairages nigériens.” Politique Africaine 1(129): 135–​155. Lê, Châu. 1992. “Politiques Économiques et Crises Durant les 30 Années d’Indépendance.” Politique Africaine 47: 31–​42. Mann, Gregory. 2015. From Empires to NGOs, in the West African Sahel. The Road to Nongovernmentality. New York: Cambridge University Press. Meier, Rolf, and Marc Raffinot. 2005. “S’approprier les politiques de développement: nouvelle mode ou vieille rengaine? Une analyse à partir des expériences du Burkina Faso et du Rwanda.” Revue Tiers Monde 3(183): 625–​649. Naudet, Jean-​David. 2000. Finding Problems to Fit the Solutions: Twenty years of aid to the Sahel. Paris: OECD/​Club du Sahel. OECD/​DAC. 2016. “Compare your country: Aid statistics by donor, recipient and sector.” http://​www2.compareyourcountry.org Republic of Mali. 2015. Budget Spécial d’Investissement (BSI) 2016, Bamako: Ministère de l’Economie et des Finances/​Direction Nationale de la Planification du Développement. Roll, Michael. 2014. “The State that Works: A ‘Pockets of Effectiveness’ Perspective on Nigeria and Beyond,” in Thomas Birschenk and Jean-​Pierre Olivier de Sardan, eds., States at Work: Dynamics of African Bureaucracies. Leiden: Brill, 365–​397. Roy, Alexis. 2010. “Peasant Struggles in Mali: From Defending Cotton Producers’ Interests to Becoming Part of the Malian Power Structures.” Review of African Political Economy 37(125): 299–​314. Samuel, Boris. 2011. “Calcul macroéconomique et modes de gouvernement: les cas de la Mauritanie et du Burkina Faso.” Politique africaine 4(124): 101–​126. Ségalini, Céline. 2014. Les professionnels de l’aide sénégalais: de la précarité au travail à la fragile légitimation de l’écologie dominante. Doctoral dissertation, Université de Bordeaux. Serra, Renata. 2014. “Cotton Sector Reform in Mali: Explaining the Puzzles.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 3(52): 379–​402. Siméant, Johanna. 2014. Contester au Mali formes de la mobilisation et de la critique à Bamako. Paris: Karthala. Traoré Dramane, Aminata. 1999. L’Etau. Paris: Actes Sud. Traoré, Dramane. 2012. Réduction de la Pauvreté au Mali: Contribution Syndicale, Bamako: Confédération Syndicale des Travailleurs du Mali. Bamako: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. European Union/​External Action. 2016. “Le Niger et l’UE,” https://​eeas.europa.eu/​headquarters/​headquarters-​homepage/​7 10/​le-​niger-​et-​lue_​fr Van de Walle, Nicolas. 2001. African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis 1979–​1999. New York: Cambridge University Press. Whitfield, Lindsay. 2009. “Conclusion: Changing Conditions?,” in Lindsay Whitfield, ed., The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 361–​379. World Bank. 1994. Adjustment in Africa: Reforms, Results, and the Road Ahead. World Bank policy research report. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. World Bank. 2006. “Sénégal: Développements Récents et les Sources de Financement du Budget de l’Etat.” Revue des dépenses publiques 36497.

chapter 19

C ORRUP TION A ND T H E STATE IN TH E S A H E L Giorgio Blundo

The theme of corruption in Africa has been at the center of a considerable corpus of writings. Empirically based studies are scarce, however, given the difficulty of observing and quantifying this phenomenon. Compared with other regions on the African continent, studies of the Sahel are even more rare. According to the only available inventory of studies on corruption in Africa (Blundo 2006a), more than half of the social science literature on this topic between 1960 and 2005 concentrated on anglophone Africa. While Niger and Senegal have been the focus of a few studies of corruption since the end of the 1990s, the literature on Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and especially Mauritania is piecemeal and sectoral, insufficient for a thorough comparative analysis. In sum, there is to date no comparative overview of the theme of corruption devoted to the Sahel. Starting in the early 2000s, new means of measurement produced by the international anticorruption industry cast a rather unflattering light on the Sahelian countries, stigmatizing them for their lack of public integrity.1 In 2016, the best known of these tools, Transparency International’s “Corruption Perception Index,” ranked all Sahelian countries, excepting (barely) Senegal, as states with systemic corruption (a score lower than 43).2 Perceptions vary from country to country: Senegal and Burkina Faso are reputedly less corrupt than Mali and Niger; these two are, in turn, more virtuous than Mauritania, and even more so than Chad.3 These approaches, purely quantitative and decontextualized, shed little light on how corruption is socially and culturally embedded in everyday life. In contrast, this chapter is based on qualitative empirical studies and on the author’s own research in Niger, Senegal, and Mauritania. I adopt a broad, non-​normative definition of corruption, considering it a set of “practices involving the use of public office that are improper . . . and give rise to undue personal gain” (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006, 5–​6).

364   Giorgio Blundo

CORRUPTION AND STATE-​BUILDING IN THE SAHEL The Colonial Legacy The emergence of corrupt practices in the Sahel cannot be dated. From the outset, we can dismiss two diametrically opposed positions that are both ahistorical and laden with ideological connotations. The first is that contemporary corruption in the Sahel reflects the survival of ancestral social practices and mentalities in a modern political context, while the second holds that corruption arises from the historical rupture resulting from the importation of the colonial state in Africa. In its most radical version, this position holds that colonization perverted fundamentally honest traditional societies and polities. By contrast, in line with Bayart (1989) and Olivier de Sardan (1999), I see corruption in the contemporary Sahel as the outcome of a complex process of hybridization between first the colonial and then the independent state and indigenous political cultures. Prior to French colonization, most Sahelian societies had forms of political organization that, proto-​states at best, exercised control over local communities through levies closer to racketeering than taxation (Ould Cheikh 2003). In contexts characterized by a patrimonial form of domination, a modern conception of corruption (implying a tacit recognition of the separation between a public and a private sphere) could not take shape. Nonetheless, customary law was capable of recognizing and sanctioning the behaviors of authorities who sacrificed the group’s objectives on the altar of personal interests (Jacob 2001). In fact, the misuse of power by “heathen” chiefs and their predatory inclinations figured among the justifications for the holy wars (jihad) that agitated the Sahel throughout the nineteenth century (Smith 1964). A legacy of the colonial system is to have fostered an environment favorable to corrupt practices in politics, institutions, and mentalities. Apart from sometimes major differences in the exercise of power by French authorities,4 the colonial bureaucracy in the Sahel came out of a twofold rupture with both precolonial forms of power and the modern European bureaucracy (Olivier de Sardan 2004). The administration was mainly quartered in cities, the rest of the territory being administered by a loose bureaucratic structure whose representatives, not very numerous, “subcontracted” authority to a wide range of native auxiliaries and intermediaries (chefs de canton, interpreters, cadis, forest rangers, goumiers, etc.). Involved in rendering customary justice, levying taxes, and drafting forced labor for colonial public works, these authorities could cash in on their power while enjoying a relative impunity. In Senegal, “the immense majority of the cadis were obsessed with becoming wealthy at the expense of litigants” (Gueye 1997, 155), whereas, in Chad, marabouts loyal to the French military administration were renowned for their plundering, raiding, and even trafficking in

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    365 slaves (Arditi 2000). In Niger as elsewhere, gifts of allegiance to customary chiefs were no longer a symbol but literally a tribute demanded on many an occasion: for reducing the number of heads of cattle required by the administration, for sparing children from going to the white man’s school, or for appealing to a customary court (Olivier de Sardan 1984, 207–​224). In French West Africa and Equatorial Africa, the colonial administration was not exempt from corrupt behaviors and irregularities, but “sanctions against white officials in the colonies [were] rare” (Brunschwig 1983, 26). In addition to an administration accustomed to impunity, despotism, arbitrariness, and the use of intermediaries, the colonial state has left a lasting image of a system of power designed to serve the private interests of colonists and their clients to the detriment of the common interest. The majority of the population was subject to the indigénat system and excluded from even the most basic civil rights. By alternating sanctions and privileges, which were granted to subjects who deserved them for their loyalty to the colony, but while retaining the power to dismiss them at any time, colonial power reproduced a court society with its banished, courtiers, and favorites.

Single-​Party Systems and Military Regimes The single-​party systems that laid claim to the role of nation-​building right after independence were consolidated through various sources of economic rent from: geopolitics in the context of the Cold War and Françafrique (Verschave 1998), agriculture (groundnuts in Senegal, cotton in Burkina Faso and Mali), mining (iron in Mauritania, uranium in Niger, phosphates in Senegal), and aid for development. This economic rent fueled powerful political machines, in which “traditional leaders” (the marabouts from Islamic brotherhoods in Senegal, “administrative chieftaincy” in Niger, big merchants in Mali and Chad, etc.) served as brokers between the single-​party elite and the rural masses. During the first two decades after independence, corruption came to be a way of managing people that was consubstantial with exercising (and staying in) power. Redistributing state resources via clientelism, political leaders succeeded in ensuring the survival of their regime and endowed it with a degree of legitimacy and stability. The bureaucratic clients and merchants who had contacts “at the top” systematically looted big state enterprises. ONCAD (Office National de Coopération et Assistance au Développement) in Senegal, which oversaw the groundnut business, had run up a debt of ninety billion CFA francs when dissolved in 1980 (Casswell 1984). Cotonchad’s annual budget of approximately 20 billion CFA francs was regularly misappropriated on orders from Hissène Habré (Arditi 2000). As long as this economic rent (foreign as well as domestic) was stable, the level of corruption was contained, controlled by political leaders. Mauritania, a country now cankered with corruption, was relatively spared during its first fifteen years of independence: Moktar Ould Daddah’s government (1960–​1978) was known for having laid the

366   Giorgio Blundo grounds of a modern state by relying on an honest, austere elite (Blundo 2011a). But the droughts then struck the Sahel during the 1970s—​a first factor accelerating corruption. The rural exodus increased, and pressure mounted on public services, which soon proved deficient. Meanwhile, the “hard cash” coming from emergency aid programs was being massively misappropriated. From 1965 to 1975, all civilian governments in the Sahel (with the notable exception of Senegal) were overthrown by military officers, who usually called for the moralization of public affairs; however, corruption would spare none of these military regimes save for two exceptions. The one was the revolutionary government in Burkina Faso, where Sanakra acquired a reputation of integrity by launching spectacular campaigns of law and order against bureaucratic waste (Sarassoro 1990). The other was the Seyni Kountché’s regime in Niger, which severely and systematically targeted petty corruption (Amuwo 1986). In general, however, the seizure of power by military officers provided an opportunity for corruption to spread. In Mauritania, the coup d’état that overthrew Ould Daddah in 1978 was perpetrated by clans who, having been previously ousted by the civilian government, eagerly seized key positions in the state in order to have their turn to grow rich (Blundo 2011a).

The Era of “Good Governance” Throughout the 1990s, corruption became more visible owing to political liberalization and the emergence of a relatively free press. In Niger and Senegal, the number of articles that railed against corruption exploded during this period. In Senegal, for instance, 60 percent of the articles on acts of corruption published between 1974 and 2000 appeared during the 1990s. In parallel, violations of public probity diversified and expanded into new sectors. Once the euphoria of the national conferences held in the Sahelian countries (apart from Burkina Faso and Senegal) between 1991 and 1993 had waned, democratization revealed its true colors: privatization, unfettered economic liberalism, and the downsizing of the civil service in line with the structural adjustment programs carried over from the previous decade. Given the widespread deterioration of public services, there was a recrudescence of petty corruption in the administration, abetted by a “commonsense” perception of political liberalization as an opportunity for a fairer access to a share in the spoils (Fay 1995). As multiparty systems were restored, electoral clientelism and corruption abounded, as shown by a vast survey conducted in Niger but with results that can be generalized to the whole Sahel (Olivier de Sardan 2015). Decentralization reforms—​ a “good governance” measure purportedly for encouraging citizen participation in the management of local affairs—​resulted in a hurried transfer of powers to communes, which of course lacked the human and financial means to assume them. This devolution offered new opportunities for predation by local elites. In Sahelian countries ranging from Senegal, where local governments

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    367 had been set up in 1972, to Niger, where the communes are of recent creation, petty corruption and embezzlements were also decentralized through local patronage networks (Blundo 2001). No political model (authoritarian or pluralist, military or civilian, centralized or decentralized) is therefore more prone than another to corruption. Nonetheless, the theme of “bad governance” is central to the political changes under way in the Sahel. It channels popular disgust with the unlawful wealth accumulated by the powerholders who have been ousted; and it serves as a means for legitimating newcomers, who selectively organize anticorruption campaigns in order to eliminate political opponents. Governments, whether of “transition” or formed via “democratic alternation,” have planted the seeds for the most unrestrained forms of predation. Despite the many promises for change that paved the way for him to become president of Senegal in March 2000, Abdoulaye Wade gradually installed a personalized regime that, based on a redistribution of public resources through clientelism, pushed corruption to new levels.

PRACTICES AND PROCESSES OF EVERYDAY CORRUPTION For a long time now, “big corruption” has been spreading over the Sahel and everywhere else in Africa. It has its favorite fields or sectors (the arms market, mining activities, the building industry and public works, international aid, the banking sector, the import–​ export trade), handles considerable amounts of money (compared to the low level of transactions in the national economy), and mainly benefits the elites. Though impressive owing to its scale and to the fact that it is indispensable for governments in the region to stay in power, its nature and processes do not fundamentally differ from corruption at the top on other continents. What characterizes the Sahel is everyday, petty corruption. It mostly takes place during the delivery of basic public services and through routine interactions between frontline bureaucrats and citizens. It is systemic: a quasi-​norm, the rule and not the exception. It has spread to all fields of administrative activities and public affairs. It is deeply embedded in a generalized malfunction of the public administration; and citizens have ambivalent perceptions of it since they criticize it as much as they practice it. Though less documented than big corruption, this everyday corruption has been the subject of a pioneering anthropological study in Africa (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006), which has marked an ethnographic turning point by empirically observing how the state, its personnel, and services actually operate on a daily basis. This study has identified several “elementary forms of corruption” in the Sahel on a continuum between two opposite poles of popular perceptions: the pole of transactions and the pole of extortion and of the private misappropriation of public resources.

368   Giorgio Blundo Examples of transactional corruption are the “fees” or “commissions” that civil servants receive for their brokerage or for the illegal services they render. Fees in cash or in kind are systematic in public procurement services, where corruption is so “polished” it appears legal (Blundo 2006b), but also in the legal system (Tidjani Alou 2006). The employees who fill the positions generating these unlawful earnings might have to pass them on up the hierarchy. In courts, registrars’ offices, and hospitals a frequent and even legitimate action is to make a gift to the employee for carrying out his or her ordinary duties. This blurs the lines between a spontaneous token of appreciation and an obligatory bribe. There are, in addition, the “anticipatory gifts” made to public employees for the strategic purpose of placing them in the position of owing something to their “benefactors.” By comparison, unwarranted fees (e.g., to a receptionist in a dispensary for a health record at twice its price or the abuse of selling supposedly “scarce” administrative forms and printouts that are for free) lie on the boundary between transactional corruption and outright extortion, since no actual service is provided. A well-​known example is the racketeering of truckers and taxi drivers at the many roadblocks that the agents of various institutions (police, customs, forestry services, municipalities, immigration offices, etc.) abusively set up (Bako Arifari 2006). These roadblocks impede the circulation of merchandize, especially in landlocked Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. In 2013 in Mali, there was an average of 2.6 roadblocks per 100 km. In these three countries, the roadblock racket generates extra costs estimated at between €12 million and €23 million per year; and causes a loss of time amounting to 1,104–​21,03 months per year (Banque Africaine de Développement 2015, 16–​22). In countries where state violence is very present, administrative authorities push such practices to the limit. In Chad, the laborers working for the UN peacekeeping mission were forced to pay a “tribute” amounting to more than 40 percent of their monthly wages (Debos 2013, 63). We also observe practices that shade into ordinary acts of sociability. In this category are the exchanges of services and favors (i.e., string-​pulling or recommendations) between people belonging to the same group: alumni, kinsmen, neighbors (from the same locality or region), and partisans (from the same political faction). In this case, government employees face the dilemma of choosing between an abstract bureaucratic ethics (seldom applied in the professional environment) and their loyalty to a sense of identity (based on kinship, politics, or other). On this point, the conceptions of the public and of civil servants come together, since anyone who refrains from helping a group member will be the target of shaming and ostracism. Practices involving the misappropriation or private use of public equipment are commonplace: using service vehicles or telephones for private purposes, unlawfully selling medication from the stock in public hospitals or dispensaries (Jaffré and Olivier de Sardan 2003), illegally connecting via the mayor’s office to public electricity grids and water mains, and massive embezzlement (sometimes by organized groups).

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    369

CORRUPTION AND BUREAUCRATIC GOVERNANCE In the Sahel, practices of petty corruption are abetted by, and in turn abet, the widespread dysfunction of public services, which have been seriously crippled by structural adjustment programs (with a drastic reduction in the human and material resources of state administrations but without improved efficiency or governance) and by the “top” skimming the already meager operational budgets of devolved services. The consequences on the management of state personnel have been calamitous, thus aggravating favoritism and clientelism in appointments and personnel assignments, and generalizing a management of people felt to be anomic, arbitrary, implacable, even inhuman. Competition for “juicy” administrative positions (with opportunities for rapid promotion or for access to development aid jobs or to unlawful means for “lining pockets”) has increased, whereas “lean” positions are reserved for employees who have been “sidelined” because they have no backing higher up or because they are atoning for a fault. The recruitment of a cohort of “auxiliaries,” whether as “volunteers” or employees under contract, has, to a degree, made up for the lack of civil servants. These auxiliaries symbolize the precariousness of state administrations. Niger now has forty thousand of them compared with twenty-​six thousand civil servants (Lavigne Delville and Abdelkader 2010, 59). The number of auxiliaries has dramatically expanded in the other countries as well. In hospitals, courts, and ministries they play the role of “brokers” who both filter and eventually facilitate the user’s often opaque and discretionary access to public services. They thus contribute to “informalizing” public services and often serve as vectors of petty corruption. Besides the scarcity of human resources, there is also a chronic shortage (structural or deliberate) of operational means. Let us mention the lack of gasoline and of usable weapons for forestry agents in Niger and Senegal, or the fact that 86.7 percent of health facilities in Niger are not equipped with electricity, latrines, or a safe water supply (World Bank 2017). In the midst of utterly destitute administrative services, a few “islets of prosperity” stand out: the bureaucratic enclaves that, created and sustained by international aid, actually work. They attract the best civil servants in stark contrast with the abominable working conditions in the ordinary administrative services. This “two-​speed administration” (Blundo 2011b) aggravates the frustration of government employees and fosters two types of behavior. The first is, the frenzied quest to find financial incentives equivalent to the per diems paid by development projects. This search for cash, for a complement to basic wages (via the petty trade in services, the holding of two or even three jobs, etc.), is a major cause of the absenteeism rife in key sectors such as health and education.5 In Niger, 33 percent of the personnel in the health sector are missing at work on any given day, and 27 percent of primary school teachers abandon the classroom (World Bank 2017).

370   Giorgio Blundo Secondly, administrative services are often “informally privatized,” sometimes to make up for their shortcomings. Civil servants manage their positions as if these belonged to them. They finance operations related to their position but also collect the profits from their efforts. A common practice of security forces is to reinvest part of the “bribes” collected during everyday activities in the “maintenance” of the means for doing their job or in the management of agents’ family problems. As for users, the overload on public administrations results in long waiting lines. Given these bottlenecks, and the delays and slowness that characterize contacts between users and the administration, “money speeds things up” in hospital waiting rooms, at the checkpoints set up by forestry services or the police, and in customs for clearing a container. The public administration’s treatment of citizens is highly ambivalent. Citizens are ignored, spurned or even mishandled if they lack contacts inside the administration; but if they propose money or have contacts, they are no longer anonymous and become worthy of attention. Petty corruption is often the user’s first step in building a durable, personalized relationship for exchanges with a public employee. This bureaucratic environment, it should be pointed out, is “crowned” by two crisscrossing political/​administrative processes: factionalism and interventionism.

Factionalism Factionalism runs through political systems and eras in the Sahel. In Senegal, it has been the driving force in national politics since the Four Communes till Abdoulaye Wade’s presidency, including the Socialist Party period (Fatton 1986). We observe similar forms of factionalism in Niger (Olivier de Sardan 2017), Chad, and Mauritania, where it has tribal connotations (Blundo 2011a). From village chiefdoms to the top of the state, the struggle between factions gives rise to a highly personalized politics based on: temporary, fluctuating alliances (political “transhumance” as people desert a deposed leader to join the winner); a short-​sighted management of public affairs; combative strategies that pay no heed to formal rules of competition; the pursuit of objectives that put forward a small group’s interests to the detriment of the broader community’s; and, above all, a predatory rationale of redistribution whereby the “spoils” must be quickly grabbed and shared out exclusively among members of the clique in power. By leading public opinion to perceive politics in terms of wheeling and dealing, deceit, scheming and betrayal, factionalism reinforces citizens’ distrust of public authority and nurtures both petty and big corruption.

Interventionism and “Multiple Accountabilities” Contrary to the widespread view held by the experts on good governance, which blames the spread of corruption in everyday life on a lack of accountability in public administrations, recent studies have suggested, instead, that Sahelian civil servants are

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    371 submerged under waves of accountability (Blundo 2015). In effect, the daily performance of administrative tasks and duties, like the application of laws and regulations, is constantly affected—​even swayed—​by interventions from many an institution and many a player, formal and informal, who serve as intercessors between citizens and the state. A direct consequence of the utter personalization and politicization of relations with public administrations, this interventionism has become a common strategy for taming state power. Local elected officials, MPs, customary chiefs, top civil servants, ministers, religious authorities, former classmates, colleagues, or members of the same prayer group, are normally solicited for getting out of a fine, releasing someone who has been arrested, voiding an unwanted personnel assignment, winning a local bid for a public contract, and other such favors. This non-​exhaustive list suggests the scope of the social and political rationales at work and the many forms of accountability that weigh on bureaucrats and politicians as they perform their duties. Aggravated by the proliferation of political parties, these interventions place civil servants, especially those in the lower ranks, in a double bind (Bierschenk 2014), since their superiors demand that they both apply and circumvent the law. This system also discourages any impulse, however weak, to sanction government employees guilty of misconduct or mismanagement. In reaction, civil servants adopt strategies ranging from the search for a protector to moving with extreme caution (leading to a lack of initiative and the persistence of the status quo), and of course to corrupt practices.

THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION IN THE SAHEL Ambivalent Perceptions: Between Toleration and Stigmatization Since independence, Sahelian societies have never stopped decrying corruption. Echoes of this resound in popular literature and theater. In Sembène Ousmane’s well-​known Le Mandat (1966), the principal character, lost in the meandering bureaucracy in Dakar, meets people who lament that “honesty is an offense” and that it is hard to obtain an administrative service without greasing somebody’s palm, relying on “someone influential” or “sleeping with someone” (Ousmane 1966). Nearly fifty years later, a comedy drawn from the traditional theater in Mali (kotéba) has railed against the mismanagement and injustice that plague the country.6 People have also taken to the streets. In Chad, Mubi peasants revolted in 1964 against the public administration’s abuses and racketeering (Arditi 2000). Large demonstrations have shouted kokaje (“wash clean” in Bambara) in Mali and demanded punishment for

372   Giorgio Blundo the perpetrators of economic or political crimes under Moussa Traoré (Lange 1999, 123). The Set/​Setal movement (“make clean” in Wolof) at the end of the 1980s voiced the same demand for cleaning politics in Senegal (Diouf 1992). Since Sahelian societies are not passive with regard to acts of dishonesty and corruption by public authorities, how can we explain the forceful paradox of a unanimous criticism of corruption and, at the same time, a toleration of acts of everyday corruption? First of all, corruption feeds on itself. Whenever nearly all citizens have, either directly or via someone close, come face to face with corrupt practices, the “belief ” that the access to public goods and services is either to be bought or is reserved for the circle of kin, friends and contacts incites everyone to protect themselves from the corruption of others by preventively practicing it themselves—​a vicious cycle (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006, 105–​106). Second, there are rationales in postcolonial Sahelian societies that tend to legitimate acts of corruption. Most social relations involve money, and prodigality is a “virtue” fostered by the elites, whose clients use it to measure and judge their actions. As a result, certain means for quickly acquiring wealth are, though reprehensible from a legal viewpoint, tolerated if they entail a redistribution (at least symbolic), whereas a stranger caught red-​handed stealing risks falling victim to an especially expeditious popular justice. In general, corruption in the Sahel “is so visible that it stops being considered deviant behavior and is submerged within other morally acceptable social practices and even largely encouraged” (Blundo 2007, 34). Continually euphemized or justified, it hides behind commonly accepted forms of discourse and behavior; and thus becomes a sign that the parties are abiding by local etiquette. After all, it is impolite to refuse a gift, colleagues should lend a helping hand to each other, and respect should be shown for elders. Petty corruption is also a way to receive compensation from a state that does not regularly pay wages and has forsaken its most elementary duties. Or it is even a mimetic comportment: why be honest when everyone, from top to bottom, is corrupt? (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006) The context even leads to discrediting honesty: denouncing corrupt practices is stigmatized, and scorn is heaped on people who hold “juicy” positions but do not “enjoy” them. The new ethos of success promotes what is called tcheb-​tchib in Mauritania: dodging the law for personal gain (Ould Ahmed Salem 2001). It has even been suggested that “complete integrity is a luxury of virtue that is beyond the scope of the majority of the citizens” in the Sahel (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006, 100).

State Initiatives for Fighting Against Corruption Upon independence, Sahelian states adopted laws and set up services for controlling and sanctioning unlawful practices in administrative institutions. Building on the colonial penal code, a common foundation, each country adapted its means for conducting

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    373 this fight as a function of its political situation. All these countries have inspectorates for controls, internal and external, in each ministry: the Inspections Générales d’État (IGÉ), the Inspections Générales des Finances (IGF), and divisions such as, for state enterprises, the Commission de Vérification et de Contrôle des Comptes des Entreprises Publiques (CVCCEP) in Senegal. However, the experiences of Niger, Senegal, and Mauritania (Mathieu 2007; Blundo 2011a) have shown the limits of these inspectorates with their competent and well-​paid employees: they only undertake controls a posteriori; they may not take on cases themselves; they are replaced or sidelined when the government changes; and their reports are shelved with no follow-​up in offices of the president or the prime minister. When major upheaval roils the top of the state or sets off a crisis of legitimacy, the executive branch of government sets up ad hoc special institutions to symbolize the dawn of a new political era (Mathieu 2007). In Senegal, for instance, Abdou Diouf, on his guard against Senghorian party bosses, signed a law against illicit gains in 1980. The process it set off came to a halt two years later, and the only results were a few fines and two convictions with imprisonment. Following the much-​lauded political alternation in 2000, Abdoulaye Wade launched audits of several state firms and in 2003 set up the Commission Nationale de Lutte contre la Non-​transparence, la Corruption et la Concussion. Macky Sall, his successor, replaced it in 2012 with two new organizations: the Office National de Lutte contre la Fraude et la Corruption and the Commission Nationale de Restitution et Recouvrement des Biens Mal Acquis. Notably, in 2012, he reactivated the law against illicit gains, which was used to sentence the former president’s son, Karim Wade, to six years imprisonment and a €210 million fine. In Niger, chronic political instability led to creating and dissolving eight different committees between 1974 and 2000. During the emergency rule following the coup d’état, President Kountché set up a police of the economy and a special court, which punished the misappropriation of public funds with life imprisonment or the death penalty (Amuwo 1986; Mathieu 2007). High impact operations serve—​for a while—​to flaunt a government’s zero tolerance of white-​collar criminals and to selectively clean the stables of politics and of the public administration. Such was the case of Cobra, an anticorruption operation conducted in Chad in 2012, which delivered tempered results: the value of what was recovered amounted to twelve times less than misappropriations (estimated at more than 300 billion CFA francs per year), and most of the persons charged found other positions (Debos 2013, 51).

The Ambiguous Role of International Aid Donors Given the globalization of policies for combating corruption, it is not possible to pass over the role played by the donors of international aid. Their position turns out to be ambiguous, especially after the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005, whereby the conditions for establishing systems of integrity and honesty have to abide by the priorities and procedures of the states receiving aid.

374   Giorgio Blundo Donors have actively backed standardized instruments for preventing and fighting against corruption—​but in disarray and without considering whether these instruments overlap with, or duplicate, already existing government or administrative bodies. Following a recommendation from the UN Development Program (UNDP), for instance, Burkina Faso set up in 2001 the Haute Autorité de Coordination de la Lutte contre la Corruption (HACLCC; High Authority for Coordinating the Fight against Corruption) but with an assignment similar to that of the recently created National Committee on Ethics. Lacking real powers and transparency, the HACLCC was merged in 2007 (again under pressure from donors) with the National Coordination of the Fight against Fraud and the IGÉ to form a single Autorité Supérieure de Contrôle de l’État (Higher Authority of State Control) (Damiba 2008, 49, 79). The belated creation of Courts of Auditors for controlling public finances has, it should be pointed out, mainly resulted from the incentives provided by international donors and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). Except for Mauritania, which adopted a court of auditors in 1992, these courts were only established after the start of the new century in Senegal and Burkina Faso, and not until 2012 in Niger and 2015 in Chad. A court of auditors does not yet exist in Mali. Overall, the conditions imposed from the outside by donors have had lackluster or even directly counterproductive results, as the fate of the Chad–​Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project reflects. Launched in 2000, the goal was to ensure that the income from oil in Chad would help reduce poverty. The body charged with controlling and overseeing petroleum resources played this role till 2005; but the next year, Idriss Déby modified the law in order to use these resources to buy weapons and quell internal rebellions. The World Bank definitively pulled out of the project in 2008, admitting that it had in fact boosted corruption (Winters and Gould 2011, 242). In the Sahel, the gap between official meetings with talk of “good governance” and the opacity of actual budget allocations is wide. By systematically falsifying national macroeconomic statistics, it is possible to be labeled a “good pupil” who implements donors’ recommendations, like Burkina Faso and Mauritania (Samuel 2011). The incentives provided by donors for public integrity seem to be effective only for the success of their own programs. To ward off the risks of misappropriations related to their programs and financial aid,7 donor organizations have set up parallel arrangements for controls that are “panoptic,” sui generis exemptions from the normal operation of public administrations in the recipient countries. This covers up their own role as “instigators, ‘facilitators’ who foster local processes of corruption” (Mathieu 2000). In conclusion, the various legislative and institutional measures, both endogenous and exogenous, taken since the start of the twenty-​first century in the Sahel are wanting. This is sometimes due to a lack of human and financial resources for conducting inquests, sometimes because of a lack of autonomy from the executive, sometimes due to problems of coordination (as new anticorruption measures are introduced without repealing the old ones), and sometimes for not complying with international norms and standards.8

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    375

Social Movements and the “Brokers of Good Governance” Social demands for more integrity in public affairs lack coordination and remain ambivalent. Labor unions and student associations first voiced such demands. For a long time in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Senegal, these organizations stood in the front ranks of the combat against corruption, in particular the corruption associated with customs, roadblocks, and public procurement services (Blundo 2006b; Mathieu 2007; Damiba 2008). Even some professional organizations of “bureaucrats in uniform,” though hardly having a reputation of honesty, have reacted against the big corruption of powerholders. During the 1990s in Niger, the Syndicat Unique des Travailleurs des Eaux et Forêts tried to keep Prince Bandar from hunting with impunity wildlife in the country, but the effort of these forest rangers was in vain since the Saudi prince had backing from high-​ ranking state officials and the army (Grégoire 2000). As for entrepreneurs, they only focus on defending their interests against the corruption that represents a tort for their business. Trade organizations, such as truckers in Niger or merchants in Senegal, have now and then railed against the police or customs racket, while practicing other forms of collusion with authorities. Since the start of the twenty-​first century, urban youth movements, arising out of hip-​hop, have demanded a moralization of public affairs in Senegal. They played a part in ousting the Socialist Party in 2000 (the Buul Fale generation) and Abdoulaye Wade in 2012 (the Y’en A Marre movement) (Dieng 2015). These examples were a source of inspiration for the Balai Citoyen movement, which marched in the front ranks of the revolution of October–​November 2014 in Burkina Faso (Hagberg et al. 2015). Sahelians living overseas are becoming more involved in the fight against corruption. After all, their regular monetary transfers finance community facilities (such as wells and schools) in their home villages. In Senegal, emigrants have intervened in local affairs, sometimes accusing authorities of corruption and having them sanctioned (Vari-​Lavoisier 2014). Since the second half of the 1990s, new players have come on the scene, whom we might dub the “good governance brokers” (Blundo 2012). They claim to be the representatives (accredited, professional, and indispensable) of what is called “civil society.” These NGOs have entered national politics with a focus on reinterpreting international norms and conventions, and redefining relations between citizens and public authorities. Obviously too, they are struggling to catch part of the financial windfall from the international anticorruption industry in the Sahel. Forum Civil is the best example. Jurists and other self-​employed professionals founded this NGO in Senegal in 1993. In 2000, it became the Senegalese section of Transparency International,9 and then one of the most influential anticorruption organizations in Africa. However, the premises of these “local” civic movements are laden with elitist messages that have difficulty taking hold locally. There is a transitory convergence of interests in Burkina Faso and Senegal with the republican attitudes of religious leaders from the Catholic Church or from Islamic brotherhoods (Management Systems International

376   Giorgio Blundo 2007; Hagberg et al. 2017). In Mali and Niger, however, these movements have encountered competition from the Wahhabist movements that radically criticize the operation of state institutions and intend to either reform them (the quietist version) by introducing sharia law (Sounaye 2016) or replace them (the jihadist or Salafist version) with a caliphate.

THE END OF THE PERMISSIVE SOCIAL CONTRACT? In the Sahel, the most violent forms of corruption have never occurred. Instead, corruption is the instrument and expression of a social contract that, described as “permissive” (Nugent 2010), has kept the social peace for decades. However, there is much evidence that this system has reached its limits. For one thing, the myth whereby corruption is an alternative way to redistribute wealth has dissipated, as Sahelian citizens now have to cope, day after day, with the deterioration of basic services, the decline of the economy and the degradation of the environment. For another, in this region with its vast desert areas over which states, weakened by recurrent crises (Niger, Mauritania, and Mali), have little control, administrative and political corruption is now overlapping with organized crime (trafficking in drugs, weapons, and human beings) and terrorism (Harman 2014). For example, the apparently harmless corruption at customs along the border between Niger and Nigeria now has an impact on the region’s security: bribes make the border porous since no distinction is made between small traders trying to “get ahead” and the members of organized criminal or terrorist networks (Hahonou 2016). Likewise, sharing intelligence, essential for fighting against ruthless armed groups in northern Mali since 2012, has been a failure because of corruption in the ranks of the country’s military and paramilitary forces (Cantens and Raballand 2016, 13). The fight against the widespread corruption that has become a form of governance of people and resources will be a complex and long-​term effort, and necessitates a convergence of genuine political will and a social demand with adequate channels for forming and making itself heard. For the time being, these conditions, though indispensable, do not seem to have been met in the Sahel. Under multiple pressures—​from public opinion that is increasingly hostile to predation on public funds in the context of economic crisis, from donors who have made integrity and honesty in public affairs a condition for receiving aid, and from their own political tactics, confusing the fight against corruption with the struggle to stay in power—​ the governments of the Sahel have seen their room for maneuvering dwindle.

Notes 1. These indices do nothing more than compare, without context, perceptions of corruption worldwide. They are used as a means of pressure, as when a low score bears the risk of reduced international aid.

Corruption and the State in the Sahel    377 2. The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance (Mo Ibrahim Foundation 2016) made much the same ranking. 3. In fact, Chad is placed in the group of the twenty countries perceived as the most corrupt in the world, along with Burundi, Haiti, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 4. Colonial power was not exercised in the same way in the Saharan/​Sahelian zone of Mauritania, Chad, Niger, and Mali (which was administered through a sort of indirect rule—​French style) as in the southern areas of these countries, or in Burkina Faso and even less so in Senegal, where, at the end of the nineteenth century, the citizens of the Four Communes were actively participating in local politics. 5. Government employees are also absent for social or religious reasons: baptisms, marriages, funerals, etc. 6. Compagnie BlonBa, Dieu ne dort pas (Ala tè sunogo): https://​www.rfi.fr/​fr/​afrique/​ 20130507-​theatre-​declare-​guerre-​mali-​corrompu-​blonba-​dieu-​ne-​dort-​pas. 7. The generalization of aid programs that fund national budgets has given rise to new opportunities for fraud, as shown by the MEBA Affair, which broke out in Niger in 2005 and amounted to a shortfall of nearly five billion CFA francs granted by the European Union to the Ministry of Basic Education and Literacy (Hamani 2014, 16). 8. All Sahelian states have ratified the UN and AU conventions adopted in 2003 (including the UN Convention against Corruption and the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption); but there are problems with incorporating them into national law and with implementation. As for the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance adopted by the Economic Community of West African States in 2001, which concerns four of the six Sahelian countries, it foresees a network of national institutions for fighting corruption, but the lack of means provided by ECOWAS has kept this measure from being operational. 9. Transparency International is represented in Niger by the Association Nigérienne de Lutte contre la Corruption (ANLC/​TILL); and in Mali by the Cercle de Réflexion et d’Information pour la Consolidation de la Démocratie au Mali.

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Section V

T H E C HA L L E N G E OF G OV E R N I N G Section editor: Sebastian Elischer

Introdu c t i on Sebastian Elischer

Since independence from France in 1960, two simultaneous struggles have accompanied and driven political dynamics in the Sahel. The first is the struggle for order, that is, of attempts by a central authority to ensure the compliance by citizens to the rule of secular law. The Sahel’s pre-​colonial history as an open space for different empires and cultures, as well as its equally long history as a popular trading route between Sub-​Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, Europe, and the Arab world, make this a difficult enterprise. Rigid European and Western notions about how everyday administrative business ought to be conducted have been—​and remain—​at odds with more flexible and deeper-​rooted traditions of exchange and customary laws. Second, the region has been marked by the struggle for accountability, that is, for political and civil liberties, transparency, equality, democratic institutional procedures, and good governance. The two goals have not always gone hand in hand, and when they are in conflict most, if not all, postcolonial regimes in the Sahel have prioritized order over accountability. Both struggles continue to define politics across all six countries, although states have made different degrees of progress toward each of these goals. This section explores the multiple dimensions of how the struggles for order and for accountability have played out across the region. With regard to the first goal—​order—​a key initial observation is that four of the six countries covered in this volume fall into the category of most fragile states worldwide. According to the “fragile state index” maintained by the Fund for Peace, this is true of Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Chad, which all rank in the top fifth of the most fragile states. Senegal and Burkina Faso have historically performed better, yet by global standards also can be considered weak states.1 Over the first six decades of independence, conflicts between central governments and secessionist or insurgency groups have marked the entire region. Prominent examples include the Tuareg uprisings in Mali and Niger in the 1990s and again in the 2000s (Lecocq 2010), the violent confrontations between the Arab-​dominated Mauritanian state and black African citizens (Human Rights Watch 1994), the Casamance rebellion in Senegal (Roche 2016), and the various rebellions between warring factions in Chad (Burr and Collins 2008; Eizenga 2018).

384   Sebastian Elischer Starting in the 2000s and accelerating dramatically since 2012, jihadi insurgencies have emerged as new and additional security challenges. The speed and the brutality of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion in Mali, and the subsequent occupation of northern Mali by a conglomeration of regional and Malian Tuareg and jihadi forces came as a surprise to many. Despite the French military intervention in Mali in early 2013 and the subsequent deployment of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), various jihadi groups continue to wreak havoc and destruction (Warner 2017; Cherbib 2018). Within a few years of its establishment in April 2013, MINUSMA had become the UN mission with the largest number of UN casualties in the history of the organization. What started in Mali has since become a security crisis with regional implications affecting other Sahelian states, including Mauritania, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso. If, when, and how the region will arrive at a permanent resolution of the jihadi threat remains an open-​ended question. On the one hand, all of these conflicts can be interpreted as the long-​term outcomes of European colonialism. Artificially drawn state borders, the imposition of pro-​ Western authoritarian rulers, and the creation of agricultural export economies collectively impeded the creation of central state authorities that citizens perceive as legitimate. As was the case across the African continent, European colonialism failed to equip the countries of the Sahel to become equal competitors in the world economy. Yet it also seems fair to say that from the beginning the challenges confronting the Sahel might have been even higher than elsewhere on the continent. On the other hand, the various conflicts and problems facing the region must also be seen as the result of the failure of the Sahel’s post-​independence elites to establish meaningful linkages between administrative elites and their populations. This is particularly true for the rural areas in which the state often remains absent, and poverty is particularly prevalent. As the implications of climate change and high population growth rates become increasingly visible, the Sahel lacks a coherent strategy of how to deal with both. Despite these manifold and still largely unresolved challenges, some countries have been more successful at projecting a degree of central authority than others. This is clearly the case in Burkina Faso where, in the aftermath of the revolutionary changes instituted by Thomas Sankara (1983–​1987), the Burkinabe state significantly increased its presence in the countryside (Harsch 2017). The same is true for Niger under General Seyni Kountché (1974–​1987), who systematically restructured the Nigerien administrative system to make it more receptive to political demands from rural populations (Charlick 1991). Senegal was historically able to dedicate more resources to the creation of a viable state bureaucracy than others (Schumacher 1975), a dynamic which has largely been sustained throughout its history. Despite numerous conflicts and tensions—​and despite the spread of violence in Burkina Faso seemingly being largely due to jihadi infiltration from Mali—​these three countries today appear to be more stable and resilient to the various security challenges in the region than are Chad, Mauritania, or Mali. While the persistence of their regimes has made Chad and Mauritania appear stable at times, for most of their citizens the state remains a highly exclusionary entity and detached from the daily lives and concerns of the people. In the wake of the stunning

introduction to Section V    385 collapse of 2012, the creation of a viable state in Mali remains a more elusive goal than ever before. While the country was known for its seemingly peaceful and stable political system throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the events of 2012 ushered in a period of violence and unrest across the country, and the capital Bamako remains marked by regular periodic protests and contestation. With regard to the second goal—​accountability—​the trajectories of the Sahel are to a large degree typical and in line with the experiences of the rest of the African continent. The period immediately after independence saw the installation of one-​party states as civilian leaders decried democratic institutions as “Western” and as inimical to nation-​ building and economic development (Cheeseman 2015; Young 1982). The unchecked and patrimonial bureaucracies of the 1960s and the 1970s were incapable of reacting to economic crises, and sequentially succumbed to military interventions. Senegal turned out to be the sole exception to this pattern and remained the one Sahelian country (and one of the very few African countries) to avoid military dictatorship. The push for political liberalization in the era of the global “Third Wave” of democratization in the early 1990s ushered in a number of different regime types. In Senegal—​ where the introduction of multi-​party competition commenced in the 1970s and thus prior to the rest of the continent—​democratic norms and institutions are more consolidated than elsewhere in the region. Out of the six Sahelian countries, then, Senegal has progressed the most toward the creation of both a stable state and an accountable political system. Mali initially followed a similarly promising pattern starting in the early 1990s, but the 2012 security crisis and the subsequent instability have undermined much of the democratic progress the country appeared to have undergone. Niger’s trajectory has been volatile, and recent developments indicate that its democratic advances must not be taken for granted. In contrast to Mali, however, Niger appears to be stable despite manifold challenges. With the overthrow of the twenty-​eight-​year rule of Blaise Compaoré in 2014, Burkina Faso launched on a far-​reaching political transition toward democratization, though it faced significant political and security challenges almost immediately. Thus, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso constitute countries that might be placed at the top of a hybrid spectrum—​neither full democracies, nor full autocracies—​yet some democratic rights have been achieved and are being practiced. Chad and to some extent Mauritania, by contrast, appear to remain at the bottom of the hybrid spectrum, where autocratic rulers long clung to power and democratic norms have existed largely on paper. In both countries the armed forces remain the dominant political actors. Yet the decision by Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to step down after his second term and the election of Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in 2019 and the death of President Idriss Itno Déby in Chad in 2021, opened up new possibilities in each country whose long-​term impact remains to be seen. The chapters in this section comparatively examine the multiple political dimensions of the Sahel’s dual quests for order and accountability. In Chapter 20 Bodian and Villalón depart from the democratic struggles of the early 1990s, and review the region’s attempts to institutionalize democratic procedures, including the processes of reforming electoral systems, the politics surrounding presidential term limits, the

386   Sebastian Elischer structure of legislative institutions, and the implementation of gender quotas. Chapter 21 by Eizenga and Chapter 22 by Elischer respectively discuss obstacles to democratization. Examining legislative elections and their political implications, Eizenga provides an analysis of party types and the emergence of different party systems across the Sahel. Elischer discusses the changing role of the armed forces in Sahel politics, and the dynamics by which the push for liberalization has led to a return of civilian oversight in some countries but not in others. Despite this variation, however, and with the exception of Senegal, the armed forces remain praetorian armies across the region. Chapter 23 by Barrios critically reviews the frequent description by academics and policymakers of the Sahel as an “ungoverned space,” and offers an analysis of the politics behind the actual security challenges facing the region. Beyond the domestic forces shaping the region’s politics, external actors have often also been key players. This issue is the subject of Chapter 24 by Marchal, focused on the role and the motives of Western powers, and in particular of France following the 2013 intervention in Mali. Collectively, the themes examined underline both the regional commonalities and the significant variations in the quest for order and accountability across the region.

Note 1. See the database at https://​fragilestatesindex.org/​

REFERENCES Burr, J. Millard, and Robert Collins. 2008. Darfur. The Long Road to Disaster. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers. Charlick, Robert. 1991. Niger. Personal Rule and Survival in the Sahel. Boulder: Westview Press. Cheeseman, Nic. 2015. Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cherbib, Hamza. 2018. “Jihadism in the Sahel: Exploiting Local Disorders.” Mediterranean Yearbook 8: 1–​5. Eizenga, Daniel. 2018. The Unstable Foundations of Political Stability in Chad. Paris: OECD. Harsch, Ernest. 2017. Burkina Faso. A History of Power, Protest, and Revolution. London: Zed Books. Human Rights Watch. 1994. Mauritania’s Campaign of Terror. State-​Sponsored Repression of Black Africans. New York: Human Rights Watch. Lecocq, Baz. 2010. Tuareg Rebellions and Competing Nationalisms in Contemporary Mali. Amsterdam: Brill. Roche, Christian. 2016. La Casamance Face à Son Destin. Paris: L’Harmattan. Schumacher, Edward. 1975. Politics, Bureaucracy and Rural Development in Senegal. Berkeley: University of California Press. Warner, Jason. 2017. “Sub-​Saharan Africa’s Three ‘New’ Islamic State Affiliates.” CTC Sentinel 10 (1): 28–​32. Young, Crawford. 1982. Ideology and Development. USA: Yale University Press.

chapter 20

T HE DEMO CRATI C ST RU G G L E IN THE SA H E L Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón

As elsewhere in Africa, the countries of the Sahel found themselves under intense domestic and international pressures to undertake political reforms in the name of democracy in the early 1990s. In a context of economic stagnation and deep popular discontent, the single-​party regimes and military dictatorships that had flourished in most of the region over the first three decades of independence found themselves suddenly challenged by students, workers unions, and a new burgeoning urban “civil society.” Incumbent governments in the region varied significantly in their initial responses to these pressures; their trajectories have diverged in important ways since; and the current degree of democracy ranges widely across countries. Yet in each of the six Sahelian country the democratic struggle has been squarely at the center of national politics since then, and there have been striking similarities in the issues that have been major points of contention. The region presents examples of the full range of responses to the democratic wave in Africa. In two cases—​Mali and Niger—​transitions to democracy widely deemed successful were accomplished via a “national conference,” a model of transition pioneered by Benin and emulated—​with varying success—​across much of Francophone Africa (Robinson 1994). In Mali the process was initiated by the collapse of the authoritarian rule of Moussa Traoré, while in Niger, the regime of Ali Saïbou agreed to convening the conference, but quickly found itself marginalized and eventually displaced in the process (Villalón and Idrissa 2005a, 2005b). In two other countries—​ Burkina Faso and Mauritania—​incumbent regimes managed to avoid a national conference by pre-​emptively declaring a process of democratization and assuring their own victory in the first elections of the new dispensation (Ould Ahmed Salem 1999; Harsch 2017). In Chad the new and fragile regime of Idriss Déby, which had taken power by force in 1990, also found itself obliged to convene a national conference in 1993, but

388    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón managed to retain control, and eventually to ensure Déby’s victory in the country’s first-​ ever democratic presidential elections in 1996. While Senegal was often described as the exception, the thirty years of Parti Socialiste rule also faced intense pressures for change in the early 1990s, and after a number of important reforms the regularly scheduled elections of 1993 were for the first time held under conditions that might be reasonably labeled “democratic” (Villalón 1994). Thus began the democratic era in the Sahel: Over a fifteen-​month period from late 1991 to early 1993, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Senegal all held presidential elections. Chad was to follow in 1996. Democracy as a concept has remained the central measure of political progress in the region, displacing the discourses of “nation-​ building” or of “development” of an earlier epoch. As the region approached the thirtieth anniversary of these transitions, however, the trajectories that were set in motion have been quite varied. Mali’s “success” was to last for twenty years, under two elected presidents, before collapsing in 2012 in the face of its incapacity to confront rebellious forces and jihadi challenges. The country managed a return to elected government from 2013 to 2020, but under conditions of extreme fragility and limited authority over the national territory. Niger’s roller-​coaster trajectory was marked by three coups, three more democratic transitions, and four new constitutions as the country moved from its “Third Republic” to its Seventh in the space of twenty years. In Mauritania and Burkina Faso the electoral authoritarian regimes that had managed to cling to power were gradually undermined by processes of change, collapsing in 2008 and 2014, respectively (N’diaye 2018; Loada 2020. In each of those cases the collapse was followed by a new constitution, and the promise of a real democracy, still contested. Chad’s Idris Déby, alone in the region, managed to cling to power while maintaining the pretense of democracy via institutional manipulation. And at the other end of the spectrum, Senegal has strikingly witnessed two electoral transitions, in 2000 and 2012, in which incumbent presidents running for re-​election were defeated at the polls and promptly recognized and accepted their loss.1 Much of the emphasis in the study of the democratic question in Africa has been on the nature of the “political transition,” and in particular on the factors influencing whether inaugural elections were free and competitive and resulted in a change of government. Democratization is thus conceptualized as an event rather than a process, and success or failure has been measured on the electoral criterion. In this chapter, however, we start from the observation that the occurrence or not of such an “electoral transition” (i.e., the inauguration of a new government via an election) was at best a very imperfect predictor of the prospects for democratization. Transitions via an election occur leaving the processes of restructuring state institutions unaddressed or incomplete; post-​transition governments were still faced with the need to elaborate and even create institutions and structures central to the political order, and hence to the prospects for democracy. Across the Sahel, the processes of democratic transition placed the choice of new institutions at the center of the discussions, and these continue to be major points of contention.

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    389 This chapter will survey both the variations and the similarities in how the struggle to build and strengthen democratic institutions has played out in the Sahel. We first discuss some initial fundamental questions related to the nature of a democratic state that were raised by the transitions. We then turn to a discussion of the core institutional debates that have defined the struggle, including the organization and administration of elections; the limitation of presidential terms; the structure of legislative institutions; and the provisions for women’s representation.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE IN THE SAHEL At independence, virtually all francophone African constitutions were patterned on the 1958 constitution of the French Fifth Republic. Although these constitutions recognized the principle of separation of powers, they were quickly modified, de facto or de jure, to empower a strong executive. As Diarra (2010) has noted, constitutions were thus transformed into instruments of coercion under the pretext of pursuing the elusive goals of national unity and economic development. Fundamental challenges to these strong-​man regimes were central to the pro-​democracy movements of the early 1990s, and transitions in all cases entailed the crafting of new constitutions, or the significant revision of old ones. Across the region, however, the default reference for constitutional commissions was still very much the French model and, as in France, the new regimes that followed were often referred to as a new “Republic” (Cabanis and Martin 1999). Given their common inspiration, many institutional provisions of the post-​independence constitutions were maintained in the new democratic ones. In the context, however, the new ones tended to prescribe stronger foundations for liberalization and democratic governance, enshrining multipartyism, guaranteeing civil liberties and the free media, and attempting to establish legislative and other institutions that could check the power of the presidency. The specific provisions for achieving these goals set the stage for much political debate about institutions, and have continued as points of contention since then. Key among these is the central debate that persists across the region about the powers of the executive. In constitutional terms this has often been framed as a choice between a “presidential” and a “parliamentary” system, but in the framework of the Sahel this in fact means only modest variations on French semi-​presidentialism (Moestrup 1999). Also central to the idea of a constitution, and at times enshrined in the exact words, was the French conception of the Republic as “indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.” There is a strong attachment to this conception of republican democracy among the francophone elite of the region, but in the context of liberalization of associational life various groups have raised questions about the meaning of these concepts in

390    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón the governance of Sahelian social realities. Debates on these issues have constituted an important dimension of the democratic struggle. A common response to the challenges associated with balancing indivisibility with democracy in the plural societies of the region has been the adoption of extensive processes of political decentralization, often enshrined in constitutions. These are meant to render more efficient the provision of basic local services and bring governments closer to the people. The pace of change is very uneven across countries, however, and much of the variation is driven by debates about the model of local government to be adopted, what powers they should have, and how they should be financed. The decentralization process in virtually all of the countries of the Sahel thus remains a point of contention, even if it is seen as key to democratization. Mali had perhaps the most ambitious program of decentralization in the region, with substantial outside funding and support, eventually establishing no less than 703 local elected governments. Far from settling the issue, however, Mali’s decentralization was arguably a key factor in the weakening of the state. And with the return to elected government in 2013 the issue has resurged as central to the debate about accommodating different identity groups through constitutional and institutional design within the contested national community. As in Niger, a main challenge for Malian democracy has been addressing the aspirations of the Tuareg and other Saharan populations. Democratic institutions have proven to be of very limited use in combating sentiments of victimization and misrepresentation. The restricted and weak capacity of the state to handle the pressures fueled by the growing expectations of populations on the periphery of the national economy is also one of the drivers of the continued rebellion by the Mouvement des forces démocratiques de la Casamance (MFDC) in that Senegalese region. Elsewhere in the Sahel, conflicting notions of the core national identity have posed central challenges to building a democratic state. In Mauritania, most notably, the effects of policies of Arabization in the 1980s intensified a deep sociopolitical cleavage pitting the arabophone population, including both the dominant Beydane and the Haratine of historical slave status, against the so-​called “Negro-​Africain” populations (N’diaye 2001). Somewhat differently in Chad, deep seated questions about the Arab, Zaghawa, or Muslim element of national identity continue to pose key challenges to democratic politics. Perhaps the most important fundamental questions about what a democratic state demands of Sahelian societies have been those raised by debates about the meaning of laïcité, the strong French conception of secularism. In the overwhelmingly Muslim-​ majority countries of Mali, Niger, and Senegal, the use of the term itself was hotly contested during the drafting of new constitutions. And although the principle has been maintained throughout, its interpretation has given rise to intense and bitter debates (Villalón 2010). The proliferation and empowerment of new Islamic associations in the liberalized democratic contexts of the 1990s opened the door to conflicts about the relative place of local values and “universal rights” within a liberal conception of democracy. Perhaps the most visible example of the issue were the intense clashes in those three countries around the efforts to pass or reform a code de la famille, the

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    391 set of laws regulating family life. In Senegal (Brossier 2004), Mali (Soares 2009), and Niger (Villalón 1996) the issue provoked intense political debates, ultimately rooted in disagreements about the meaning of democracy itself. The question of laïcité has also been central to democratic politics in the more religiously plural countries of Burkina Faso and Chad, in those cases taking the form of discussions about the state’s relationship to different religious communities. The struggle for democracy in the Sahel was thus shaped from its birth by some fundamental tensions born of the effort to reconcile French institutional and philosophic models of democracy with Sahelian social realities. Within these parameters, the struggle has been more directly shaped by key debates about the elaboration of institutions for the allocation and distribution of power, to which we now turn.

THE POLITICS OF INSTITUTIONALIZING DEMOCRACY Three decades have passed since the majority of francophone African countries adopted the core institutions of democracy. In some case these institutions have matured and consolidated, but most often they remain central points of contention. Much of democratic politics is about efforts to reform institutions, processes that are inevitably driven by the likely effects of such reforms on the distribution of power. The recurrent attempts by ruling elites to manipulate institutions to their benefit in the name of “reform,” and the resulting mobilizations by opposition and civil society forces under the banner of defending democratic achievements, are the hallmark of the struggle for democracy in the region.

Designing and Reforming Electoral Rules The design of electoral rules has been central to political debates and the search for viable political institutions in Africa’s new democracies. While “founding” multiparty elections following the departure from authoritarian or single party governments were at time formative moments representing historic breakthroughs, they and subsequent elections have also often been decried as flawed, setting in motion processes of recurring contestation. In all six countries gradual electoral reforms over the past few decades have produced transformational change in the overall quality of elections, and hence in the quality of democracy itself—​in both directions. Opposition parties have regularly decried the rules of the electoral game as lending themselves to fraudulent practices. Reforms have tended to be cautiously implemented, and only under pressure, but have at times led to increased legitimacy for elections. Indeed, even ruling elite strategies of partially accommodating opposition demands that are motivated by the effort to

392    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón guarantee their own survival can have the unintended consequence of producing further democratic gains and even a turnover of power. Such was the case in Senegal in the period leading to the 2000 elections. Several key issues have been central to debates over the electoral framework. These include the form of the electoral system itself, the establishment of impartial and competent electoral management bodies, the processes for voter registration and identification, and the maintenance of electoral lists (Bodian 2016).2 In all six countries the electoral system governing presidential elections is, uncontroversially, a two-​round majority runoff system. To be elected in the first round a candidate must obtain the absolute majority of votes cast, that is to say 50 percent of the votes, plus one. If no candidate is able to secure this threshold, a runoff is organized between the first and second ranked candidates. The systems for legislative elections, however, vary widely, and they have been the main focus in debates about electoral system reform. Systems for local elections, for municipalities or rural communities established by decentralization processes, have also been quite varied, often borrowing elements from legislative elections, but these have been less central to political debates. The choice of system, which determines how votes cast are translated into legislative seats, have been context contingent. Despite parallel democratic transitions via national conferences in Niger and Mali, for example, the two countries adopted quite different legislative electoral systems. Since 1991, Mali has been operating under a two-​ round majority-​runoff system similar to that inherited from the colonial period. On the other hand, Niger abandoned the majority system when negotiations in the national conference agreed on a proportional representation (PR) system, with the stated goal of guaranteeing the broader inclusiveness of the electoral system. Niger also adopted eight special one-​member districts to ensure representation for small minorities, and this has been retained across all the republics. In Burkina Faso the choice of the PR system with the largest remainder was the result of a consensus reached in 2001 after a period of political tensions, and intended to allow a broader representation of parties (Santiso and Loada 2003). Mixed legislative electoral systems—​with a share of seats elected via PR, and another share by a majoritarian vote—​have been adopted in a number of countries, including Senegal, Mauritania, and Chad. The basic principle of a mixed system has been widely accepted, but debates have arisen over technical design differences regarding the formulae for allocating seats. Generally speaking, there have been no fundamental changes to the core nature of the electoral systems adopted at the transitions. Rather, electoral systems tend to remain fairly enduring as political interests freeze around them, and political actors—​including those from the opposition—​adapt themselves to the incentives they create. Although at times smaller parties demand reforms likely to lead to a better seat-​to-​vote distribution, all of the major parties in any given country tend to favor the maintenance of existing systems. When reforms have in fact occurred, they tend to be in response to a perceived threat to ruling majority parties and driven by a logic of seat maximization. This was the case when Senegal initially adopted a mixed system in the 1980s, and the same logic has driven various revisions to the number of seats allocated by each of

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    393 the electoral formulas. There was similar tinkering with the system in Burkina Faso under Blaise Compaoré. After the opposition was able to secure fifty-​four seats versus the fifty-​seven won by the ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) in the 2002 elections, the ruling party reduced the district magnitude in 2004, while keeping the electoral system intact. As a result, the CDP secured seventy-​three seats during the 2007 legislative elections whereas the opposition got only ten. Then, in 2012, the ruling majority in the National Assembly voted to increase the number of seats in parliament from 111 to 127, allowing the ruling CDP to confirm its strong domination after elections that same year. At times, reforms appear to reflect a genuine attempt to make electoral rules more inclusive and functional, in response to real failings. In Niger, for instance, the electoral system adopted in 1991 during the national conference had unintended consequences. While it allowed twelve newly created and small political parties to win legislative seats, it also opened the door to government instability, and eventually a breakdown. In 1996, following a military coup, and in an effort to prevent future institutional crises, the country shifted from a PR system with the highest remainder to a PR system with the highest average formulae (Di Lorenzo and Sborgi 2001). There are also instances where a formal process of reform was unsuccessfully attempted. This was the case in Mali where, in 1996, the government used its supermajority in the parliament to impose a mixed electoral system after several rounds of unsuccessful negotiations, only to have it invalidated by the Constitutional Court as unconstitutional (Spitz 1997). The most controversial electoral reforms are not associated with changes in electoral systems per se, but rather those that concern the legal framework that regulates both how and by whom elections should be administered, and how election stakeholders (such as parties, candidates, and voters) should participate in the electoral process. Until the 1990s, all countries in the region maintained a governmental model of electoral management, typically within Ministries of the Interior or of Territorial Administration (Fall 2011). The subsequent lack of impartiality of electoral structures generated intense demands for taking the administration of elections out of the hands of the government and transferred to a nonpartisan electoral management body, often referred to as a Commission Electorale Nationale Independent (CENI, Independent National Electoral Commission.) Trends in electoral reforms in francophone West Africa since the early 1990s show a move toward more hybrid and inclusive electoral structures. The role of nonpartisan electoral management bodies as guarantors of the integrity of the electoral process became even more important as distrust among political actors rose. Like variations in electoral systems, the choice of particular types of electoral management structures has been determined by political circumstances and the relative power of opposition to force concessions from governments. In Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania the authority over electoral management has been divided between government institutions and independent or autonomous bodies—​subjecting each to a mechanism of mutual control. Other countries, including Niger and Burkina Faso, have opted for and maintained a CENI, which is fully in charge of both organizing and overseeing elections. In Chad

394    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón the composition and powers of the electoral management body has remained a point of intense contention, with consequences for the perceived legitimacy of elections (Toulou 2020). Other points of controversy are associated with voting procedures. Although voter registration is broadly recognized as a key step in the effort to ensure that only eligible voters vote, and only cast one ballot, countries in the region displayed significant deficiencies regarding the establishment of electoral rolls, the production and distribution of voter cards, and the identification of voters at polling stations. These deficiencies most often represent a gap between the standards set by the electoral law and actual practices, and until the late 1990s most electoral reform efforts in the Sahel were directed at bridging this gap. Efforts to prevent electoral fraud through voter identification has led to an increasing interest in and use of “biometric” systems, with mixed results.3 Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso, all countries that initially faced significant challenges to the transparency of the voting process, are the most successful cases of adopting biometric systems. In Mali, persistent critiques of the electoral lists and voting procedures significantly undermined the legitimacy of the process during the presidencies of both Alpha Oumar Konaré (1992–​2002) and Amadou Toumani Touré (2002–​2012). Following the 2012 coup, as the weak interim government struggled to organize elections to return Mali to constitutional government, the decision was made to use the electoral list to produce biometric national ID cards, known as NINA (National Identification Number), which would serve as voter identification cards. The process for distribution of the NINA cards in May 2013, which required individuals to be physically present, was much credited with the integrity of the resumed electoral process in Mali (Baudais 2015, 418–​ 19). Similarly, in Senegal, perceptions of electoral malpractice in procedures tarnished the elections of 1988, 1993, and 1996. While some improvements were made for the legislative elections of 1998, the issue remained controversial even after the 2000 transition, and in 2004 the electoral lists were overhauled and a biometric electoral card was introduced. In Burkina Faso the concession was made in 2012 as the regime was under fire, and the resulting biometric process was widely seen as successful in the post-​ Compaoré elections of 2015. In Niger, a formal effort at reform started when the government established a National Committee on the Biometric Electoral List to oversee the adoption of a biometric system. In a context of significant distrust between government and opposition, the process dragged on until it became evident that a new system could not be ready before the 2016 elections. The fact that these elections were finally held on the basis of the old electoral lists led to the perception that they were deeply flawed. Political maneuvering has also produced a stalemate in the implementation of reforms in Chad. Following the contested 2006 presidential election, a biometric system emerged as one of the main demands of the opposition. While the political agreement of August 2007 incorporated the adoption of a biometric system, this has never been implemented and the issue continued to be a major point of contention in the years leading up to the deeply flawed 2015 and 2016 elections.4 In Mauritania, considerations of a biometric system have been

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    395 largely eclipsed by the controversies about who is (or is not) a citizen of Mauritania when attempting a population census.

The Politics of Presidential Term Limits A key provision of a democratic constitutions is the regulation of procedures for amendments, with thresholds intended to check against manipulation of the constitution, masked as reform. In some countries amendments require approvals by supermajorities of two-​thirds or three-​quarters of deputies. In others amendments must not only get the approval of a special parliamentary majority but also have to be submitted to a referendum. Given that the presidential majority has frequently coincided with strong parliamentary majorities in the Sahel, incumbent regimes have often easily and unilaterally amended constitutions. Indeed, constitutional revision has been described by one major Senegalese constitutionalist as part and parcel of the Senegalese democratic system (Fall 2012, 2020). Attempts to manipulate constitutions have not gone unchallenged, however, and efforts to amend presidential term limits have been among the most controversial, and the most likely to provoke mass mobilization. With the exception of Mauritania, a two-​term limit to the presidency was a common feature of the democratic constitutions adopted in the Sahel in the 1990s. Despite these legal constraints, the temptation to stay in power remains strong, and recent years have witnessed attempts by heads of state in Senegal, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad to try to extend their tenure in office, with mixed success. Mali provides a notable exception in the region to date, although it would be hazardous to claim that the issue is definitively resolved. In fact, the threat of eliminating term limits seems to be omnipresent, and a constant challenge to democratic experiments. In Chad, Idriss Déby proved most adept at prolonging his tenure via constitutional manipulation; first elected in 1996, he was able to force a constitutional amendment in 2005 to remove the two-​term limit and have himself re-​elected in 2006 and again in 2011. In a context of significant political crisis and challenges to his rule, the National Forum for Institutional Reforms, which he convened in 2018, agreed to reintroduce presidential term limits, henceforward to two six-​year terms, but stipulated that the provision would not be retroactive. Had he not been killed in battle in 2021, Déby could thus hypothetically have remained in office until 2033. Such efforts, however, have not always succeeded. In Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré also succeeded in lifting the initial two-​term limit of the 1992 constitution so as to seek a third term, before conceding to reintroduce limits as Article 37 of the constitution in 2001. These were also not applicable retroactively, however, allowing him to stand again for elections in 2005 and 2010. The defense of Article 37 became the major rallying cry for the opposition as the end of Compaoré’s final term approached in 2015. When he in fact attempted to introduce a change via the National Assembly in October 2014, massive popular protests escalated into a full-​scale uprising, forcing Compaoré to resign and flee the country (Eizenga and Villalón 2020; Loada 2019).

396    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón In both Niger and Senegal, attempts by presidents to secure a third term in office failed, each in its own way. In Niger, Mamadou Tandja, elected in 1999 after the transition to a Fifth Republic, was re-​elected in 2004 under conditions widely judged “free and fair.” As his second term drew to an end in May 2009, however, he announced his intention to propose an amendment to the 1999 Constitution, which not only prescribed a limit of two five-​year terms for the presidency but specifically prohibited any constitutional amendment on that point (Grégoire 2010, 320). Under the Hausa slogan of Tazartché (“continuity”) he dissolved the National Assembly, which was largely hostile to his reform project, as well as the Constitutional Court, which had ruled against his proposed referendum to adopt a totally new constitution (Mueller 2013). Against loud objections, Tandja moved forward with the referendum on 4 August 2009 and, having declared it approved, he inaugurated what he termed the “Sixth Republic.” This proved to be short-​lived; a military coup on 18 February 2010 ended Tandja’s tenure (Chauzal 2011, 558). In Senegal, the inauguration of President Abdoulaye Wade after he defeated incumbent President Abdou Diouf in 2000 was enthusiastically hailed both domestically and abroad as a significant step in the consolidation of Senegalese democracy. The new 2001 constitution that Wade had approved by referendum after his election specified a limit of two five-​year terms for the presidency. Against his earlier promises, and arguing that this provision did not apply retroactively to the initial (seven-​year) term to which he had been elected under the old constitution, Wade announced his intention to run for a third term in 2012. When, in June 2011, he additionally proposed a constitutional amendment to lower the percentage of votes required for a first-​round victory and to create the position of vice-​president (which many believed was designed to enable Wade’s son to succeed him), a coalition of civil society organizations and political parties known as the Mouvement du M23—​or simply M23—​coalesced to lead mass demonstrations against the proposed changes, forcing him to withdraw them. Despite the popular outrage, however, the Constitutional Court ruled in Wade’s favor on his eligibility to stand for a third term. Popular sentiment against his third term, however, translated into votes, and Wade was defeated and conceded to his former prime minister, Macky Sall, in the second round. Sall promptly announced his intention to undo an intervening constitutional revision under Wade that had raised the presidential term back to seven years. Although he eventually did so, the Constitutional Council subsequently ruled that since Sall had been sworn in to serve for seven years he could not shorten his first term. The five-​year term therefore applied only to Sall’s re-​election in 2019. The tenure of presidents seems likely to remain an issue of contention in the ongoing democratic struggle in the Sahel. It is one, however, around which popular sentiment runs strong, and in which experiences in Niger, Senegal, and Burkina Faso have been widely discussed across countries as exemplars in the region, and can be invoked to mobilize citizens. Presidents tempted to try to stay in power are

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    397 likely, it seems, to think twice before undertaking this experiment in constitutional manipulation.

Experimenting with and Manipulating Legislative Institutions In the systems of personalized strong-​man rule of the pre-​democratic era, legislatures in the Sahel were typically monopolized or heavily dominated by a single party (see Eizenga Chapter 21 in this volume), under the control of the president and with little if any independent power. The semi-​presidential systems of the new democratic constitutions set the institutional stage for executives to share power with legislatures. But the history of executive dominance and the legacy of political arrangements that constrained the development and capacity of legislatures to serve as effective checks on the powers of the presidency continue to be felt. The derisive label of “applause chambers” still echoes in the region. In addition, electoral systems that reinforce the representation of the strongest party, and the power of incumbency in elections, has meant that presidents still tend to control strong legislative majorities. (And when they do not, as in Niger in early 1990s, political instability is a significant threat.) Despite this legacy, however, the democratic era has seen increased efforts by legislators, including at times from the presidential party, to assert some autonomy. In this context, another common pattern of institutional manipulation in the name of reform in the region has been the effort to change legislative institutions. Frequently this has taken the form of moving from a unicameral to a bicameral legislature, in which a National Assembly (with members elected by direct universal suffrage) coexists with a Senate (whose members are often elected by indirect vote, or appointed by the president). While the National Assembly has been maintained throughout as the main legislative body, Senates have tended to be unstable, subject to abolition, re-​establishment, or replacement by other institutions, such as a “High Council” representing local governments. Of the six Sahelian states, only Niger has remained committed to a unicameral National Assembly. Chad’s attempt to create a bicameral legislature was stillborn. And Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania have all experimented with bicameral legislatures, each under conditions of opposition and controversy. The Chadian constitution that emerged after the national conference, and was adopted in April 1996, provided for a bicameral parliament of which the upper house was to represent the territorial communities to be created by decentralization. In fact, this institution was never established. Its powers were initially “temporarily” devolved to the National Assembly, until the June 2005 constitutional referendum simply abolished this second chamber.

398    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón The turbulent history of debates about a bicameral legislature in Mali is indicative of the political stakes in such an institutional reform. The 1992 constitution had created an Haut Conseil des Collectivités (HCC) to accompany the extensive decentralization project (Wing 2008). In 2008, the proposal for a major reform of Mali’s democratic institutions called for the HCC to be replaced by an indirectly elected Senate.5 Prolonged discussions about the proposed constitutional reforms meant that they had not yet been subject to a referendum at the time of the 2012 coup. The issue was revived after the return to elected government in 2013, however, and indeed the Algiers Peace agreement of 2014 that attempted to resolve the Malian crisis stipulated the creation of a Senate. Seen by some as a concession to the rebellious forces in the north, and as a possible first step in the move to a federal rather than a unitary state, this proved highly controversial. Nevertheless, under pressure to follow up on the Algiers accord—​and to the political advantage of the presidency—​the National Assembly adopted the proposed constitutional revisions in early 2018, and moved to have them approved in a referendum. The act, however, provoked massive demonstrations under the slogan “Anté A Banna” (“Don’t touch my constitution”), and forced the President to postpone the referendum indefinitely. The establishment of an upper house with appointed members can be a means to reward loyal party members, and its abolition may serve as a strategy for removing supporters of the former regime and weakening clientelist networks. In Senegal, a Senate was first established by Abdou Diouf in 1999 as the 2000 elections approached. Having denounced the institution as wasteful during the campaign, Abdoulaye Wade abolished it in 2001, only to reestablish it in 2007 as his own re-​election approached, with sixty-​ five Senators to be appointed by the president and thirty-​five indirectly elected. Having defeated Wade in 2012, and again decrying the budgetary implications, President Macky Sall abolished the Senate again shortly after his election. By 2016, however, he had replaced it with a 150-​member “Haut Conseil des Collectivités Territoriales” (HCCT), seventy of whom were appointed by the President. Both the Senegalese and the Malian case suggest that strong political motives beyond the search for functional democratic institutions underlie reform efforts. In Mauritania, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz’s effort to change the constitution in 2017 (suspected to be a prelude to removing term limits) was rejected by the Senate (Majlis al-​Shuyukh). In response, and playing one chamber against the other, in 2018 Ould Abdel Aziz called for a referendum on a number of reforms, including abolishing the Senate. With the opposition boycotting, the reforms were approved, and the Senate abolished. The politics of reforming legislative structures at times intersects with struggles over presidential term limits. In Burkina Faso the June 2012 constitutional amendments included a provision to restore an upper house under the name “Senate.” This paralleled an earlier experiment in bicameralism when a “House of Representatives” served as a second chamber from 1997 to 2002. The Senate proposal was immediately bitterly contested by the opposition, who suspected Compaoré of intending to manipulate the new institutions so as to proceed without a referendum to modify Article 37 on term

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    399 limits. In the intense mobilizations and political stalemate of the time, the Senate still had not been established when the October 2014 uprising led to the collapse of the regime. In 2015, the National Transitional Council (CNT) proceeded to a revision of the Constitution, which eliminated the Senate.

Gender Quotas and Representation The question of women’s participation in politics has long been on the democratization agenda, promoted by local women’s organizations and other civil society groups, but also very much embraced as a priority for international actors. Interestingly, in the Sahel (as elsewhere in Africa) the effort to promote women’s political representation has moved in recent years from a social and political issue to an institutional one, and consequently these have also been politically contested and shaped by political calculations. Most frequently, this effort has taken the form of legal provisions requiring women’s representation in decision-​making bodies by establishing gender quotas in electoral systems. Of the six Sahelian countries, only Chad has not embraced such reforms. Perhaps the most extensive gender quota legislation in the region was the “Law on Parity” adopted in Senegal in May 2010. This law attempted to institute absolute parity between men and women in all elected positions, and made compliance mandatory for all political parties. The law provided that all lists of candidates shall be alternately composed of persons of each sex, and when the total number is odd, parity shall apply up to the last even number.6 Although the efforts have often proven politically controversial, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania have all also gradually adopted legislation on gender quotas. Niger moved rather early in the direction of specific requirements for the representation for women. A law of June 2000 created a quota system for all elected positions and was implemented in February 2001 by a presidential decree that specified a 10 percent quota for candidates of either sex on all electoral lists for political parties, coalitions, or independent candidacies. In October 2014, the Nigerien parliament amended the original law, increasing the required minimum proportion of candidates of either sex for elective positions from 10 percent to 15 percent. In a climate of political controversy in 2006, the Malian National Assembly rejected a draft law granting 30 percent of seats to women, on the grounds that this provision would violate the Malian Constitution. Yet in 2014, as the government attempted to get democracy back on track following the collapse of 2012, Mali passed a bill aimed at promoting equal access of women and men to both elective and appointed positions. That bill provided that “on the occasion of the election of deputies to the National Assembly, members of the High Council of Territorial Authorities or local authorities counselors, no list of at least three people presented by a political party, a group of political parties or group of independent candidates, shall be admissible if it has more than 60 percent of women or men.”7

400    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón Mauritania, an official “Islamic Republic,” also moved in the direction of reforming the legal framework to mandate gender representation. A law in 2012 amended an existing 2006 ordinance to promote better representation of women in elected offices. Given that Mauritania uses a mixed electoral system, the law provided that the candidate lists for two-​member constituencies must include at least one candidate of each gender. Those for the three-​member constituencies should comprise at least one woman candidate, in the first or the second place on the list. The list for larger constituencies should include candidates of each sex in alternate positions on the list. In Burkina Faso, a gender caucus of the parliament was established in 2005 to study the possibilities of establishing a quota for women in decision-​making spheres. The process resulted in the development of a 2006 draft law setting quotas of at least 30 percent, for “the more equitable participation of women and men in the life of the Parliament and the political life of the country.”8 In 2009, a new law was passed that required political parties to submit lists of candidates for legislative and municipal elections that included at least 30 percent of each sex. The trend across the region has thus been in the direction of formally mandating gender representation in democratic institutions. The process, to be sure, has been controversial and politicized, both in terms of the principles and in the specific formulations of the efforts. These laws have, perhaps predictably, faced principled opposition from some social groups. In Senegal, for example, the 2010 law on gender parity remains difficult to implement, and meets continued resistance among some religious groups. During the 2014 local elections, for example, a number of political parties faced enormous difficulties in finding sufficient women candidates when compiling their lists. And in those same elections a major national controversy erupted when religious authorities in the holy city of Touba (the stronghold of the Mouride Sufi order) refused to apply the parity law in those circumscriptions. Tacitly, the government had no choice but to quietly accept this religious veto of the law. Other criticisms have come from supporters of gender quotas, who point to various shortcomings in the procedures or the implementation. In each country, the struggle around the specific institutional forms of gender representation is likely to continue as a central aspect of the democratic struggle. In Burkina Faso, for instance, proponents have criticized the fact that the quota is not structured so as to ensure gender representation in the outcome of elections, since it only specifies that at least 30 percent of an electoral list much include each sex, but does not specify the ranking of candidates on lists. A parallel critique prevails in Niger, where the law does not require a particular positioning of women on lists (Kang 2013). Despite these challenges, however, it is notable that women’s representation across the Sahel has both increased and has been largely accepted as central to democratic institutions. In Senegal, for instance, the number of women members of the National Assembly increased from 22 percent (33 representatives) for the 2007–​2012 legislature, to 43.3 percent (64 representatives) for the 2012–​2017 legislature, following the implementation of the Law on Parity in July 2012.

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    401

THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRATIC SUBSTANCE We have focused in this chapter on the institutional struggles that have marked the ongoing democratization efforts of the region. Institutions, of course, set the parameters within which policies in support of substantive democracy can be pursued. The persistence of a strong commitment to the principle of democracy across the region has coexisted with the frequent manipulation of institutions in the name of democratic reform, but often with political interests at their base. Within this dynamic the results have been highly mixed in terms of the resulting levels of substantive democracy. The relative degrees of freedom and equality in the region is of course central to most measures of democratic progress, but well beyond the scope of this chapter. We conclude, nevertheless, with three very brief observations on the intersection of institutional struggles with issues central to the substance of democracy. First, there remains a significant tendency for the concentration or even monopolization of power. Processes of reform have produced very good electoral systems in the region in terms of procedures and institutions. But the overwhelming advantages of incumbency in very resource-​poor contexts means that there are still very few alternations in power via the ballot box. Senegal is the exception, and suggests the possibilities. But elsewhere the broader political and economic dynamics mean that incumbents can win over and over again, even in “free and fair” elections. This fact drives the intensity of politics about term limits; Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso might well have won re-​ election, without fraud, if he had been allowed to run in 2015. Strong dominant parties are thus likely to be the norm in the democratic regimes of the region, and access to power by individuals is thus played out within parties. The flow of information via a free media is central to all measures of substantive democracy. In this respect there is also variation in the region, but strikingly in all countries there exists an independent press with the capacity to challenge and criticize. In reality this capacity is subject to frequent self-​censorship, and occasional repressive censorship, given the power of the state to exert strong pressures on media sources and individual journalists. Yet in all cases there are also strong countervailing forces, both domestic and international, that push back against repression. Across the region the fight for guaranteeing a free press will remain a central feature of the democratic struggle, but the bases exist for that fight to be waged. Throughout the era of democratization questions have been raised about the relationship of religion to democracy, and especially about the “compatibility” of Islam and democracy. Indeed, in some cases religious groups positioned themselves forcefully in opposition to democracy shortly after the transitions. Strikingly, however, across the region religious actors have come to embrace democratic institutions. Even in Mauritania, officially an Islamic Republic, the main religious party of Salafist orientation, Tawassoul, is a major actor in electoral politics. Debates of substance now center on religious policy

402    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón goals, such as those concerning family law, which some portray as antithetical to liberal democracy, even as others suggest that the will of majorities should prevail. Across the region the debates on religion and politics have been complicated since 2011 by the possibilities for governments to evoke issues of “security” in the effort to control religious activism. In this, however, the Sahel does not seem to be much of an exception compared to the rest of the world.

Notes 1. For more detailed accounts of each country’s trajectory, see the country chapters in this volume, as well as the case studies of each country in Villalón and Idrissa 2020. 2. Extensive discussions of ten key issues related to elections in each of the six Sahelian countries is available on the website of the Trans-​Saharan Elections Project (TSEP), maintained by the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida. See: http://​tsep.africa. ufl.edu/​. 3. “Biometric” voter identification refers in general to the use of technology to produce cards with incorporated photos, microchips with personal information, and at times fingerprints or identifying features. There was much debate across the region about the feasibility and the utility of adopting them, but they have become the norm demanded by most voting rights activists. 4. Africa Press (November 2014). “Tchad: La biométrie en voie d’être introduite dans le processus électoral,” https://​www.journalducameroun.com/​tchad-​la-​biometrie-​en-​voie-​ detre-​introduite-​dans-​le-​processus-​electoral/​ 5. The much-​discussed Daba Diawara Commission, named after its chairman, spent years discussing significant institutional reform in Mali, inconclusively. 6. With odd-​numbered lists the parity would thus in fact not be absolute. 7. Loi n° 2015-​052/​du 18 décembre 2015 instituant des mesures pour promouvoir le genre dans l'accès aux fonctions nominatives et électives. Published in the Malian Journal Officiel, 2015-​ 12-​31, n° 56, p. 2204. Available at: https://​www.ilo.org/​dyn/​natlex/​docs/​ELECTRONIC/​ 103433/​125635/​F-​893978704/​MLI-​103433.pdf. 8. Loi n°010-​2009/​AN du 16 avril 2009, portant fixation de quotas genre aux élections législatives et aux élections municipales au Burkina Faso.

REFERENCES Baudais, Virginie. 2015. Les trajectoires de l’état au Mali. Paris: L’Harmattan. Bodian, Mamadou. 2016. The Politics of Electoral Reform in Francophone West Africa: The Birth and Change of Electoral Rules in Mali, Niger, and Senegal. University of Florida, PhD Dissertation, Political Science. Brossier, Marie. 2004. “Les débats sur le droit de la famille au Sénégal. Une mise en question des fondements de l’autorité légitime?” Politique Africaine 96(4): 78–​98. Cabanis, André, and Louis Martin. 1999. Les Constitutions d’Afrique francophone: Evolutions Récentes. Paris: Karthala.

The Democratic Struggle in the Sahel    403 Chauzal, Grégory. 2011. Les règles de l’exception: La régulation (du) politique au Mali et au Niger. Doctoral thesis. Institut d’ Études politiques de Bordeaux. Available at: https://​tel.archives-​ ouvertes.fr/​tel-​00604128. Diarra, Abdoulaye. 2010. Démocratie et droit constitutionnel dans les pays francophones d’Afrique noire: Cas du mali depuis 1960. Paris, Karthala. Di Lorenzo, Amanda, and Sborgi, Enrico. 2001. “The 1999 Presidential and Legislative Elections in Niger.” Electoral Studies 20: 463–​501. Eizenga, Daniel and Leonardo A. Villalón. 2020. “The Undoing of a Semi-​Authoritarian Regime: The Term Limit Debate and the Fall of Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso,” in Jack Mangala, ed., The Politics of Presidential Term Limits in Africa. Routledge: 141–170. Fall, Ismaïla Madior. 2011. Senegal: Election Management Bodies in West Africa, A Comparative Study of the Contribution of Electoral Commissions to the Strengthening of Democracy. AfriMAP and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). Fall, Ismaïla Madior. 2012. Les révisions constitutionnelles au Sénégal. Révisions consolidantes et révisions déconsolidantes de la démocratie sénégalaise. Dakar: Centre de Recherche, d’Etude et de Documentation sur les Institutions et les Législations Africaines. Fall, Ismaïla Madior. 2020. “Constitutional Revisions, Democracy, and the State in Senegal,” in Leonardo A. Villalón and Abdourahmane Idrissa, eds., Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/​ Rowman and Littlefield: 55–78. Grégoire, Emmanuel. 2010. Touaregs du Niger, le destin d'un mythe. Paris: Karthala. Harsch, Ernest. 2017. Burkina Faso: A History of Power, Protest, and Revolution. London: Zed Books. Kang, Alice. 2013. “The Effect of Gender Quota Laws on the Election of Women: Lessons from Niger,” Women’s Studies International Forum. Special issue on “Democratization and Gender Quotas in Africa.” 41(2): 94–​102 Loada, Augustin. 2020. “Democratic Struggles and State Building in Burkina Faso: Manipulation and Resilience of Institutions,” in Leonardo A. Villalón and Abdourahmane Idrissa, eds., Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/​Rowman and Littlefield: 105–136. Moestrup, Sophia. 1999. “The Role of Actors and Institutions: The Difficulties of Democratic Survival in Mali and Niger.” Democratization 6(2): 171–​186. Mueller, Lisa. 2013. “Democratic Revolutionaries or Pocketbook Protesters? The Roots of the 2009–​2010 Uprisings in Niger.” African Affairs 112(448): 398–​420, N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2001. “Mauritania’s Stalled Democratization.” Journal of Democracy 12(3): 88–​95. N’Diaye, Boubacar. 2018. Mauritania’s Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-​Military Relations and Democratization. London: Routledge. Ould Ahmed Salem, Zekeria. 1999. “La démocratisation en Mauritanie: une illusion postcoloniale.” Politique africaine 75: 131–​146. Robinson, Pearl. 1994. “The National Conference Phenomenon in Francophone Africa.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36(3):575–​610. Santiso C., and Loada A. 2003. “Explaining the Unexpected: Electoral Reform and Democratic Governance in Burkina Faso.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 41(3): 395–​419. Soares, Benjamin F. 2009. “The Attempt to Reform Family Law in Mali.” Die Welt des Islams 49: 398–​428.

404    Mamadou Bodian and Leonardo A. Villalón Spitz, Pierre-​Eric. 1997. La Cour constitutionnelle du Mali et le droit electoral. Cahiers du Conseil constitutionnel No. 2, Dossier, Mali. Toulou, Lucien. 2020. “State Building and the Democratic Quest in Chad: Legacies of War and a Political Agreement,” in Leonardo A. Villalón and Abdourahmane Idrissa, eds., Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/​Rowman and Littlefield: 164–190. Villalón, Leonardo A. 1994. “Democratizing a (Quasi) Democracy: The Senegalese Elections of 1993.” African Affairs 93(371): 163–​193. Villalón, Leonardo A. 1996. “The Moral and the Political in African Democratization: The Code de la Famille in Niger’s Troubled Transition.” Democratization 3(2): 41–​68. Villalón, Leonardo A. 2010. “From Argument to Negotiation: Constructing Democracies in Muslim West Africa.” Comparative Politics 42(4): 375–​393. Villalón, Leonardo A., and Abdourahmane Idrissa. 2005a. “Repetitive Breakdowns and a Decade of Experimentation: Institutional Choices and Unstable Democracy in Niger,” in Leonardo A. Villalón, and Peter VonDoepp, eds., The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 27–​48. Villalón, Leonardo A., and Abdourahmane Idrissa. 2005b. “The Tribulations of a Successful Transition: Institutional Dynamics and Elite Rivalry in Mali,” in Leonardo A. Villalón and Peter vonDoepp, eds., The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 49–​74. Villalón, Leonardo A., and Abdourahmane Idrissa, eds. 2020. Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/​ Rowman and Littlefield. Wing, Susanna D. 2008. Constructing Democracy in Transitioning Societies of Africa: Constitutionalism and Deliberation in Mali. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

chapter 21

P OLITICAL PA RT I E S A ND E LITE RESILI E NC E I N SAHELIAN P OL I T I C S Daniel Eizenga

Despite more than a quarter century of multiparty elections in Niger and multiple turnovers in power, the Nigerien political scene remains remarkably unchanged. During 2016, Nigerien voters cast ballots in their sixth presidential and eighth legislative elections since 1993. Incumbent president Mahamadou Issoufou, leader of the political party Parti Nigerien pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme (PNDS), won the election. Issoufou and his principal rivals in the presidential contest—​Hama Amadou, Mahamane Ousmane, and Seyni Oumarou—​are no strangers to politics. Issoufou served as prime minister in 1993. Each of the other three candidates had served as president of the National Assembly, and only Mahamane Ousmane, who served as the country’s president from 1993 to 1996, had never been prime minister. Collectively these politicians have come to represent an entrenched political class empowered by an authoritarian resilience to democratic pressures. Since the adoption of multiparty elections, Nigerien legislative politics have also been dominated by the parties led by these politicians. Before winning the presidency, Issoufou’s PNDS held a significant portion of the opposition seats in the legislature while Seyni Oumarou was the prime minister and leader of the Mouvement National pour la Société du Développement (MNSD), the ruling party at the time. Before Seyni Oumarou, Hama Amadou held numerous important positions within the MNSD, including the premiership. In 2016, Amadou led the opposition as the head of the Mouvement Démocratique Nigérien pour une Fédération Africain (MODEN/​FA), which won twenty-​five seats in the National Assembly and carried Amadou to a presidential runoff (Mueller and Matthews 2016). Although MODEN and other opposition parties boycotted the runoff, the boycott did little to change the outcome. Issoufou won easily, and subsequently a coalition between the PNDS and MNSD established a legislative majority capable of governing.

406   Daniel Eizenga Niger’s political players and parties have remained largely the same after eight legislative elections, despite three regime breakdowns, and four new republics over the course of less than twenty-​five years. The resilience of Niger’s political players is all the more striking since it remains the least dominant-​party system found in the Sahel, meaning that ruling parties must often form governing coalitions in the legislature (Eizenga 2018b, 87). However, under the current regime, Niger also exhibits a willingness of incumbents to use an authoritarian approach to keep potential challengers in check (Elischer 2018). Niger is not alone in this phenomenon; elections in Burkina Faso and Chad also exemplify the ways in which longstanding Sahelian politicians continue to find ways to survive democratization by thwarting political competition and maintaining dominant-​party systems. In Burkina Faso, democratic change required a popular insurrection in 2014 to remove the regime of Blaise Compaoré. Yet, the insurrection failed to generate significant political change or the rise of a new political class. Well-​known and established politicians dominated the field during the subsequent 2015 campaign. The Mouvement de Peuple pour le Progrès (MPP), the political party that ultimately won the 2015 presidential elections and a plurality of the legislative seats, was led by three prominent politicians—​Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, Salifou Diallo, and Simon Compaoré, each of whom had previously held high positions under the Compaoré regime.1 In fact, during the 2015 electoral campaign, some ironically referred to the MPP as “Le Mouvement des Postes Perdus” (“The Movement of the Lost Positions”) because so many of its leaders had previously held positions within the long-​ruling Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès (CDP). During the 2015 campaigns, the MPP and other opposition parties recognized that the former ruling party continued to pose a viable electoral threat, leading transitional leaders—​of whom a majority belonged to opposition parties—​to modify the electoral code. The reform barred all former CDP politicians from contesting the 2015 elections and helped to achieve political change, despite limiting the openness of electoral competition. In Chad, President Idriss Déby Itno represents yet another form of political dominance and authoritarian resilience. He successfully eliminated presidential term limits by popular referendum in 2005.2 Déby obtained a majority of the votes in the first round of presidential election held on 10 April 2016. However, the election suffered from numerous credible accusations of fraud, leading the opposition leader, Saleh Kebzabo, to characterize the election as a “coup d’état électoral” (Eizenga 2018a). Déby first came to power in 1990 after he ousted Hissène Habré, and Déby’s political party the Mouvement Patriotique du Salut (MPS) has held a majority in the legislature since its inaugural elections in 1997. Unlike other Sahelian countries, one of the primary paths to power in Chad has been through political violence, which remains endemic and cyclical throughout the country (Debos 2016). Consequently, a number of notable political leaders have perished, gone into exile, or negotiated their own transformations from rebel leaders to heads of a political party during Déby’s tenure in power.3 These varied forms of political dominance in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad more broadly demonstrate a common distinctive feature of Sahelian politics: the existence of

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics    407 a persistent political elite, what one Burkinabè political analyst described as an “élite infatigable.”4 The presence of such entrenched elites can be noted in all six Sahelian countries, regardless of their ranking by various measures of political freedom, democracy, or autocracy. It would appear that even though multiparty elections across much of Sub-​Saharan Africa brought optimism to those hoping for democratic consolidation and change, the political elite quickly learned how to survive democratization and maintain political power. In the sections that follow, I offer a brief historical account of political parties through the contemporary regime trajectories of the Sahel, highlighting specific trends and exceptions. I also discuss trends across each country’s legislative elections and the political parties that contest them. This discussion engages with many of the different approaches scholars have taken to investigate the role that political parties play across Sub-​Saharan Africa by providing an overview of common political trends in the Sahel from independence until the establishment of multiparty systems. The chapter concludes by discussing the different regime trajectories experienced by each of these countries in an attempt to make sense of the ability of a political elite to survive these moments of ostensible political liberalization despite the successful adoption of multiparty systems.

FROM INDEPENDENCE TO MULTIPARTY REGIMES At the end of the colonial period, the Sahelian countries generally followed political trends similar to other countries in Sub-​Saharan Africa. By the end of the Second World War, and in a few cases prior to it, a number of European-​educated African elites had founded political parties, marking the beginning of multiparty politics in each of the colonies. Political parties across Sub-​Saharan Africa developed into the main apparatus for mass mobilization and nationalism in the post-​war period, as colonial powers embraced political reforms aimed at forestalling eventual decolonization (Bodian 2016, 88–​89). These reforms included the transfer of political power through representation to African governments and, in many cases, the expansion of democratic elections (Coleman and Rosberg 1964; Collier 1982). For francophone countries, including the six Sahelian countries that are the focus of this volume, decolonization was initially envisaged as an integration of the colonies into a larger French Union. African political leaders contested elections for seats in the French National Assembly and in the territorial assemblies that governed the colonies (Morgenthau 1964, 38–​44). This led to the emergence of inter-​territorial parties, particularly in French West Africa, which aimed to form a voting bloc in the French National Assembly.5 In some cases, such as the Alliance pour la Démocratie et la Fédération—​ Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in Burkina Faso, contemporary political parties

408   Daniel Eizenga still carry the banner of these pre-​independence institutions. However, for the most part, these parties disappeared following independence. In 1960, and with independence from France, the leaders of the political parties that held majorities in the territorial assemblies became presidents of the newly established sovereign countries. Significant economic and political crises immediately confronted the new regimes, and presidents and their parties quickly moved to advocate for one-​party systems to bolster their claims to legitimate authority (Collier 1982). These decisions proved to be more successful in some cases than in others, but in each country, the multiparty systems prior to independence quickly receded into effective single party states. With the exception of Senegal, each country also eventually experienced military rule (see Elischer Chapter 22 in this volume). Similar to many other countries in Sub-​ Saharan Africa, various ideologically leftist political parties emerged in the Sahelian countries. However, these movements failed to establish a sustainable base among Sahelian populations and were relatively weak compared to other African leftist movements in such places as Benin, Ethiopia, Mozambique, or Angola. Instead, in the Sahel, a small intellectual class led leftist parties such as the Parti Africain de l’Indépendence (PAI) in Senegal, and these parties struggled to develop a popular following (Diop and Diouf 1990, 16). In other contexts, communist parties fractured or were pushed underground during the era of military and single-​ party rule.6 These movements and their leaders often criticized the ruling parties that forced them into exile or imprisoned them. Ultimately, the attempts to develop communist or socialist political systems remained unsuccessful across the Sahel with one exception, the revolutionary regime of Captain Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso.7 Sankara came to power following a military coup in 1983, only to be assassinated by his own soldiers in 1987. Although his time in power was short, he significantly transformed the political system of Burkina Faso. His legacy continues today as evidenced by the many contemporary political parties in Burkina Faso that pay homage to Sankara and his political ideals (Joly 2009). Following Sankara’s assassination, Burkinabè politics more closely resembled other regimes across Sub-​ Saharan Africa, as a multiparty electoral system was established in the 1990s but remained under the effective control of a dominant party.

Political Transitions and Multiparty Elections Sub-​Saharan Africa followed global trends toward the adoption of multiparty electoral systems in the 1990s. Recognizing a variety of democratic deficits, scholars have referred to these newly multiparty regimes as “quasi-​democracy,” “democratic experiments,” “liberal, semi-​liberal, and illiberal democracies,” “defective democracy,” and more recently as various forms of authoritarianism including: “competitive authoritarianism,” “hegemonic authoritarianism,” and “electoral authoritarianism” (see respectively, Villalón 1994; Bratton and Van de Walle 1997; Diamond 1999; Levitsky and Way 2002; Merkel 2004; Morse 2012; Schedler 2006; Eizenga 2015). Each of the six countries

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics    409 focused on in this volume underwent significant liberalizing reforms during this period and these manifested themselves most noticeably in the consistent organization of multiparty elections.8 Senegal stands apart from the other countries due to its gradual implementation of multiparty elections under the presidential leadership of Abdou Diouf beginning in the 1980s. By 1993, pressures from the opposition led Diouf to allow further electoral reforms, which ultimately led to the Parti Socialiste’s (PS) first electoral loss in the 2000 presidential election. As president, Abdoulaye Wade initially undertook further liberalizing reforms to the political system (Villalón 2015, 326). Wade would attempt to run for a controversial third term in office in 2012, as the leader of the Parti Démocrate Sénégalese (PDS), only to lose the election to his one-​time prime minister, Macky Sall. In 2020, Senegal remained the only country of the six covered in this volume to have experienced a peaceful turnover in power following the electoral loss of an incumbent president, a phenomenon that occurred in 2000 and again in 2012. Senegal’s gradual liberalization, early adoption of multiparty elections, and peaceful turnovers of power underline its exceptionalism in the region. However, it merits noting that, like many of the other Sahelian countries, even after the transition to multiparty elections in Senegal in the early 1980s, the same ruling party and incumbent president held on to power through multiple electoral cycles. Thus, while it is exceptional that Senegal managed a gradual transition to a multiparty system, the period following the initial transition shares several commonalities with political events following other Sahelian multiparty transitions. In each of the other Sahelian countries, a process of reform established multiparty electoral systems, most often following the convening of a national conference to draft new constitutions. These conferences were organized throughout much of francophone Africa, taking their cue from Benin’s experience in 1989. They were often organized following some form of regime breakdown during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and they varied in the extent to which transitional authorities were able to control the process. In Mali, widespread protests in 1991 provided the impetus for the military to end single-​party rule through a coup d’état. Subsequently, political leaders quickly organized a national conference to draft a new constitution. The national conference set the foundation for open political dialogue and the recognition of groups previously excluded from the political process during single party rule (Wing 2008). The leader of the coup, Amadou Toumani Touré, remained uninvolved in the subsequent political reform process, and opted not to contest the first multiparty elections to follow single-​party rule in 1992. He would later be elected president in 2007 as an independent candidate who campaigned on restoring order to Malian politics, before being himself overthrown in Mali’s democratic collapse in 2012. Niger followed a similar pathway when protests instigated by the Union des Scolaires Nigériens, and supported by the larger umbrella organization the Union des Syndicats des Travailleurs du Niger (USTN), brought Niamey to a standstill (Elischer 2013b). In 1989, under pressures to liberalize, President and General Ali Saïbou transformed Niger from

410   Daniel Eizenga a military regime into a single party regime, but the USTN, which had never defied the government, inflicted sufficient pressure on the regime to force the holding of a national conference in 1991 (Charlick 2007). During the national conference, the USTN became one of Niger’s preeminent political players in the establishment of multiparty elections, finally held in 1992 and 1993 (Elischer 2013b). However, this seemingly successful transition to a multiparty system failed to consolidate democracy in Niger, and instead led to recurring regime restarts following coups in 1996, 1999, and 2010. Maneuvering to preempt a loss of control, in the early 1990s the regime in Burkina Faso organized a “Constitutional Commission,” modeled after these national conferences, but lacking the independence of those held in Mali and Niger (Harsch 2017, 117). Instead, the Commission drafted a new constitution under conditions of significant oversight from the interim president, Blaise Compaoré, and his party the Organisation pour la Démocratie Populaire/​Mouvement du Travail (ODP/​MT). Compaoré was eventually elected president under the new constitution in 1991, and again in three subsequent presidential elections in 1998, 2005, and 2010. Similarly, in Chad, the 1993 Sovereign National Conference aimed to limit the power of the executive, but ultimately failed to do so. Idriss Déby, who had taken power after launching a rebellion from Sudan to oust Hissein Habré, organized and then manipulated a prolonged transitional process so as to guarantee his victory in the 1996 election.9 Déby would go on to officially win contested presidential elections in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016. Finally, in Mauritania, in 1992 the military regime modified the constitution allowing multiparty elections to be organized for the first time. Unsurprisingly, incumbent president Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya was re-​elected to the executive office. Ould Taya was, however, eventually ousted by a military coup in 2005, leading to the organization of new multiparty parliamentary elections in 2006 and presidential elections in 2007, ushering in a brief but widely hailed democratic transition in the country. However, the military once again intervened in 2008. In the pattern seen elsewhere, the leader of that military intervention, Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz, won the new presidential elections of 2009 and was re-​elected in 2014 before stepping down to allow the election of his long-​time associate Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in 2019. The transitions to multiparty elections launched in Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania, all resulted in new political institutions, namely multiparty elections and representative bodies, but in each case the military remained an important political actor curtailing and limiting processes of real political liberalization. The processes of liberalizing reform that emerged from these transitions have led to significant variation in the extent and nature of democracy in contemporary Sahelian regimes. The data from various research efforts, such as the Varieties of Democracy project, Freedom House, or the Polity IV project, which attempt to measure levels of democracy in regimes over time, all display common trends among these six countries. Senegal consistently holds the highest democratic value on each scale, and Chad maintains the lowest value from 1990 through 2016. The other four countries display a significant amount of variation, occupying differing points between Senegal and Chad

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics    411 at different times. In the following section, I examine these varied regime trajectories by analyzing the types of political parties that have emerged under multiparty elections. I then propose an initial analysis of legislative elections, which reveals striking similarities and some differences.

Types of Political Parties in Sahelian Politics Before the wave of democratization during which virtually all Sub-​Saharan African regimes adopted multiparty elections, the study of political parties in Africa often overlapped with the study of political regimes and their leaders. The inextricable and often highly personal linkages between political leaders and their parties made it difficult to study political parties as institutions. Instead, scholars of African politics tended to conceptualize political power and its origins from various sociological sources of authority. These include: the personalistic “Big Man” rule (Hyden 2013, 97–​116), ethnicity and/​or political clientelism (Lemarchand 1972), or neo-​patrimonialism (Van de Walle 2001), as well as Weberian-​inspired ideal types of authority (Jackson and Rosberg 1982). This left a gap in the conceptualization of political parties in Africa, leading many to focus heavily on the ethnic origins of political leaders even after the widespread adoption of multiparty elections.10 To date, relatively few comprehensive studies of African political parties as institutions exist. However, a growing body of research, focused on variations in political party types and party systems in Africa, appears poised to fill this gap. Several works have begun to lay the foundation for the systematic study of political parties and party systems across Sub-​Saharan Africa following the adoption of multiparty electoral systems. Authoritarian legacies and resiliencies play an important role in the construction of institutions during the introduction of multiparty elections, which in turn shapes the development of new opposition parties (LeBas 2011). These legacies also help to explain variation across the party systems regarding the regularity of party competition, the social roots of political parties, the legitimacy of the electoral process, and degree of party organization prior to multiparty elections (Riedl 2014; Sanches 2018). Across these areas the influence of former authoritarian institutions persists beyond the adoption of multiparty systems, and shapes the level of party competition that follows founding elections.11 Recognition of these trends in African politics has shifted scholarly conceptions of political power in Africa toward better understanding the institutional frameworks by which power is consolidated in African regimes. The transitions in the 1990s to multiparty systems elevated the importance of political parties in contemporary politics. And yet there exists only limited systematic analysis for scholars to evaluate the different types of political parties operating across the continent. By drawing on studies of political parties found in other world regions, Elischer (2013) begins to fill this gap with an operationalized and amended form of Diamond and Gunther’s (2001) political party typology. This framework accounts for political parties’

412   Daniel Eizenga goals, social base, electoral strategy, and organizational structure (Elischer 2013a, 30–​ 37).12 Elischer’s application of this typology to his cases reveals that not all political parties in Sub-​Saharan Africa form along ethnic cleavages; rather, certain demographic conditions increase or decrease the likelihood that ethnic parties will prosper.13 The typology, however, presents several additional avenues through which one might usefully compare political parties in the Sahel. For instance, comparisons across the various categories would serve to indicate whether any particular trends exist with regard to the characteristics of Sahelian political parties. A first step toward such an analysis needs to consider the politically relevant parties in each of the six Sahelian countries.14 Parties may be considered to be politically relevant if they served as the ruling party, held a plurality of seats in the legislature, or officially led the opposition in the legislature during the last two electoral cycles.15 The argument that ethnicity is not a principal driver for party formation in African politics is confirmed by the politically relevant parties operating in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. Indeed, the similarities between party types in the Sahel regardless of country are perhaps the most striking feature of this comparison. Nearly every major political party in the Sahel region falls under the category of what scholars have called a “catch-​all” party.16 The self-​proclaimed Islamist party founded in Mauritania, Tawassol, is the one notable exception, best classified as either a programmatic party or a religious party.17 Chad is the only one of the six countries that presents a slight deviation from this trend. Chadian parties were initially founded on strong ethno-​regional bases, but even there these distinctions have largely diminished over time and with repeated electoral contests. It is also worth noting that unlike the other countries, Chad has far fewer “ethnic cores” and thus ethnic parties would arguably be more likely (Elischer 2013a). Chad does not have a distinguishable “ethnic core group,” and yet due to the sheer number of different ethnic groups in Chad, political organization has often required multi-​ethnic alliances. Ethnicity may not be a primary political mobilizer in the Sahel, but the preponderance of catch-​all parties suggests that another factor may be shaping parties in this fashion. For instance, political parties in the region may simply be attempting to capture as many votes from as many communities as possible. Generally, this should strengthen political debate in the region. By engaging with multiple communities and developing cross-​cutting political platforms, parties would likely develop more representative and inclusive institutions, which result in higher degrees of accountability. One might predict that over time, as parties vie for the support of as many voters as possible, their platforms will begin to develop different policy prescriptions aimed at mobilizing large cross-​sections of the voting population. Yet this prediction is likely to be realized only if political parties, even catch-​ all parties, are not reduced to personalized vehicles for extending patronage to voters. If political parties rise and fall with the fate of specific political elites, or of an entrenched political class, this suggests that policies and political debate matter very little, and instead it is the generosity and wealth of particular party leaders that

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics    413 guide voters’ decisions at the ballot box. The available evidence on party strategies and debates is only suggestive of likely patterns in Sahelian political parties, but as shown by the elections in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad that were discussed at the beginning of this chapter, political elites across the Sahel demonstrate a striking degree of resilience. The prevalence of catch-​all parties might also be an artifact of the shared colonial history of these countries. Inspiration for the multiparty electoral systems in the Sahel was primarily derived from the French Fifth Republic. Consequently, the constitutions and the laws that regulate party formation share many similarities, with the partial exception of Mauritania, which is officially an Islamic Republic. Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Senegal all prohibit the foundation of political parties or groups based on religion, ethnicity, regionalism, or other sectarian characteristics. Thus, the essential structure of Sahelian multiparty political systems appears quite similar to the political parties that operate within them. However, as pointed out by Bodian and Villalón (Chapter 20 in this volume), the details of each system vary internally and are susceptible to constant tinkering.18 In addition to these various internal debates over the content of their respective electoral codes and other institutional reforms following the adoption of multiparty elections, political parties remain to be assessed by their electoral performance. This chapter now turns to an analysis of the thirty-​five legislative elections that have been held in these six countries in the quarter century from the adoption of multiparty systems through the end of 2016.

Legislative Elections and Their Results and Implications in the Sahel Very few attempts to systematically analyze African legislative elections data have been made to date. This is in part due to persistent data limitations, which present challenges for researchers. However, recent innovations in electoral systems and the electoral management bodies—​the organizations that administer the electoral process in many of Africa’s multiparty political systems—​have improved the transparency and thus the access that researchers and voters have regarding elections data. A consideration of election data from each legislative election held in the six Sahelian countries since their respective adoptions of a multiparty systems through 2016 exposes several interesting points of comparison.19 The elections data reveal interesting divergences, many of which have been highlighted already in this chapter. For example, with the exception of Senegal, all turnovers in power have taken place following some type of extraconstitutional regime breakdown. This has been most common in Niger, where a military coup in 1996 created the first instance of extraconstitutional regime breakdown, then again in 1999, and again in 2010. Niger is also the only case where the party system is routinely classified as non-​dominant. The popular insurrection that overthrew the former president of

414   Daniel Eizenga Burkina Faso in 2014, and the transitional government that then organized subsequent elections, also highlight a moment of extraconstitutional regime breakdown. However, unlike Niger, this breakdown and the resulting turnover in power boosted perceptions of Burkina Faso’s democratic standing. Sahelian regimes present a wide spectrum of regime types: from full democracy in Senegal, and arguably for a time in Mali, to full authoritarian regimes in Chad and at times Niger and Mauritania. During many legislative elections, Sahelian political regimes exhibit traits of both authoritarian and democratic regimes, suggesting that they might best fall within a hybrid regime type, commonly referred to either as “electoral democracies” or “electoral authoritarian regimes.” Electoral democracies differ from electoral authoritarian regimes in that they are defined by a ruling party and president initially elected to office under a constitutional multiparty system, rather than ones that took power by an extraconstitutional mechanism prior to organizing elections. For instance, President Abdou Diouf first became president of Senegal in 1981 when Leopold Senghor resigned from the office. He was not elected to his first term in office and thus until Diouf lost the 2000 presidential election, Senegal might be considered an electoral authoritarian regime. Other interesting comparisons emerge from a review of Sahelian multiparty legislative elections. Party systems in the region, for example, tend to be dominant-​party systems, as is the case across much of the continent (Bogaards 2008, 126). Once again, however, Senegal emerges as an outlier in the Sahel because even though its party system remains a dominant one, it is the only case in which a peaceful transfer of power following legislative elections occurred. While this might be seen as an indication of non-​dominance, I would argue that it is rather an indicator of regime type rather than of dominance, given that the Senegalese electoral system provides for ruling-​party dominance in the legislature. Indeed, it is remarkable that despite this turnover the Senegalese system retains its dominant-​party nature, suggesting that the leaders of Senegalese political parties have incentives to maintain the electoral system that produces this result. This feature has been observed elsewhere in Africa; indeed, Bogaards notes that “Africa is exceptional because of the dominance of dominant party systems on the continent” (2008, 126). Although Senegal may conform with other African cases, it remains an outlier in the Sahel. Both Niger and Mali represented cases of non-​dominant systems prior to the democratic reversals in each country; indeed, democratic breakdown has occurred repeatedly in Niger. This offers initial evidence that dominant-​party systems may lead to better prospects for democratization in the immediate future, and indeed, to the extent that dominant-​party systems provide political stability and in turn foster the institutionalization of an electoral system, perhaps also in the long term. On the other hand, it may be equally likely that dominant-​party systems enable ruling parties to escape accountability and engage in authoritarian tendencies, since there are fewer parties to provide viable electoral alternatives. Given these observations, the outcome of the post-​transition 2015 elections in Burkina Faso, and the resultant non-​dominant system might be viewed with cautious optimism, suggesting that the newly elected ruling party will need to be accountable to the electorate if it wishes to maintain power. Conversely, the increasingly

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics    415 autocratic nature of the regimes in Chad and Niger suggest that these regimes may remain stable in the immediate future, at the cost of developing long-​lasting democratic institutions. In addition to these initial observations about the consequences of dominant-​party systems, measures of the “effective and relevant” number of parties in the Sahel remain low, suggesting an entrenched political class. This is despite the fact that the actual number of parties tends to be quite high and is often increasing. This leads to a number of still open questions regarding party proliferation, specifically in the Sahel. Why, for example, is the number of political parties receiving votes in legislative elections increasing, while largely the same political parties under the same leadership appear to be dominant? In what ways does regime type affect the trajectories of political parties and their incentives to remain in the political opposition? Recent research on party proliferation in Senegal begins to address some of these questions more deeply, arguing that party financing and the past work experience of party leaders play a crucial role in party trajectories (Kelly 2018). Further research might aim to better understand how these dynamics differ across the Sahelian context. Should we expect similar or different trajectories in a less dominant party system like in Niger? Or with an authoritarian regime as exhibited in Chad? Perhaps the largest conclusion that can be drawn from this initial analysis is that much remains to be known about the specific contours of Sahelian party systems.

CONCLUSION This chapter has laid out the different political developments that shaped the formation of political parties in the Sahel, from independence through the wave of political liberalization that routinized multiparty electoral politics. While Senegal experienced a gradual transition to multiparty elections with a series of political reforms during the 1980s, the remainder of the Sahelian cases did not regularly begin holding multiparty elections until the 1990s. Typically, these elections followed national conferences, which were convened to draft and approve new constitutions and, with the exception of Mauritania, each of these conferences took place following some form of regime breakdown. Despite the optimism of the initial openings, once multiparty elections became established and routine, political systems remained stubbornly characterized by dominant-​party systems. The comparisons of political parties by type and the data from legislative elections reveal a number of striking similarities across the six Sahelian countries. In the terminology of Elischer’s (2013a) party typology, in virtually every Sahelian case the politically relevant parties bridge ethnic divides and should be considered “catch-​all” parties. Reviewing the data from all thirty-​five multiparty legislative elections that took place in the region before 2017 demonstrates that most stable party systems in the Sahel are dominant-​party systems, regardless of their regime type.

416   Daniel Eizenga Sahelian political parties and the party systems that they inhabit have developed along similar paths, but a closer look reveals that they also have a number of distinguishing features. As such, for those interested in the dynamics between parties, party systems, and political regimes, the Sahel offers a wide range of useful comparisons. Senegal, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania each represent stable regimes with varying degrees of political competition and participation following their adoption of multiparty elections. Mali and Niger present less stable trajectories, but differ with regard to party-​ system dominance and levels of inter-​system-​party competition. How can we explain these differences? Among the factors that might help to explain them is the relationship between political and other institutions, such as traditional and religious institutions. Research advanced by Riedl (2014) and Sanches (2018) has begun to examine the degree to which party systems are integrated in society by using the concept of party-​system institutionalization to address different degrees of institutional stability. One might posit here that the traditional and religious institutions in Senegal played an important role in the stability of Senegal’s political system, allowing it to “institutionalize” gradually after the adoption of a full multiparty system during the 1980s. Consequently, perhaps, the prospects for democratization in Senegal increased over time. By contrast, the civil conflict in Chad and the disparate ethno-​regional cleavages in Chadian society seem to have significantly contributed to the restoration of authoritarian rule. If traditional institutions helped political parties and their leaders to provide political stability in Senegal while contesting multiparty elections, no similar social forces could claim to capture sufficient social power in Chad. Consequently, the regime in Chad turned to other methods, such as repression, to deter competition. The 2014 regime breakdown and subsequent government transition in Burkina Faso also signaled an intriguing break in the assumed trajectories of regimes. The successful organization and administration of multiparty elections in Burkina Faso during 2015 suggest that institutions may persist even after extraconstitutional events. The resilience of political institutions during turnovers in power (whether constitutional or extraconstitutional) allows for further institutionalization, and in turn bolsters the prospects for democratic progress. These examples suggest intriguing areas for further inquiry on the regimes, parties, and party systems of the Sahel. These examples also reinforce the observations made at the beginning of this chapter, and confirmed by much of the data on legislative elections. Although multiparty elections have become an established norm throughout the region, Sahelian party systems continue to be characterized by the high level of dominance by one party. As we have seen, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Chad have each been characterized by dominant-​ party systems, even if at different moments since the adoption of multiparty elections they have represented very different regime types, with varying degrees of real electoral competition, civil liberties, and political participation. Despite this variation across regime types, one striking feature remains constant through the experiences of countries in the Sahel: established political elites have managed to navigate dominant-​party systems to ensure their persistence and survival across the politics of democratization.

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics    417

Notes 1. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was prime minister, president of the National Assembly, and party chairman during his time in the CDP. Simon Compaoré was the CDP mayor of Ouagadougou for nearly twenty years. Salifou Diallo held several ministerial positions under Compaoré’s rule until 2008 when he was appointed to serve as ambassador to Austria. 2. In 2018, Déby organized a national forum to debate the reform of the constitution. A new constitution was adopted in May 2018, which reinstated presidential term limits at a maximum of two six-​year terms. Under the new presidential term limits, assuming Déby wins the next two presidential contests, he could remain in power until 2033. 3. There are numerous examples one could draw on to support this claim, but perhaps the best known is the case of opposition leader Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh who disappeared after being taken away and detained by authorities in February 2008. 4. Interview with political analyst about the 2015 election in Ouagadougou, 13 December 2015. 5. These included: the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, Indépendants d’Outre-​Mer, Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière, and just before independence the Parti du Regroupement Africain. For a more detailed account of pre-​independence multiparty politics in French West Africa see Morgenthau 1964; Morgenthau 1998; Thompson and Adloff 1969. For the immediate post-​independence movements see: Collier 1982. For a discussion of different types of political rule during the post-​independence period see Jackson and Rosberg 1982. 6. Examples include: the Sawaba party in Niger (Van Walraven 2003); leftist intellectual followers of Modibo Keita during the military regime in Mali (see Schuster 1978); and the Parti des Kadihines and the Mouvement National Démocratique in Mauritania (Salem 2010). Action Tchadienne pour l’Unité et le Socialisme/​Parti Révolutionnaire Populaire et Écologique (ACTUS/​PRPE) was considered the only Chadian communist party (Haggar 2014, 26). Unlike the other five Sahelian countries, Chad experienced decades of civil conflict in the years following independence. Accounts of the various armed groups that participated in these conflicts have been documented extensively in Buijtenhuijs (1978, 1987). 7. For further reading on Sankara and the impact of his memory on Burkinabè politics see Joly 2009; Harsch 2014; Bonzi 2015. 8. For a detailed account of the political reforms which led to multiparty transitions in the Sahel see Villalón and Bodian (Chapter 20 in this volume). 9. See Buijtenhuijs 1993 and 1998 for a more in-​depth account of the Chadian Conférence Nationale Souveraine and the subsequent founding elections. 10. See Posner 2005 as an exemplar of the primacy given to ethnicity in the study of African politics. 11. Two recent dissertations also seek to expand on this growing body of research. Kelly (2014) and Choi (2018) treat political parties in Africa as political institutions by providing studies respectively of party proliferation in Senegal and a comparison of party strongholds and legislative turnover in Kenya and Zambia. 12. The typology used in Elischer (2013a) is presented in detail on page 30. Here, the various subcategories (Party Goals: Motive of Formation and Rhetoric; Electoral Strategy: Electoral Rhetoric and Contention of Election Manifesto; Organizational Structure: National Coverage, Party Factions and Party Apparatus; Social Base: Leadership Composition, Cabinet Composition and Party Nationalization and Divergence Scores) are broken down along with their various measures and then applied to several African cases.

418   Daniel Eizenga 13. Elischer applies his typology to three detailed case studies: Kenya, Namibia, and Ghana. He also analyzes several preliminary case studies of politically significant parties in Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Zambia, and Benin as a robustness check on the finding that ethnic parties are not the norm, but are more likely to occur in those cases where the demography of country does not have an ethnic core group. 14. For an in-​depth discussion of a research undertaking this effort and a table presenting the findings see Eizenga (2018b), ­chapter 2. 15. Exceptions to this coding in the project named above were made for Mauritania, where the two parties holding the greatest number of seats were selected, and Senegal, where the two parties selected represent long-​standing parties in the country’s political history and maintain significant representation in the ruling coalition and opposition coalition. 16. Elischer writes that the catch-​all party, “aims to form a long-​lasting political force in which two conditions are fulfilled: It bridges its country’s dominant ethnic cleavages (past or present) by incorporating influential community leaders from both sides of the cleavage into its leadership structure. Furthermore, the ethnic catch-​all party is formed long before election day and survives electoral defeats as well as leadership contests without major changes (splits and mergers) in the groups that make up the party. By staying together as a united political force, it demonstrates that it has overcome the divisive logic of ethnic arithmetic” (2013a, 29). 17. For a detailed account of Islamism as a political movement in Mauritania including the emergence of the contemporary political party Tawassoul, see: Ould Ahmed Salem 2013. 18. For more on the differences and similarities between each country with regard to their electoral systems and laws see the results of the Trans-​Saharan Elections Project conducted by the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida: http://​tsep.africa.ufl.edu/​ 19. I compiled this data using different sources, including Nohlen, Krennerich, and Thibaut (1999), country records from the Inter-​Parliamentary Union, country-​specific Electoral Commission official results, and country-​specific reports. For each election, efforts were made to confirm the electoral results from multiple sources. For a tabulated presentation of this data see Eizenga (2018b), ­chapter 2.

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chapter 22

MIL ITARIES IN S A H E L IA N P OLITI C S Sebastian Elischer

THE EVOLUTION OF CIVIL–​MILITARY RELATIONS IN THE SAHEL It is hardly possible to overstate the influence of the armed forces in the francophone Sahel. Following independence from France, five out of the six Sahelian countries experienced long spells of military rule. In Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania the armed forces established military dictatorships in the 1960s and 1970s. In Chad the armed forces proved unable to stop the disintegration of the Chadian state, which, ultimately, led to their own disintegration. Only in Senegal did civilian rulers remain in power. The onset of political liberalization across the Sahel in the early 1990s changed the relationship between civilian and military elites. Domestic and international efforts to liberalize the political sphere gave rise to diverse civil–​military constellations. In Mauritania the armed forces retained a tight grip over the political system and remained the preeminent political actor. Mauritania’s 2005 military coup ushered in the country’s first multiparty elections and the return of a civilian government for the first time since 1978. The civilian interlude was short-​lived, however. In August 2007, military officers again overthrew the government and maintained themselves in power following questionable elections. In Burkina Faso the armed forces entered the 1990s as the main support base of Blaise Compaoré. In contrast to Mauritania, the Burkinabè armed forces lacked coherence. After several mutinies, the Burkinabè military supported the civilian coup against the Compaoré regime in 2014. Attempts by certain sections of the armed forces to halt the democratic transition process failed. In Niger and Mali civil–​military relations followed a distinctly different path. The Nigerien armed forces grudgingly withdrew from power in the early 1990s. The Malian armed forces paved the way for

424   Sebastian Elischer democratic change. Niger and Mali thus saw early transitions to civilian rule. Despite these encouraging developments, both saw the return of the armed forces to power. The Nigerien army staged coups in 1996, 1999, and 2010. While the 1996 coup was an attempt to return to power permanently, the 1999 and 2010 coups ushered in the handover of power to democratically elected civilian rulers. The Malian military staged a coup in 2012 after the civilian government had failed to stop the advance of Tuareg and then jihadi forces across Mali’s north. The military intervention eventually gave way to democratic elections in 2013, but the military was to return in another coup in 2020. Both the Nigerien and the Malian armies still harbor factions with interventionist tendencies. Senegal and Chad constitute outliers. In Senegal civilian rule was never challenged in earnest. In Chad it is difficult to speak of a national army as the country remains haunted by national disintegration and the personalization of politics. The chapter provides an overview of all these developments. It first outlines some general conceptual considerations, which guide the empirical analysis of civil–​military relations across the six countries. Second, it retraces the immediate causes behind the first military intervention in the five countries that experienced such interventions during the 1960s and 1970s. Third, it examines the different and at times seemingly contradictory evolution of civil–​military relations after the onset of political liberalization in the early 1990s. The conclusion argues that although there is a visible trend toward civilian rule across the Sahel, several contemporary challenges have the potential to reverse that trend.

MILITARY COUPS: CAUSES AND OUTCOMES The literature has identified a number of factors that are conducive to military interventions. Economic crises in the context of widespread poverty, a lack of trust in civilian rulers, political instability, institutional gridlock, social tensions and bad treatment of the armed forces by civilian rulers undermine the legitimacy of civilian rule (Johnson, Slater, and McGowan 1983; Decalo 1990; Kposowa and Jenkins 1993; McGowan 2005; Clark 2007). Unsurprisingly therefore, most military coups in Africa are bloodless and meet little resistance. In the aftermath of military takeovers media reports frequently feature large crowds celebrating the armed forces for their removal of seemingly incompetent civilian rulers. Simultaneously, junta leaders portray themselves as the guardians of stability and order. However, in reality ruling juntas are often divided. Personal ambitions and diverging views on the country’s political future shape the relationships among the ruling officers (Geddes 2011; Marinov and Goemans 2014; Singh 2014; Thyne and Powell 2016). Interestingly, since the end of the Cold War military coups have more often ushered in competitive elections rather than military dictatorship (Marinov and Goemans 2014; Thyne and Powell 2016). It is important to note,

Militaries in Sahelian Politics    425 however, that post-​coup elections are not necessarily free from military interference or outright electoral rigging (Elischer 2017). Drawing on the seminal work by Perlmutter (1969), I distinguish three factions within the armed forces: rulers, arbitrators, and independents. The ruler faction is highly skeptical about the ability of civilians to provide effective leadership. Rulers expect to benefit materially and politically from long-​term military rule. By contrast, arbitrators favor a return of civilian rule. The independent faction consists of officers who are undecided about the future political trajectory of a regime and the role of the armed forces within it. In the aftermath of a coup the armed forces have three options to determine the future trajectory of a political regime: First, the junta may allow for multiparty competition and subsequently withdraw from power. Some scholars refer to such a scenario as a “good coup” (Connors and Hewison 2008). Second, the armed forces may allow for multiparty elections but rig the post-​coup elections in favor of their preferred candidate. Third, the armed forces may not allow for elections at all and establish military dictatorship instead. Each of these outcomes is determined by the power relations between the arbitrators, rulers, and independents within the armed forces. In the following section I examine the emergence of praetorian armies across the francophone Sahel during the 1960s and 1970s. I will show that in five out of six countries the armed forces were dominated by the ruler faction. Only in one country, Senegal, did civilian rule remain the norm. Subsequently, I show that following the end of the Cold War, arbitrator factions gained the upper hand in some, but not in all, countries.

THE RISE OF PRAETORIAN ARMIES With the exception of Senegal, all Sahel countries experienced military dictatorship from the 1960s or 1970s onward. Adversarial socioeconomic conditions, the devastating effects of the Sahel droughts of the 1970s and the centralization of power in the hands of autocratic elites, as well as underperforming and corrupt state bureaucracies, all undermined the legitimacy of civilian rule across the region. While all countries shared these structural features, the immediate causes that triggered military takeovers in Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso differed. In four out of the six countries the civilian elites provoked their own downfall by openly criticizing the conduct of their armed forces or by building up alternative security forces at the expense of their national armed forces. In Mauritania and Chad incumbents publicly decried the performance of their militaries on the battlefield. In Mali and Niger civilian autocrats established alternative security forces. Thus, military interventions ultimately resulted from a lack of political backing for the military by civilian rulers. The fact that Senegal remained under civilian leadership confirms that military coups were not inevitable. Burkina Faso remains the only country in which military coups were the direct result of ongoing political instability. Table 22.1 provides a summary of all coups and post-​ coup governments across the francophone Sahel in chronological order. The remainder

426   Sebastian Elischer Table 22.1 Military coups and military rule: 1960–​1990 Country

Coup date

Trigger

Post-​coup trajectory

Burkina Faso

3 January 1966 Conflict between Major General Aboubakar Sangoulé Lamizana trade unions and remains in power until 25 November 1980. incumbents Colonel Saye Zerbo overthrows Lamizana on 25 November 1980. Major Dr Jean-​Baptiste Ouédraogo overthrows Zerbo on 8 November 1982. Captain Thomas Sankara overthrows Ouédraogo on 4 August 1984. Captain Blaise Compaoré overthrows Sankara on 15 October 1987. Compaoré remains in power until 31 October 2014.

Mali

19 November 1968

Conflict between Coup leader Moussa Traoré remains in power until president and 1991. armed forces

Niger

15 April 1974

Conflict between Coup leader Seyni Kountché remains in power until president and his death on 10 November 1987. armed forces Kountché’s successor, General Ali Saïbou, remains in power until 16 April 1993.

Chad

13 April 1975

National disintegration

Colonel Félix Malloum remains in power until 23 March 1979. Shortly thereafter, the Chadian civil war breaks out.

Mauritania 10 July 1978

Conflict between Colonel Mustafa Ould Salek remains in power until president and 3 June 1979. armed forces Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly overthrows Salek on 3 June 1979. Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah overthrows Louy on 4 January 1980. Chief of Staff Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya overthrows Haidallah on 4 December 1983. Taya remains in power until 3 August 2005.

Senegal

n/​a

n/​a

n/​a

Source: Compiled by author.

of this section illustrates the evolution of civil–​military relations in all six countries after independence in greater detail. In Mauritania and Chad civil–​military relations disintegrated shortly after independence. In Mauritania divisions between the armed forces and the post-​independent government of Moktar Ould Daddah centered on Mauritania’s ill-​advised military intervention in Western Sahara. In 1975, the World Court in The Hague ruled in favor of self-​determination for Western Sahara. Subsequently, Nouakchott signed an agreement with Morocco and Spain committing Spain to withdrawal from the territory and to hand over the territory to a joint Moroccan–​Mauritanian administration. Morocco’s

Militaries in Sahelian Politics    427 military campaign against the POLISARIO (Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguía el-​Hamra y Río de Oro) forced Nouakchott to make a decision about its future role in the Western Sahara (Seddon 1996). Ould Daddah decided to emulate Morocco’s stance and ordered the Mauritanian armed forces to annex Mauritania’s share of the Western Sahara. The decision was made without any consultation with the armed forces or the cabinet (Pazzanita 1996); and it caused a dramatic increase in the size of the Mauritanian army from two thousand in 1975 to twenty thousand in 1978. Ill-​equipped and insufficiently trained, the Mauritanian forces frequently fell victim to the POLISARIO’s guerilla warfare tactics. In January 1976, the Mauritanian troops ran out of ammunition. In June 1977, the POLISARIO attacked Nouakchott, which proved psychologically devastating for the morale within the armed forces. As the costs of warfare accounted for around 60 percent of the annual budget, the country soon faced a serious economic crisis. The destruction of Mauritania’s economic infrastructure by the POLISARIO further caused a dramatic drop in iron ore exports (Hodges 1978). Throughout the war segments of the armed forces displayed their unwillingness to fight to the wider public. A variety of factors accounted for this. First, the government refused to consult the military hierarchy about the purpose and the direction of the war. Second, the longer the war lasted the more it became obvious that, due to Soviet support for the POLISARIO, Mauritania would be unable to decide the conflict in its favor. Third, many soldiers were Black African or belonged to the haratin minority and refused to risk their lives for a country led by the dominant White Moors (beydanes). Frustrated with the situation, President Ould Daddah sharply criticized the armed forces’ conduct in public and further accused them of corrupt activities (Hodges 1978; Beauvais 1998; Sneiba 2013). Chad faced a military threat within its own borders. President Tombalbaye’s violent leadership was biased in favor of the Christian south and soon led to lingering tensions between the government and the Muslim-​dominated north (Decalo 1980; Lemarchand 1981). In October 1965, tax riots in the eastern region and the repressive conduct of local officials resulted in hundreds of casualties, including the speaker of the National Assembly (Nolutshungu 1996; Burr and Collins 2008). Almost simultaneously, violent unrest broke out in northern Chad. In June 1966, various intellectuals and Muslim leaders gathered in neighboring Sudan and formed the Front de Libération Nationale (FROLINAT), which turned into a major security challenge to the government. Although it lacked a coherent ideology and shortly afterwards disintegrated into various factions, the FROLINAT caused severe casualties and forced the Tombalbaye government to seek military help from France (Buijtenhuijs 1987; Azevedo 1998). By June 1971, the French and Chadian militaries were able to contain the rebellion to a few isolated areas in the Tibesti region (Decalo 1980). Tombalbaye ordered the French to leave the country, which soon provoked the outbreak of new violence at the hands of rebels. This coincided with the growing estrangement between the Tombaybale administration and senior military officers. In June 1973 Tombaybale arrested Colonel Félix Malloum and other senior officers for their alleged involvement in attempts to overthrow the government. Tombaybale’s frequent outburst and in particular his public claim that the armed forces were too incompetent to contain the rebellion as well as his frequent and random

428   Sebastian Elischer reshufflings among the highest ranks led to the total disintegration of civil–​military relations (Decalo 1980; Henderson 1984; US Government 1990). The junior military officers who overthrew Tombabayle in April 1975 handed over power to Félix Malloum. In Mali and Niger the civilian governments of Modibo Keïta and Hamani Diori, respectively, built up alternative security forces. After independence from France, Keïta pursued socialist economic policies, which led to the introduction of a new currency, the Malian franc (Hazard 1969; Jones 1969). In order to stabilize the new currency, the government forced the private domestic sector to depose 25 percent of its income in the new currency. The Malian franc proved economically disastrous and short-​lived. In 1967, the Malian government had to sign a monetary agreement with France, which forced the Keïta administration to devalue their new currency by 50 percent. The economic fallout undermined Keïta’s support among the population and, more important, within his own party, the Union soudanaise-​Rassemblement démocratique africain (US-​ RDA). Keïta and the radical wing of the US-​RDA created a local militia youth group, the Milice populaire. The Milice populaire consisted largely of unemployed male youth from Bamako, who declared their loyalty to the president. Its ideological goal was the purification of socialist economic policies and to rebuild the country along the principles of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Shortly after its formation it included an estimated three thousand men, almost the same size as the Malian army (Mann 2003). In the run-​up to the military coup on 19 November 1968, the leadership of the armed forces repeatedly called on the government to abolish the militia group. Keïta ignored these demands. In early 1969, he dissolved parliament and transferred all executive power to the Comité National de Défense de la Révolution. With the Milice populaire increasingly emerging as the president’s private army, the armed forces removed Keïta from power (Snyder 1969). Under the leadership of Moussa Traoré, the Malian armed forces governed the country until 1991. In Niger, Hamani Diori was on equally shaky ground. He had claimed the presidency due to extensive French electoral rigging and French military intervention against the radical anti-​colonial SAWABA movement (Van Walraven 2013). Throughout the early 1970s, Niger experienced recurring student and civil service protests. Most were driven by the dismal living conditions and the economic consequences of reoccurring droughts (Charlick 1991; K. Idrissa 2008; Elischer 2015). As in Mauritania, Chad, and Mali, the immediate cause for the removal of Diori was the manner in which he treated the armed forces. Since independence the army had been used as tax collectors, a role many high-​ranking officers despised. In addition, continued French military presence within the armed forces meant that younger officers were unable to progress. Diori further failed to consult the armed forces on a defense pact with Libya. Finally, as with Keïta in Mali, Diori began to build up a militia group, la Milice du parti, which was loyal to the governing party. Diori explicitly mentioned that he had created the militia with the intention of diverting funds from the armed forces (Higott and Fuglestad 1975; Djermakoye 2009). In Burkina Faso domestic political instability pulled the armed forces into the political arena. It is the only case out of the six in which social instability made military

Militaries in Sahelian Politics    429 intervention somewhat inevitable. Maurice Yaméogo had claimed the presidency after Daniel Ouezzin Coulibaly had fallen ill and died in Paris in 1958. Yaméogo turned out to be a ruthless and authoritarian ruler. Many of his victims found refuge in the vibrant trade union sector (Phelan 2016), which soon emerged as effective and political challenger to Yaméogo (Englebert 1996). In October 1965, Yaméogo married a second time, which drew sharp criticism from the influential Catholic Church. On 3 January 1966, the country was paralyzed by a general strike. The union protestors marched to the military barracks and started discussions with Lieutenant Lamizana, who declared himself to be in control of the government (Engels 2015; Phelan 2016). Burkina Faso’s path to military rule thus was distinctly different from the four countries discussed previously. In Burkina Faso the armed forces reacted to nationwide protest and political paralysis, in contrast to Mauritania, Chad, Niger, and Mali where autocratic civilian rulers provoked military intervention. The Senegalese case confirms the importance of civilian agency. Following independence, first President Léopold Sedar Senghor ensured fruitful relations between the civilian government and the armed forces. Senghor sought regular consultations with the chief of the armed forces, General Jean Alfred Diallo. Their close relationship ushered in regular exchanges between civilian and military elites. The leadership of the Senegalese armed forces thus was widely regarded as part of the political elite (Diop and Paye 1998). The Senghor administration further integrated the armed forces into developmental efforts of the state, an initiative known as Armée-​Nation. The idea behind the initiative was to engage the armed forces in a variety of development initiatives in the health, agriculture, and education sector. This provided the army with numerous important tasks and simultaneously with widespread appreciation and public support. In addition, the government established a chain of command, which ensured that the various branches of the armed forces and the individuals in charge of these branches reported to civilian bureaucrats. The Senegalese gendarmerie is an illustrative example: in charge of military intelligence it reported directly to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which was led by civilians. Finally, when Senegal introduced multiparty competition in the late 1970s, members of the armed forces were not allowed to vote and also do not share important civil liberties such as freedom of association and assembly (Diop and Paye 1998).

RULING AND ARBITRATOR ARMIES: MILITARY RULE AND ITS DISCONTENTS Sub-​Saharan Africa experienced widespread political liberalization in the early 1990s (Bratton and van de Walle 1997). The return of democratic rule eroded the legitimacy of nondemocratic rule, which led to a decline in the number of military coups (Lindberg and Clark 2008). The third wave of democratization also posed a challenge to those juntas that had managed to overthrow a government. Maybe most interesting of all,

430   Sebastian Elischer post-​Cold War coups did not automatically result in military dictatorship. In a number of countries African militaries removed autocratic leaders in order to establish democratic regimes. In other words, military coups did not lead to military dictatorship but ushered in democratic rule. This section analyses these multifaceted outcomes of military coups across the Sahel in the post-​Cold War period. It conceptualizes the armed forces as an entity in which different factions—​arbitrators and rulers—​are competing for different goals and in which the future political trajectory of a country is subject to deliberations within the armed forces. Chad and Senegal do not feature in this analysis. The disintegration of Chad saw the simultaneous disintegration of its armed forces. Even though Idriss Déby has managed to stay in power for almost a quarter of a century, the extent to which the Chadian armed forces constitute a national army is debatable (Eizenga 2018). As discussed extensively in the previous section, Senegal constitutes an outlier with regard to civil–​military relations. Table 22.2 summarizes the relationships between the ruler and the arbitrator faction inside the armed forces in each country and how that relationship has changed over time since the early 1990s. Atypically for the region, the Mauritanian armed forces retained their hold on power without any noteworthy popular protest (Foster 2011; Hill 2017). In contrast to other African countries “the survival of the military regime was not threatened by the street” (N’Diaye 2001, 90). Instead, race riots between Arabs and black Africans shaped Mauritanian politics. The conflict resulted in the deportation of thousands of black Mauritanians to Senegal. The conflict also affected the armed forces and the civil service where it led to the massacre of five hundred Black Mauritanians (Human Rights Watch 1994). Mauritania’s strong support for Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991 left it isolated from its Arab allies and Arab funding. In April 1991, after days of negotiations with the French foreign minister about urgently needed budgetary support, the embattled regime announced that it would implement political reforms. Thus, Mauritania’s attempt to liberalize was largely driven by donor pressure. Within a short period of time the government drafted a new constitution lacking any outside input. The draft constitution was put to a referendum on 12 July 1991, which left little to no time for a meaningful public debate. Subsequently, Taya and his allies formed the Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social (PRDS), which allowed the regime to reinvent itself in civilian clothes. Taya used the armed forces to intimidate and harass political opponents. For example, prior to the 1992 elections the government exiled a number of opposition leaders to remote villages. Given the firm grip of Taya over the armed forces, and the omnipresence of the armed forces inside the administration, the 1992, 1997, and 2003 elections were foregone conclusions. In all of these elections the military intervened in order to sway the outcome in favor of the incumbent (N’Diaye 2001, 2006; Girod and Walters 2012). Unsurprisingly therefore, it was the military that removed Taya in a palace coup on 3 August 2005. Although the armed forces announced their intention to allow for genuine free and fair elections and to return to the barracks permanently, their main intention was to protect the political and economic interests of several senior officers, who had been part of Taya’s inner circle. Three failed coup attempts in 2003 and 2004

Militaries in Sahelian Politics    431 Table 22.2 Sahelian civil–​military relations and power relations post 1 ​ 990 Country

Transition

Post-​1990 trajectory

Power relations

Mauritania

Dominated by former military head of state

Taya remains in power until August 2005; military governs by proxy between 2005 and 2008; return of military rule in August 2008

Ruler faction dominates

Burkina Faso

Dominated by former military head of state

Compaoré remains in power until November 2015; unsuccessful attempt by a small faction of the armed forces to derail the democratic transition in 2015

Military divided between ruler and arbitrator faction; eventually arbitrator faction prevails

Niger

Dominated by civil society

Uneven trajectory: civilian rule (1993 to 1996; 2000 to 2010; 2011 to today) interrupted by military rule (1996 to 1999; 2010)

Military divided between ruler and arbitrator faction; eventually arbitrator faction prevails

Mali

Dominated by civil society

Traoré overthrown in March 1991; military interrupts civilian rule from 2012–2013. Military returns in coup of August 2020

Arbitrator faction dominates

Source: Compiled by author.

had demonstrated to them that their privileged position was threatened by rival factions (N’Diaye 2006; Zisenwine 2011). The period between the coup of 3 August 2005 and the coup of 6 August 2008 is frequently hailed as Mauritania’s democratic interlude. However, during the run-​up to the March 2007 presidential election, two factions within the armed forces tried to intervene in the electoral process. Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, a leading member of the junta, early on advocated for continued military rule, stating that democratic contest was not feasible in Mauritania. At that time, he lacked support from other senior officers, including Colonel Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who had thrown their support behind Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the presidential candidate of the Coalition des Forces de Changement. Abdallahi was related to Colonel Abdel Aziz and several senior offices were invested in Abdallahi’s electoral campaign. Thus, already at this early state of the transition, two camps had emerged competing for power and influence. Vall’s strategy was to delay the transition indefinitely; Abdel Aziz wanted to remain in power through civilian proxies. In the end, the Abdel Aziz faction prevailed. After his election Abdallahi appointed many members of the junta into high-​ranking administrative positions (Foster 2011, 133–​143). Yet, after only fifteen months, the Abdel Aziz faction, which had helped Abdallahi claim power, overthrew Abdallahi after he had failed to keep up with the demands of the armed forces. Growing tensions between senior officers and the government had provoked the sacking of Abdel Aziz as head of the presidential guard and of Major General Mohammad Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed

432   Sebastian Elischer Ould Ghazouani as the army chief of staff (Hochman 2009; Foster 2011). Abdel Aziz contested the elections on the ticket of the newly founded Union pour la République. He won the widely criticized electoral contest by a wide margin, and was to remain until he was replaced by Ould Ghazouani in the 2019 elections, underlining the continued dominant role of the armed forces in politics. Thus, undoubtedly, the ruler faction continues to dominate the Mauritanian armed forces. In Burkina Faso, the armed forces entered the early 1990s as the main pillar of the autocratic regime led by Blaise Compaoré, who reinvented himself as a civilian politician at the helm of the Front Populaire. As in Mauritania, the government tried to influence the democratization process in its favor. It refused to organize a national conference and instead drafted the new constitution itself. The democratic opposition decided to boycott the December 1991 elections, which handed Compaoré the presidency (Boudon 1997). In contrast to Ould Taya and Abdel Aziz in Mauritania, Compaoré was faced with considerable protest throughout his tenure (Englebert 1996; Harsch 2009). Consequently, the regime was forced to co-​opt opponents and allow for a modicum of democratic competitiveness and participation (Santiso and Loada 2003). Compaoré also faced resistance inside the armed forces. Compaoré used the armed forces and other security services for the harassment of civilian opposition groups, yet many members of the armed forces sympathized with the protestors. This was especially true of non-​officers, who associated with the poor living conditions of the population (Eizenga 2015b). Military mutinies frequently accompanied popular protest. In 2003, 2007, and 2011, several high-​profile mutinies took place. Each time the military called for an end to corruption and more transparency in the defense sector, thereby echoing the demands of civil society. By dismissing some of the highest-​ranking military officers Compaoré undermined his support within the higher ranks (Dwyer 2017). In 2014 Compaoré’s attempt to circumvent the presidential term limit led to a popular insurrection and his ouster after twenty-​eight years in power. Following discussions between protest leaders and the leadership of the armed forces, the military initially declared itself to be in charge of the country. Eventually negotiations paved the way for a civilian-​led transition government in which Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida served as prime minister. In the run-​ up to the 2015 elections, Compaoré’s former presidential guard, the Régiment de sécurité présidentielle attempted to derail the transition process after the interim government had decided to dissolve the unit. Coup leader General Gilbert Diendré, a long-​term ally of Compaoré, justified the coup by pointing to the political exclusion of pro-​Camporé and pro-​RSP elites. Among the armed forces the coup leaders had no support. Less than one week later, the armed forces under the leadership of General Pingrenoma successfully moved against the coup plotters and returned power to the transitional government (Eizenga 2015a, 2016). Thus, in contrast to Mauritania, in Burkina Faso the arbitrator faction of the military emerged as the dominant faction. Niger’s and Mali’s transitions followed distinctly different patterns. In those two countries civil society and civilian politicians were the main drivers of political change (Robinson 1994; Wing 2010; Elischer 2013). The attitude of the Nigerien and Malian armed forces toward democratic rule were complex and differed across time. Niger

Militaries in Sahelian Politics    433 certainly stands out as the country with the highest number of successful military coups in the region. In 1996, 1999, and 2010, the armed forces overthrew the government. While the 1996 coup led to the restoration of military rule, the 1999 and 2010 coups ushered in democratic multiparty elections. The diverging outcomes are a result of the varying degrees of influence the ruler and the arbitrator faction had at different time periods. The 1996 coup by General Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara put an end to the Third Republic (1993–​1996), Niger’s first interlude of democratic rule. Maïnassara initially announced his intention to return Niger to civilian rulers within a relatively short period of time, but ultimately decided to contest the elections himself on the ticket of the newly founded Union Nationale des Indépendants pour le Renouveau Démocratique (UNIRD). The UNIRD had been founded with the explicit purpose of electing Maïnassara as president. The armed forces rigged the elections in favor of Maïnassara, who tried to return the country to the political order of the 1970s and 1980s (Decoudras and Gazibo 1997). Yet severe economic downturns and consistent waves of street protest by the trade unions of the public sector, the opposition parties, and other civil society groups soon led to the rise of an anti-​Maïnassara faction inside the armed forces (Elischer 2013). On 9 April 1999, members of his own presidential guard killed Maïnassara at the airport in Niamey. Subsequently, Major Daouda Malam Wanké emerged as interim military leader. In June he announced a national referendum for a new constitution, which paved the way for the return of multiparty elections and civilian rule. Under the Presidency of Tandja Mamadou (1999–​2010) civil–​military relations remained stable. This was due to four factors. First, during the military interregnum of Maïnassara the armed forces experienced the difficulties of being in power during times of economic crises and the consequences this could have for the cohesion of the army. Second, Tandja had served as minister of the interior during the military regime of Seyni Kountché. As a former military officer, he had close links with Niger’s military hierarchy, which strengthened his standing within the armed forces (K. Idrissa 2008). Third, under Tandja, Niger experienced an increase in its income from uranium exports while qualifying for extensive international debt relief (Elischer 2013). Fourth, between 2007 and 2009 Niger saw the second Tuareg rebellion, which led to close collaboration between the government and the armed forces. In August 2009, as his second and final term drew to a close, however, Tandja organized a constitutional referendum allowing him to remain in power for an additional three years, and to contest any future election after that. The hotly contested referendum caused a severe political crisis. The Constitutional Court ruled that the referendum was illegal. The opposition, including Tandja’s parliamentary coalition partner, decided to boycott the elections. After the referendum, the Western donors but also Nigeria, Niger’s main source for electricity, threatened Niamey with economic and diplomatic sanctions. In this context, on 1 February 2010 the Nigerien army overthrew Tandja. Slightly more than one year later, general elections took place and the military withdrew from power (Van Walraven 2009; A. Idrissa and Decalo 2012). Thus, twice since the early 1990s, the Nigerien armed forces have overthrown an autocratic regime and reestablished democratic rule (Baudais and Chauzal 2011).

434   Sebastian Elischer In Mali the military facilitated the democratic transition process. After weeks of street protest against the Traoré government, the armed forces overthrew the government in March 1991. Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré governed the country for an interim period until the general elections in February and April 1992. For the following two decades, many thought that Mali was a prime example of an African country democratizer (Boas and Torheim 2013; Wing 2013). Yet, on 21 March 2012, the Malian armed forces returned to power after the civilian government had failed to stem the rise of the successive Tuareg and jihadi uprisings in the north (Lebovich 2013; Thurston and Lebovich 2013). The coup was led by Amadou Haya Sanogo, a previously unknown captain who had trained in part in the United States. Under extraordinary pressure from international actors, Sanogo was replaced by an interim civilian-​led government with Dioncounda Traoré as interim president and Cheikh Modibo Diarra as interim prime minister. In 2013, the interim government organized elections, in which Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was elected president. Keïta was a civilian politician who had served as prime minister between 1994 and 2000. The handover of power too place despite the fact that a visible section of the armed forces advocated prolonged military rule (Whitehouse 2012), and indeed the military was to return in a coup in August 2020.

CONCLUSION Since independence from France in 1960 the armed forces have been powerful political actors across the Sahel. Prior to the 1990s the armed forces dominated politics in five out of the six countries. Today the Sahel displays a complex set of civil–​military constellations. In Mauritania and especially in Chad the armed forces remain the predominant political actor. Little indicates that this will change any time soon. The ruler faction dominates the armed forces in both countries. In Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso the armed forces withdrew from power, but were then to return in Mali in 2020. The analysis suggests that in these three countries the arbitrator faction is the dominant wing of the military. Although these are positive developments for democratization, it should not distract from the fact that within the armed forces of each country, a visible ruler faction exists. Senegal remains exceptional with regard to civil–​military relations; civilian rule has proven to be the norm and there is no indication that there is a ruler faction within the armed forces. Thus, while overall civilian authority increasingly has gained the upper hand across the region, there remains uncertainty about whether this trend will stabilize. The contemporary Sahel is confronted by manifold challenges, which may weaken the legitimacy of civilian authority. The confrontation with violent Islamic groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and numerous smaller jihadi groups in Mali has the potential to destabilize governments across the region. The permanent state of confrontation between jihadi groups and the various national armies is likely to influence civil–​military relations in favor of the armed forces. For example, in Niger local analysts estimate that from 2014 onward expenses

Militaries in Sahelian Politics    435 for the armed forces have taken up around 10 percent of Niger’s national budget. The fact that Western nations regard Niger, Mauritania, and Chad as important allies in the war against Islamic extremism might lead the West to ignore the manifold democratic deficiencies such as the lack of civilian supremacy in military affairs and other policy fields. Almost six decades after independence, the economic well-​being of the Sahel still depends on the development of world market prices for agricultural good. Recurring droughts and environmental degradation remain major economic challenges, which the post-​1989 political elites have not resolved. Poorly institutionalized political parties and struggling civil society organizations remain weak watchdogs of comparatively strong and well-​organized armed forces. To ensure the subordination of the armed forces to elected civilians is thus very likely to remain a key political challenge across the francophone Sahel.

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438   Sebastian Elischer Walraven, Klass van. 2013. The Yearning for Relief. Amsterdam: Brill. Whitehouse, Bruce. 2012. “The Forces of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali.” Africa Spectrum 47(2–​3): 93–​110. Wing, Susanna. 2010. Constructing Democracy in Africa: Mali in Transition. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Wing, Susanna. 2013. “Mali: Politics of a Crisis.” African Affairs 112(448): 476–​485. Zisenwine, Daniel. 2011. “Mauritania’s Democratic Transition: A Regional Model for Political Reform?” The Journal of North African Studies 12(4): 481–​499.

chapter 23

SE CURIT Y PROV I SI ON A ND C OUNTERTERRORI SM I N THE SAH E L Cristina Barrios

The Sahel has very rarely appeared in international headlines for its rich sociocultural diversity or its striking landscapes, but it rather makes the news because of terrorist attacks, kidnappings, or trafficking of different kinds. The Malian state’s inability to stop the advance of a jihadi-​separatist movement in 2012 and the aftermath of that crisis epitomizes many of the region’s problems. The countries of the Sahel, which share important geographic, ethnocultural, and historical features, have become known for a deteriorating security situation and the threat of Islamist terrorism. The securitization and militarization of the Sahel has been visible in international relations and in domestic policies: economic and social priorities have fallen behind; political and civic freedoms have eroded. Academic analysis has also been affected by such securitization, increasingly depicting a context of realpolitik dominated by hard power games, zero-​sum dynamics, and interventionism in the Sahel. The prevailing narrative of “ungoverned spaces” in the Sahel has opened the door for the region’s political entrepreneurs to seek rents in the security sector. This development has given rise to projects such as the G5 Sahel Joint Force and inspired militarized agendas on the part of the Sahelian governments and external actors. The former has focused on exerting control over territory and populations in the “uncontrolled areas”; the latter have feared the expansion of terrorism and Islamist radicalization, and in some cases, of migration flows to Europe. For many, the Sahel has thus become a chessboard for so-​called new wars: non-​state actors are the protagonists, the drivers of conflicts are difficult to pin down, and the phases of a conflict (crisis, escalation, open war, conflict resolution, post-​conflict, or peacebuilding) difficult to distinguish from one another. It increasingly appears that the West’s earlier emphasis on democracy, international freedoms and liberal institutionalism in the 1990s might have been an interlude. The

440   Cristina Barrios terrorist attacks of 9/​11 and the last decade of international relations would have brought us back to a realpolitik dominated by interests and hard power—​all over the world, and thus also in the Sahel. However, as the chapters in this book illustrate, realpolitik alone cannot explain the Sahel’s complex reality, and the risks that such securitization and militarization carry for the region should be interpreted within a broader, more nuanced understanding of the security challenges—​and of their solutions. This chapter proposes an analysis of the politics of security in the Sahel, based on three premises. First, a broad understanding of security is needed in order to capture the notion of human security in the Sahel, a concept which the United Nations defines as the security of individuals, their protection, and empowerment. Second, the question and the answers regarding security in the Sahel are better understood within the academic debates about the state in Africa. The principle of the centrality of the state in security provision is not challenged in the Sahel, where classical political theory about the state’s monopoly of the legitimate use of force applies, and the normative notion of states having a protagonist role in international relations is consolidated. Third, the main challenges facing security provision in the countries of the Sahel region relate to capability and legitimacy. There is a pragmatic, even technical, aspect to this that is addressed in the literature on security sector reform and institution-​building. The broader analysis of state legitimacy draws on the literature on ethics in political theory, and on concepts from international law such as “just war.” The chapter begins with a description of the main security challenges in the Sahel. On all accounts, the Sahel is nowadays insecure, plagued by a variety of challenges, ranging from poverty and structural food insecurity affecting millions, to economic and social grievances, organized crime, protracted crisis derived from territorial and ethnic competition, and terrorism and violent radicalization. This section discusses the impact of these challenges, which often are transnational and undermine the state or, more accurately, shape the nature and the scope of the state in Africa. This analysis resonates with most of the academic literature, which highlights the shortcomings of governance in the Sahel. The chapter then moves to a discussion of the politics of security provision, posing the question of whether the countries of the Sahel can provide security for themselves. Given the fragility of institutions and authoritarian trends, the Sahel faces important problems of state capacity and state legitimacy, which affect security provision and shape the prospects both for individual countries and for the region. The states of the Sahel recognize the importance of having capable armed forces and of investing in strong defense budgets. But the Sahel is also marked by semi-​professional militaries, diverse challengers to the monopoly of the use of force in parts of their territories, and weak institutional frameworks. Ultimately, improved military capacity and effectiveness build up the state’s legitimacy, so that along with good governance and support of public opinion, these become the key to security provision. In this light, the final section discusses the possibility of regional cooperation, including the G5 Sahel, an initiative that has attracted considerable international interest.

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    441

SECURITY CHALLENGES IN THE SAHEL Security, Stability, Resilience: Useful Concepts or Political Labels? In the Sahel as in other countries, many analysts and policymakers still depict security as stability. This is misleading; conflating these terms can hide a normative agenda or reduce them to a simplistic political label. For example, most governments in the Sahel associate the end of the Qaddafi regime in Libya with the spread of higher insecurity across the region. Yet although “promoting stability” seems a laudable goal, this is not reassuring when insecurity is already widespread and crises are recurrent. A stable situation such as a long-​entrenched authoritarian regime may be a source of security for some, but also involves abuse and underdevelopment for large parts of the population. For that reason, many may welcome an end to stability when it brings down an authoritarian regime where alternative opportunities were scarce. Historically, populations in Chad, Niger, or Burkina Faso have often welcomed the “instability” of coups d’états or popular uprisings, when people harbored the expectation that these events would be conducive to more security in the long run. As an alternative to the terms “security” and “stability,” resilience is also increasingly used in academic and think tank analyses regarding the Sahel. Resilience often refers to society and paints a picture of relative security and relative stability. The concept of resilience focuses on how populations—​and individuals—​suffering from episodes of war or low-​scale but pervasive violence, are able to cope and resist the total meltdown of full-​scale war. With a similar focus on societies and people, the United Nations encourages the use of the term “human security” to describe the situation of individuals, their protection and empowerment. The United Nations has also established the principle that states have a “responsibility to protect” (“R2P”) their populations. The international community’s focus on R2P has been tainted by the policy’s convoluted legal implications, and by the fact that it was used to justify the 2011 intervention in Libya, which many saw as a politicization of the principle. Thus, depending on the political dynamics in the UN Security Council (UNSC), the concepts of R2P and human security are likely to be evoked in future debates about international interventions in the Sahel, given their focus on security as both an obligation of states and a right of peoples and individuals. By contrast, policies advocating “resilience” may result in putting the burden of their own security on the shoulders of those most in need of assistance. The terms, meanings, and labels used to describe security often imply normative approaches, underlining the importance of critical and rigorous engagement with the debates on terminology. This is relevant both to describing the respective security challenges of the Sahel and to elaborating and implementing security policies in the region, which may otherwise—​and mistakenly—​become synonymous with promoting stability, thus shifting the focus to high-​level politics instead of the population.

442   Cristina Barrios

Security Challenges: A Brief Description Beyond the debates on terminology, it is important to take stock of the specific security challenges that the ever-​growing literature on the Sahel has identified. A non-​ exhaustive list of factors and effects of insecurity include food insecurity, socioeconomic grievances, organized crime, protracted crisis and civil war, violent radicalization, and Islamic terrorism. These security challenges often feed on one another or can be connected in different ways. One first, major challenge, within the broader scope of human security, is food insecurity, poverty, and underdevelopment. According to the UN World Food Programme, up to fifteen million people were at risk of food insecurity in West Africa in 2020, with the highest levels in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, where the situation of internally displaced people was the hardest due to conflict and climate change. The Human Development Indices (HDI) for the Sahel countries are among the lowest on the planet (Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and Niger are respectively 182nd, 184th, 187th, and 189th out of 189 countries in the UNDP ranking in 2019), with limited prospects for improvement in the short and even medium term and underlying problems of public health. Secondly, economic and socioeconomic grievances that lead to violent conflict are widespread in the Sahel. The most common, recurrent, and often structural conflicts in this regard relate to land ownership and exploitation, and to differences between cattle owners and farmers. Thirdly, and connected to the precarious economic situation and institutional fragility, organized crime in the form of the trafficking of drugs, arms, and human beings has become increasingly salient in the routes connecting the Sahel (specially Mali and Niger) with other points in West Africa. Banditry, including “checkpoints” along main roads where traders and travelers must pay a fee to transit, is a widespread problem, as is widespread corruption. A fourth type of security challenge relates to violent episodes or protracted crisis derived from ethnic or territorial competition. This type of challenge includes most notably the kind of separatism that Mali has experienced in its northern regions with the “Azawad” Tuareg rebellion, but also such situations as that of Senegal’s Casamance region, where a low-​intensity conflict has dragged on for over two decades, resulting in periodic attacks and the death of both civilians and security forces. Niger’s political trajectory has also been shaped by the secessionist quests of the Tuareg and the Toubou, and by the balance of power and role distribution between the largest ethnic groups (Hausa and Zarma). Recurrent episodes of hate speech, ethnicized political discourse, and abusive campaigns in social media are symbols of such latent conflicts across the Sahel. In Chad, ethnic (clan) and territorial dynamics have shaped politics in the country for decades, which has been marked by competing politico-​military groups and their shifting alliances. Fifth, the challenge presented by Islamist radicalization or extremism arises from growing narratives of correct Islamic practice, and calls for armed jihad and violence.

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    443 A UNDP report entitled Journey to Extremism in Africa, estimates that this caused approximately 33,300 fatalities between 2011 and 2016 on the continent (UNDP 2017). The report warned of the complex historical specificities and divergent trends that exist, despite the affinity of a globalized discourse. Radicalization is often rooted in and fed by social problems, and the countries of the Sahel have thus developed strategies to attempt to prevent violent extremism through education, media and social policies in neighborhoods, prisons, and other such settings. But the report also points the finger at states themselves, highlighting that governance failures are also a source of radicalization. Last but not least, terrorism presented an increasing security challenge in the Sahel in the decade of the 2010s. Terrorist activity involves attacks against either Western interests or domestic targets. The latter has caused far more deadly victims, both officials and civilians. It also has long-​term and significant detrimental consequences in the region, since it challenges the existing political order. Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad were all considered heavily impacted countries in the Global Terrorism Index 2019. Burkina Faso saw several major attacks against Western targets in Ouagadougou starting in 2016, and many more against Burkinabè state representatives, including not only security forces but also teachers and administrators, and attacks against Christians, in the regions in the north and west. Islamist terrorism in Burkina Faso escalated exponentially in 2019 and 2020, calling for increased regional and international attention. Even though attacks had not materialized in Senegal and had declined in Mauritania, these countries certainly remained under threat. The Sahel will remain threatened by Islamist terrorism in the short and medium term, with Boko Haram perpetuating their presence in northern Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad basin region, and different groups linked notably to al-​Qaeda operating in the Sahara-​Sahel. Shifting alliances among these groups are linked to both global and local factors. Four of these groups (AQIM, al-​Murabitoun, Macina Liberation Front, and Ansar Dine), for example, announced that they would “join forces” in 2017. This appears to have been a strategic move to build up the image of a regional threat, while remaining independent in their tactics and targets. Some analysts have seen in the Sahel a proxy confrontation between ISIS and al-​Qaeda, but the links between the top structures, different groups, and splinter factions are volatile. Similarly, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) arguably won over the core of Boko Haram in 2015 when leader Abubakar Shekau pledged allegiance, but factional disputes and leadership contests (including ISWAP’s recognition of other chief leaders) happen regularly, as reported by the Terrorism Monitor of the Jamestown Foundation. Despite their loose governance and changing faces, all Islamist terrorist groups benefit from a powerful global narrative. The existing links for training, the spread of communication, arms trafficking, and funding should not be underestimated. In addition, Islamist terrorism is the most internationalized security challenge in the region, with attacks or kidnappings of tourists, aid workers, and industrial workers covered amply by international news.

444   Cristina Barrios

The Impact of Security Challenges on the States of the Sahel As these security challenges show, conflict can transcend geographic scale (Skillicorn et al. 2018). But most authors still divide the literature and their own work along the conventional classification scheme for the study of conflict: “macro” (international relations), “meso” (the state), or “micro” (sub-​state actors). The micro-​level focuses on sociopolitical actors, including clans, sultanates, or chefferies. These correspond to physical spaces and social areas that some authors have called local ecological niches (Scheele 2012, 13) or nodes along which trade, traffic, travel, or transport take place. Importantly, those local spaces are relatively mobile; groups are not attached to a specific turf, and shift allegiances as needed. This “micro” approach has been essential to understanding jihadist terrorism because terrorist networks and nodes use the Sahara-​Sahel space, and have a mobile spatial and social structure (Walther, Leuprecht, and Skillicorn 2017). The focus here is on the “meso” level of analysis as security concerns are largely linked to governance or institutional shortcomings where the state is not fulfilling its role. Table 23.1 summarizes how the security challenges described earlier relate to the state(s) in the Sahel, through direct impact or indirect implications. The shortcomings regarding statehood appear both in origin and consequences (Whitehouse and Strazzari 2015), as the states in the Sahel—​regularly labeled weak, fragile, or failed—​are often insecure places for their populations. The most salient, recurrent factors are the lack of state capacity and limited legitimacy for security provision. Food insecurity and the dire record on economic development pose an immense problem of legitimacy for the states in the Sahel, which, after decades of independence, have neither been able to provide basic welfare support for their populations nor establish the preconditions to develop satisfactorily. Alternative providers (including NGOs) and the overall dynamics of humanitarian assistance, development cooperation, and financial aid also underline the limits of state capacity. Likewise, states in the Sahel lack systems for the stable and fair management of conflicts emanating from socioeconomic grievances (e.g., land property, confrontations between cattle owners and farmers). This leads to areas of lawlessness or, alternatively, to ad hoc “security systems” with non-​state actors. These range from traditional justice mechanisms in the hands of the chieftaincies and similar authorities—​producing disparate legal orders for citizens in different parts of the country—​to spaces controlled by warlords or by organized militia. Again, the limited capacity to provide security while ensuring the rule of law results in the declining legitimacy of the state. Often related to underdevelopment and resource-​related conflict, organized crime benefits from spaces where institutions do not fulfill their role of police and law enforcement. In such contexts some civil servants may become part of the criminal networks, and use their positions for rent-​seeking. The definition of “trafficking,” be it for arms, goods, or people, is itself a state-​bound concept, referring to situations in which the movement of merchandize (e.g., arms) or mode of transport (e.g., illegal trade or

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    445 Table 23.1 Impact and Implications of Security Challenges on Sahelian States Security challenges

Impact and implications on the state

Food insecurity, poverty and underdevelopment

International provision (via humanitarian assistance, development aid) → aid dependency Lack of state capacity to provide → undermining of state legitimacy

Socio-​economic grievances: land property issues, cattle owner/​farmer conflict, informal resource exploitation

Ad hoc, local provision of security, justice, and security-​ management by non-​state actors → increased power of traditional institutions (notably chefferies), and rise of ‘warlordism’ and ‘self-​defense committees’ (militia) Lack of state capacity to ensure rule of law → undermining of state legitimacy

Organized crime: trafficking (arms, drugs, humans), banditry (road checkpoints, corruption)

No road security, widespread armed groups, no state monopoly of use of violence → undermines state capacity, rule of law, and legitimacy Widespread involvement of state officials → corruption increases; weakens state and erodes legitimacy

Protracted crisis derived from ethnic and/​or territorial competition (separatism, civil war)

May pose direct challenge to the essence of the state → threatens unity of state itself Concessions/​responses may produce unequal categories of citizens, or privileged access/​use of state structures→ undermine state legitimacy and feed further grievances

Islamic violent radicalization

Challenges state authority with a parallel center and hierarchy of power, with aim to a post-​state institution based on religion → threatens unity and definition of state itself, with religion as new ground for legitimacy

Terrorism

Direct attacks on state representatives and civilians → challenges and erodes state capacity for security provision, and undermines legitimacy

border crossing) escape the state’s control. Needless to say, while banditry and crime pose direct threats to Sahelian populations, the existence of outlaw armed groups also challenges the state itself, namely by calling into question its monopoly of the use of violence. Moreover, when officials are involved in trafficking, they feed off of and preserve such weak institutions, further undermining capacity and legitimacy. Where protracted crises derive from ethnic and/​or territorial competition, notably separatism or instances of civil war, the essence of the state—​its unity—​can be directly challenged. More often though, these conflicts seek to alter the existing regime and its power dynamics, and eventually achieve the control of state structures for the benefit of their own selected leader, group, or territory. All Sahel states present such deficiencies, to different degrees. Finally, radicalization and Islamist terrorism heighten the security risks in the six countries. They question the very fundamental bases of the postcolonial state, and ultimately provide an alternative (or parallel) hierarchy and power center, that is, a polity

446   Cristina Barrios where the population would be linked with new, Islamist authorities for welfare and administration policies. Such “new orders” were tested, for example, in Timbuktu or in Gao in periods when they fell under the rule of terrorist groups such as AQIM and MUJAO, which challenged not only the Malian state and its authority but also traditional Sufi Islam.

THE POLITICS OF SECURITY PROVISION The approach to security provision in the Sahel has been increasingly regionalized since the establishment of the G5 Sahel initiative, yet it still relies largely on political will, and on the capacity and the legitimacy of the individual states that make up the initiative. For example, in Mali, several international and regional initiatives emerged in the aftermath of the 2012–​2013 crisis, including a UN mission. Yet there is agreement within the G5 that Malian security depends primarily on the national process of reconciliation, the performance of Malian elected authorities, and the successful establishment of Malian institutions across the country. This section discusses the preparedness, power, and shortcomings of Sahelian countries when dealing with security provision. It highlights the problems of state capacity and state legitimacy—​the two pillars of effective security provision. Given economic and financial difficulties, the fragility of institutions, and the authoritarian trends across the region, the capacity and legitimacy of states are seriously compromised, with major implications for security provision.

A Matter of Capacity Sahelian countries face enormous capacity challenges because of their institutional fragility. Capacity refers here both to material resources and to the quality of security provision, that is, to the ability of security forces to effectively deal with threats. This includes financial and human resources, equipment, and, more generally, sound and robust institutions as well as strategic and tactical capability. A state’s capacity must adapt to the threat. This is all the more important in the fight against terrorism and radicalization, which requires new and constantly changing skills that go beyond what is required of states during a conventional war. Data on defense budgets and the number of personnel in armed forces (Table 23.2) illustrate the limited capacity of Sahelian states. Resources are understandably limited given that these are among the poorest countries on the planet. For example, in absolute terms, the defense budget is below approximately US$1.7 billion per year for the region as a whole, while it is around US$650 billion per year for the United States. However, the overall picture is more nuanced and needs to be put into perspective. Sahelian governments actually spend a significant share of their GDP on defense,

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    447 Table 23.2 Security Capacity in the Sahel: Defense Budgets and Personnel

Country

Defense budget (in US$ million) in 2018

Defense spending as Percentage of government expenditure in 2018

Armed forces personnel (estimate 2017)

Burkina Faso

312

8.0%

11,000

Chad

233

14.6%

35,000

Mali

495

14.3%

18,000

Mauritania

159

11.2%

21,000

Niger

230

9.5%

10,000

Senegal

347

8.8%

19,000

Sources: Compiled by author from Military Balance; SIPRI Yearbook 2019; World Bank Data 2020

all beyond 8 percent, and close to 15 percent in Mali or Chad (see Table 23.2). In all countries the spending pattern displays a continued rising trend. This suggests that defense budgets are prioritized over other budget items, and that public policy focuses on security issues. By contrast, for example, most Western European countries only spend around 1 percent of their GDP on defense, and governments fall under enormous popular pressure if defense budgets rise. This will remain a crucial challenge for the Sahel: security resources are meager, but they are also in direct competition with public expenditures for healthcare or education in countries with extremely low Human Development Indicators. Regarding personnel, it could be argued that troop numbers are low in some cases, for example, for Mali’s large territory compared with Senegal’s, or in comparison with other middle-​size countries (e.g., Spain has approximately eighty thousand soldiers). As Table 23.2 shows, Chad, Mauritania, and Senegal boast the highest number of armed forces personnel. Burkina Faso entered a delicate situation after the 2014–​2015 crisis: its troop numbers were high, but the legitimacy of these troops was strongly questioned because of their links with the discredited Compaoré regime. In fact, troop numbers in themselves must be considered in light of the nature of the defense forces, and especially given internal inconsistencies within the system. In post-​conflict situations, for example, reformed national armies try to integrate former rebels, but their role within the reformed armed forces remains undefined. In Chad, poor human resource management has led to inaccurate information about the true size of the armed forces; the Chadian national army contains many “ghost” soldiers within its ranks. More important for the provision of security is the fact that within the security forces, different corps differ with regard to their capacities. A number of privileged elite units enjoy professional training, receive generous benefits, and have access to significantly better life conditions than the majority of the troops—​all factors that affect their capacity and effectiveness. These inequalities and the desperate conditions of the majority of the troops are partly explained by chronically deficient human resources management. Salary arrears,

448   Cristina Barrios politicized promotions, lack of career planning, and unsustainable pension systems characterize the day-​to-​day reality of most soldiers in the Sahel. Perhaps the most pressing issue remains the politicization of the security forces. Material scarcity and political tensions have led to systemic corruption within the security forces—​a widespread phenomenon in the region. This has also produced a continuous risk of mutiny, which is a reality even in seemingly well-​organized armies such as Chad’s. Arguably, only Senegal has a professionalized army in the Sahelian region. With Western support, Niger has escalated efforts in capacity building since 2014–​2015, although ethnic loyalties continue to shape the dynamics within the Nigerien armed forces.

Strategic and Tactical Capacity Considering the strategic and tactical qualities and capabilities of the armed forces across the Sahel, the picture is modest at best. However, the individual countries differ significantly. Most analysts agree that Chad’s armed forces have become the most capable in the region. Chad has played an important role in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, given their support to French counterterrorism operations; their important role in MINUSMA, the UN mission in Mali, including in leadership positions as well as deployment in very difficult areas; and campaigns against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region. Chadian counterterrorism tactical planning and operationalization have arguably proven more effective than those of Nigeria, Niger, or Cameroon. Mauritania’s armed forces are also widely considered reliable in operations, although they have tended to focus on action within Mauritanian territory. Following the collapse of the regime in 2014, Burkina Faso was presented with an urgent need for reform of the problematic security forces of the Compaoré era, some of which were well-​trained and capable but whose loyalty to the state and the new government was far from assured. Even more challenging, the country was simultaneously forced to confront a rising terrorist threat. As part of their strategy, Burkina Faso downscaled its participation in UN operations (including in MINUSMA) and invested instead in its counterterrorism unit of some 1,500 troops. The reliability of these new forces, however, and their commitment to the new democratic dispensation, is still to be tested. Alone in the region, Senegal’s security forces are the closest to Western standards regarding discipline and governance, and the country has been building its capacity in a more sustainable manner.

Arms and Equipment Regarding arms, equipment, and logistical capacity, the Sahel is far from the isolated and remote no-​mans-​land as which it is often portrayed. A 2016 report by Conflict Armament Research showed that the region is in fact highly globalized, with countries importing arms and equipment from Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, the United States, and the Middle East. The security sectors in the region also have important trade links with Japan, Brazil, and China; many tanks used in the Sahel used to come from the Soviet Union, many now come from China. The problematic proliferation of small arms and light weapons does not occur only via formal trade; changing patterns in the intensity and paths of traffic flows provoke increased involvement of non-​state armed

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    449 groups and corrupt officials. Indeed, arms business (and trafficking) connects the Sahel not only with the rest of West Africa but also with its neighbors Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, and Nigeria and Cameroon in the Lake Chad region, significantly complicating the state’s efforts to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Regarding their material resources, all armed forces across the Sahel share two basic weaknesses: minimal air capacity, and aging transport and arms equipment. This is all the more significant given the need to cover the vast distances and the hostile environment (desert temperatures, seasonal rains) in the Sahel. Chad, Senegal, and Niger feature limited air force capacity, both for surveillance and attack. Since 2015, Mali has rolled out plans to build such a capacity, but the construction of contracted planes and helicopters, the delivery, and the pilot training will take years to materialize. In addition, arms, equipment, and logistics need to be adapted to the variety of security challenges beyond the traditional reliance on heavy armies, which are ineffective for counterinsurgency or for community policing. An example of adaptation to the countries’ needs and history in the Sahel is the Garde Nationale et Nomade du Tchad (National and Nomadic Guard of Chad), with traits of both gendarmerie and police: this guard is intended to patrol the northern nomadic areas (sometimes using camels) with the mission of securing the pastoral-​agricultural environments. In the fight against terrorism, advanced equipment for surveillance and intelligence gathering and sharing is still missing. Improved working methods—​including the exchange of international information and intelligence, or mechanisms for cross-​border operability and legal frameworks—​have become as important as the financial means. However, such methods require training, high levels of trust, and political interdependency among allies, which are difficult to build for any country or region in the world and perhaps especially challenging in the contemporary context of crisis in the Sahel.

A Matter of Legitimacy The concept of state legitimacy refers to the right of authorities, accepted by the public, to exercise power at their discretion, and to intervene in either domestic or international domains. Despite extensive discussion in Sociology, Political Science, and International Relations since the end of the Cold War (Roach, Griffiths, and O’Callaghan 2014), legitimacy remains a controversial concept that poses normative questions about the legality and morality of both national and international interventions. In view of the political challenges observed in the Sahel, questions of legitimacy in security provision remain central. The source of legitimacy is contested. States can derive their legitimacy from the established legal order (as in Max Weber’s notion of the state) and recognition from other states, from public perception and support (an ethical approach whereby peoples recognize their national authorities’ rights and duties), but also from the state’s ability to deliver basic services (a functional point of view). In the latter, legitimacy is connected

450   Cristina Barrios to the issue of capacity, and state forces often compete with other security providers—​ from rebels to warlords to vigilante groups—​in this regard. In addition to the conceptual debates on legitimacy and effectiveness, there is a growing literature on security sector reform that develops policy recommendations and pragmatic proposals to train administrators and security forces. Think tanks and institutions such as the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces focus on capacity-​building in their discussions of security sector reform, with the logic that increased capacity may help build legitimacy as the security forces become more adept at providing security. There are, however, important cultural and normative aspects to security provision. Three characteristics are important for contributing to legitimate, democratic state security provision. All of these are relevant for the Sahel: the neutrality and state loyalty of the security forces; the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence (and thus the absence of warlords, vigilante, or alternative forces “protecting” parts of the territory or the population); and well-​governed forces that are effective and accepted by the population.

Neutrality of Institutions and Loyalty to the State The neutrality of institutions in charge of security provision, and their independence from the political authorities that are in power, are an important source of legitimacy. The separation between civilian and military power and the primacy of civilian oversight strengthen the legitimacy of armed forces. In most Sahelian countries, however, the separation between civilian rulers and the security forces is still problematic; the façade of a national army often obscures a reality of personalized forces bound to the incumbent regime. The distinction between military forces (to be used in external operations) and interior or public security forces is blurred, as the army is often called upon to maintain law and order. Such situations and the weak rule of law raise serious doubts about the accountability of security forces. The lack of civilian oversight characterizes politics in many Sahel countries. As discussed by Elischer, in Chapter 22 in this volume, civilian heads of state in Mauritania and Chad have backgrounds as high-​ ranking military officers. In Niger, the military has often been considered a kingmaker of civilian presidents, who have limited capacity to rein in the security corps. With the exception of Senegal, coups d’état have dominated postcolonial political change in the region. Also characterizing much of the Sahel is the phenomenon of strong, undemocratic presidents who have sought to stay in power by creating personalized security forces that responded directly to them. The neutrality and state loyalty of such forces is thus necessarily compromised. Moreover, such elite groups, like Presidential Guards or Republican Guards, enjoy extensive privileges and are ostensibly better trained and equipped, undercutting the legitimacy of the conventional security forces. Unsurprisingly, countries attempting a transition from such strong-​man regimes are faced with the challenge of trying to dissolve or reform such elite corps. This was central to the difficulties of the transition in Burkina Faso; the Presidential Guard that had been tasked with protecting Blaise Compaoré until his demise in 2014 attempted a coup d’état

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    451 in 2015. It was subsequently dissolved in the quest for legitimacy, but this was also a loss in security capacity. The burden of ethnic allegiance, political affiliations, and nepotism also pose serious legitimacy problems. The politicization of the armed forces undermines public trust. For example, in Chad under Idris Déby, the armed forces have consisted of around 40,000 troops, including a well-​trained and well-​equipped Presidential Guard—​La Direction Générale des Services de Sécurité des Institutions de l’Etat—​of up to 14,000 men, including a selective inner circle close to the president (Touchard 2017, 383). Most high-​ranking positions in this body are reserved for members of the President’s clan. There is also a National Security Agency, which often acts as political police, and is feared by political opponents and civil society activists. By contrast, the majority of the army and interior security services (including border patrols and customs officials) are poorly equipped and poorly paid, leading inevitably to a lack of discipline and at times to mutinies.

Monopoly of the Legitimate Use of Violence The control of national territory is a basic feature of statehood. It includes the control of borders, although holding the capital city has often been the ultimate test for maintaining state power. For this reason, the de facto control of border areas has sometimes been yielded to locals, and central authorities may show a pragmatic flexibility in order to avoid gray areas and ungoverned spaces. This has been the case at times with some Tuareg and Toubou groups in the Niger northern region of the Aïr or in the Tibesti region of Chad. In fact, though to varying degrees, all the states of the Sahel fail to fully control their territories and fail to sustain the monopoly of force in the presence of rebels, warlords, vigilante groups, or other alternate sources of power. In Mali, for example, most analysts estimated that at least six thousand armed men adhered to different so-​called “liberation forces” in 2017. In the north this was composed mainly of groups of armed Tuareg who were either in favor or against a unitary Malian state, but certainly controlled parts of the territory instead of the Malian state. Some of the movements, such as the Groupe Auto-​défense Tuareg, Imghad et Alliés (GATIA) included only some estimated five hundred troops, but displayed effective tactics. In central Mali the failure of the state to control forces has led to increasing violence, with deadly confrontations involving ethnic militias. In Burkina Faso, self-​defense groups known as koglweogo have operated in rural parts of the country where police or gendarmerie were inexistent or weak; they substituted the state and remained problematic for the state’s monopoly of legitimate force. Koglweogo often recruit armed men with dubious pasts, including racketeers and thieves, but also former officials. They took over the functions of policing and dispensing justice, including imposing fines or corporal punishment. The government has tried to organize these groups through local police, but is constrained by an awareness of its own limits to provide security or to replace them. Groups of vigilantes appear sporadically in the fight against terrorism; these may just be groups of neighbors or better-​structured

452   Cristina Barrios paramilitary groups, as have emerged in the Chadian provinces of Lake Chad or in northern Nigeria in the struggle against Boko Haram. Arguably, the fact that armed violence is still ubiquitous shows that state formation—​ and its quest for legitimacy—​is still a work in progress in the Sahel. In this fluid context, the profiles of an individual may over time evolve from being a rebel, to a soldier or security official, to a petty criminal, a trafficker, or even a terrorist, and then back to official (Debos 2016). The legitimacy of such “men in arms” cannot be taken for granted, as the populations have good reasons to mistrust both men in uniform and rebels.

Well-​governed Forces and Population Support Good governance of the security forces cannot be understood outside the broader context of democracy in the Sahel. Sahelian countries rank very low in the internationally recognized indices of democracy and good governance—​the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s or Freedom House’s, performing particularly poorly in justice and rule of law (see Table 23.3). Despite pro-​democracy reforms introduced in the early 1990s, only Senegal has been consistently considered to be a democracy throughout this period. Presidents often tried to manipulate institutions so as to hold on to power, and despite the very varied experimentation with elections and democracy, Sahelian countries face continued and deep governance challenges. (See the country chapters in this volume.) A close look at the case of Senegal, where the legitimacy of security forces is clearly the highest in the region, is illustrative of the granularity needed to understand the challenges faced in the region. An examination of the armed forces, gendarmerie, and police in the country asserted that while armed forces and the gendarmerie are “renowned for their professionalism, competence and observance of republican values and [ . . . ] respect of human rights,” the reputation of the police has been tarnished by a poor image, corruption, and inadequate professionalism (Cissé 2015). Cissé pointed to the

Table 23.3 Governance and Democracy Indices for the Sahel Country

Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance*

Freedom House Index Freedom in the World**

Burkina Faso

57.1

56 (Partly Free)

Chad

35.4

17 (Not Free)

Mali

50.1

41 (Partly Free)

Mauritania

43.4

34 (Partly Free)

Niger

51.2

48 (Partly Free)

Senegal

63.3

71 (Partly Free)

* Mo Ibrahim rankings for 2019; score from 0 to 100 where 100 is best governance ** Freedom House rankings for 2020; scale from 0 to 100 where 100 is “free” Source: Compiled by the author.

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    453 risk of politicization, weak management (infrastructure, staff), and rule of law as the basis for security sector governance in Senegal. The fragile institutional and legal environment of the Sahel, he argued, also needs to adapt to the concept of human security with initiatives such as the Senegalese community policing (Agence pour la sécurité de proximité), which has recruited thousands of young people for preventive work with local authorities. When security forces are popularly perceived as fulfilling their role of providing security to most of the population, they can be considered legitimate. Nevertheless, popular support does not necessarily equate to a well-​governed force or even to sufficient presence in public life. Consider the example of Niger, where according to a 2016 Afrobarometer survey on Public Trust in Security Forces, 86 percent of Nigeriens expressed their trust in the police and 92 percent in the army. However, a 2018 Afrobarometer report on Niger established there was very weak presence of security forces across the country: 27 percent reported the presence nearby of police/​gendarmerie, and only 8 percent for the military. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regularly report on violations of humanitarian law and abuse of civilians by members of security forces in the region, including summary executions, racketing and destruction of towns, rape, and kidnappings perpetrated by those who are supposed to protect populations. Indeed, strengthening a positive link between populations and security forces, under the rule of law (ending impunity), remains a main subject for security sector reform in the Sahel.

CAN THE SAHEL DEFEND ITSELF? In a critical analysis of Western approaches to security in Africa, Metelits argued that African local dynamics are often presented as sources of threat, while the (Western) international system is seen as order. The international “securitization of the space” takes the Western state as the model, labeling African states as problematic, and disregarding local considerations of legitimacy and sovereignty (Metelits 2016, 32, 42–​ 46). Accordingly, security solutions in the Sahel have at times been envisaged from a regional or international approach, top-​down and from the outside-​in. However, even if conflicts often have international or transnational origins and implications, international initiatives should not be idealized as providers of order and security. To a certain extent, regional and international initiatives for security may appear as artificial because they are promoted through Western approaches which still have to bridge the gap with country specificities. Regional security initiatives in the Sahel have mushroomed since 2010. Some focus on economic issues, but the majority emphasize counterterrorism. No less than fifteen “Sahel Strategy” documents have been written. A wide variety of international organizations have outlined their institutional views for regional cooperation in the Sahel. These include: the United Nations (including a Special Representative of the

454   Cristina Barrios Secretary General for the Sahel, the UN Office for West Africa, and several other UN agencies); the African Union and its High Representative via the 2013 Nouakchott Process; the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); the Community of Sahel-​Saharan States (CEN-​SAD); the EU Sahel Strategy and Special Representative; the African Development Bank; the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union: the Sahel AGIR (French language acronym for the Global Alliance for Resilience Initiative); the G5 Sahel; and the Alliance Sahel. Coordination among these efforts, however, remains a challenge. These regional security initiatives have diverse sets of memberships. They all aim to support the capacity of individual states to provide security, but they also encourage intra-​regional trade. The varying membership of each organization, however, presents challenges to coordinate regional security efforts. For example, ECOWAS is a strong regional economic community, but it does not include Chad; the G5 Sahel does not include Senegal. At the same time, some international security cooperation projects may be less institutionalized within the region, but are highly relevant and influence local efforts. Such is the case with the counterterrorism cooperation led by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM); all Sahelian countries have participated in AFRICOM’s yearly regional exercises of Flintlock to some degree. The volume of intra-​Sahel trade remains limited; instead, some individual countries often have crucial economic, political, or security links with other non-​Sahelian countries. Burkina Faso, for example, is closely tied to dynamics in Cote d’Ivoire. And Chad’s stability is linked in various ways to Sudan, Libya, Cameroun, Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, and the Central African Republic. At the same time, the fight against Islamist terrorism has been the single most important factor leading to greater cooperation in the security sector among the countries of the Sahel. Although it is the historic epicenter of Islamist terrorism in the region, Algeria has played a significant role in counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel. Its effective security forces rank highest in counterterrorism capacity in Africa, and Algeria has historically promoted a pragmatic regional approach to security cooperation, including through mediation and with initiatives such as the Comité d’Etat major opérationnel conjoint (Joint Operational Staff Committee, CEMOC), which gathers and shares intelligence. The French-​led Operation Barkhane and MINUSMA, the UN Mission in Mali, further institutionalized counterterrorism efforts with a core focus on the Sahel, but both of them are eminently international and not regional initiatives. The G5 Sahel is perhaps the most interesting example of the rush to security cooperation in the region. In February 2014, the presidents of the five Sahelian countries of Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad created the G5 Sahel. This initiative, with its secretariat in Nouakchott, received support from France and the European Union, and attracted the attention of additional partners who were concerned about international terrorism and the so-​called “arc of instability” in the Sahel. The G5 was designed to be an organization for cooperation on both development and security issues, but given the regional context of crisis in which it was created, security cooperation was prioritized. By 2020, the G5 Sahel countries had agreed on legal provisions

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    455 enhancing trans-​border cooperation, created a G5 Joint Force with a mandate to fight terrorism and trafficking, and undertaken some operations in several trans-​border areas, with support from Barkhane. Terrorist attacks have continued to target Sahelian security forces notably in Mali, but they also killed over seventy soldiers in Inates (Niger) in 2019 and nearly one hundred in Bohoma (Lake Chad) in 2020. In 2018, the G5 Joint Force headquarters itself (then in Sévaré, Mali) suffered an attack that illustrated the emboldened capacity of terrorists to respond to this initiative. The European Union, the United States, and other bilateral partners, notably Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and China, agreed to fund or help train the Joint Force. Algeria, by contrast, maintained a cautious position to what it perceived as a French-​led initiative, and the G5 Sahel countries continued to call for a mandate under the UN Charter Chapter VII for the Joint Force. Although the G5 agreed to a Permanent Secretariat in Nouakchott and all five member states committed troops to the G5 Joint Force, the individual countries do not seem to see the organization as a substitute for their own national forces. At the same time, the various Sahelian governments clearly see the G5 Sahel as an instrument for attracting international support for their own limited security sector capacities, as well as a means for increasing their revenues for development cooperation projects. Along these lines, the G5 Sahel has sought support from “The Sahel Alliance,” a development cooperation

Map 23.1  The G5 Sahel and its Joint Force Source: Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/​OECD).

456   Cristina Barrios platform bringing together a number of European partners with the World Bank, the United Nations, and the African Development Bank for economic projects in the Sahel. The G5 Sahel faces political challenges in raising the alliance’s profile and ownership. Within the G5, the most important decisions are taken in presidential summits, and the involvement of national parliaments or each country’s civil society organizations has been limited. National governments have played the role of protagonists but also exposed the domestic divergences between Ministries of Economy and of Defense, while the Permanent Secretariat and the rotating presidency seek to build up the institution. It is uncertain whether the highly personalized and militarized regimes in Mauritania or Chad, or the regimes undergoing political transitions such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, will harness the political will and the technical capacity to institutionalize security cooperation within the context of the G5 Sahel and its predominant role for France. Alternatively, individual countries might seek closer ties directly with the African Union, which has played a more visible role in security across the continent, either channeling funds or gathering political momentum and advocating for African initiatives vis-​à-​vis the European Union and the United Nations. In the complicated overlapping memberships and the diverse political interests of the numerous organizations and the individual states with stakes in the Sahel, the future of regional cooperation on security issues remains unclear, and dependent on the will to coordinate.

CONCLUSION In his essay Sortir de la grande nuit, Achille Mbembe points to the fractioning of the monopoly of violence and the unequal distribution of the means of violence in African societies (Mbembe 2010, 196–​198), and argues that these have materialized in three trends. First, formal institutions have become ever weaker and informal dynamics have accelerated in African states—​a trend visible in the personalized regimes and in the resort to identity politics across the Sahel. Second, a social division has split those who are protected because they have access to arms, from those who are left exposed. Human insecurity is thus widespread; and seeking the services of warlords or “self-​defense committees” becomes appealing. Third, political fights have increasingly tended to be sorted out by force, maintaining strong-​man rule and creating incentives for non-​ state actors to arm. These trends are evident in the states of the Sahel, and they indicate avenues for further work on security challenges and security provision. The considerations presented here serve as a warning against the securitization of research on the Sahel, and against an excessive focus on military and defense budgets in public policy agendas, both in the Sahel countries themselves and by international actors. A comprehensive approach to the region requires a definition of security that encompasses the notion of human security and does not place the burden of security on the resilience of civil society. Although transnational approaches must be included

Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel    457 in any consideration of security provision, this chapter has highlighted the central role of individual Sahelian states as a normative reality in the contemporary context. Recognizing their individual limitations in terms of capacity and legitimacy is central to understanding the perpetuation of insecurity in the region. While establishing security is an urgent necessity across the Sahel, the politics shaping responses for security provision do not currently offer optimistic prospects for a lasting peace in the region. The region sits in hope of innovative policy initiatives based on sophisticated and careful understanding of the interlocking dynamics of domestic and international politics, and of security and development challenges. *Responsibility for the information and views set out in this chapter lies entirely with the author and they do not reflect any position of the European External Action Service of the European Union.

REFERENCES Cissé, Lamine. 2015. “Security Sector Reform in Democratic Senegal,” in Alan Bryden and Fairlie Chappuis, eds., Learning from West African Experiences in Security Sector Governance. Geneva: DCAF, 143–​166. Debos, Marielle. 2016. Living by the Gun in Chad: Combatants, Impunity and State Formation. London: Zed Books. Mbembe, Achille. 2010. Sortir de la grande nuit: essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. Paris: La Découverte. Metelits, Claire. 2016. Security in Africa: A Critical Approach to Western Indicators of Threat. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Roach, Steven C., Martin Griffiths, and Terry O’Callaghan. 2014. International Relations: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge. Skillicorn David, Olivier Walther, Quan Zheng, and Christian Leuprecht. 2018. “Spatial and Temporal Diffusion of Political Violence in North and West Africa,” in Olivier Walther and William Miles, eds., African Border Disorders. Abingdon: Routledge, 87–​112. Touchard, Laurent. 2017. Forces Armées Africaines: organisation, équipements, état de lieux et capacités. North Charleston: CreateSpace. Scheele, Julie. 2012. Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UN Development Program. 2017. Journey to Extremism in Africa. New York: UNDP. Walther Olivier, Christian Leuprecht, and David Skillicorn. 2017. “Political Fragmentation and Alliances Among Armed Non-​state Actors in North and Western Africa (1997–​2014).” Terrorism and Political Violence 2017: 1—​20. Whitehouse, Bruce, and Strazzari Francesco. 2015. “Introduction: Rethinking Challenges to State Sovereignty in Mali and Northwest Africa.” African Security 8(4): 213—​226.

chapter 24

F RENCH INTERV E NT I ONS IN THE SA H E L Roland Marchal

While Nicolas Sarkozy was often described as a fidgety and somewhat whimsical president of France (Cummings 2013), his successor François Hollande was seen by many as too cautious, always in search of a synthesis, even at the expense of his own values. Yet, in the space of a few months, Hollande launched a number of French military operations in Africa: Operation Serval in Mali (January 2013), followed by Operation Barkhane (August 2014) in the Sahel-​Saharan region, not to mention Operation Sangaris in the Central African Republic (December 2013). Furthermore, under Hollande, French covert operations took place in Libya, while Paris also supported the regional forces against Boko Haram and played its own (small) part in the war in Syria and Iraq (Operation Chammal). Like its close allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, France has also played a behind-​the-​scenes role in the Yemeni war, supplying intelligence or military advice and selling—​as others have been doing—​sophisticated weapons to Gulf states under the assumption that one should not let down good friends (and customers), and that Iran’s influence had the potential to destabilize the region. The most obvious way to assess French foreign policies may be to consider the personality of the president and his understanding of what French strategic interests are. Such an analysis focuses on the highest level of the decision-​making process and draws important conclusions from that viewpoint. Yet the fact that two very dissimilar presidents (and indeed their predecessors) made similar choices calls for a closer examination of how and why they arrived at their decision. Both Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande had paid little attention to the African continent before being elected president, although Hollande’s position within the Socialist International allowed him to connect with a number of francophone leaders who played a major role in the Sahel crisis (especially the presidents of Niger and Guinea). Further analyses rely on a study of the personalities who are deeply involved in the decision-​making process. Unlike in the United States, when a new president takes over, France does not rotate many people who have served in positions that could be

460   Roland Marchal considered political elsewhere. A change in president may affect only the private office of the ministers, made up of a couple of dozen advisers at a maximum. While policy changes actually do happen, they are slow and most often protect the interests of all bureaucracies beyond the political allegiance of their members. In the case of the Sahel discussed here, some observers would point to the existence or survival of a group of high-​ranking diplomats and military analysts or officers, called neoconservative by their opponents. These people, for instance, played a major role in hardening the French stance in the nuclear discussion with Iran. They also had no hesitation in promoting military intervention against jihadi groups in Africa. The military chief of staff to the French president up to summer 2016, General Benoît Puga, epitomizes this trend (Cantaloube 2014). However, one could argue that the role of such a tiny “cabal” is overemphasized, as broader changes took place in the professional ethos of high-​ranking French officers and civil servants. While the former analysis is much more detailed and points to important features of how the state apparatus works, it may sometimes be the tree that is hiding the forest. Sociological studies of French diplomats indeed draw a quite different picture of the worldview of those conducting French foreign policy than what is remembered outside France. To put it concisely: Gaullism is dead. Many French diplomats today feel that their country belongs to a Western community and that French policy should be defined from this viewpoint. A corollary is that France intends to be the good student: being considered as the best US ally is seen as a privilege that neither Sarkozy nor Hollande wanted to abandon (Lequesne 2017). Such a view is shared by many segments of the state apparatus. France implements its own foreign policy, but in a way that fits well the requirements of its more powerful ally. Another set of analyses points to the fact that France inherited a colonial army that had a very distinct culture compared to other European or Western armies. Colonial expeditions, wars against national liberation fronts in Asia and northern Africa and the Gaullist policy of keeping the former African colonies under strong French influence made the French army (and the French public) accustomed to military interventions on the continent (Chipman 1986). Bureaucratic interests in maintaining this approach are such that both military and civilian segments of the state apparatus allied to defend it, even though it collides with some features of their ethos. Many French diplomats, for instance, share the belief that intervening in Africa may be an asset to claiming status as a world power, and to being considered legitimate at the UN Security Council. The aim of this chapter is to describe how and why France decided to intervene and extend its military presence in the Sahel beyond the claimed victory on armed groups labeled “jihadi” and later “Islamists” in Mali. In the process, differences with the US policy in the region became visible. Regional actors also maintain a complex set of relations with France that are defined by bilateral bonds, as well as specific involvement in what is called here—​in a generic manner—​the “Sahel crisis.” This extremely dense system of friendships, competitions, and rivalries made Operation Serval and

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    461 Operation Barkhane possible, but on the margins may actually have also produced tensions important enough to allow jihadi groups to survive in the interstices. The first section discusses the factors that motivated France to intervene in January 2013, and elaborates on the analysis of subsequent threats in Sahel that pushed for the subsequent creation of Barkhane Operation. The second section reflects on France’s long history of military interventionism, which has been reshaped by international events but is perceived to be a marker of the identity of the military by the French political class. The third section attempts to shed some light on the complex array of relationships between regional states and France.

IDENTIFYING THE THREAT The French military intervention in Mali officially started on 11 January 2013, when armed Islamist groups launched their offensive against Konna, Sévaré Airport, and Mopti. The offensive began at a time when the political dialogue that had been attempted in Ouagadougou and Algiers had failed.1 Whatever was claimed publicly and became the main justification for the French intervention, it was unlikely that the armed Islamists offensive was actually aimed to take Bamako.2 The town of Sévaré (where the headquarters for operations of the Malian army was located) and Mopti were ambitious enough goals. Yet an intervention only to break that offensive without also launching the reconquest of the north was not realistic because French troops would have been stuck on the “borders” of the Azawad, confirming a de facto partition of the country and making the constitution of an African or international force to fight the armed groups up north less urgent. The Ivorian scenario—​two armed sides being stalemated on the battlefield with no peaceful solution in sight—​could have repeated itself. Moreover, the Islamists and jihadists would not have been really affected by this posture. Thus, François Hollande was clear on the mandate for the intervention: “the terrorists should be destroyed and national integrity recovered.”3 The French decision came as a great public surprise. François Hollande, whose presidential term had begun in May 2012, had no known interest in Africa. For months, he adamantly stated that no French boots would be put on the ground in Africa.4 French intervention, he repeated, would be limited to providing logistical support and intelligence to an African force mainly made up of ECOWAS contingents. France also mobilized diplomats at the United Nations to get more robust resolutions passed by the UN Security Council to provide the legal and financial framework for such a force (Resolutions 2071 and 2085), and campaigned in Brussels to set up an EU training mission to rebuild a functioning Malian army able to reconquest the north. Yet, on 11 January 2013, French troops were fighting in Konna, and by early February France had more troops and military hardware in Mali than any time before in Afghanistan or in Côte d’Ivoire with Operation Licorne.5 To explain this shift from a

462   Roland Marchal rhetoric of noninterventionism to a full-​scale operation, several aspects have to be taken into consideration. The new French government in May 2012 was immediately caught up by concerns expressed by the previous administration and by the warnings of its intelligence services. Jihadi groups led by al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had been setting up sanctuaries in northern Mali. Their successful hostage-​taking “industry,” was extremely costly for the French state, which despite official denials frequently paid ransoms that often amounted to tens of millions of euros, disbursed directly or indirectly (Nouzille 2017). This implied that those groups had enough resources to increase their activities and to kidnap more people. Hostage issues are very difficult and painful situations to handle for any president, who is always seen as guilty of not doing enough and of sacrificing human lives on the altar of state interests. From 2008, France had established a Sabre task force, made up of special forces, settled first in Mauritania, then in Niger, and by 2012 in Burkina Faso, to collect intelligence and be able to negotiate ransoms with the various katibas, combatant groups. The coup in Bamako in March 2012 and the expansion of militant groups over nearly one-​third of Malian territory meant that the security problems were now at a different level. During the lead up to the French elections, Nicolas Sarkozy had acknowledged the magnitude of the crisis in Mali but had decided not to act for two main reasons. French hostages were in AQIM hands and hence vulnerable. And the presidential elections were approaching and a failed intervention in Mali could cost him many votes. Of course, Paris was also conscious that the deterioration in Mali could destabilize neighboring countries where France had other tangible economic interests. While sharing the same view on the seriousness of the threat, following François Hollande’s election in May 2012, the different ministries and state agencies arrived at a more nuanced interpretation of the situation (Lasserre and Oberlé 2013). According to some observers, the covert funding that the French had provided for the Tuareg nationalist movement, the Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA), was ended,6 as a more realistic view prevailed against the romantic vision of the Tuareg that had dominated in some quarters, including the French Secret Service (DGSE) that had developed and maintained close relations with Tuareg leaders from previous conflicts and in reaction to the growth of AQIM. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Laurent Fabius, was very supportive of an African-​led force, as most of Fabius’s key advisers saw the AMISOM (African Mission in Somalia) as a success. Laurent Fabius therefore focused on a diplomatic agenda intended to define the conditions for an international operation in northern Mali. Paris played by the book and kept raising concerns in the appropriate international arenas in Brussels and New York. The military—​especially the Commandement des Opérations Spéciales (COS), the French Special Forces present in the region through covert Sabre operations based in Burkina Faso—​saw the armed Islamists as a growing threat that might justify an intervention. The Sabre initiative had been started for the purpose of getting the release of French hostages in northern Mali. The CPSO (Centre de planification et de suivi des

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    463 opérations), under the army’s chief of staff kept, collecting data on the backgrounds of the militants and their operations. From June 2012, the military came to feel that the crisis was too serious to exclude the option of putting boots on the ground.7 The French military also benefited from two trump cards. The defense minister, Jean-​ Yves Le Drian, was a close political ally and friend of Hollande. He endorsed the continuation of CPSO planning. The president’s military chief of staff (the main military adviser to the president) was General Benoît Puga, who had previously served as head of the Special Forces, and had in different positions supervised military involvements in Chad (2006–​2009) and in Libya (2011). Although Sarkozy had appointed Puga, Hollande maintained him, against the opposition of many of his Socialist advisers. Many observers considered him to be more influential than the diplomats officially in charge of Africa at the Elysée, who were less experienced. General Puga was also close to Lieutenant General Joseph Votel, who was in charge of the US Joint Special Operations Command. General Puga was certainly willing to take action to attempt to restore France’s reputation after the lackluster French achievements in Afghanistan. Pro-​ interventionists thus clearly dominated the President’s inner circle. In the meantime, diplomatic efforts faltered. The reluctance of the UN Security Council to get involved was noticeable—​largely a result of US hesitation to become directly involved in Mali. After months of intensive diplomatic work, UN Security Council resolution 2085 was passed just before Christmas 2012. It was far less than what the French had expected; it provided only a basic roadmap with no timeline and no commitment to send troops. In the region, at the level of ECOWAS, the situation was equally grim. Despite an early endorsement of a military intervention by Mali’s neighbors, follow-​up meetings were inconclusive and the perception in Paris was that many African players wanted to benefit from the Malian crisis but were not interested in solving it. There were other considerations too. President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger advocated a quick intervention in northern Mali to protect his country from contagion effects. Other African presidents, including Macky Sall of Senegal and Alpha Condé of Guinea, though not as emphatically supportive, were also in favor of such a move.8 There is no doubt that the discussion of these presidents with François Hollande played a major role in convincing him to launch a French military intervention. Critics quickly described this as a “neocolonial” intervention and the reassertion of the interests of the infamous “Françafrique.”9 Yet France had been campaigning since 2008 to get the European Union and the international community at large involved in Sahel in order to strengthen security in the region. Most of its partners were reluctant despite the growing disruptions orchestrated by AQIM and its associated groups. Moreover, the three African presidents just mentioned were democratically elected, hardly a feature of Françafrique. Although a former French colony, Mali itself did not belong to the Françafrique sphere of influence (Smith 2013). Its presidents never contributed funds to the French Socialist Party and its election campaigns, as others did. The thousands of French residents in Mali, most of them dual nationals, did not have the economic relevance or clout that the French community had at one point in such

464   Roland Marchal countries as Côte d’Ivoire or Gabon. Mali’s main resources, gold and cotton, were not in the hands of French companies. The reasons behind Hollande’s decision to intervene were expressed publicly several times. The French President had often been described as a weak politician who indulged in procrastination. Many believe that he acted decisively in Mali to prove such critics wrong; the intervention in Mali might have been a strategy to improve his popularity.10 Some pundits accurately compare this French intervention in Mali to what the United Kingdom did in Sierra Leone in May 2000. One might also argue that Hollande was driven by a certain understanding of secularism and a hostility toward religious radicalism. French public opinion over the last decade had developed a strong element of “Islamophobia” and was quite nervous about Islamist influence. Northern Mali under the Islamist groups was described as being like “hell on earth” by most French media and French public opinion thus displayed strong support for Operation Serval. It is also striking that in his speeches, the French president often confused terms in a troubling manner. The very loose use of certain words (“jihadist,” “Islamist,” and “terrorist” being often taken as synonymous) and the changing aims of the war (“Malian sovereignty,” “ridding the country of armed Islamists and jihadists,” “eradicating terrorism”) reflected more than the mere bad communication skills of the French government. They proved that the Socialist president and his advisers had not drawn lessons from the US military adventures in the last decade. This blind attitude was not only the expression of the strong will to intervene but also the professed familiarity with intervention in Africa (in contrast to Afghanistan). Many in the French security apparatus claimed that they knew how to move things along in Africa, and this alleged experience allowed them to disregard any counterargument. A key question that France was not willing to address in the debate about whether to intervene was what the Malian crisis was really about. There were different answers, of course, all acknowledged by international players: the crisis of the Malian state, the unresolved Tuareg issue, and the Islamist/​Jihadi challenges were prime among these. The real political stake was how to interconnect these issues and at which level of priority. François Hollande, though often an expert in procrastination and ambiguity, selected his options clearly: the mandate given to Operation Serval was not to rebuild the state, to reshape Malian politics, or even to offer a roadmap to solve the Tuareg problem. Rather, he opted for a focused military intervention that would address a military problem. And from a military perspective, the operation has indeed been surprisingly successful for a number of reasons (Guilloteau and Nauche 2013; d’Evry 2015). First, the military was well prepared in terms of its operational intelligence. The collection of data had started months if not years before. The DGSE and COS (Sabre) intelligence services had already been on the ground for months, and a high value target list was updated continuously. Moreover, France activated an additional military brigade based in France (dispositif Guépard) that could deploy overseas in less than seventy-​ two hours. Second, France used its military facilities and troops already positioned on the continent: Operations Licorne (in Côte d’Ivoire) and Epervier (in Chad) provided

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    465 timely equipment and ground forces.11 This also played a role in the successful logistics of the whole operation. Third, the inter-​army coordination within the various units of the French armed forces worked remarkably well. The conventional forces, the COS and the DGSE worked as a team, which had not always been the case during previous deployments. Despite the apparent success, however, neither Mali nor France should regard the mission as a clear-​cut victory. Had Serval been fully successful, there would have been no need for the follow-​up operation, Barkhane. In addition, the outcome of the intervention left much to be desired. Contrary to what President Hollande had stated repeatedly in January and February 2013, the Serval Operation lasted nearly a year and a half, significantly longer than the anticipated three months. The many tactical victories only proved that the jihadi influence was more rooted and more transnationalized than first thought. Three other crises also raised the stakes. In Nigeria, Boko Haram in 2014 emerged as a serious challenge to the Nigerian state. As its activities were spreading across the Sahel, France became nervous about its growing influence in northern Cameroon and later in Niger and Chad. Libya’s inability to put in place a functioning government appeared to endanger its coastal territory where most of the population is settled. But it soon became clear that jihadi operatives in Mali had been able to get sanctuaries and facilities in the southwest of Libya: suddenly, a creeping migrant crisis was merging with the growth of jihadi adventurers while Islamists in the north were getting better connected with Libyan armed factions in the south of the country. The third event was the emergence of ISIS in the region, and clear indications that it would impact the armed groups in the Sahel. The creation of the G5 Sahel in February 2014 was praised as the birth of an alliance of five Sahelian states confronted with a common jihadi threat. Yet concerns were also raised. The first concern was the control of the borders; if the African states had been able to control their borders, the various jihadi groups would have been unable to find sanctuaries. Human and drug trafficking would not have taken place. This argument over time was reinforced or illustrated by the emerging migrant crisis. Few argued about the feasibility of the G5 ambitions, or the social and economic implications. The military dominated the discussion and as a result the migration crisis became a security concern above all else. A second point of concern was the quality of the military and security apparatus in most Sahelian states. The difficulties of rebuilding the Malian army, the political crisis in Burkina Faso with the departure of Blaise Compaoré in November 2014, the growing difficulties of Niger to cope with Boko Haram, and the outcomes of the Malian war meant that it would take longer to rebuild efficient military apparatuses. There was no thought about the long-​term implication of an over investment on military while the civilian structures were very weak; no one seemed concerned by the prospect of new praetorian adventures. French officials were aware that this thinking focused on security and left little to no room for a conversation about the socioeconomic dimensions of the Malian crisis. The

466   Roland Marchal challenges of rebuilding the Malian economy were left to others: the United Nations, the European Union, or other donors.

A LONG HISTORY OF FRENCH INTERVENTIONISM From the end of the Algerian War of Independence in 1962 to Operation Serval, more than 632 French soldiers were killed in international military interventions. Only two parliamentary reports in 1995 and 2015 scrutinized these “opex” (opérations extérieures),12 which the French public sees as different from a war. While the 1958 constitution requires parliament to declare war, no article stipulates what it should do when the French military (or other coercion forces) are involved in a situation outside the national borders. The collapse of the colonial empire meant that most of interventions after World War II were in fact confrontations with independence movements. Algeria, the last intervention of this kind, destroyed many myths that the colonial army had cultivated. It ended in defeat and humiliation, with the departure of the pieds-​noirs.13 After 1962, the Cold War somewhat regulated the ability to intervene. Most French operations on the African continent were justified by agreements signed with the new independent states. Many of those agreements contained secret articles that authorized France to take steps to protect the rulers, intervene militarily in case of internal wars, or secure direct French interests or communities.14 After 1989, French interventions abroad became more frequent. A first turning point was the Gulf War (1990–​1991), which saw a large-​scale French involvement (seventeen thousand French soldiers of an overall seven hundred thousand troops from seventeen countries). This intervention was much bigger than what had been done before and after. It produced a number of important changes as France saw itself as an outdated military power. The army underwent structural reforms that resulted in the full professionalization of the French military by 1997 (Böene 2003). This had two major consequences. First, as Bernard Böene (2003) argues, it internationalized security policy, which resulted in France’s return to NATO’s military command in April 2009. Second, it slowly built a definition of what sort of power France could be: a country that is able to deploy military forces beyond its territory and a country influential enough to bring allies in to share the military, political, and economic burdens of the operation. The French army thus intervened all over the globe: in Europe (Croatia and Bosnia, later Kosovo), Cambodia (1991–​1993), Timor, Afghanistan, Latin America (Salvador, Haiti), and of course in Africa (Djibouti, Somalia, Cameroon, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Chad). And in a different framework on several occasions the French army intervened unofficially (e.g., in the Comoros and Libya).15

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    467 By the early 2000s, a number of changes were taking place. There was a general fatigue surrounding liberal interventionism (and its recurrent failures). Following the 9/​11 terrorist attacks, there was a growing awareness that the nature of the enemy had changed. These reassessments did not happen overnight. France’s involvement in Afghanistan (a large operation for France) and the growing concerns about jihadi groups gradually shaped new military behavior. The disconnect between France’s nuclear deterrence strategy and the rest of the French army became an accepted reality. That meant that a large section of the military could be used for international force projection. The terror attacks on French territory added a new security feature in January 2015 when Operation Sentinelle put up to ten thousand soldiers on the streets of France (6,500 in Paris, 3,500 elsewhere in France). The 2008 White Paper on Defense16 made explicit that military interventions would hence have to focus on a region from the Atlantic Ocean to the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean. In 2015, nearly 80 percent of the French military involved in opex were located in Sahel, Central African Republic, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Despite this recurrence of military interventions overseas, France has never articulated any doctrine or principles to justify them a priori. Up to now, the decision to intervene is left to the president, following a quite imprecise definition of what French strategic or long-​term interests might be in any given case. Consequently, it is risky to apply a label to any French military intervention from the start. While it may be neocolonial or rooted in Françafrique interests, it might also be connected to a quite different set of reasons. France is the first European country with the capacity to deploy its military to theaters across the globe. While its skills are acknowledged in this field and even celebrated after the success of Operation Serval, there is no debate in France about the fact that French military interventions have hardly solved any of the crises the French military has been involved in (see Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Libya, Chad). The 2013 Defense White Paper provided some guidance for military intervention. Accordingly, a military intervention should respond to vital or strategic interests or be grounded in France’s international responsibilities. There are no guidelines, however, on how to interpret or apply these criteria. Another set of guidelines stipulates that international approval is a necessary condition for a military intervention. This applies to all major international organizations including the UN Security Council, NATO, and the European Union. Increasingly, France needs allies to conduct its military missions abroad. The inclusion of allies is seen as keeping costs low and as a way of increasing the legitimacy of the mission. It further serves to show France’s influence in the world. Other members of the European Union and its members are therefore the first approached for financial and legitimacy reasons. France’s attempts to get the European Union involved militarily in Mali and the Central African Republic in 2013 failed dramatically. Nowadays, France seems to have reduced its expectations: Paris now is content with the European Union setting up EU training missions in Mali, Central African Republic, and Somalia. This new realism just illustrates how France is increasingly focused on the military

468   Roland Marchal dimensions (training, security sector reform) of recovery, more than other components of crisis management. Over the years, France has consistently failed to prepare to manage post-​crisis periods. In these situations, France faces two options: to delegate the responsibility to manage the post-​crisis period to an international organization and focus on the military dimension; or to remain a key actor during the post-​crisis period, which would require investing further resources into these missions. In the latter case, Paris would mobilize the UN toolkit for post-​crisis management and, for instance, bet on elections as a way to hand over the case to the United Nations (as France did in Central African Republic). In the former case, France would try to “lead from behind.” Over time, France has developed new foreign and security policy strategies for Africa. In the 1990s, it endorsed the liberal ideology on crisis management and interventionism. After several reforms that were driven by financial pressures, the “cooperation” portfolio was handed over to the Agence française de développement (AFD). The AFD funds development projects and it has a very conventional and bureaucratic approach to sensitive issues such as state-​building or post-​crisis management. The AFD tends to advocate for technocratic solutions, which foster a consensus among French stakeholders, but which prove to be very controversial in the recipient countries (Bergamaschi 2014). Because of its shaky fiscal situation, France had to cut its budget for development aid or cooperation, which has been shrinking for the last fifteen years despite commitments to the contrary. To sum up, France lacks thinking about how to approach post-​crisis periods. As France becomes more involved in military interventions it tries to grab whatever it can get from Brussels. This reinforces the feeling in Brussels that France wants the European Union to pay for its Africa policy.17

A REGIONAL CHESS GAME Having opted for direct intervention in the Sahel, the French decision provoked a complicated set of reactions and political calculations by a broad range of regional and international actors. On the diplomatic front, Paris’s determination to intervene in Mali opened a new chapter in relations with the African Union and the United States, while it had little impact on its relationship with the European Union. Although the French intervention was celebrated in Europe, there was little indication that it would translate into greater policy attention to crises in Africa or in the Sahel beyond their purely security dimensions. The Valetta summit on “regulating migration to Europe” demonstrated that the European Union still had a long way to go and that hardening access for migrants to Europe is seen by many member states as a higher priority than countering violent extremism. Until France’s military intervention in Mali, the European Union showed little inclination to support the French approach to the Sahel. France and the European Union did not even see eye-​to-​eye with regard to the desirability of establishing a training mission

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    469 for the Malian army. After 11 January 2013, however, things changed. To some extent, perception among EU member states that France wants to make the European Union pay for its Africa policy is accurate. However, many European countries lack interest in Africa and have missed the opportunity to formulate their own interests in the region. This is particularly true of Eastern Europe. Germany’s unwillingness (or lack of interest) in developing its own diplomatic expertise in African affairs undermined the formulation of a coherent European Africa policy. Today Germany seems interested in becoming more involved in Africa. German troops have been sent to Mali, and Germany has taken a number of diplomatic initiatives on the continent. Throughout 2012, French officials failed to convince their European partners to join their military intervention in Mali. Paris appeared overconfident and never produced the strong evidence they claimed to have about the jihadi threat. Before France’s military intervention, Paris’s ambition had been to train about two thousand five hundred Malian soldiers to retake north Mali with the support of ECOWAS contingent. After January 2013, the main task became to re-​establish a national Malian army that would comply with basic human rights norms and the norms governing warfare. Incidents in June 2014 in the far northern town of Kidal proved that getting a genuine Malian army back to work would be a more time-​consuming project that anticipated. The EU commitment to the region has grown significantly, not because of the current confrontations with armed groups but mostly because of the flow of migrants, fleeing violence and conflict. This discrepancy between Europe’s officially announced interests and their real ones is likely going to produce inefficiencies and misunderstandings in the relationship between Sahelian states and their European partners. The arm wrestling between Bamako and Paris over the return of illegal migrants illustrates that problem. More remarkable than European Union reluctance to address the Malian crisis, is the US attitude. In other crises the US government has been unwilling to favor direct engagement with armed Islamists working in connection with al-​Qaeda. In the Sahel it articulated a discourse of crisis and threat with multiple references to “ungoverned spaces” and “safe havens for jihadists,” yet it showed a surprisingly ambivalent attitude when the Malian crisis broke out (Arieff 2013). Indeed, the US ambassador to the United Nations described the plan to set up an African Force for Mali as “crap” (Lynch 2012). The apparent lack of consistency in the US administration’s agenda for Mali was guided by different preferences than those that the United States expressed publicly. The Obama Administration considered Algeria the pivotal state in the region. Algiers supported the negotiations but did not initially see the Malian jihadist group Ansar Dine as an offspring of AQIM. Huge interests in the energy industry area also weighed on Algeria’s stance (Boukhars 2012). At the same time, US pundits initially stressed that the insurgency in northern Mali did not pose a threat to any neighboring government, and could be dealt with without the use of force. This argument fell apart after the offensive in Konna in early January 2013. As in France, the US administration was not unified in its assessment of the situation on the ground. The Pentagon and the State Department seemed to share the French interpretation of events. US officials (including Hillary Clinton) lobbied Algeria to help intervene in north Mali. Algiers publicly refused to do

470   Roland Marchal so but secretly contributed to Operation Serval. Algeria also has secret agreements with Operation Barkhane. The Obama White House did not want to get involved in a new war on terror, especially not during a period in which it was moving American troops out of Afghanistan. Eventually, the United States resorted to instruments that it previously used during low-​ level crises: Special Forces, drones, and the CIA. The Pentagon and the State Department also trained local security institutions without paying sufficient attention to their efficiency and their respect for human and political rights. Eventually, a military facility was established in Burkina Faso to collect data and provide logistical support to the Special Forces operations in Mali (Whitlock 2012). A new base opened soon thereafter in Niger. The intention behind the construction of this new base was to send a message to the jihadists in northern Mali that they should not expect to find an easy sanctuary in the country (Turse 2015). Had Mali waited for its African partners to act, the situation might have deteriorated further. The dysfunctionality of ECOWAS in this regard has several multiple origins. The Mali crisis led to a redefinition of the relationship between the ECOWAS and Paris. For nearly seventeen years, some ECOWAS heads of state had enjoyed a close relationship with various conservative French presidents. This came to an end, however, when François Hollande was elected. Key ECOWAS players faced problems with their armed forces and feared that a military intervention in Mali could become a divisive national security issue that would provoke dissent in the armed forces and sharp criticisms from the population. Many also feared that any military intervention in Mali could harden their relationship between the state and Islamic groups in their own country. The roles of Libya, Morocco, Algeria, and Chad also deserve a closer look. Regional stabilization in the Sahel appears unlikely without addressing the factors that drove the involvement of these four countries into the security crisis in Mali. And a full account of the effects of the French intervention must consider the collateral impact on other states in the region. While Chad’s direct military involvement in reclaiming the north of Mali and in the regional war against Boko Haram has been much praised in some policy circles, it seems clear that Chadian President Idriss Déby’s decision to send troops to Mali was motivated in large part by the need to convince France to protect his regime. Fearing that the new Socialist president in Paris would sooner or later support the Chadian opposition to bring about regime change in the name of promoting democracy, the calculation was that sending troops to Mali would help avoid such a scenario. Remarkably, Déby silenced international criticisms and made funding for his military adventures available during a period of intense budgetary crisis in Chad. This decision to intervene in Mali allowed Idriss Déby to divert the attention of the large military apparatus he had built from any temptation to intervene at home. In a context of much domestic criticism about the use of limited resources on wars outside their borders, Idriss Déby has good reason to be fearful of a coup. Attempting to avoid a scenario in which coup plotters rally a significant part of the army behind them, his key military commanders are often either close relatives and/​or rivals. All indications are

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    471 that a succession, whenever it takes place, may actually provoke infighting among the Chadian military with significant collateral damage (Marchal 2017). The political situation in Libya is also both affected by and a factor in the post-​ interventions in the Sahel. In 2011, Idriss Déby—​then chair of the Community of Sahel-​ Saharan States (CENSAD)—​warned of the consequences of the Western intervention against Muammar Qaddafi. In hindsight he was right; the fall of Qaddafi opened a Pandora’s box of consequences that has shaped the region, most centrally the dynamics that led to the collapse of Mali and the occupation of the north of the country by jihadi forces. Southwest Libya became the sanctuary for jihadi groups that were operating in Mali. In addition, local militias, mostly organized on the basis of ethnicity and locality, have connected with more powerful and ideologically ambitious armed groups based in the north, where most Libyans live. This brought the rebels greater military expertise and heavier weaponry. Third, remnants of armed groups initially from Darfur and Chad reorganized in Libya and connected with local militias through ethnicity, trafficking, or political alliances. Finally, and unsurprisingly, Daesh (ISIS) supporters in Libya have expanded and growing tensions between this group and AQIM have further complicated the jihadi challenge. Finally, we should note the impact of French intervention on the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco in the Sahel. The interests and the strategies for pursuing regional hegemony differ in these two countries. Algeria’s secretive regime strongly espouses a diplomatic discourse rejecting any external actors and military intervention in its territory. Yet after the terror attack in the desert outpost of In Amenas in January 2013, Algeria authorized French aircraft to use its air space, and there are reports that French forces received Algerian authorization to cross the border from northern Mali to pursue jihadi cells. The 2015 peace agreement between Tuareg insurgents and others rebels in Mali was negotiated in Algiers, tacitly acknowledging the influence of Algeria in the region. If France had to make some concessions to Algeria, there is no doubt that Morocco was also able to win back some influence following the intervention, as shown notably by its reentry into the African Union in February 2017. Morocco is a powerful and influential religious and economic player in the Sahel. Moroccan companies have reached out to many African countries in West and Central Africa and played a visible economic role in Mali. Its economic influence is also strengthened by the strong religious legitimacy of the Moroccan regime: the decision to train five hundred imams from Mali in Morocco illustrates the soft religious power and influence it enjoys in Sahel.

CONCLUSION: CONSEQUENCES AND POST-​INTERVENTION DYNAMICS France’s surprisingly bold decision under François Hollande to intervene fully in Mali will have long consequences in the region. While the full extent of the impact and

472   Roland Marchal the political and social dynamics that will result will be played out over years, some problems stemming from the French intervention in Mali were discernable in the years that followed. The French focus on the region via the lens of security issues has meant that Paris increasingly uses its influence and power to fund Sahelian military responses. It is unclear what the long-​term consequences of ongoing French support for Sahel military apparatus will be, but there will certainly be an impact in the increasing neglect of civilian institutions. It seems likely in fact that France will be forced to continue to spend on the widening security crisis while the political crises and potential for instability in the region deteriorate further. In a context of weakening state institutions and legitimacy, France and its local allies may be engaging in strategies that will allow them to win all battles but lose the war. In the 2017 French electoral campaign, none of the major candidates seriously discussed Mali. Rather, to the extent that it was mentioned, patriotic discourse was overwhelming: the intervention in Mali was presented as a first reaction against ISIS and its terror attacks in France—​despite the fact that ISIS had only emerged one year after the launch of Operation Serval. The new French president, Emmanuel Macron, had no personal links with his Malian counterpart. When he visited French troops in the town of Gao in May 2017, his message was that more was needed on the political side (a clear criticism of the Malian president) and that France intended to focus its efforts on ensuring the success of the G5 more than on support for the Malian government. Beyond the question of the likelihood of a G5 victory against jihadism, France seemed to be reframing the reasons for its intervention and trying to build the narrative for a possible reduction of Operation Barkhane. In Paris, the jihadi question was increasingly discussed with the conflict in Syria and Libya in mind on one hand, and on the other with an eye to the reduction of the flows of African migrants. The focus on restoring the authority of the Malian state seems to diminish in light of the focus on migration. Despite the wide public support that France’s intervention initially elicited in the region, the persistence of the crisis and the refocusing of priorities have begun to provoke new public attitudes that are hardly acknowledged or discussed in Western military or political circles. In a context where African publics feel unable to completely grasp the situation and increasingly resent the deteriorating conditions of life, conspiracy theories surge. Today, in most of the greater Sahel, one can hear reasonable people arguing that France and the United States created the “so-​called jihadi movements” as a pretext to recolonize Africa, to take over the continent’s precious resources, and to marginalize China and other emerging powers and thus avoid having African countries develop and become truly independent. This dynamic is likely to continue unless France, and the West more broadly, can refocus its efforts in the region on the civilian realm, and put more attention and resources on youth, economy, education, and the infrastructure to deliver better social services. Foreign military forces cannot achieve this, even if well

FRENCH Interventions in the Sahel    473 trained and well intentioned. The political dynamics of the post-​intervention Sahel are likely to be shaped by the extent to which outside policies can be shifted from a military to a developmental focus—​a challenge of immense proportions.

Notes 1. While the jihadi offensive was being launched, there was also a creeping attempt in Mali to overthrow interim president Dioncounda Traoré by supporters of the coup leaders that had removed Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in March 2012. The French intervention stopped both attempts to change the balance of force. 2. The insurgents were said to be between two thousand and three thousand in number. Bamako’s population is close to two million inhabitants. 3. President François Hollande made this statement while on a visit to Dubai, 15 January 2013. 4. See, for instance, his interview with Radio France International on 11 October 2012. 5. For French Ministry of Defense figures on French military operations see: https://​www. defense.gouv.fr/​operations/​terminees 6. This argument has been recurrently quoted by Malian sources. A few French close observers repeated it but no independent confirmation is available. 7. Certainly, the best account of the military side of the operation is provided by Notin (2014). 8. One of the few African leading politicians who was a friend of Hollande’s, Alpha Condé, is said to be the person who secured Chad’s participation in the Mali intervention. 9. The much-​debated term “Françafrique” is used to describe the close personal, economic, and political interests that tie France to the leadership of its former colonies, in a relationship described as corrupt and neocolonial. 10. This despite the fact that analysts of French politics concur that military interventions overseas do not provide popularity for long. Sarkozy’s popularity, for example, collapsed at the time of the European armed intervention in Chad and in the Central African Republic, and did not increase when he launched his war against Qaddafi. The same conclusion applies to military actions by François Mitterrand or Jacques Chirac. 11. http://​www.defense.gouv.fr/​operations/​tchad/​dossier/​les-​elements-​francais-​au-​tchad-​eft. 12. See: http://​www.defense.gouv.fr/​operations/​rubriques_​complementaires/​carte-​des-​operations-​ et-​missions-​militaires. 13. Algeria’s war was not formally an opex. Algeria was initially part of the French territory and thus the legalities concerning the involvement of French troops were different. 14. Chad with Limousin (1969–​1972), Tacaud (1978–​1980), Manta (1983–​1984), Epervier (1986–​ 2014); Mauritania with Lamantin (1977–​ 1980); Zaire: Bonite (Kolwezi) 1978; Central African Republic: Barracuda (1979–​1981), Gabon: Murène (1980–​1981) Requin (1990), Comoros: Osise (1989). 15. These operations are usually carried out by the Service Action of the French Secret Services, the DGSE. 16. http://​archives.livreblancdefenseetsecurite.gouv.fr/​2008/​information/​les_​dossiers_​ actualites_​19/​livre_​blanc_​sur_​defense_​875/​index.html. 17. An example can be found in a speech made by François Hollande that announced that over €35 million would be disbursed to Lake Chad riverine countries to fund stabilization projects, improve local governance, and re-​launch economic activities. Soon after, it

474   Roland Marchal became clear that the funds were in fact not new, that it was mainly European and not French money, and that the French Development Agency (AFD) tasked with managing the project would itself receive some €3 million of the funds.

REFERENCES Arieff, Alexis. 2013. Crisis in Mali. Congressional Research Service. 14 January. Bergamaschi, Isaline. 2014. “The Fall of a Donor Darling: The Role of Aid in Mali’s Crisis.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 52(3): 347–​378. Böene, Bernard. 2003. “La professionnalisation des armées: contexte et raisons, impacts fonctionnels et sociopolitiques.” Revue française de sociologie 44: 647–693. Boukhars, Anouar. 2012. A Paranoid Neighbour. Algeria and the Conflict in Mali. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Cantaloube, Thomas. 2014. “Puga: le général qui a marabouté Hollande.” Mediapart. 8 July. Chipman, John. 1986. La cinquième République et la défense de l’Afrique. Paris: Editions Bosquet. Cummings, Gordon. 2013. “Nicolas Sarkozy’s Africa policy: Change, Continuity or Confusion.” French Politics 11: 24–47. D’Evry, Antoine. 2015. “L’opération Serval à l’épreuve du doute: Vrais succès et fausses leçons.” Focus stratégique 59. https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/etudes-de-lifri/focus-strategique/ loperation-serval-lepreuve-doute-vrais-succes-fausses. Guilloteau, Christophe, and Phillipe Nauche. 2013. Rapport Parlementaire d’information sur l’opération Serval au Mali 1288. http://​www.assemblee-​nationale.fr/​14/​rap-​info/​i1288.asp. Lequesne, Christian. 2017. Ethnographie du Quai d’Orsay. Les pratiques des diplomates français. Paris: CNRS Editions. Lynch, Colum. 2012. “Rice: French Plan for Mali Intervention is ‘Crap.’” Foreign Policy: Turtle Bay Blog. 11 December. Marchal, Roland. 2017. “An Emerging Military Power in Central Africa? Chad under Idriss Déby.” Sociétés politiques comparées. Revue européenne d’analyse des sociétés Politiques 40: 2–​20. Notin, Jean Christophe. 2014. La guerre de la France au Mali. Paris: Tallandier. Nouzille, Vincent. 2017. Erreurs Fatales. Comment nos présidents ont failli face au terrorisme. Paris: Fayard. Smith, Stephen. 2013. “What Are They Doing in Mali?” The London Review of Books. 7 February. Turse, Nick. 2015. “In Mali and Rest of Africa, the U.S. Military fights a Hidden War.” The Intercept, November 20. https://​theintercept.com/​2015/​11/​20/​in-​mali-​and-​rest-​of-​africa-​ the-​u-​s-​military-​fights-​a-​hidden-​war/​. Whitlock, Craig. 2012. “U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa.” The Washington Post, June 13. https://​www.washingtonpost.com/​world/​national-​security/​us-​expands-​ secret-​intelligence-​operations-​in-​africa/​2012/​06/​13/​gJQAHyvAbV_​story.html.

Section VI

T H E I N T E L L E C T UA L LANDSCAPE AND H I STORY OF I DE A S Section editor: Alioune Sow

Introdu c t i on Alioune Sow

The contemporary Sahel is marked by a vibrant intellectual and cultural environment, established historically through key moments and features, and shaped by prevailing thinkers, public figures, and ideologues. The literary and cultural works, practices, and interventions of these figures have contributed to the making of a composite Sahelian intellectual landscape characterized by a diverse cultural production. Collectively, the chapters in this section outline a brief history of thought in the Sahel, and sketch the contours of some of the major ideas that have developed and unfolded in the region over the last five centuries. A combination of historical factors and circumstances have determined the singular development of ideas and the peculiar features that constitute the Sahelian intellectual landscape. Some of them are well-​known, most particularly French colonialism, the transition to decolonization, and the subsequent postcolonial political regimes. Others—​less known and distant from the contemporary period—​include the ideologies and ambitions of the pre-​colonial Sahelian monarchies, the political crises that followed the collapse of dynasties and aristocracies, religious developments, the dynamics of local economies, demographic modifications, and commercial and cultural exchanges with the African regions to the north. As the three chapters highlight, each of these moments ignited vigorous intellectual encounters and sparked tremendous cultural transformation, generating fertile critical debates on a range of topics and issues as varied as imperial hegemonies, governance, race and servitude, clericalism, equality, and living standards. These moments also altered the cultural tendencies and generic dispositions of the region to, consistently, revive the “processes” and logics of its “cultural fields” (Bourdieu 1991). Since the emergence of the first empires and kingdoms in the Sahel, intellectual exchanges and cultural investment have been fundamental to its history. These have taken multiple forms and relied on various modes of expression, with prevailing mechanisms and processes embedded in the social institutions by which the Sahel established a robust and singular intellectual framework. Some of these institutions have resisted time. Figures such as the griot (jeli in the Mande languages) who chronicled

478   Alioune Sow the political and social changes in the first Sahelian courts, have remained central figures in today’s public spheres. Griots are known for their intricate public discourse, their authority in political relations, and their mediating positions on social affairs. With a remarkable capacity for innovation, members of this social category have persistently succeeded in inventing new ways to adjust their singular modes of engagement with the past and the present, in order to play an essential role in determining social relations. Other institutions disappeared, lost their influence, or were transformed into units of smaller stature. Centers of knowledge such as Timbuktu in the fourteenth century or Djenné in the first part of the seventeenth century, to name just a couple, prompted innovative intellectual interactions and played a crucial role in the development of Sahelian epistemologies in general, and Islamic theologies in particular. As kept in the rich collections of manuscripts in these cities, now available in centers or preserved in private libraries, the active academic circles of institutions in Timbuktu brought together scholars to develop scholastic learning schemes and advance disciplines such as history, mathematics, literature, and theology. Recent studies of the Sahel have expanded our knowledge of the development of these institutions and their relations to the region’s shifting political powers, showing how political circles built on these institutions and their intellectual activities to adjust political discourses, negotiate issues of authority, address political rivalries, and consolidate their position and influence. For instance, as Kane (2016) describes, religious leaders participated in the debates emerging from these institutions and devised modes of intervention in public affairs to negotiate conflicts and tensions between rulers, reformists, and secularists. Imperial ideologies challenged these institutions and knowledge, and during colonization Western education competed with them. Later on, leaders of the decolonization movements drew on oral forms such as those of the griots to design political strategies and elaborate inclusive national and regional policies as means to draw support and build legitimacy. These few examples of the development of intellectual and cultural processes remind us that the Sahel has not suffered from intellectual immobility and cultural deficit. On the contrary, the intellectual history of the region is characterized by the flow of ideas, intellectual readjustments, and episodes of cultural renaissance and resistance, which triggered a variety of scholarly responses instigating both the revitalization and the renewal of its cultural production. The chapters in this section examine several of these processes. Sarr and Idrissa highlight, in Chapters 25 and 26 respectively, how the metropolitan and cosmopolitan traction of the cities of the region contributed to cultural and intellectual flows, while in Chapter 27 Sow emphasizes how these led to shifting relations and affiliations between communities of thinkers and cultural productions. These variations and modifications have translated into processes of knowledge exchange, absorption, and, indeed, cultural adjustments. These have produced multilayered disciplines and contrasting written practices ranging from the histories or tarikhs of the region, to the large collections of Arabic and ajami manuscripts that have yet to be fully explored, and of course more recently to the novel, theater, and poetry in French.

Introduction to Section VI    479 Importantly, since the medieval period, these intellectual and cultural developments helped to sustain a critical spirit (esprit critique) that allowed the Sahel to respond to the successive historical transformations and to negotiate the region’s past, memory, and modernities. It is this esprit critique that gave rise to early critical assessments of the slave trade, and raised questions about the nature of Sahelian political regimes, social organization, and debates on the ideals of justice, social equity, and piety, civism, and cosmopolitanism (Idrissa; Sarr). As the chapters demonstrate, these notions, reflected in epics, songs, plays, manuscripts, and travel letters, and examined in studies of explorers and colonial administrators, account for the region’s commitment to intellectual debate, a persistent willingness to confront ideas, manufactured through audacious intellectual alliances or oppositions, to respond to the constraints and exigencies caused by historical contingencies (Sarr; Sow). The early dialectics traced in the exchanges and development of ideas that marked the historical and cultural trajectories of the Sahel are strong reminders that the intellectual orientations of the region were often contemporaneous—​and sometimes preceded—​decisive intellectual debates on moral, social, and religious issues taking place in Europe. As such, the three chapters collectively suggest that as an intellectual and cultural area and with regard to regional cultural dynamics and activities, the Sahel should be considered an influential intellectual “zone of transition” (Horden and Purcell, 2000) analogous to the Venetian cultural landscape of the early modern period (Rothman 2012), or to Western Europe during the Enlightenment. The point here is not to compare, but rather to insist on the vibrant intellectual stage that the Sahel has developed over the centuries to produce knowledge and currents of thought that speak to dominant ideas elsewhere. These particularities need to be taken into account to have a better grasp of the intellectual and cultural developments of the region, but also to better capture its political trajectories. While tracing the major intellectual and cultural transformations of the region, the three chapters also stress some of its distinctive features. They show that stable and consistent cultural features, derived from local cultural modes of resistance to more than six centuries of relentless social and political change, also characterize Sahelian intellectual history. In some parts of the Sahel, despite the assaults of colonization and the turmoil of postcolonial politics, the foundational narratives of the early fourteenth century remained dominant literary expressions and widespread intellectual tools of social and contemporary politics (Bazin 2008). They are the Sahel’s lieux de mémoire (Nora 1992), critical to understanding the region’s relation to its history and to its political imagination. Often dismissed in the history of ideas, these oral forms have always been co-​constitutive of the Sahelian intellectual and cultural landscape, and testify to the ways in which the region managed to create the conditions to instigate innovative relations of coexistence between strongly anchored intellectual traditions and foreign modes and practices brought along with successive historical transformations. These configurations make the Sahel an exceptional zone, compared to intellectual and literary evolutions elsewhere. As the section demonstrates, the capacity to withstand, modify, and adapt external challenges and ideas preserved the region from turning into the monolithic

480   Alioune Sow intellectual space that colonial literature has so often wrongly depicted. On the contrary, as the chapters emphasize, the singularity of the Sahel lies precisely in the contrasts and ruptures between the epochs in which debates of ideas took radical turns to produce new prospects and possibilities, embracing revolutionary modes of action to confront political elites when needed, conveying sweeping referential shifts through reinvented intellectual and cultural registers and modes of expression. Each chapter of the section details some of these particularities. They trace “intellectual genealogies” (Sarr) focusing on the intellectual convergences and divergences that emerged at particular historical junctures in the region (Sow; Idrissa), emphasizing manifold tendencies, currents of thought, and modes of intellectual engagement. One of the exemplars of these cultural developments is the clerical thought elaborated by the jihadi religious leader Usman dan Fodio (1754–​1817), which contrasts with the liberal tendencies of Ahmed Baba’s religious doctrines, or the strong interplay between politics and literature that took form during decolonization. Emphasizing the constitution of networks and circuits that generated compelling intellectual movements, sensibilities, and doctrines, the chapters correct the inaccuracies and subjectivities about the region that have fueled the observations of first travelers such as Ibn Battuta and colonial administrators such as Maurice Delafosse. They underline the opening of borders as a consistent feature of Sahelian cultural development, demonstrating how intellectual activities and affiliations transcended the confines of former kingdoms and, later on, of the postcolonial national territories and borders. Making intellectual commonalities a marker of the cultural and literary identities of the region, Idrissa and Sow’s chapters investigate the existence of a convergent Sahelian thought while using individual trajectories and influential figures to problematize the meaning of the term “intellectual” when applied to the region. Through the examination of selected moments, intellectual figures, and texts, this section aims to produce further knowledge on the processes that shaped the intellectual environment and marked the dissemination of ideas in the Sahel. The following chapters highlight some of the formidable dynamics, trajectories, and individuals that make the Sahelian region a distinct and fertile cultural landscape.

REFERENCES Bazin, Jean. 2008. Des clous dans la Joconde. Paris: Editions Anacharsis. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. “Le champs littéraire.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 89: 3–​46. Horden, Peregrine, and Purcell Nicholas. 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell. Kane, Ousmane. 2016. Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa. Boston: Harvard University Press. Nora, Pierre, ed. 1992. Les lieux de mémoire. Paris: Gallimard. Rothman, Nathalie. 2012. Brokering Empire: Trans-​imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

chapter 25

TOWARD A HI STORY OF IDEAS IN TH E S A H E L Felwine Sarr

It is not an easy task to trace or interpret the multiple intellectual genealogies that originated and developed in the Sahel in order to write a history of ideas of this vast region. The complexity of such an endeavor is due to the many challenges, issues, and concerns that derive from the very characteristics of the region itself, its demographics, and of course its unique historical trajectories, thereby raising several questions. The most obvious one is to what extent the ethnic composition of the territories that make up the Sahel, and the diversity and sustained mobility of the peoples that inhabit the region, complicate or facilitate the identification of intellectual traditions. Other concerns are the manifold historical conjunctures of the Sahel such as the expansion of black African cultures, the spread of and conversion to Islam, and of course French colonization, and the impact of these historical transformations on the intellectual development and dynamics of the region. There are additional methodological issues that need to be considered, such as the problem of chronology, the history of knowledge and the mechanisms of its transmission in the Sahel, the evolution of ways of thinking, and of course the archive. What should the point of departure of these genealogies be? As often noted, the historical, geographical, and cultural space considered here is vast and diverse. Is there sufficient cultural homogeneity within this space to allow such enquiry? Which archive should be used? Although it is impossible to address thoroughly the concerns and questions just raised, it is nonetheless possible to concentrate on the preliminary stages of such a project, to select some key ideas, and to assemble a prolegomenon to a history of ideas in the Sahel. To do so, this chapter restricts the field of enquiry to selected key periods, historical figures, and documents, while addressing some of the methodological issues related to the specifics of the Sahel. In so doing, the chapter will provide the initial elements of an “archeology of thought” in the Sahel by surveying some of the determinant “loci of expression” that appeared in the region, and by disclosing the cartography of the circuits and networks of transmission of knowledge that developed over the centuries. Hence,

482   Felwine Sarr mapping the production of ideas and investigating the historical forms and modalities of expression should reveal common matrixes, modes of circulation, and exchanges, and uncover their dominant functions in the sociocultural and political dynamics of the Sahel. In his essay on the history of ideas, Arthur Lovejoy (1948) indicated that the objective of such work is the ability to grasp multiple visions of the world and conceptions of life in society dispersed in culture but expressed in more diverse places than established philosophies. Therefore, a history of ideas should be considered a multidisciplinary enterprise that explores science and canonical knowledge, literature, arts, and popular and collective beliefs in both their scientific and abridged versions as well as in their non-​erudite versions. The goals of a history of ideas are to capture the totality of a culture, in synchrony and diachrony, to study the evolution of ideas, and to grasp the historical variations of the answers to some of the fundamental questions asked by individuals that are traceable in collective thought. It extends equally to ideas that have become obsolete or undervalued by current esthetic and intellectual standards. A non-​elitist approach also takes into consideration minor esthetics and marginal or indistinct ideas. To work toward a history of ideas in the Sahel requires a number of elements. First of all, it necessitates the reconstruction of a Sahelian library composed of a mixed and palimpsestic ensemble of libraries, sometimes competing and exclusive, occasionally synthetic and porous, and to choose where to begin. Such a project also entails considering the diversity of oral and written sources and of course the languages of instruction and of production of knowledge and their scripts: Arabic, African languages, European languages, ajami script, and Latin script. Finally, such a project requires the analysis of cultural production as a window on multiple visions of the world, “unit ideas” (Lovejoy 1936) that structure the experience of the Sahel and the sociopolitical dynamics of the region. Before getting into such exploration, a brief economic and sociopolitical history of the Sahel is in order.

IDEAS, TRADE, RESISTANCE, AND RELIGIOUS MILITANCY As is well known, the Sahel is not a closed and uniform entity. Its geography includes most of the territories bordering the southern extent of the Sahara, marking the transition between the northern part of the continent and the savanna of the Sudanic domain in the south. Taking its name from Arabic, the Sahel translates as “coast” or “border” and extends from the Atlantic coast in the west to the Red Sea in the east. A narrower definition of the Sahel, the Western Sahel, defines the space as a territory that includes Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad; however, the Sahel could also be said to comprise the extreme south of Algeria, Cape Verde, and Sudan (Darfur

Toward a History of Ideas in the Sahel    483 and Kordofan), as well as the Horn of Africa, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. This chapter focuses on the Western Sahel. Since the middle ages, the Sahel has been the theater of major empires such as Ghana, Mali, and Songhai in the west, and the Kanem and Bornu empires in the southern parts of the region. Before their decline, these empires spread from the Atlantic to the Aïr and extended their authority over several kingdoms. Only a very few of these kingdoms, such as the Mossi kingdom in what is now Burkina Faso, or the Hausa states of northern Nigeria and southern Niger, managed to oppose the power and hegemony of these empires. At the end of the sixteenth century the Songhai and the Kanem empires were the last to collapse, after which no central power managed to impose its authority on this vast region. From the political unification implemented by Sunjata Keita to the extravagance and opulence of Mansa Musa in the fourteenth century, or the syncretism of Soni Ali Ber in the fifteenth century, the formation of each empire brought with it radical transformations and innovations to the rigid and hierarchical social structures of the Sahel. For instance, throughout its history, and always in a codified manner, aristocrats shared space with slaves and free men, and artisans with peasants, responding to a static social structure defined by age groups and lineage with only the family consistently perceived as an economic, cultural, and spiritual unit. At the same time, rural Sahelian societies displayed strong pluralistic and heterogeneous tendencies defined by pastoralism and characterized by the constant mobility of populations to counter climatic exigencies. Historical shifts disrupted some of these social configurations. They brought new dogmas, as well as renewed ideas and thought in a space that, contrary to what its etymology suggests, was less of a frontier than a place of movement, circulation, exchange, and cosmopolitanism. Among the various developments that influenced the cultural and intellectual trajectories of the region, trade has played a significant role. Established before the tenth century, the trans-​Saharan trade between the north and the south relied on the exports of slaves, gold, and kola nuts and the importation of handicrafts and salt products from the Maghreb. The impact of the trans-​Saharan trade was both economic and political as it led to the creation of important commercial cities such as Koumbi Saleh and Oualata in what is now Mauritania, as well as Gao in Mali. Trade imposed taxation on imported and exported goods, taxation that in turn consolidated the wealth and authority of the rulers of the empires. Trade brought significant cultural exchange between the north and the south as the caravans crossing the Sahara conveyed ideas and notably brought Islam to the Sahel. Before turning to the religious question in more detail, it is important to note that the trade regimes and routes lasted and resisted change even after the arrival of the Portuguese on the Sahelian coast in the fifteenth century. Changes occurred in the seventeenth century with the implementation of the Atlantic slave trade, which radically transformed the terms of existing trade and led to new configurations and policies with a dramatic impact on population and local economies in the eighteenth century. The slave trade fostered a new mercantilism and disrupted the social fabric of the Sahel.

484   Felwine Sarr It modified the roles of the monarchies and the function of the aristocracy, who were no longer able to assume their role as protectors of the population. European penetration and the hunt for slaves prompted new ideas and ideologies. Several regions launched opposition and organized resistance through series of defensive reactions, revolutions, and large religious movements. From 1673 to 1677, Nasir al-​Din launched the “War of the Marabouts” in parts of what is now Mauritania and the Senegal River Valley. Considered to be the first movement conducted in the name of Islam (Barry 1985, 113), the “War of the Marabouts” was followed at the end of the eighteenth century by the “revolt of the Tooroodo,” also in the Senegal River Valley. Both movements confirmed the emergence of a religious militancy aimed at confronting French expansion, but also challenging the traditional aristocracy, who had become the main ally of the slave traders.

THE PENETRATION OF ISLAM By the seventeenth century, Islam was no longer new to the Sahel. The religion had penetrated Ghana and Kanem in the eleventh century, but for a long period it only touched a limited segment of the population, namely the aristocracy and the traders who were in charge of the propagation of the new religion. Until the nineteenth century, besides centers such as Djenné and Timbuktu, the majority of the Sahelian population remained resistant to Islam. This resistance signaled a strong attachment to local religions and created new power struggles and ideological confrontations between two poles aiming for mutual exclusion. As an idea, monotheism has always been present in the Sahel but it coexisted with the far-​reaching desire to reconcile the forces of nature and the benevolence of the ancestors that structured traditional religions. The nineteenth century was the century of radical transformations in the Sahel. It was a century marked by several attempts to revive and rebuild a social fabric that had been disrupted by the slave trade, and at the same time, it was a confrontational period during which Islam was used as an ideological basis for the implementation of new political projects, the development of new urban realities, and the renewal of intellectual and cultural trends. The political projects were to translate into a turbulent and violent new imperial momentum with several attempts to recreate great empires such as Ousmane dan Fodio’s Fulani Empire of Sokoto created in 1804, Amadu’s empire of Macina from 1815 to 1862, the year that El Hadj Omar Tall conquered Hamdallaye and expanded his own empire. Despite the charisma of their leaders, these new empires were to have only an ephemeral existence, weakened by instability and insecurity in the region and the impact of a process of colonization that progressed slowly in the Sahel, but which was almost complete by the 1900s. These historical moments have had significant impacts on the development of ideas in the Sahel. With each regime came a “new order,” including the adoption and consolidation of new political ideologies. The most transformative was undoubtedly the “Islamic revolution” implemented to “respond to political oppression, social injustice

Toward a History of Ideas in the Sahel    485 and illegal taxation” (Boahen 1989, 42), in the process expanding religion from urban areas to rural ones.

WHICH LIBRARY? THE QUESTION OF SOURCE At the end of the nineteenth century and during the first decades of the twentieth century, the vast colonial literature dedicated to the Sahel had noted some of the historical shifts and recorded a history of ideas in the Sahel in travel narratives, memoirs, missionaries’ reports, and monographs describing the people, habits, customs, and practices of the region. This library, which includes research and publications undertaken by ethnologists and colonial administrators, set the conceptual framework for subsequent understanding and representation of the Sahel. For instance, Maurice Delafosse, ethnographer, socio-​anthropologist, and colonial administrator in the Sahel between 1894 and 1916, wrote several ethnographies of the peoples, cultures, and religions of Mali, Senegal, Niger, and Chad, and published a study of the Mande languages and a grammar of Dioula. Paul Marty, also a colonial administrator and military officer, devoted several studies to Muslim societies in the Sahel, including Etudes sur l’Islam au Sénégal (1917), Etudes sur l’Islam et les tribus du Soudan (1918), and Islam et les tribus dans la colonie du Niger (1930). Most of these works contributed to the making of a set of moral, political, and scientific discourses (Sibeud 2002) manufacturing a series of fixed and reified representations of the Sahel, its inhabitants, and practices, to make up part of what Mudimbe has called “the colonial library” (Mudimbe 1988). Indeed, such production did not take into account the vibrant local production that predated colonization. It dismissed entirely the fecundity of the prevailing intellectual exchanges, the modalities of the development of thought within the region, shaped by its historical transformations, its economic developments, and its cultural tendencies. It ignored crucial factors such as the major roles played by the Arabic language and Islam in the production of knowledge and ideas in the Sahel from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries.

Counter-​Narratives of the History of Ideas in the Sahel As repeatedly demonstrated, the Western episteme reflected in the colonial archive artificially divided the continent into two distinct and impervious cultural entities: North Africa, which was considered part of the Mediterranean and Arab worlds, and Sub-​Saharan Africa. The reality is somewhat different. As far as the medieval period is concerned, the history of ideas in the Sahel begins with a counter narrative. For centuries, Black Africans, Arabs, and Berbers were in close contact and maintained relations of various kinds. The inventory shows that some of these relations, such as the

486   Felwine Sarr trans-​Saharan slave trade, were violent and disruptive, while others were commercial, as in the trade of gold and salt, but all of them led to important cultural and intellectual exchanges (Kane 2016). The Sahel was a place of contact where ideas and knowledge about educational practices, commerce, and ways of life circulated, and where religious and spiritual exchanges resulted in new configurations. From the tenth century, Islam and Arabic played a central role in these exchanges and radically transformed the linguistic map of the region. As Ousmane Kane has shown in Beyond Timbuktu (2016), while some people chose to gradually abandon their linguistic patrimony in favor of Arabic, others adopted ajami, the Arabic script, to transcribe their languages and fix elements of local culture, thereby protecting both their cultural and linguistic identities. The Arabic alphabet was augmented and modified by adding signs that did not exist in Arabic, but which represented consonants prevalent in African languages. Ajami writing is particularly prevalent in the languages of the Sahel, especially in Fula, Hausa, and Mandinka (see also Mc Laughlin Chapter 34 in this volume). Between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, Arabic and ajami were the main tools of instruction and culture in the Sahel, playing the same role as vehicle of knowledge and memory that Latin did in Europe during the medieval period. Before the Moroccan invasion of Timbuktu in 1591, several centers of instruction in Arabic, such as Sankoré in Timbuktu, Djenné and Gao in Mali, and Pire in the Cayor region of Senegal, were located in the Sahel. These centers taught Islamic sciences and theology, and brought together scholars working on books on astronomy and astrology, as well as on political texts and commentaries. The large and varied body of work written in ajami, much of which was located in Hausaland, was made up of religious writings and included sermons, treatises on theology, and jurisprudence, but also poetry and historical chronicles. Discovering these centers, libraries, and texts, Jacques-​François Roger, Governor of Senegal (1822–​ 1827), did not hesitate to note in his chronicles that “il y a plus de nègres capables d’écrire en Arabe que de paysans français capables d’écrire en français” (“there are more Blacks capable of writing and reading in Arabic than French peasants capable of writing in French”). Ibn Battuta in the fourteenth century, Leo Africanus in the sixteenth, Mungo Park in the eighteenth and early nineteenth, and René Caillé in the nineteenth century, all came to the same assessment. Contrary to the widespread idea and myth about the illiteracy of Black African societies, the Sahel was perfectly literate, creative, and innovative, even developing a new genre, the tarikh, or chronicle, in seventeenth-​century Timbuktu. The tarikhs are among the most important sources on the cultural, political, and social history of the Sahel. The two most important texts in the production of knowledge of the region are the Tarikh al-​Sudan (Chronicle of Sudan) of Abd-​al-​Rahman al-​Sadi (1653–​1656) and the Tarikh al-​fattash (Researcher’s Chronicle) by Ibn al-​ Mukhtar (1664).1 Both authors aimed at producing coherent and unified narratives on the transformations and development of the Sahelian region, covering a chronology that went from the middle ages to the seventeenth century. Both authors defined their writings as innovative investigations and syntheses of distinct and sometimes fragmentary aspects of the traditions examined. The chronicles recount the imperial history of

Toward a History of Ideas in the Sahel    487 the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires, including the Askia dynasty and its destruction following the Moroccan invasion of 1591. In their study of the ideological background of the Timbuktu chronicles, scholars such as Niane, Olivier de Sardan (1984), and Moraes Farias have noted that the chronicles translated a desire to understand and give historical meaning to the political and social upheavals provoked by the Moroccan invasion of 1591. For Moraes Farias, for instance, the chronicles testified to the elaboration of a new social pact aiming at reconciling three dominant elites: the Arma military and the political class that overthrew the Askia, the Askia lineages, who despite their loss of power continued to play an important political role due to their education and their administrative expertise, and the urban elites of Timbuktu and Djenné. Furthermore, literary analyses of the genre of the tarikh, Moraes Farias argues, are key to the history of ideas as they reveal dominant social relations with texts and clarify the ideological political questions of the period in which they were written, in addition to providing the complex history of Sahelian medieval empires (Moraes Farias 2008). As noted by Moraes Farias, the genre has produced new audiences, and new “horizons of expectation” (Jauss 1982) mainly shaped by the fluctuating sensibilities of the moment. In the tarikhs, readers found a genre to relate to, a genre that spoke to them and allowed them to engage with lived historical realities. It is through the study of a genre, or texts, that the history of the sociopolitical expectations of a period and their associated ideas will be better understood. Not only does the study of the genre, taken as an analytical tool, provide insights and innovative readings of historical events, but it allows the tracing of textual and narrative traditions in defining categories, with regard to the strategies of the production of meaning. In the study of the relation between cultures and forms of expression that they produce, too often the emphasis is put on continuity and linearity, while the story of interruptions, ruptures, and discontinuities provides more information on the change of mentality and the variations in the episteme of a period. Obviously, a history of ideas needs to consider the debates of a particular period and investigate the historical disparities in the answers to the questions raised, expressed in the collective thought of a large group of individuals. An analysis of the corpus coming from the Sahel shows that the question of Islam and that of the “Muslim community” was recurrent and intricate, notably in the work of Ahmed Baba who probed primarily religion and the pervading issue of slavery. Born in 1556, Ahmed Baba was a major figure of the Songhai intellectual elite of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Exiled to Morocco following the Moroccan invasion, where he taught for several years before returning to Timbuktu, Baba was a respected scholar who issued several fatwas about codes and practices in Muslim lives. He continuously assessed the impact of Islam on the daily lives of Black African people, and had to answer questions about Black African victims of slave trade practices in the territories already converted to Islam. Islam was also the main topic of Ousmane dan Fodio’s work. A Fulani born in 1754, dan Fodio is another significant figure in the intellectual landscape of the Sahel and its currents of Islamic thought. Following the political transition of 1801 and the declared opposition to Muslims in Gobir (Lovejoy and Williams 1997), dan Fodio attempted

488   Felwine Sarr to elaborate a theological legitimation of war against other Muslims in his jihad from 1804 to 1809 against the Hausa and Bornu states already converted to Islam. Despite the resistance of Bornu, dan Fodio succeeded in creating a community that drew its legitimacy from Islam, establishing dialogue with the political and intellectual elites, and contributing to the making of a political thought that translated concerns related to philosophy, theology, and religion, but also social relations, alliances between politics, ideology, ethnicity, and Islam (Loimeier 2011). As Arthur Lovejoy (1936, 1948) and Jean Paul Rosaye (2009) have argued, historians interested in the circulation of ideas cannot circumscribe their study to what they called the “unit ideas” of a period or the cognitive frame that informs the reflection and the beliefs of individuals. A history of ideas means trying to search for unifying trends, justified by the fact that several philosophical propositions, judicial or scientific conjunctures, literary processes, or recurrent poetic images cannot really make sense unless they are connected to each other in the interactive topography of a social discourse in its entirety and in its making. Segmentation cannot provide meaning. Hence, from the beginning, a history of ideas must go beyond the analysis of the discursive fields and specified genres: philosophical, religious, scientific, literary, and political. Such an endeavor must necessarily privilege the use of Sahelian oral sources, which more than any other source, carry the collective memory and beliefs of the region.

A Sahelian Library The claim that greater attention should be paid to the role played by Arabic in the intellectual production of the Sahel is correct and legitimate. To omit the period that goes from the tenth to the nineteenth centuries would equate to amputating the intellectual history of the Sahel from its fundamental parts. However, the ambition to substitute systematically the Western narrative with the paradigm of Sankoré or Timbuktu suffers the same pitfall as the “colonial library” itself. Doing so would be tantamount to reducing the intellectual history of the Sahel to that of written texts (in Arabic or in European languages) and dismissing the multiple oral sources of thought and culture of the people who inhabit the Sahel. It would mean dating the history of ideas to the arrival of the Arabic language and Islamic culture on the one hand, and the arrival of the European languages in the Sahel on the other. The second pitfall would consist of perpetuating the classification and differentiation of cultures, people, and ideas by adopting categories defined by access to writing and writing practices, namely societies with writing and societies without writing. This dichotomy that has propelled colonial ideology imposes an artificial and imaginary boundary between a set of systems of communication and development of thought, and a perception of writing whose archetype would be once again the Latin alphabet. West African societies have relied on writing systems that played different roles in the archiving and preservation of their cultural heritage. Access to some writing systems was often limited to the elite, while others commanded a larger domain. But

Toward a History of Ideas in the Sahel    489 that is not really the point. The point is that when it comes to the Sahel, it is necessary to abandon the scriptural paradigm that considers writing as the exclusive means of transmitting the collective memory and the cognitive and cultural capital of a people. There is no human group without language, without a codified means of perpetuating its collective memory, or without a means of exchanging texts from a distance. West African societies have produced a cultural and cognitive heritage that includes oral traditions, cosmogonies, myths, diverse cultural expressions, and onto-​mythologies that has allowed them to survive over the long term. They constitute the categories that facilitate the examination of these cultures, revealing processes used to transmit collective memory. A true history of ideas, in addition to the exploration of written sources, cannot exclude such approaches and processes. Senegalese philosopher Mamoussé Diagne has shown that Sahelian societies, although not ignoring the written word, have developed what he calls an “oral reason,” relying on methods and systems that allowed it to “produce, express and archive its cultural patrimony” (2005, 11). Focusing on local modes of production, conservation, and transmission of knowledge, Diagne reveals in his Critique of Oral Reason (2005) the discursive processes at work in the heart of orality and isolates several mechanisms and rules that determine speech, discourse, and writing (i.e., its fixing and its transmission). According to Diagne, these processes should be compared to those of a civilization where writing dominates as they govern the production, archiving, and transmission of individual and collective knowledge. In his philosophical reflection on the contents of these thoughts, Diagne’s work highlights the plurality of modes of production and archiving of knowledge while challenging the exclusivity of the logocentric episteme, as well as reason defined by the written mode. These processes of securing collective memory are not exclusive to Sahelian or West African societies. They are those of all societies where the vehicle of the communication of thought is mainly the living word and not writing. These “verbo-​motor” societies have been documented by the Centre d’Etudes Linguistiques et Historiques par Tradition Orale (CELTHO) in Niamey, which collects and analyzes oral histories and historical chronicles. What remains is the question of the treatment of the sources that are the basic ideas of an era and their evolution.

The Sahelian Postcolonial Library: A Counter-​archive In the twentieth century, the impact of European colonization modified the intellectual landscape of the Sahel and reversed some of the terms, conditions, and circumstances. French became the language ​​of instruction and administration. The cultural paradigm changed and most of the Sahelian elites largely adopted the Western system of education. Western education has strongly reconfigured the episteme of the peoples of the region, as well as their mentality and cultural production, as was the case with the arrival of Islam in the region in the tenth century. These alterations in the type of education and the languages of transmission of knowledge have produced a vast body of work, a

490   Felwine Sarr francophone literature, which constitutes an important archive, or “counter-​archive,” of the history of ideas in the Sahel and the contemporary era (see e.g., Moudileno 2016). This literature, born in the early 1920s, relied on identity and cultural and political claims. It has played an important role in the expression of Sahelian experiences, the existential questions of its inhabitants, and their political ambitions. The pioneers of this literature who have produced the canons of African literature, have inscribed the Sahelian experience in the symbolic landscape of the world of letters and successfully asserted the experiences and the imaginary of the Sahel and its peoples and cultures, still burdened by colonization. Authors such as Léopold Sédar Senghor and Cheikh Hamidou Kane expressed several concerns about the lived experience of the Sahel and raised crucial issues about modernity and the transition to independence. These texts did not hesitate to engage with the anxieties, calamities, and disasters of the postcolonial moment in what could be termed “counter fictions,” later on augmented by the work of women writers such as Mariama Bâ, Aminata Sow Fall, and Ken Bugul, and powerfully relayed by popular genres exploring the daily life of the Sahel and its diaspora. African fiction has thus largely contributed to the reconstruction of a counter-​archive, built against the image conveyed by the colonial library and all the knowledge that contributed to some of Africa’s invention.

CONCLUSION As a space, the Sahel is undoubtedly a crucible and home for several civilizations. It is a place of superposition, competition, collusion, and the synthesis of several libraries and epistemes. Using Mazrui’s (1986) term, the space could be characterized by its “triple heritage” of Black African cultures, Islam, and Western cultures. The contemporary Sahel is the product of the interaction of these three sources of civilization, its elite equipped with various kinds of knowledge and training and able to articulate a double or triple episteme in their discourses. What characterizes the Sahel is its ability to project a contemporaneity made of several discursive regimes combined with a multiplicity of repertoires of knowledge. It is a space defined by the coexistence of the so-​called rational episteme (Western) and the so-​called esoteric one (Islam and Black African spiritual traditions) taught and integrated through various pedagogies. These pedagogies can be formal, but they are also informal, as in the Muslim episteme, elaborated through a different student–​teacher relationship, relying on memorization, the absence of uniform curricula or degrees, and an exoteric mode of learning. As indicated in the opening of this chapter, the history of ideas is not limited to the history of philosophical or dominant ideas of an era. It is a way of decoding reality and understanding its evolution. It is the study of the meanings generated by cultures, from a historical perspective. Every society (culture or civilization) transmits a patrimony and

Toward a History of Ideas in the Sahel    491 perpetuates the cultural matrix of its identity over time, transforming it according to the evolution of the world. The question is how to characterize this transformation. After these prolegomena, which have raised more questions than answers, the task for further understanding and analysis of the history of ideas in the Sahel would be to study in detail the various components of these cultural matrixes, augmenting the analysis of the constitution of filiations and intellectual traditions with the investigation of the multiple processes of metamorphosis of meanings.

Note 1. There is some scholarly controversy about the authorship of the Tarikh al-​fattash, which is variously assigned to Kati or to his grandson Ibn al-​Mukhtar. Some scholars now believe that the work was heavily doctored by Seku Ahmed of Macina in the nineteenth century. For details see Nobili and Shahid (2015).

REFERENCES Barry, Boubacar. 1985. Le royaume du Waalo: le Sénégal avant la conquête. Paris: Karthala. Boahen, A Adu. 1989. “New trends and processes in Africa” in Ade Ajayi, ed., General History of Africa vol. 6, Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880’s. Berkeley: University of California Press; Paris: UNESCO, 40–​63. Diagne, Mamoussé. 2005. Critique de la raison orale. Les pratiques discursives en Afrique noire. Paris: Karthala. Jauss, Hans Robert. 1982. Toward an Esthetic of Reception. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kane, Ousmane. 2016. Beyond Timbuktu. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Loimeier, Roman. 2011. Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Lovejoy, Arthur. 1948. Essay in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Lovejoy, Arthur. 1936. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Lovejoy, Paul, and Tokumbo Williams. 1997. Displacement and the Politics of Violence in Nigeria. Leiden: Brill. Marty, Paul. 1917. Etudes sur l’Islam au Sénégal. Paris: Hachette. Marty, Paul. 1918. Etudes sur l’Islam et les tribus du Soudan. Paris: Hachette. Marty, Paul. 1930. Islam et les tribus dans la colonie du Niger. Paris: Geuthner. Mazrui, Ali A. 1986. The Africans: A Triple Heritage. New York/​London: Little, Brown & Co./​BBC. Moraes Farias, Paolo Fernando de. 2008. “Intellectual Innovation and Reinvention of the Sahel: The Seventeenth-​Century Timbuktu Chronicles,” in Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, eds., The Meanings of Timbuktu. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council Press, 96–​107. Moudileno, Lydie. 2016. “Penser l’Afrique à partir de sa littérature.” Colloque Penser l’Afrique. 2 May, Collège de France, Paris. Mudimbe, Valentin. 1988. The Invention of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

492   Felwine Sarr Nobili, Mauro, and Mohamed Shahid. 2015. “Towards a New Study of the So-​called Tārīkh al-​ fattāsh.” History in Africa 42: 37–​73. Olivier de Sardan, Jean-​Pierre. 1984. Les Sociétés Songhay-​Zarma (Niger-​Mali): Chefs, guerriers, esclaves, paysans. Paris: Karthala. Rosaye, Jean-​Paul. 2009. “L’institutionnalisation de l’histoire des idées: un conflit de méthodes et de statuts.” Revue LISA/​LISA e-​journal VII(3): 333–​348. Sibeud, Emmanuelle. 2002. Une science impériale pour l’Afrique? La construction des savoirs africanistes en France 1878–​1930. Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

chapter 26

YESTERDAY ME ETS TOMORROW IN S A H E L IA N IN TELLECTUAL C U RRE NTS Rahmane Idrissa

Reality, Marcel Proust stated, does not exist for us until it has been recreated by, and in, our active mind, “otherwise the men who have been involved in some titanic battle would all be great epic poets” (Proust 2002, 153). In other words, our consciousness of the world is not a direct product of reality, but rather the way in which our mind relates to and conceptualizes reality. The more intense and profound the relation of mind to reality, the more heightened and the richer our consciousness of reality. When philosophers, authors, poets, and filmmakers engage with this relation, the recreation leads to the emergence of a form of public consciousness that is the handiwork of those artists and technicians we may call intellectuals. Standard definitions of the word “intellectual” stress the notion of “a very educated person whose interests are studying and other activities that involve careful thinking and mental effort” (Cambridge English Dictionary). In another meaning that first emerged in France in the nineteenth century, but already implied in the work and career of the eighteenth-​century philosophes, intellectuals are men and women who dedicate their quest for a greater consciousness of reality to changing or reforming that reality for the greater good of their fellow humans. Typically, in this meaning, intellectuals fight with the pen, they are people who write books and who—​as Sartre stated—​in so doing “se mêlent de ce qui ne les regarde pas” (“meddle with what isn’t their business”) (Sartre 1972, 12). These two intimations of the intellectual are related, in the sense that the first is the precondition for the second, even though being a very educated person involved in strenuous intellectual activities does not necessarily mean being a “committed intellectual.” In the context of the Sahel, these concepts are complicated by the medium of expression of the intellectual, as the centrality of books and literate culture, implicit in the dictionary definition, and quite explicit in the “militant” meaning of the word, cannot

494   Rahmane Idrissa hold. This chapter therefore, in its exploration of Sahelian intellectual consciousness, includes those whom I call masters of the arts of the spoken word, and filmmakers. My intention is to give the reader a substantive idea of what “Sahelian thought” is. Yet, whatever their medium, Sahelian intellectuals of the past and the present did (do) not see themselves as Sahelians. Most of those who write in European languages—​ predominantly French—​identify themselves as Africans and as nationals of a Sahelian country, but not as “Sahelians.” Those who write in Arabic mainly consider themselves Muslims living in their country of citizenship, which happens to be located in the “Sudan,” “the land of the Blacks”—​which corresponds to the Sahel. “Sudan” is the Arabic word for the part of Sub-​Saharan Africa that lies immediately south of the Sahara and was historically included in the orbit of the Arabo-​Islamic world economy and culture. But since this region extends east into the Republic of (North) Sudan, it does not correspond strictly to the Sahel as defined in this volume. And finally, the audience for nonliterate intellectuals are those who share the (frequently several) languages they use, and not the peoples of the Sahel as a whole. So, at the start of this chapter, the question is: What is its object of study? A history of Sahelian thought or a review of contemporary Sahelian intellectuals is complicated by the absence of a meaningful frame and unity of reference—​similar to “Africa,” “Senegal,” “Islam”—​in the geographic expression “Sahel.” There is certainly a distinctive Sahelian culture and sensibility, which, as such, has a history and can be traced and analyzed, but Sahelian intellectuals do not speak to that culture in their production of public consciousness. As a result, in an effort to capture the “Sahelianness” of their work, I start with two questions. The first one takes inspiration from the interrogation of the May 1968 student revolt in Paris: “D’où parles-​tu?” (“Where are you speaking from?”). In the context of these turbulent events, it was a request for everyone to spell out their ideological positioning and clarify their loyalty. Using the question in a different way, I argue that even when they do not identify as Sahelians, Sahelian intellectuals speak from the Sahel, that is, from a place with a specific history, culture, and experience. Whatever the language and medium they use, their consciousness as intellectuals originally relates to that experience, if not as a frame of reference and identification, at least, and importantly, as the objective source for their particular voice and position as intellectuals. The second question is relevant for Sahelian intellectuals in the throes of the structural changes triggered by colonization and its aftermath, and which I call here the process of modernity. I then go on to refer to this variously as “the Sahelian question” and as “Hama’s proposition,” taking inspiration from Nigerien author Boubou Hama’s book Le Double d’hier rencontre demain (Yesterday’s Double meets Tomorrow) (Hama 1973). Stressing that the mission of the African intellectual is to attend to the birth of Africa’s future by understanding its past, I argue that Sahelian intellectuals have taken this question particularly seriously, and provided responses deeply shaped by the Sahelian experience. The chapter is divided in two sections. First, I examine the various historical intelligentsias of the Sahel to give a sense of what the Sahelian experience means in terms of intellectual history. After a brief analysis of the changes introduced in the

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    495 configuration of the Sahel’s intelligentsias by the process of modernity, the second section turns to the responses to “Hama’s proposition” by various categories of Sahelian intellectuals. In so doing I take northern Nigeria to be integral to the region, in addition to the francophone countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal) considered in this volume.

THE OLD INTELLECTUAL REGIME AND MODERNITY The event of colonialism in the first half of the twentieth century created the conditions for the emergence of Sahelian intelligentsias as we know them today, and yet, their peculiar characteristics—​as opposed to the common features they may share with the larger African intelligentsias—​are largely the products of precolonial evolutions and processes of discontinuity or reorientation through colonialism and its aftermath. To understand this perspective on Sahelian intelligentsias requires an analysis of both the pre-​modern period and the process of modernity that has profoundly shaped its current visage.

Old Regime Intelligentsias: Griots Historically, the singularity of the Sahel lies in the fact that it was a meeting ground of the intellectual traditions of the Islamic east and of Sub-​Saharan Africa, namely the “clerical” and “griot traditions”. In that respect, the Sahel compares only to the Swahili Coast, in East Africa—​and one may note that the word Swahili is in fact a version of the pluralized form of Sahel. Meeting ground, however, is probably not a very accurate description, since the two traditions remained strictly distinct in terms of function, content, and ethos, expressing and reflecting public consciousness in the region in vastly different and often divergent ways. The griot traditions are native to the Sahel and to Sub-​Saharan Africa more generally. The plural is necessary here, as there were generally several griot traditions, depending especially on function and content, though not on ethos (understood here as the set of beliefs, ideas, and concepts that determine social behavior and relations in a given society), and determined by the fact that griots belonged to a status group within stratified societies, in which rights and obligations derived from status heritage. Not all Sahelian societies were so rigidly stratified—​Hausa society, for instance, provides a relative exception—​but everywhere, including among the Hausa, heritage was a central concept in defining one’s place and role and in participating in society’s ethos. The heritage of all classes of griots included technical knowledge leading to the mastery of the spoken word, but griots were differentiated according to the cultural knowledge transmitted to them through their family’s specialization either as praise singers, or as

496   Rahmane Idrissa custodians of the community’s memory. Praise singers sought reward by magnifying the deeds of the high and mighty, while custodians fulfilled obligations vested in an office that honored their family. The two functions might be blurred into a single type of performance as it is sometimes difficult for custodian griots to resist pressure from the powerful in society to tweak history-​telling in their favor, and become in some way praise givers. But the two were generally distinct and reflected in very different ways values, feelings, and ideas that prevailed in their society. Moreover, despite the rituals and formalities of function, griots had singular voices, sometimes with a personal touch of wisdom, or, as it may happen, with the idiosyncrasies of artistic genius. The trouble here is that we can only guess who they were. Griots were masters of the spoken word, and since voice-​recording devices did not exist before the twentieth century, the art and wisdom of Sahelian griots is almost lost to us. “Almost,” because in some form, that art and wisdom is available to us through the survival of griot traditions up to recent times. A good example of this survival into the modern age is found in the cases of Wa Kamissoko (1925–​1976), a Malinke custodian griot, and Yamba Tiendrebeogo (1907–​ 1982), the Larghle Naba of the kingdom of Ouagadougou. Kamissoko was the jeli (griot in Mandinka) of Krina, the historical town of the founding battle of the Mali Empire. Tiendrebeogo’s office of Larghle Naba was (and remains) the third most important in the traditional kingdom of Ouagadougou, after those of the king and the Widi Naba. It combines the priestly role of organizing sacrifices to the ancestors and the duties of archiving the kingdom’s history, legislation, and lore. Out of the friendship between Kamissoko and the Malian ethnologist Youssouf Tata Cissé came a written form of a vision of the history of the Mali Empire from the perspective of the communities that constituted that ancient state, while Tiendrebeogo collaborated with the French ethnologist Robert Pageard to publish histories of the kingdom of Ouagadougou and collections of Mossi tales and proverbs. These collaborations showed that the knowledge of the griot as custodian—​griot traditionniste as they are called in the French-​speaking countries—​is not a passive store of traditions received from forebears to be kept as intact as possible. While such a store is part of griot knowledge, the griot is also compelled to conduct research through exchanges with other griots, including those in foreign lands. Because of this, griots were (are) often polyglots who mastered many Sahelian languages, and since research implies a personal intellectual investment (and idiosyncratic interests), the result of their efforts was more similar to the authorial products of written scholarship than one might think. In a review of one of Tiendrebeogo’s books, Michel Izard notes that the book was not a quarry of “raw data” but “in many respects the thoroughly personal work of a historian steeped in the past and present of his own society” (Izard 1965, 136). Such work came with the sense of social and political responsibility attached to the concept of the intellectual. Tiendrebeogo assumed that responsibility through his office, which he fulfilled with such passion and talent that his passing, on 30 July 1982, was mourned by the entire Mossi country and is still regularly commemorated in Ouagadougou. Kamissoko clearly saw himself as an intellectual militant, steeped in

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    497 Mande traditions, fighting for the preservation and renewal of Mande culture, which had come under assault from the Wahhabiyya. Wahhabiyya is a Salafi doctrine that in Mali emerged in the 1940s, and which relentlessly targeted the local cultural ethos as idolatrous, to be eradicated in the name of Islam. Kamissoko’s reaction stemmed in part from a historical sense of the twilight and decline of the ethos, which had grounded for centuries the role of griots as masters of the spoken word and, in some instances, masters of wisdom in Sahelian societies. His reactive hostility to the aggressive reformist Islam would not have characterized griots in past centuries when their ethos was preponderant and their role in society safe and secure. Yet, the attacks of reformist Islam on the Sahel’s non-​Islamic culture go deep into the past, and eventually developed into a consistent intellectual tradition, as the following section shows.

Old Regime Intelligentsias: Clerics Just as there were several griot traditions in the Sahel, there were also several clerical Islamic traditions—​with the difference that Islam was not native to the region and was, by and large, a minority culture until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Islam was cultivated by clerical communities that existed either as new status groups in many of the Sahel’s stratified societies, or as a social class in the cosmopolitan context of some of the main trading cities and capitals of the region—​Timbuktu, Djenné, Gao, or the Hausa city-​states. Unlike the griot traditions, Islamic clericalism was largely a literate culture, but there were wide variations in terms of scholarly “capital” between clerics in the cosmopolitan cities and those who lived in the conditions of village society. The former had access to books and sophisticated systems of formal Islamic education dispensed in schools that grew in the shadow of sprawling mosques, while the latter, who were numerous, generally had to make do with a meager diet of religious information, often sought through itinerancy and with an imperfect command of Arabic, if any. Moreover, while some attempted to keep a distance from the non-​Islamic culture that prevailed around them, village and community clerics in fact played roles that could be somewhat assimilated to that of custodian griots. They wrote histories in Arabic or in local languages using the Arabic script, a practice known as ajami, that reflected the non-​Islamic ethos of their society. There is still much to learn about this tradition since the vast majority of West Africa’s Arabic and ajami manuscripts remain unstudied. But an example of what this might look like is the Arabic manuscript of Mamadi Aïssa, translated and published by Maurice Delafosse in 1913 under the title Traditions historiques et légendaires du Soudan occidental (Historical and Legendary Traditions of the Western Sudan). This work opens with the habitual flourishes of Muslim clerics. Aïssa gives thanks to God, Muhammad, and his family and descendants, hinting that what he is preparing to tell came from divine inspiration. However, the narratives that follow are obviously collected from Soninke griots and are replete with Soninke beliefs and myths. Even though, as a colonial civil servant in Nioro (Mali), Aïssa was patently

498   Rahmane Idrissa influenced by modern standards of historiography, his work clearly derived from the tradition of the tarikh, or histories of rulers and biographies of notable figures—​that dates back to the fifteenth century and was shaped by a synthesis of clerical Islamic training and Sahelian culture (see Sarr Chapter 25 in this volume). One may distinguish two periods in this tradition. Islamic clericalism in the Sahel was initially a peripheral extension of developments in North Africa, with Berber Muslims playing a central role in the introduction and cultivation of religious doctrines in the region, reaching Songhay and Hausaland in the late fifteenth century. The main actors of this blossoming included the Tlemceni Berber Muhammad al-​Maghili, who resided in Kano (Hausaland) and Gao (Songhay) between 1495 and 1505, and the Cairene Abd-​ar-​ Rahman As-​Suyuti, visited by the Songhay Emperor Askia Muhammad during his pilgrimage to Mecca in the late fifteenth century. These developments led to what could be termed “the century of Timbuktu,” corresponding to the Askia dynasty in the Songhay Empire (1493–​1591) whose founder, Askia Muhammad, came to power through a coup d’état as a patron of Timbuktu’s clerics (Kaba, 1985). During his thirty-​five-​year reign, he protected, employed, and consulted the clerics, while also promoting Islamic culture. By the time he was overthrown in 1528, this policy had fostered the vibrant literate culture of Timbuktu, around the mosque and university of Sidi Yaya and Sankore, the former run for over two decades by Ibrahim Bakayoko, a Malinke luminary, who had been the master of Ahmed Baba (discussed later). Timbuktu was also the intellectual capital of the Islamic Sahel because of its cosmopolitanism. While the local population was primarily Songhay, the clerical establishment included many Sahelian ethnicities. This is indicated by at least two major historical works (others have been lost or may still await discovery) written by Soninke and Fulani authors, the Tarikh al-​Sudan (Chronicle of the Sudan) by Abd-​al-​Rahman al-​ Sadi and the Tarikh al-​fattash (Researcher’s Chronicle) by Mahmud Kati, which came out of Timbuktu.1 Timbuktu’s intellectual influence radiated far beyond Songhay. It inspired the mosque college of Gobarau, in the Hausa city-​state of Katsina, where Timbuktu scholars traveled as visiting professors to assist in the adoption of curricula for higher education (Karkarhu, undated). From a political perspective, Timbuktu was also a site of intellectual power within Songhay. For instance, the aforementioned narratives were clerical works in a class-​ warrior or partisan sense. Extended segments are hagiographies of notable clerics. Askia Muhammad is celebrated in the narratives, while rulers who antagonized the clerical class, such as Sonni Ali, are criticized. At the same time, the historical narratives remarkably abide by the rules of reporting facts with an effort toward objectivity, presenting key details in a lively but dispassionate tone. Commentators often compare them favorably to contemporaneous works of history produced in Arab countries, which tend to be dull and tedious affairs. The high scientific standards reached in these works would not be seen again in the Sahel before the modern era—​even including the renaissance of clerical scholarship under the Sokoto Empire, in the nineteenth century. This combination of clerical partisanship and intellectual competence was central to the prestige and influence of Timbuktu in its heyday.

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    499 Ahmed Baba (1556–​1627) exemplifies the success of Timbuktu, especially since he lived toward the end of its golden age. A scholar of law, Baba was remarkable for the way in which he identified with his home region, positioning himself as its advocate and propagandist in the wider Islamic world. His Miʿrāj al-​Suʿūd, is perhaps the earliest known plea against racialized Black slavery in Islam. In this work, Baba avowedly reprised arguments made by previous Sahelian scholars. The treatise is also an ethnologic geography of the Sahel and is notable, inter alia, for including the first known occurrence of the ethnonym “Hausa.” Broadly speaking, Baba’s work was the testament of Timbuktu, built on the scholarship that had been amassed there for over a century, capping it as it faded under the duress of Moroccan occupation, after 1591. In the darker period that followed, Islamic reformism made its first appearance as the Sahel became a problem for Muslim intellectuals. Although Islam was sometimes supported and promoted by rulers, it remained a minority faith, which did not resist “adulteration” by local Sahelian cultures. This issue was central to Baba’s Miʿrāj as-​Suʿūd since its main objective was to ascertain that, despite perceptions in the Maghreb, the Sahel was to some extent a land of Islam, ultimately recognizing that this was to an extremely limited extent. After the collapse of Songhay in 1591, the problem became acute. The loss of Songhay hegemony meant that rulers under its influence—​especially those in Hausaland—​became less interested in supporting and promoting Islam. The “century of Timbuktu” had established a canon of religious orthodoxy for the Sahel, with the grimly purist work of al-​Maghili as one of the classic references. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the clerical class set adrift in a now inhospitable Sahel, this al-​maghilian streak came to the fore. The insistence on separating the pure grain of Islam from the chaff of non-​Islamic cultures that dominated the writings of the time, arose from the sense that the religion was being overwhelmed by “idolatry” and falling into fasad (degeneration), now that it had lost its temporal protectors. This is echoed in the teaching of Sidi Ahmad Al-​Mukhtar Al-​Kunti (1729–​1811) in Azawad, or in the Īdāʿ al-​nusūkh man akhadhtu ʿanhu min al-​shuyūkh, the expository work of Abdullah dan Fodio (1766–​1828), brother of jihadist leader Usman dan Fodio. Much of this literature of the regeneration (tajdid) of Islam was produced by clerical groups that formed a social stratum of the semi-​nomadic peoples of the region, the Fulani and the Berbers. These included the two men mentioned earlier, in addition to Usman dan Fodio (1754–​1817), his master Malam Jibril, whose work has disappeared, his son Muhammad Bello, and his daughter Nana Asma’u. While during the imperial eras of Mali and Songhay, clerical intellectualism was the preserve of cosmopolitan market cities, in the post-​imperial era it was mainly cultivated by individuals to some extent marginal to Sahelian life and to its dominant ethos who saw themselves as rightly guided clerics contrary to the “evil” or “worldly” ones who submitted to the dominant ethos. Their self-​righteous marginality imparted to their intellectualism the degree of radicalism necessary for the clerical insurrections and jihads that intermittently broke out across the Sahel from the 1670s until the dawn of colonialism. The works produced at that time were the first examples of Sahelian littérature engagée in the Sahel. The era does not boast of books comparable to those of the Timbuktu

500   Rahmane Idrissa historians. Histories were still written, and the early eighteenth-​century Tadhkirāt an-​ Nisyān, composed in a Timbuktu in decline, still had some of the shine and substance of its great predecessors. The dominant mood had shifted toward a concentration on legal religious studies, grounding a yearning for an Islamic Sudan under a Muslim ruler. That was achieved in Hausaland, where Fulani jihadists founded a state in the early nineteenth century that was comparable to the Songhay Empire. Its scholars—​starting with the founder, Usman dan Fodio, and some of his family members—​focused on sciences of government. Law, politics, and administration became the dominant intellectual interests, presaging issues that are still predominant across northern Nigeria, the heart of Sokoto territory.

Processes of Modernity: The New Intelligentsias Colonialism led to the emergence of a new intelligentsia in the Sahel. Until colonial occupation, the Sahelian intellectual traditions described in the two previous subsections were completely insulated from Europe. Remarkably, despite its many relations with the Middle East, the Sahel’s Islamic clerisy remained impermeable to the Nahda, the intellectual effervescence that grew in the Middle East out of the contact with Europe’s culture of modernity. In his study of the “crisis of consciousness” that led to the emergence of that culture, Paul Hazard insists on the effects of Europeans’ travels of discovery of the early modern period, and stresses that “it is perfectly correct to say that all the fundamental concepts, such as Property, Freedom, Justice and so on, were brought under discussion again as a result of the conditions in which they were seen to operate in far-​off countries” (Hazard 2013, 10). Broadly speaking, the Nahda brought similar perspectives to the Middle East in the nineteenth century, using Europe as the “far-​off countries” whose example stimulated a “crisis of consciousness” in the region. But as we have seen, in the same period, far from bringing fundamental concepts under discussion, the Sahel’s Muslim intellectuals were committed to a stark reassertion of what, for them, was foundational, ancient, and unalterable. In the Sahel, the crisis of consciousness broke out later, as a result of colonialism’s disruption of the old intellectual landscape through the sudden irruption of European languages and education. To the griots and the clerics were added the European-​ educated who in the French-​speaking territories adopted the generic and positive name intellectuels to refer to their access to modern knowledge and consolidation of social standing and political responsibilities that purportedly go with that. In northern Nigeria, where the introduction of European language and education was much more guarded, this category is defined as the “yan boko,” a pejorative name that derives from religion to refer to those who invest themselves in secular knowledge. Moreover, not only did the new culture impact the griots and clerics but also both absorbed into it and marginalized by it, the new culture came with new media, films, press, voice recording, and new genres such as the novel, the essay, and theater.

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    501 Some of these developments were not unique to the Sahel as colonialism spurred the emergence of a new culture across Sub-​Saharan Africa, generating an existential crisis just as had happened in Europe itself a few centuries before. At the same time, the ways and means of modernity transformed and expanded the sphere of artistic and intellectual expressions across the continent in a revolutionary manner. However, two things characterized the Sahel. First, the survival of the griot and clerical traditions in the face of colonialism, that led to a unique reconfiguration of the region’s intellectual sphere. Second—​and much harder to capture—​a distinct sensibility rooted in the Sahelian experience that transcends the common exigencies of intellectual expression in Sub-​ Saharan Africa. Focusing on the foundational period of the 1960s, I will use several figures and works to illustrate this Sahelian uniqueness.

THE SAHEL AS SOURCE OF INTELLECTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS As mentioned before, modern Sahelian thought is expressed through several media including cinema and the arts of the spoken word, which rely on contrasting traditions and subcultures to reach different audiences. But, in their diverse ways, they all respond to the Sahelian crisis of consciousness brought about by the problems of modernity and epitomized by the “Sahelian question.”

Writers In Le Double d’hier rencontre demain Boubou Hama (1906–​1982), poses a double problem. First, how can Africa reach “Tomorrow” (its utopian futurity) by drawing from “Yesterday” (its traditional past) and how, based on its very “lagging-​behind” (retard), could Africa assert itself as the future of humanity? While the second issue was only examined by Hama and his companion Ahmadou Hampâté Bâ (1901–​1991), the first issue led Sahelian writers to contrasting authorial attitudes, which I will summarize here in terms of “synthesis” and “fracture.” Synthesis is the project of imagining a new culture out of a transcendental fusion of African, Eastern, and European cultures, to achieve the fullness of human wisdom and potential. Hama and Hampâté Bâ, the key proponents of this project, consciously envisaged this ideal as the basis for a cultural mission or crusade. They believed that while Western culture had the advantage of material superiority and Eastern culture was endowed with greater spiritual wisdom, African culture was closer to the sense of humanity that imparted its living value to these two factors. Hama explained that it is in Africa that the balance between materialism and spiritualism can be found, in part—​and paradoxically—​because of the fact that Africa has historically lagged behind.

502   Rahmane Idrissa Africa’s backwardness allowed it to preserve the roots of our humanity, which have been desiccated by materialism in the West, and evaporated by spiritualism in the East. However, to thus operate as the savior of humanity’s future, Africa has to come to a deep knowledge and awareness of itself, a quest that would be at the crux of Hama’s and Hampâté Bâ’s writing and cultural activities, which focused on oral forms, the most vulnerable portion of Africa’s cultural heritage. In 1968, Hama founded a regional center for the preservation of oral traditions and both men collected and published stories, myths, and legends from various Sahelian communities, sometimes weaving them into personal fabulist-​philosophical works, such as Bâ’s Kaïdara (1969) or Hama’s Kotia Nima (1968). Indefatigably, they aimed at contributing to the emergence of “Tomorrow,” through an impressive production of twenty books by Hampâté Bâ and sixty books by Hama. Some writers of the next generations found synthesis impossible, and perhaps undesirable, as they focused less on a utopian “Tomorrow” than on a miserable present, trying to come to terms with a sense of an unsolvable fracture between “Yesterday” and “Now,” which, to them, explained the distresses of modernity. This is the case of Senegal’s Cheikh Hamidou Kane (born in 1928) and Mali’s Yambo Ouologuem (1940–​2017). Kane wrote two important novels, L’Aventure ambiguë (1962) and Les Gardiens du temple (1996). Although thirty-​four years separate the two books, both are concerned with the same issue: how to reconcile Africans with the defeat of their civilizations without submitting to the victorious alien (Western) civilization. L’aventure ambiguë dramatizes the Sahelian crisis of consciousness through the struggle of the main protagonist, Samba Diallo, who personifies the fateful encounter between traditional Sahelian Islamic clerical upbringing and French education. Although he initially seemed to embrace the “synthesis” solution, Samba Diallo eventually does not survive the crisis and the sense of fracture. In Les Gardiens du temple, the same crisis is taken to the wider stage of national politics and as an expression of large-​scale cultural transformation. Kane does not point to any obvious solution but seems to proffer that “time” will eventually work something out, as Sahelians learn to become autonomous again. Unlike Samba Diallo, Sahelians would not disappear, and they would have to strive for a new autonomy—​but there is no vision of what “Tomorrow” would look like. In that sense, the fracture that led to the demise of Samba Diallo remains open. Ouologuem’s most famous book, Le Devoir de violence (1968) is a stronger and deeper exploration of fracture in the sense that it reaches beyond the issue of the encounter between Africa and the West, integrating the other drama that characterizes the Sahel, the earlier conflict between Islam and animism, which led to the development of two divergent intellectual traditions in the region. As Islam gradually triumphed over animism during the colonial and independence eras, Sahelian authors tended to gloss over that fracture, in contradistinction to authors such as Boubou Hama who was born an animist and converted to Islam as a middle-​aged man. His work has an unmistakable animist ethos, and he remained diplomatically silent about Islam. Hampâté Bâ, born a Muslim in a world still dominated by the animist ethos, was not brought up in the reactive reformist intellectual tradition described in the previous section. Instead, his

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    503 mentor Tierno Bokar was a Sufi Muslim adept at reconciling diverse cultural traditions (see Hampâté Bâ’s (1980) tribute to him, Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar, le Sage de Bandiagara). In Futa Toro, a former theocracy, Kane received a clerical Islamic education before going to the French school. Traces of this upbringing are found in his description of the two communities that are confronted with Western power in Les Gardiens du temple, the Sessene (i.e., Senegal’s Serer, who were a bulwark of animism) and the Diallobe (i.e., the Tukulor of Futa Toro). While the Sessene’s reaction to French power and rationalism appears boorish and inscrutable, the Diallobe display fluent intelligence and a rational sense of self-​worth, an implicit affirmation of the superiority of Islam over animism. These implicit ambivalences, are pithily, even harshly, exposed by Ouologuem. The jihadist empires that brutally rode roughshod over the négraille (an untranslatable pejorative term for black people, used by Ouologuem to emphasize their pathetic weakness and denounce the identification of jihadist conquerors with ideas of superior Arab, Berber, and Fulani whiteness) in the past appear as alien and alienating as the French colonizers, and Ouologuem makes the case that colonization in the Sahel meant an alliance between the new rulers (the French) and the older ones (the Islamic elites). Here too there is an element of explanation in the author’s biography. Ouologuem was a Dogon, a people wedded to animism, who sought refuge in the cliffs of Bandiagara to escape the predatory cavalrymen of the steppe and savanna. The latter tended to become even more heavy-​handed when Islam and its hatred of animism entered their fighting spirit. Written in a magnificently ebullient style, Ouologuem’s satire earned him a belated but enduring admiration. While Mali’s main literary award is named after him, the initial ferocious backlash against the book, in both France and the Sahel, deeply affected him. Not only did he stop writing but he also disappeared from public life until his death in October 2017. The synthesis and fracture that derived from the Sahelian experience remain crucial to contemporary Sahelian intellectualism but for many europhone Sahelian intellectuals, the region is only a geographic locale within the African continent, and Africa remains the object to analyze, understand, interpret, and illustrate—​not the Sahel. This is, for instance, the case for Léopold Sédar Senghor and Cheikh Anta Diop, two major Sahelian intellectuals of the colonial and independence era, not discussed in this chapter. They were both Sahelians by birth, Senegalese of respectively Serer and Wolof ethnicity, but their work developed around intellectual movements and scholarly traditions such as Negritude, French bourgeois humanism, Egyptology, and African nationalism that do not have their sources in the Sahelian experience.

Cinema Sahelian cinema is defined by social and political criticism, sometimes in a very didactic way, but at other times wedded to a mythography deeply rooted in the region’s cultures. In some cases, filmmakers rely entirely on that mythography to craft works of impressive

504   Rahmane Idrissa artistic accomplishment. This is the case of Oumarou Ganda (1935–​1981), one of the pioneers of Sahelian cinema, whose first feature Cabascabo (1968) tells a story of petty greed and betrayal in a popular neighborhood of a Nigerien town, but whose final and most remarkable movie, L’Exilé (1980), is a tragedy of power, honor, and love set in an ancient Sahelian kingdom. Similarly, Souleymane Cissé’s third movie, Finyè (1982), is an idealistic attack on corruption and political malfeasance in postcolonial Mali, but Yeleen (1987) his masterpiece, is a mythographic tale on the nature and power of knowledge, set in a precolonial Sahelian context. The scenery and sensibility make these films distinctly Sahelian products, relying on images of the Sahelian environment made of craggy steppe and shrub-​dotted grassland, immense skies, and meditative vistas on sunlit, open, and unbounded prospects to ensure the connection between aesthetics and intellect. This mythographic cinema recasts the Sahelian question of the process of modernity—​ the relations between “Yesterday,” “Now,” and “Tomorrow”—​ by imagining a temporality that telescopes the three moments, and thereby stresses the complexity of the Sahelian heritage. To understand this better one may compare the works of Senegalese Ousmane Sembène (1923–​2007) and Burkinabé Idrissa Ouédraogo. Sembène was the leading Sahelian filmmaker of the didactic sociopolitical genre. In Mooladé (2005), he opposes the forces of tradition to those of modernity and progress. Tradition is represented by those who insist on performing excision on young girls, while modernity and progress are represented by those who are animated by a sense of justice and compassion to oppose the ritual. To resist excision, some of the young girls commit suicide, emphasizing the murderous nature of tradition, while the reactionary council of elders orders the destruction of all radios in a “burning of the books” scene to fend off modernity. The resolution is suggested by one of the progressives of the village, a young man returning from France with a television set, as a promise of social modernity and progress finally reaching a site oppressed by nefarious traditions. Mooladé may be contrasted to Ouédraogo’s Yaaba (1989), which is centered on the friendship between a solitary old woman accused of witchcraft and a young boy. Ouédraogo’s intention is to decry the persecution of women believed to be witches, but he does so without defining opposing camps: Some members of the community are hostile to the old woman to the point of attacking her, most ignore her, and a minority, such as the young boy, wants to protect her. The community described in Yaaba appears to be wholly “traditional,” but the values and concepts that organize its life are still prevalent in contemporary Moaga society, and it is the young boy who points to an alternative, possibly utopian, sense of community. In his depiction, Ouédraogo’s blurs the opposition between modernity and tradition through the impossibility of locating the temporality of the film. Yet, the notion of “traditional” lacks the regressive and sectarian aspect that Ousmane postulates in Mooladé. In Yaaba, the young boy does not need to draw on the resources of modern culture to help the old woman. His own community, rich and complex, allows the autonomous pursuit of justice and compassion on its own subjective terms. Ousmane was an intellectual engagé in the classical sense of the word, derived from the Enlightenment and the idea of commitment of militants such as Voltaire, to progress

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    505 and justice. Mooladé was to excision in Africa what Emile Zola’s J’accuse (1898) was to anti-​Semitism in France. Ouédraogo, on the other hand, is an intellectual in a more Sahelian conception of the term, exploring the depths of Sahelian culture in his quest for meaning and reform. Similar to the writers mentioned previously, Ouédraogo, like Cissé and Ganda, does not reject the Sahelian past and traditions in the name of modernity. Instead, he replaces Kane’s “ambiguous adventure” by examining the encounter between the Sahel and the West with a nuanced and subtle mythography that shows that ambiguity is a characteristic of the Sahelian experience itself. If modernity has its faults, the Sahel’s traditions are also ambivalent, and the encounter between modern and Sahelian culture only leads to an intricate reality in which the Manichean culturalism of Kane (in favor of Sahelian culture) or the Manichean didacticism of Sembène (in favor of modern culture) lose relevance. Expressed in subtler forms, the propositions of the filmmakers who reframed the Sahelian question in this direction, without forcing responses on the perplexed mind, are close to Ouologuem’s and are inspiring a younger generation of Sahelian writers. Such is the case of Senegal’s Elgas, author of the essayistic novel Un Dieu et des moeurs (2015) and Mali’s Ousmane Diarra, author of the novel La Route des clameurs (2014).

The Arts of the Spoken Word Historically, Sahelian thought and wisdom were mainly expressed through the arts of the spoken word, which include epic, genealogic tales and heroic poetry, and, in the Islamized territories, Islamic preaching. The modern era has transformed the nature and audience of these practices. The disappearance or alteration of the old Sahelian kingdoms means that the role of custodian griot tended everywhere either to vanish or to turn into a relic. On the other hand, radio and television, as well as the possibility of transcription, have widened the audience of the skillful performances of the griot traditions. Using their own language, they are accessible only to local audiences, but these have grown to include all speakers of their language instead of being restricted to the particular community in which they happened to live, turning them into authors, influencing their ethnic language and culture in ways that were generally unavailable in the pre-​modern past. In addition to Yamba Tiendrebeogo mentioned in the previous section, there are remarkable instances offered by Zarma-​speaking griots of western Niger. These griots specialized in the wider history of the Sahel, with a focus on peoples of the upper and middle Niger valley (Bambara, Fulani, Songhay, and Zarma), benefited from the policies of the Nigerien government of early independence that promoted the recording and national broadcast of their stories, propelling them to fame among the country’s Zarma-​speaking population. Most of them are perceived as oral historians who keep for the Zarmaphone public the memory of events in the western Sudan going back to the fifteenth century, by using, as does Jaado Seku (1929–​1987), a thrilling storytelling technique. Seku’s success can be measured by the enduring adulation of

506   Rahmane Idrissa the Zarmaphone public, and his influence on the language itself, through idioms and aphorisms, can be compared to Shakespeare’s influence on English, Corneille or La Fontaine’s on French, and Goethe’s on German. A literary genius, Seku’s work is also uniquely Sahelian with a content inspired by Sahelian history and communicated through innovative methods of performance inscribed in Sahelian griot traditions and tailored for radio broadcast (Bornand 2010) as a combination of Sudanic and Islamic culture of the late twentieth century. Since, however, transcription and translation spoil much of the literary value and intellectual merits of oral literature, Seku’s craft remains an inaccessible gem outside of the Zarma-​speaking corner of the Sahel. This is no doubt true of many other authors of his kind in other parts of the region. One of the more unappreciated aspects of the process of modernity in the Sahel is the phenomenon of mass Islamization in the twentieth century. Despite the widespread perception that historically the Sahel had been a land of Islam, in reality, and especially before the nineteenth century, Islam was a minority religion, and in some places even a marginalized one. Despite the brilliance of the Timbuktu culture and the support of powerful monarchs, Islam was rarely a mass religion in the past, with, perhaps, the exception of Bornu. The jihads of the nineteenth century expanded Islamization, but Islam finally became a mass religion in the Sahel only as a result of the structural changes introduced in the region’s political economy by European colonialism. As such, Islam became for Sahelians of that period a major source of intellectual nourishment, even though this never went much beyond religion. Islamic learning requires a mastery of Arabic, but in contrast to what happened with the European languages, knowledge of Arabic did not lead to an interest in the literature and philosophy of the Arab world. In the Sahel, Arabic remains exclusively a clerical language acquired by people with interests in religious scholarship. The intellectual movement that derived from this configuration has a dual public: an audience of learned religious scholars in the Islamic world at large (including Sahelian countries), and a lay public of Sahelian Muslims. Sahelian clerics communicate with the former in Arabic and with the latter in local languages, generally (outside of northern Nigeria) spoken rather than written. Since the 1970s, with the rise of Salafi reformism across the region, public preaching has become the major genre of religious communication in the Sahel, propelling some of the leaders into the position of public intellectuals. That is especially the case in northern Nigeria where the preaching scene came to be dominated in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-​first century by figures such as Abubakar Gumi (1922–​1992) and Jafar Adam (1960–​2007). Gumi was an erudite religious scholar who developed an ideology of cultural authenticity that defined the Hausa-​Fulani of northern Nigeria as essentially Muslim. As such, he believed them to need liberation from Western cultural and political systems—​ seen as prevailingly Christian—​and deserving of hegemony in the Nigerian context, by virtue of the notion that Muslims should not be subjects of non-​Muslims. Gumi first developed his ideas within networks of Nigerian clerics to whom he delivered the tafsir (Quranic exegesis, accompanied with social and political commentary) and in Arabic-​ language works written to refute his theological opponents. In the 1970s, he turned to

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    507 writing and preaching in the vernacular Hausa, offering a translation of the Quran in that language to fully establish his clerical credentials. By the 1980s, Gumi was the spiritual leader of a movement of political Salafism, the Izala, whose activism is at the root of the adoption of “full Sharia” in the judicial system of the northern Nigerian states in the early 2000s. Gumi was succeeded by Jafar Adam in the 2000s, by which time political Salafism was inspiring ideas of violent insurgency against secular rule. Adam found himself compelled to oppose the doctrines of his former student, Yusuf Muhammad, the founder of the radical Salafi movement that became known as Boko Haram (“Western culture is illicit”), whose members adopted violent militancy to impose their views. There is a clear line of descent between the ideas of Gumi and those of Muhammad through the teaching of Adam, but both Gumi and Adam argued against the use of violence, and it is suspected that Adam’s assassination in 2007 was organized by Boko Haram. It is also obvious that Gumi, Adam, Muhammad, and others in their movement across the Sahel were (are) responding to the “Hama’s proposition” with a different vision of the Sahel, however. While Hama and Hampâté Bâ saw the Sahel as a complex confluence of three cultures, African, Western, and Eastern-​Islamic, Gumi and Adam—​to say nothing of Muhammad—​saw it as an essentially Islamic entity. For the francophone intellectuals, it was precisely the mixing of cultures that would make the Sahel—​connoted as “Africa” rather than as “Islam”—​the future, the “Tomorrow” of humanity. This universalistic approach is foreign to Gumi and his followers. Their ambition is to make sure that Islam, as they understand it—​that is, Salafi Islam—​is the “Tomorrow” of the Sahel, and that no “adulterating” mixing occurs. As this vision contradicts key evolutions in the history and modernity of the Sahel, Muhammad was perhaps more logical in deducing that violence was an inevitable way to promote it. But by the same token, the vision is a product of the Sahel’s history, a manifestation, in the context of modernity, of the reformist and jihadist attitudes that had characterized to a degree the clerical tradition of the Sahel in pre-​modern times. As such, it is therefore a typical Sahelian response to the riddle of modernity. These ideas have prompted a vocal disagreement in the northern Nigerian context, led in particular by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (born 1961), an economist and writer who became the Emir (traditional ruler) of Kano in 2014 and repeatedly criticized Salafi ideas. Sanusi accused the Salafi agenda of undermining Nigeria’s national unity and of contributing to worsening Nigeria’s failures in term of social justice by sacrificing much-​needed reforms of complex problems to “Shariacracy” (Sanusi 2008). Sanusi also believes that Salafi ideas are the result of a simplistic understanding of Islam. This debate, which is liveliest in northern Nigeria, rages across the Sahel.

CONCLUSION This chapter set out to demonstrate that if there is no “Sahelian thought” as such, there is a Sahelian current of African—​or African/​Islamic—​thought. This current is identifiable

508   Rahmane Idrissa both in historical and in contemporary times through the specificities of the Sahelian experience, notably the development, in the open territories of the steppe and savanna of the West African Sudan, of societies animated by an animist ethos and a layer of Muslim literate culture. Divergent but not wholly dissociated intellectual traditions grew out of this configuration, with output from the griots on one hand, and the Muslim clerics on the other. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, European colonization and the process of modernity transformed the Sahelian intellectual landscape and gave rise to the problem of the relationship between cultural heritage and aspirations toward a thriving future. The chapter shows that there was and still is a distinctive Sahelian approach to that problem, starting with the works of Boubou Hama and Ahmadou Hampâté Bâ, that took complex forms and orientations as writers, filmmakers, modern griots, Islamic preachers, and secularist intellectuals took it up. Their “recreation of reality” is also a constant reinvention of the Sahel.

Note 1. There is some scholarly controversy about the authorship of the Tarikh al-​fattash, which is variously assigned to Kati or to his grandson Ibn al-​Mukhtar. Some scholars now believe that the work was heavily doctored by Seku Ahmed of Macina in the nineteenth century. For details see Nobili and Shahid (2015).

REFERENCES Bâ, Amadou Hampâté. 1969. Kaïdara, récit initiatique peul. Paris: Editions Julliard. Bâ, Amadou Hampâté. 1980. Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar, le sage de Bandiagara. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Bornand, Sandra. 2010. “Une narration à deux voix: exemple de coénonciation chez les jasare songhay-​zarma du Niger.” Cahiers de littérature orale 65: 29–​63. Delafosse, Maurice. 1913. Traditions historiques et légendaires du Soudan Occidental. Paris: Comité de l’Afrique Française. Diarra, Ousmane. 2014. La Route des Clameurs. Paris: Continents Noirs. Elgas. 2015. Un Dieu et des Mœurs. Paris: Présence Africaine. Hama, Boubou. 1973. Le double d’hier rencontre demain. Paris: Union Générale d’Editions. Hama, Boubou. 1968. Kotia Nima. Paris: Présence Africaine. Hazard, Paul. 2013 (first published in English in 1953). The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680–​ 1715. New York: New York Review Books. Izard, Michel. 1965. “Yamba Tiendrebeogo, Histoire et coutumes royales des Mossi de Ouagadougou. Rédaction et annotations de Robert Pageard. Ouagadougou, chez le Larhallé Naba, 1964.” L’Homme 5(2): 136–​138. Kaba, Lansine. 1985. “The Pen, the Sword, and the Crown: Islam and Revolution in Songhay Reconsidered, 1464–​1493.” Africa Today 23(4): 241–​256. Kane, Cheikh Hamidou. 1961. L’aventure ambiguë. Paris: Editions Julliard. Kane, Cheikh Hamidou. 1997. Les Gardiens du Temple. Paris: Stock.

Yesterday meets Tomorrow in Sahelian Intellectual Currents    509 Karkarhu, Musa Ahmad. Undated. “The Gobarau Mosque and its Role as a Centre of Islamic Learning in Katsina.” Dirasat Ifriqiyya 51: 7–​20. Nobili, Mauro and Mohamed Shahid. 2015. “Towards a New Study of the So-​called Tārīkh al-​ fattāsh.” History in Africa 42: 37–​73. Ouologuem, Yambo. 1968. Le devoir de violence. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Proust, Marcel. 1920. A la recherche du temps perdu. Sodome et Gomorrhe. Paris: Gallimard. Proust, Marcel. 2002. In Search of Lost Time. Translated and edited by Christopher Prendergast. London: Allen Lane. Sanusi, Sanusi Lamido. 2008. “Shariacracy in Nigeria: The Intellectual Roots of Islamist Discourses.” Niger Delta Peoples World Congress, http://​www.nigerdeltapeoplesworldcongress. org/​articles/​shariacracy_​in_​nige.pdf. (Accessed 20 September 2019). Sartre, Jean-​Paul. 1972. Plaidoyer pour les intellectuels. Paris: Gallimard.

chapter 27

T HE LITERARY H I STORY OF THE S A H E L Alioune Sow

One of the main features of the literary history of the Sahel is the singular relationship between literature and politics that characterized the decolonization period and the specific literary configurations and cultural developments that derived from it. In the wake of decolonization, and perhaps in contrast to other regions of the continent, the Sahel shared a literary sensibility that determined the cultural and political milieus, shaped the political orientations of the newly emancipated Sahelian territories, and defined their cultural and social reforms. This distinctive literary sensibility translated into the multiplication of solid literary networks, noticeable literary affinities and communities, and stimulated an unprecedented investment in the literary domain with the ambition to create spaces in which literary dynamics and practices were associated with social and political developments. In African literature, the relation between narration and the sociopolitical is often assumed to be organic, and numerous studies have provided insights about what could be termed the political vocation of African texts. Yet, what sets the Sahelian “literary field” (Bourdieu 1991) apart is a robust interplay between literature and politics, sustained by an investment in politics by leading literary figures and, reciprocally, the attachment of key political figures to literary activities and practices. To better understand the peculiarities of the Sahelian cultural landscape and the centrality of literature in the social and political spheres, suffice it to recall that during the two decades that preceded independence, most political leaders and future heads of state in the Sahel were also writers involved in literary activities and multiple forms of creative writing. Authors and political figures—​such as Léopold Sédar Senghor in Senegal; Seydou Badian, Mamadou Gologo, Fily Dabo Sissoko, Mamby Sidibé, and Yoro Diakité in Mali; Joseph Brahim Seid in Chad; Nazi Boni in Burkina Faso; and Boubou Hama in Niger—​ perfectly illustrate the unique convergence of the literary and the political, which prevailed in the region during the 1950s and 1960s.

512   Alioune Sow As this chapter demonstrates, the predominance of literature in the Sahel has its roots in the cultural configurations of the region (see Sarr, Chapter 25 and Idrissa, Chapter 26 in this volume). It derives from the longstanding relationship between literary practices such as the chronicle (Sarr, Chapter 25), epic, or popular theater and social and political processes upheld during colonial times. It is also the product of historical conjunctures. The centrality of literature was renewed and modified during colonization by the pro­pagation of traits and features similar to the French literary field, characterized since the Renaissance by the consistent overlapping of literature and politics. In the French context, the value of the literary for societal transformation has been encapsulated by the “foundational role of literature in the French revolution” (Slama 2012, 48), and the contribution of French writers to the manufacturing of the “mission civique” (“civic mission”) (Ozouf 2006, 110, 219). The dissemination of knowledge through literature was facilitated by the literary activities of politicians such as Léon Blum (Monier 2016), or the political careers of literary figures such as Tocqueville, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Malraux (Ozouf 2006, 613). Combined with prevalent local literary features, these values and concepts are found in the Sahelian literary landscape through multiple circuits and renewed with innovative ideas, initiatives, and practices inaugurated by both Sahelian leaders and writers to affect both the forms and function of literature. The other distinctive trait of the Sahelian cultural landscape is its destabilization by military coups and regimes that severely impacted the literary field, interrupting literary dynamics, slowing down production, and creating several contrasting cultural loci and phases in literary developments in the Sahel.

POLITICS AND WRITING There is perhaps no better site to begin examining the anatomy of the francophone Sahelian literary milieu and capture its literary sensibilities than the centralized colonial educational system. In the Sahel, as elsewhere, both schools and academic institutions accounted for “the social framework of literary practice” (Viala 1985, 10). They remained the mediating institutions that determined the norms, conventions, codes, and processes to integrate literary practices as relevant and legitimate within the “social field” (Bourdieu 1991). Attended by the majority of future writers and political leaders—​such as Senegalese Birago Diop, Abdoulaye Sadji, and Ousmane Socé; Burkina’s Nazi Boni; Malians Fily Dabo Sissoko, Modibo Keïta or Nigerien Mahamane Dandobi, to cite just a few—​ colonial schools played a crucial role in making literature central to the social and political dynamics of the region. Bearing in mind the emotionally, socially and culturally disruptive effects of the implementation of colonial schools in the Sahel and the repressive nature of the French curriculum with regard to existing local forms of knowledge, the main outcome of the colonial school system was the fostering of a literate ethos (éthos

The Literary History of the Sahel    513 lettré) and the emergence of a francophone elite imbued with literary habits and reflexes (Jézéquel 2005). The colonial school curriculum, which consisted of literary studies dedicated to poetics, rhetoric, and theater practices (Dan-​Inna 1991, 64–​65), promoted the institution of a firm literary ethos (éthos littéraire) (Messager and Sennhauser 2013) in daily practices and actions. Not only did the ethos of the literary generate important literary vocations but also, and most importantly, it modified perceptions and ideas about literature itself, lending to literary practices and techniques a crucial function for reflection and writing on personal lived experience in the region (Smith 2018). The significance of French schools in the establishment of literature within the region is further augmented by the multiple networks of literary figures and political actors, which were established very early on within these institutions and later matured into powerful vectors for the transformation of Sahelian political and cultural life. As thoughtfully recalled by Birago Diop in his memoirs, La Plume raboutée (1970), the nexus between Sahelian intellectual figures such as Fily Dabo Sissoko, Modibo Keïta, Mamadou Dia, Bocar Cissé, Ousmane Socé, and Abdoulaye Sadji originated in the corridors, classrooms, and playgrounds of educational institutions such as the Senegalese École Blanchot in Saint-​Louis, the École William Ponty in Sébikotane, or the Lycée van Vollenhoven in Dakar. The camaraderie evoked by Diop and stimulated by shared interests and common literary inclinations did not end after graduation. On the contrary, the companionship forged in high school transformed later on into commitments to the world of literature through regular student meetings in Toulouse and Paris, and professional meetings in Bamako and Dakar. Such reunions were held to evaluate preliminary literary drafts produced by members of the network and to assess the capacity of literature for political emancipation at the time of decolonization. As Diop recalled, regular meetings often brought to Paris groups of alumni from those schools eager to initiate or maintain affiliations with influential literary circles animated by the figures of Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire, Lamine Guèye, and Tiemoko Kouyaté (Edwards 2009), who had already conceptualized a relationship between literature, political expression, and political modes of emancipation. The professional development and patterns of mobility of most of these actors within the region, following their graduation from university, provide additional clues to capturing the singularity of the Sahelian literary landscape. If the early professional careers of figures such as Fily Dabo Sissoko, Abdoulaye Sadji, Birago Diop, Oumar Bâ, Hampâté Bâ, or Nazi Boni were characterized by mobility triggered by professional training and transfers, or determined in turn by political instability, mobility within the region led to new intellectual affiliations and the revitalization of older literary affinities. Mobility fostered fertile intellectual encounters between writers and future political leaders, producing communities of thought that looked for exegesis of the manifold Sahelian realities, stimulating a distinctive poetics of the Sahel. As Diop and others revealed, the circulation of key figures between Dakar, Bamako, Bobo Dioulasso, and Niamey amplified intellectual and literary intersections and enhanced literary alignments, reflecting the circulation and development of ideas across the region. There is perhaps no better way to address the synergy produced by movement and

514   Alioune Sow encounters among writers than to use an excerpt from Diop detailing his encounters with Fily Dabo Sissoko and Mamby Sidibé. Between the cities of Kayes and Ségou, with the mediation of Sissoko and Sidibé, Diop’s exposure to unknown or misunderstood cultural realities strongly influenced the form, content, and aesthetics of his own literary creation: Fily Dabo was evoking his first time in the Mossi country and in Diori, which I would discover ten years later. The ethnologist grateful to be the friend of Professor Théodore Monod and who had not forgotten the lessons of his master, the Africanist Froger, talked also about Balzac, the Karamazov Brothers, and Anatole France. The wise man of Niambia, the Initiate, guided my first steps in the land of the Mande, in the Bambara country so mysterious to us Wolof since the collapse of the magnificent Mali Empire. Mamby Sidibé had brought back tales and legends from West African folklore; Fily Dabo opened the sacred Soudan, the esoteric Mande. Philosopher, ethnologist, geomancer, he read the Signs and he spoke the Signs. He spoke about his people and his land. He was teaching in the same manner as the elders that “death does not end the soul.” And my Souffles owed a lot to him. It was while crossing the land of Niambia, during the briefs halts in Horo-​Koto, their chief town, while listening to their chief that the village of Dougouba came to me and that the character Sarzan took shape and lost his mind. And the whips flogging the naked torsos of the youth who were becoming men were the stripped branches of one of the “four thousand four hundred balanzans” of Segou, the “capital with four names” that the poet often evoked and that I was soon going to discover (Diop 1978, 102)1

The literary genealogy disclosed by Diop invites the reexamination of narratives such as Les contes d’Amadou Koumba (1969) or poems such as Souffles (1965) to interpret them critically as samples of inclusive Sahelian literary traits produced by the amalgamation of cultural references, aesthetics, narrative modalities, and conventions drawn from multiple sources and areas of the region. In addition, the genealogy of the works complicates, if not defies, the rules and conventions that usually bind literature to “national territory and borders” (Wise 2001, 2–​4).2 Diop’s regular encounters with writers and politicians Fily Dabo Sissoko and Mamby Sidibé lead us to the most important element in describing the singularity of the Sahelian literary landscape, namely the interplay between politics and literature. As already mentioned, the notion that “France’s political culture cannot be separated from its literary culture” (Slama 2012, 42) could easily be applied to the Sahel. Very early on, the Sahel credited literature in its political and economic transformations. Aspects of this relationship have been traced and commented upon almost exclusively in the context of Senghor’s Negritude, obfuscating other important local developments in which the intersection of literature and politics took varied forms and led to the adoption of wider policies and reforms determined by literature.

The Literary History of the Sahel    515 In the first months of decolonization, literature was considered complementary to political activism, a powerful relay to the elaboration of Sahelian political thought, and a crucial support for assertions of the region’s emancipation and autonomy. Unlike France, where most writers were not politicians, the Sahel demarcated itself by the fact that most writers before and after independence were major political figures, who made literature inherent to the political exercise, prompting an unprecedented mobilization to adjust the function of literature to a greater role in the development of the region. In the 1960s, convinced of the necessity to mobilize literature for social and political emancipation, state leaders such as Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal), Modibo Keïta (Mali), and Hamani Diori (Niger) implemented a series of cultural policies and reforms that further consolidated the “literary ethos,” spreading literary activities and practices on a new scale. Different strategies were pursued. Some consisted of implementing curriculum modifications such as the Malian educational reforms of 1962, which considerably augmented literary studies and exercises in French in middle-​school programs. Other strategies included bold linguistic policies centered on prioritizing French language acquisition, such as those implemented in Senegal and Niger to respond to concerns about the incoming cultural transformations of the region and to facilitate literary and cultural production and dissemination in French. Indeed, the nature and outcome of such initiatives have been questioned and often perceived as controversial and illegitimate. Yet, under the tutelage of Senghor and Diori, the revival of the term “francophone” after its dormancy for the first part of the twentieth century, rested on the ambition to establish logics and “discursive regimes” (Lavodrama 2007; Canut 2010) contributing to the creation of advantageous connections with France and to figure out entries into the market for cultural production in French. During the first years of independence, Sahelian governments’ efforts turned to an unprecedented investment in literary infrastructures. The creation of national publishing companies and bookshops, often serving as improvised teaching spaces as in Niger (Notre Librairie 1969), remain today the concrete products of such efforts. Other initiatives, such as the ciné-​bibliorail, a “train equipped with a library of 3500 volumes and a cinema,” in Senegal (Notre Librairie 1971, 47) were practical and efficient innovations to reach out to remote communities and distribute books, while taking advantage of existing colonial infrastructures. Most leaders shared the idea that national cultural events, such as the journées culturelles (“cultural days”), the semaines de la jeunesse (“youth weeks”), and the biennales, were valuable means for citizens to engage with governmental reforms and for promoting, durably and consistently, local cultural productions in French and in national languages. Pan-​African festivals such as the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar in 1966, national cultural competitions such as the semaines de la jeunesse in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger (Salifou 2010, 121), or smaller annual events such as the 1950 regional theater competitions organized by the Sahel representatives and the French cultural centers of the region (Warner 2016; Polak 2000, 164) contributed to the creation of a new literary momentum. Not only did the festivals promote national cultural production and display impressive creative diversity

516   Alioune Sow in the oral domain—​and in theater, ballet, music, songs, and crafts—​but these events were also a powerful means for experimentation with new literary forms, for deploying the idea of a participative and transformative literary culture in the region and for using creativity to perfect citizenship. The configurations and ideologies of theater production during the semaines de la jeunesse (the semaines) in Mali speak to these intentions. Organized annually between 1962 and 1968, the semaines valorized the country’s artistic diversity and potential. Much of the event was dedicated to theater in the form of a year-​long competition held simultaneously in the country’s seven regions, and during which young theater groups and companies were invited to create plays in French to be performed, at the end of the academic year, during the final round in Bamako during the semaines. The organizers of the semaines used theater to engage primarily with pressing and controversial issues related to the government’s reforms and policies. Theater was meant to inform and clarify themes and topics as diverse as women’s emancipation, agricultural reforms, the implementation of collective fields, the liberalization of the market, taxation, youth, and social deviance. Unsurprisingly, most of the plays presented during the semaines discouraged resistance to the reforms and asserted the legitimacy of the government’s initiatives and propositions through similar plots, characters, and situations. Punctuated by official discourses, the plays underlined state intervention as necessary for the resolution and mediation of social crises. They also emphasized the necessity and relevance of the reforms, at the same time calling for further commitment and contribution to national edification. There is no doubt that the theater performed during the semaines was ideological in nature, propagandist in form, and transformed the stage into a political forum where the youth had to confront contentious issues related to the transformations of Malian society after independence. Most plays staged during the semaines de la jeunesse attempted to engage with the concerns and priorities of the moment in which they were produced, urging approval, loyalty, and allegiance to the government reforms and participation in the successful making of postcolonial Malian society. For instance, Le monde rural produced by the Ségou region in 1964 dealt with the government’s controversial implementation of collective fields and examined its implications for the peasants (L’Essor 16 July 1964). In 1965, the Bamako region performed La Révolution à Sorobougou, which echoed some of the themes of 1964, considering the advantages of agricultural reforms, the liberalization of the market in parts of West Africa, and the dire consequences for the peasants of the region who initially refused the cooperative system proposed by the government (L’Essor 12 July 1965). Most plays adopted similar formats, plots, themes, and characters, signaling dominant ideological preoccupations and the shared ambition to provide theater across the region with the possibility of dialogue and resolution. Recurrent among the themes were speculation about youth and their aspirations as examined in the play A qui la faute (1965) performed in Bamako during les semaines de la jeunesse, but also deployed in Mahamane Dandobi’s play Les invités du Welcome Bar in Niamey (Dan-​Inna 1991, 64). Both plays centered on concerns about juvenile delinquency, debating subversive

The Literary History of the Sahel    517 tendencies through the depiction of individual flaws and dramatic fallouts. A qui la faute? described the social degradation of a young and naïve rebellious character named Salif, who wastes his youth in a bar named “le bar des sans soucis,” discrediting the actions of the government and refusing to participate in the construction of the nation (L’Essor 7 July 1965). In the same vein, but with a slightly different social focus, Dandobi’s play portrayed the young “new elites” falling into the trap of alcohol and privileging recreation instead of constructive modes of action. At a time when youth was becoming an increasing source of debate and anxiety in the Sahel, both plays chose to focus on delinquency, the lack of common purpose, and the excesses of youth. The two plays did not hide their moralistic intention to address issues of youth participation in the face of the changing contexts of independence and renewed exhortation for the consolidation of the social pact between youth and the government in lieu of meaningless contestation. It is important to note that the investment in cultural production in French during the festivals did not come at the expense of local productions in national languages, nor did it relegate local cultural forms to the past. On the contrary, the festivals and the biennales included an important and diverse literary production in local languages, reflecting government policies to generate complementary relations between an emerging production in French and an already vibrant, independent, and sustainable local production, which did not necessarily need state intervention for promotion and performance. The prominence given to festivals and theater in the cultural landscape of the Sahel was rooted in the central role played by cultural performances, parades, and festivities in traditional Sahelian cultural institutions and social dynamics (Arnoldi 1995; Perrot and Fauvelle-​Aymar 2003). It cannot be overemphasized that most of the cultural reforms and initiatives developed by the authorities during the first decade of independence derived from the very logics, modalities, and aesthetics shared by many cultural performances in Sahelian indigenous practices. These local forms were included in the festivals and semaines de la jeunesse reflecting the states’ attempts to institutionalize successful local productions of popular theater, tales and epics, ballets and songs, which were performed consistently before, during, and after colonization (Schulz 2012). The endurance, coherence, and success of these traditional cultural forms confirmed that while there was no need for state intervention to support and expand local forms, there was, however, a need to create opportunities for the emerging cultural production in French, to attune it to the indigenous production, and to emphasize its relevance for the concerns and urgencies of the postcolonial period. It would be a mistake to interpret the relations between cultural production in French and in local languages in competing terms and to depict the cultural policymakers of the early years of decolonization as representatives of an exclusive intellectual francophile group, distant or cut off from cultural production in national languages. Contrary to what is often assumed, most Sahelian countries attempted to assimilate the two regimes rather than separating them. At the instigation of intellectuals fully versed in local cultural production, governments sought to generate symmetry between the two regimes using national media, radio, and newspaper to do so. Very early on, national radios broadcast programs in both French and national languages. Daily radio shows in Mali

518   Alioune Sow had programs dedicated to cultural, political, and social affairs in Bamanan, Songhai, and Fulfulde serving “the promotion of national languages.” In Burkina Faso, francophone plays were translated and broadcast in national languages (Bakouan, Yougbare, and Sanon 1990, 104). Every Sunday in Niger, Hima Adamou produced and broadcast a new play in Zarma (Plenel 1991, 74), while Boubou Hama, who initiated major reforms to consolidate the cultural landscape in French, published narratives such as Manta Mantaari (see Laya 1991, 80–​81) in Songhai. The unprecedented mobilization for literary matters and creativity that the Sahel region witnessed around that period also drew from other ideologies, reflecting the multifarious education, training, and inspiration of most Sahelian leaders. The French Front Populaire, with its ambitious reforms to democratize access to literary products and to find ways to renew the function and meaning given to literary practices, is certainly the most obvious source of inspiration. Pascal Ory (1990) has shown how the cultural policies implemented by the short-​lived Blum government were transformative and reshaped the twentieth-​century French and francophone “cultural field.” It was, argues Ory, the inclusive propensity of the reforms elaborated by Jean Zay and others that modernized the relations between politics, culture, education, and leisure, overcoming class discrimination, promoting the development of local platforms, and fostering cultural groups and organizations to energize youth activities and intensify innovative associations between politics, activism, militancy, and the cultural domain. The innovative policies of the Front Populaire modified the sociology of the French cultural field and rapidly demonstrated how culture could benefit the political and social development of a country, as long as the majority of the population had access to it. To be productive, Ory (1990) points out, the reforms and policies required government-​ induced support, the mobilization of cultural actors, and the multiplication of venues where new forms of creativity could be stimulated alongside political awareness and trade unionism. The policies of the Front Populaire found their way to the Sahel through a “social program that produced results that were far from negligible” (Chafner 1999, 22), and appealing to the elite that “for the most part rallied to the Popular Front” (Coquery-​ Vidrovitch 1999, 162–​163). As Coquery-​Vidrovitch mentions, the doctrine of the Front opened “doors for trade union activities” (1999, 167) but it also inspired new cultural dynamics under the leadership of influential political and intellectual figures of the Sahel. The latter can be traced through the “communist militancy” (Diop 1978, 78) of the graduates of the École William Ponty, the activities of the journal Légitime Défense, venues such as L’étudiant noir centered around Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire, and Ousmane Socé, who secured the dissemination of political discourse by relying on the central role accorded to literature (Edwards 2009). Senghor joined the Front Populaire in 1936. He unambiguously demonstrated his support during the 1937 conference organized by the Front in Dakar where he delivered a talk on “the integration of African languages” (Hopquin 2007) in the African cultural landscape and in education. Further evidence of the “influence of the Front” (Joly 2006, 585) in the Sahelian cultural landscape can be found in the proliferation of association and cultural groups

The Literary History of the Sahel    519 founded by politicians such as Mamadou Konaté’s Association des lettrés du Soudan, which would later become the Foyer du Soudan with Mali’s Mamby Sidibé and Burkina Faso’s Ouezzin Coulibaly as its members. In Bamako, Modibo Keïta created and led Arts et travail, a group that focused on politics and theater. Mamby Sidibé did the same with La maison de l’espérance (Gérard 1997, 112), while in Niger, Boubou Hama and Diori Hamani were active members of L’Amicale (Plenel 1991, 105). Most of these cultural groups and associations adopted the same modus operandi that combined political activism with literary activities and events to foster debate about culture, economic development, and political emancipation, sometimes attempting to circulate their proposals in literary journals and magazines including small format ones. Obviously, these associations and their organizers played a mediating role in the development of key ideological relationships, literary dynamics, norms, and rationales, intertwined with the emergence of a “militant consciousness” (Cooper 2002, 70), trade union activities, and political parties such as the RDA (Chafner 1999). They succeeded in orienting the values and norms assigned to cultural and literary activities and practices, consolidating at the same time the Front’s “socialized conception of literature” (Ory 1990, 183) that pervaded Sahelian literary expression, most notably in the novel.

THE SAHELIAN NOVEL As in the case of theater, one of the main concerns of Sahelian novels was the experience of youth and their quest for “autonomy.” As indicated by the analogous plots, configurations, and characteristics, most novels written and published from the 1930s into the 1960s were devoted to the disputed engagement of youth with the new political regimes, depicting their responses to the challenges and opportunities associated with the social transformations of decolonization. Drawing from Descombes (2004), Ehrenberg (2005), and Mbembe (2006), it could be said that the “project of autonomy” of the youth, their “civic willingness to participate” (“volonté citoyenne de participer”) (Descombes 2004, 73) and the conditions of their participation, were the central project of the Sahelian novel, reflecting the major preoccupations of the postcolonial transition. A close examination of the Sahelian novels reveals a set of convergences and a striking regularity in the way most narratives dealt with the “project of autonomy.” First, the youth experience and the reflection on autonomy are inscribed within a meta-​narrative of societal development and change, revolving around three main arguments: “the hostile association” between “the country and the city” to use Raymond Williams’s words (Williams 1975, 1), the debate about the benefits and drawbacks of decolonization, and the constraints posed by “modern education.” Second, most narratives give weight to the evaluation and contestation of the ideals of autonomy through the depiction of fierce confrontations between youth and elders. Third, the narratives project a distinctive poetics of audacity elaborated through common situations, protagonists, and discourses, to articulate the desire for and experience of autonomy and, ultimately, to

520   Alioune Sow celebrate temerity. The following examples capture the specific narration associated with the three main arguments. The novels written by Senegalese Ousmane Socé (Karim 1935, Mirages de Paris 1937), Malick Fall (La Plaie 1967), Abdoulaye Sadji (Maïmouna 1953, and the short novel Modou Fatim 1960), Malian Seydou Badian (Sous l’Orage 1965), and Burkinabé Nazi Boni (Crépuscule des temps anciens 1962) revolve around the confrontational reactions toward the rural and the urban, encompassing issues of education, emancipation, and social mobility, as well as capital and migration. Significantly, most of the narratives open with the youth’s assertion of their irrepressible desire to abandon the countryside and the village, legitimized by a reiterated dissatisfaction with the rural environment: “le village ne lui disait plus rien” (“the village no longer interested him”) (Maïmouna 45), “je n’aimais pas la vie au village” (“I didn’t like life in the village”), (La Plaie 29). The desire to escape the rural environment is often tied to financial precariousness generated by regulations implemented by the new political regimes—​as in the case of Sadji’s Modou Fatim for whom “l’impôt, la Société de Prévoyance, le Libanais qui lui avait avancé des vivres” (“taxes, the Providence Society, the Lebanese who had advanced him food”) (Modou Fatim 2) forced him to go to Dakar. Departure can also be motivated by the changing norms of individual growth, advancement, and success, such as the rising importance of capital that frustrates marriage prospects—​as in the case of Magamou in Fall’s La Plaie who laments to his mother that “[S]‌i je ne comptais que sur nos maigres récoltes comment oserais-​je demander la main de Soukeyna?” (“[I]f I relied only on our meager harvests how could I dare ask for Soukeyna’s hand?”) (La Plaie 31). Similar complaints are found in the words of Socé’s Karim who claims in a defeatist mode that “pour des épousailles il fallait de l’argent” (“for marriages, one needed money”) (Karim 62). Nonetheless, as the texts demonstrate, it is quickly understood that for the characters in the novels of Sadji, Sembène, Badian, or Fall, departures are defining moments precisely because they are not solely motivated by economic necessities. The novels suggest that there is more to the youth’s dissatisfaction than lack of wealth, social hierarchies, and material quest and needs. Multiple statements in the novels point to the fact that the youth’s ambitions to escape are also driven by aspirations and willingness to test the new, embrace the unknown, and challenge conventions by disputing the principles of the routine and the familiar. The inciting prospects of unpredictable journeys and the discovery of novel forms of living, leisure, and entertainment are also the motives that take Maïmouna and Magamou to Dakar, Kany to Bamako, and Diouana (in Sembène’s Voltaïque 1962) to France to discover “Paris,” “ce pays dont tout le monde chante la beauté et la richesse, la douceur de vivre” (“this country praised for its beauty, wealth, and sweetness of life”) (Voltaïque 165). The problem, as the narratives indicate, is how to articulate such aspirations and desires without being misunderstood and how to prevent the adverse reception of individual demands and desires commonly perceived as selfish, reckless, and precarious. How do characters explain the desire and decision to leave without incurring instantaneous criticism and be considered as the source of community instability and

The Literary History of the Sahel    521 disintegration? For most characters, the concern is to diffuse the interpretation of personal ambitions toward that which is new as the symptoms of the youth naivety and headiness: “cette moisson magique qui vous affole; c’est elle qui a désorganisé le clan; qui a enfievré votre imagination; qui nous a perdus, m’entends-​tu? Qui nous a perdus” (“this magic potion that disorients you; it is the same potion that disrupted the clan; that excited your imagination; that lost us, do you hear me?”) (La plaie 30). All the novels show that the road to discovery and change is unpredictable, intricate, violent, and sometimes fatal. Diouana’s suicide in France or the tragic fate of Maïmouna reveal how the experience of the unknown that attracted those young people is repetitively disputed, compromised by the unanticipated harsh realities of class, race, and power in both the Sahel and France. Yet, at stake in the novels are the determined modes of action devised by youth to attempt to move away from an order that seems to rely on conformity and duplication, to distance themselves from a path of individuation and socialization that is systematized rather than innovative and original. In many of these early narratives of the Sahel, the youth discover that the order they confront is protected and defended by conservative, timorous, or resigned elders who are reluctant to change, adverse to alternatives, and skeptical of the youth’s ambitions. Characters such as Kany and Samou, who were persuaded that education and success at school finally gave them the possibility to change, are dismayed by this discovery. Remarkably, the reactions and responses to the youth’s disputing of the dominant order remain invariably the same, adequately summarized by the short assertion found in Sous l’orage: “les jeunes n’étaient pas de l’avis des anciens” (“the youth were not of the same mind as the elders”) (Sous l’orage 25). In reality, the elders’ refrain and opposition do not mean much. There are “lieux communs” (“truisms”), as Samou rightly argues in Sous l’orage, overused by the elders to contest the legitimacy of the youth’s demands and ambitions, and contradict their subjectivity. The commonplace is often augmented by vague and contemptuous disapprovals formulated by narcissistic elders convinced that the youth’s aspirations and desires are flawed and only reflect opportunism and alienation, the new ailment of the time: I don’t know what they put in your head at school. But you come back spoiled, insolent, and disrespectful . . . the day will come when we will make you change language, unless you seek refuge in the country of the White people, your masters, slaves that you are! (Sous l’orage 56)3

Truisms are crucial elements for better understanding the adverse reaction to youth’s experience. The perception of the idea of the youth, its constitution and imaginary, often considered fallacious, is powerfully illustrated by the numerous meditations and debates about youth, often brought to a premature end by unsubstantiated references to individualism and threats of community dislocation. The abundant use of truisms in the novels demonstrates that, ultimately, not much is expected from the youth besides replicating past models promoted by elders relying on conservatism and conformity

522   Alioune Sow to delay changes to the social order. More importantly, the truisms reveal the ambivalent nature of the generational confrontation and the deadlock created by the fact that, despite the multiple exhortations to the youth to renounce their ambitions and live in accord with the inherited social order, the elders are unable to fully explain and justify their opposition to youth. Thus, the social order promoted by the elders remains veiled, unclear, and unattractive, complicating the journey into adulthood with demands and actions systematically condemned as subversive but the youth does not necessarily know what exactly they transgress. The proliferation of narratives dedicated to youth during the postcolonial transition in the Sahel underscores the crucial role that writers attributed to young people in the context of social and political transformation, thus anticipating the treatment of an issue that over the years would become one of the most contested in the region. As the narratives clearly show, Sahelian authors linked the conflicts and tensions surrounding youthful aspirations to the question of political self-​determination as some sort of a necessary condition, without which the debate about the transition, the youth, and the future remain fraught. Drawing from Moretti (2000), it could be said that at the time of independence, Sahelian authors attempted to invite readers to reflect on emancipation, autonomy, and individuality as “the necessary fruit(s) of a culture of self-​determination” (Moretti 2000, 16), with authors like Badian dedicating further essays to the question (Les Dirigeants Africans face à leur Peuple 1964). The novels argued that the aspiration of youth to autonomy should not be interpreted as an infringement of normativity or as a rejection of social codes, principles, and values, as often attributed to them by conservative thought. On the contrary, the novels suggest, autonomy should be understood as the “capacité à l’activité délibérée” (“the capacity for deliberate action”), to use Mbembe’s formulation (Mbembe 2006, 123), in the sense of a mode of action that does not encroach on a social order but ultimately consolidates it. Indeed, in the narratives discussed here, youthful engagement is maladroit and often defective, because of the absence of a normative framework, a deficit of inspiring personalities reflecting contrasting walks of life, social status, and gender, on which the youth could rely as role models. Furthermore, what makes Sahelian authors’ engagement with the “philosophy of action” derived from the “project of autonomy” unique is the novels’ remarkable alignment with the main orientations of the epics of the region. In epics such as Lat Dior, Silamaka, Soundjata, Ndiadiane Ndiaye, and Biton Coulibaly, to cite just a few, the experience of youth and the innovative and audacious modes of intervention of young adults are consistently the subject of the narratives. While recalling the make-​up of Sahelian empires and celebrating their dynasties, the epics unfailingly probe change instead of continuity or inertia. The “philosophy of action” promoted by the epics results from opposition and confrontation to outdated models to which heroes such as Soundjata, Silamaka, and Biton respond in unexpected and creative ways, challenging static social and power configurations, defying unsatisfactory political regimes, and rethinking dominant norms (see e.g. Kesteloot 1991, and Kesteloot and Dieng 1997). If the imagination of the youth in the epic seemed unquestioned, it is only because the epic hero proves the validity and legitimacy of change through his achievements. The heroic

The Literary History of the Sahel    523 dimension of the young character is defined by his ability to engage in alternative modes of thought and action at a moment in which conformity seems to be accepted as the safest mode. Following resistance, conflicts, and tensions, and subjected to deportation and exile, youth prevail, ultimately leading to the renewal of imperfect societies and the adoption of new ways of life. In both the epic and the novel, the defining moment of societal transformation revolves around youth.

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS The main features of Sahelian literary history are defined by intricate relationships between literature and politics, spread across genres and spaces, rooted in traditional cultural practices, and combined to a literary production in French shaped by the idea that literature should contribute to political and social change. At independence, the emergence of literature in French appeared in tandem with the consolidation of local literary production in national languages, underlining unique aspects of the relationship between local cultural forms and the developing literature in French. The remarkable literary momentum that characterized the early postcolonial period was the result of multiple processes, which include the rapprochement between authors and politicians and the implementation of innovative official cultural policies and initiatives in which the literary prevailed under the aegis of leaders who were literary practitioners. In addition to the commonality of themes, which reflect similar concerns, the sustained relations between literary genres such as the novel and the epic underline shared literary genealogies and developments contrasting with literary tendencies and development of genres elsewhere on the continent. Moreover, the permanent place of youth in the imaginaries of the Sahel, traced in the epic and the novel, relayed by theater and conveyed in the discourses and actions of politicians, consolidate the literary distinctiveness of the region, projecting youth as the significant moment of defiance and struggle that should yield to transformations and new promises. A last point about the literary history of the Sahel: While the strong interplay of the political and the literary led to innovative developments, it had vulnerabilities. The interplay determined the tragic fate of both writers and politicians, bringing long-​ lasting disruptions to the literary landscape in parts of the region and reconfiguring it in other parts. The political crises and military coups of the late 1960s made numerous victims among writers, claiming the life of Fily Dabo Sissako, leading to the deportation and incarceration of Seydou Badian, Mamadou Gologo, and Yoro Diakité, and the exile of Nazi Boni and Hampâté Bâ. These crises weakened what was initially a complementary and interrelated literary field and transformed it into a fragmented ensemble made of literary deserts on the one hand, and literary shelters such as Senegal on the other. While military coups silenced most of the writers who built the early postcolonial Sahelian literary field, the cultural reforms and initiatives they proposed survived, untouched by military authorities and leaders who could not inaugurate alternative models

524   Alioune Sow of cultural development. Hence, cultural events such as the biennales were still performed during military regimes, and were revived after the democratic wave of the 1990s, confirming the relevance and validity of early literary developments and achievements. Despite the disruption of the cultural landscape of the Sahel in the late 1960s, literature continued to engage with and respond to political crises through different modes, initiating new relationships between the literary with the political. New dynamisms and new forms of literary resistance emerged in the early 1970s starting with the political positioning of Birago Diop, reluctant to pursue his literary career out of protest, and the political radicalization of Ousmane Sembène. The thought-​provoking writings of Yambo Ouologuem followed, accompanied by the subtle rebuttals of Massa Makan Diabaté in Mali, and the philosophical commentaries of Cheikh Hamidou Kane in Senegal; the innovative production of women authors such as Senegalese Aminata Sow Fall and Ken Bugul; and the new aesthetics of Malian Moussa Konaté and Senegalese Boubacar Boris Diop. Not only did this diverse literary production reconfigure the Sahelian literary landscape with new literary claims, themes, and ideologies, it also confirmed the central role of literature in the interrogations about future evolutions in the region and the persistent use of the literary as a “device” that “[makes] it possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves and to relate to others in profoundly new ways” (Anderson 2006, 36).

Notes * All translations from the French are by the author. 1. Fily Dabo racontait ses débuts en pays Mossi, et à Diori que je ne devais connaître que dix ans plus tard. L’ethnologue qui s’honorait de l’amitié du Professeur Théodore Monod et qui n’avait rien perdu des leçons de son Maître, l’africaniste Froger, discutait aussi de Balzac, des Frères Karamazov, d’Anatole France. Le Sage du Niambia, l’Initié, guidait mes premiers pas sur la terre mandingue, dans le pays Bambara devenu domaine mystérieux pour nous Wolofs depuis la mort de l’immense Empire du Mali. Mamby Sidibé avait rapporté des contes et des légendes qui nourrissaient le folklore ouest-​africain; Fily Dabo ouvrait le Soudan sacralisé, le Mandingue ésotérique. Philosophe, ethnologue, géomancien, il lisait les Signes, il disait les Signes. Il disait son peuple et son terroir. Il enseignait comme ses Anciens que "la Mort ne finit pas l’Ame". Et mes Souffles devaient lui devoir beaucoup. C’est en traversant les terres du Nambia, au cours des brèves haltes à Horo-​Koto leur chef-​lieu, en écoutant leur chef, que s’édifia en moi le village de Dougouba et que Sarzan prit corps et perdit la tête. Et les fouets flagellant le torse nu des jeunes gens qui allaient devenir des hommes étaient des branches effeuillées d’un des "quatre mille quatre cent balanzans" de Ségou, la "Capitale aux quatre noms" que le poète évoquait souvent et que j’allais connaitre bientôt. 2. See Christopher Wise (2001), Desert Shore (2–​4). My interpretation differs from those of Wise and others who did not integrate the first generation of writers into their studies. 3. je ne sais ce qu’on vous met dans la tête à l’école. Mais vous revenez gâtés, insolents et irrespectueux . . . un jour viendra où nous vous ferons changer de langage, à moins que vous ne cherchiez refuge au pays des Blancs, de vos maitres, esclaves que vous êtes! (Sous l’orage 56).

The Literary History of the Sahel    525

REFERENCES Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London New York: Verso. Arnoldi, Mary-​Jo. 1995. Playing with Time: Art and Performance in Central Mali. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Badian, Seydou. 1963. Sous l’orage. Paris: Présence Africaine. Badian, Seydou. 1964. Les dirigeants africains face à leur peuple. Paris: Editions François Maspéro. Bakouan, Bali Augustin, Yougbare Elie, and Sanon J. Bernardin. 1990. “Une vie littéraire en devenir.” Notre Librairie 101: 99–​109. Beissinger, Margaret, Jane Tylus, and Susanne Wofford, eds. 1999. Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World. Berkeley: University of California Press. Boni, Nazi. 1962. Crépuscule des temps anciens. Paris: Présence Africaine. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. “Le champs littéraire.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 89: 3–​46. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. La Distinction: critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Bulletin pour les bibliothèques d’Afrique et de Madagascar. 1969. Canut, Cécile. 2010. “À bas la francophonie! De la mission civilisatrice du français en Afrique à sa mise en discours postcoloniale.” Langue française 167(3): 141–​158. Chafner, Tony and Amanda Sackur, eds. 1999. French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Cooper, Frederick. 2002. Africa Since 1940: The Past and Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coquery-​Vidrovitch, Catherine. 1999. “French West Africa and Reformist Colonialism,” in Tony Chafer and Amanda Sackur, eds., French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 155–​163. Dan-​Inna, Chaïbou. 1991. “Le théâtre.” Notre Librairie 107: 63–​69. Descombes, Vincent. 2004. Le complément de sujet—​Enquête sur le fait d’agir de soi-​même. Paris: Editions Gallimard. Diop, Birago. 1978. La plume raboutée (Mémoires 1). Paris: Présence Africaine. Edward, Brent. 2009. Practices of Diaspora. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Ehrenberg, Alain. 2005. “Agir de soi-​même.” Esprit 316: 200–​209. Fall, Malick. 1967. La plaie. Paris: Albin Michel. Gérard, Etienne. 1997. La tentation du savoir en Afrique: politiques, mythes et strategies d’éducation au Mali. Paris: Karthala. Hopquin, Benoît. 2007. Ces Noirs qui ont fait la France. Paris: Calman-​Levy. Imperato, Pascal James, and Gavin H. Imperato. 2008. Historical Dictionary of Mali. Lanham MD: Sacrecrow Press. Jézéquel, Jean-​Hervé. 2005. “Les enseignants comme élite politique en AOF (1930–​1945).” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 178: 519–​543. Joly, Vincent. 2006. Le Soudan français de 1939 à 1945: une colonie dans la guerre. Paris: Karthala. Kesteloot, Lylian. 1991. “Power and its portrayals in Royal Mandé Narratives”. Research in African Literatures, 22(1): 17–​26. Kesteloot, Lylian, and Dieng Bassirou. 1997. Les épopées d’Afrique noire. Paris: Karthala. Lavodrama, Philippe. 2007. “Senghor et la réinvention du concept de la francophonie.” Les Temps Modernes 643–​644: 283–​323. Laya, Diouldé. 1991. “Boubou Hama.” Notre Librairie 107: 80–​82.

526   Alioune Sow Mann, Gregory. 2014. From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mbembe, Achille. 2006. “Qu’est-​ce que la pensée postcoloniale?” Esprit 12: 117–​133. Messager, Mathieu, and Sennhauser Anne, eds. 2013. “L’ethos du littéraire. Figurations de l’attitude lettrée dans la littérature contemporaine (1980–​2010).” Les Cahiers du Ceracc 6, http://​www.cahiers-​ceracc.fr/​introcahier6.html. Monier, Fréderic. 2016. Léon Blum: la morale et le pouvoir. Paris: Hachette. Moretti, Franco. 2000. The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. London and New York: Verso. Notre Librairie. 1968. “Au Niger un stage d’enseignants bibliothécaires” 44–​47 Notre Librairie. 1971. “Le ciné-​bibliorail du Sénégal: un train nommé culture” 46–​47 Notre Librairie. 1990. “Littérature du Burkina” 101. Notre librairie. 1991. “Littérature Nigérienne” 107. Ory, Pascal. 1990. La belle illusion: culture et politique sous le signe du Front Populaire 1935–​1938. Paris: Editions Plon. Ozouf, Mona. Récits d’une patrie littéraire. Paris: Fayard. 2006. Perrot, Claude-​Hélène, and François-​Xavier Fauvelle-​Aymar (eds.). 2003. Le retour des rois: les autorités traditionnelles et l’état en Afrique. Paris: Karthala. Plenel, Jean Dominique. 1991. “Entretien avec Hima Adamou.” Notre Librairie 107: 74–​76. Polak, Rainer. 2000. “A Musical Instrument Traveling Around the World: Jenbe Playing in Bamako, West Africa and Beyond.” The World of Music (42–​3): 7–​46. Sadji, Abdoulaye. 1968. Maïmouna. Paris: Présence Africaine. Sadji, Amadou Booker Washington. 1997. Adboulaye Sadji. Paris: Présence Africaine. Salifou, André. 2010. Biographie politique de Diori Hamani. Paris: Karthala. Schulz, Dorothea. 2012. Culture and Customs in Mali. Santa Barbara: Greenwood. Slama, Gérard Alain. 2012. Les écrivains qui ont fait la République. Paris: Editions Plon. Smith, Etienne. 2018. Les Hussards noirs des savoirs. Paris: Karthala. Socé, Ousmane. 1948. Karim. Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines. Viala, Alain. 1985. Naissance de l’écrivain: sociologie de la littérature à l’âge classique. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Warner Tobias. 2016. “What is African Literature?: Makerere, Dakar, Freetown and the Invention of the Language Question, 1961–​63.” Paper presented at the International conference The Performance of Pan Africanism: From Colonial Exhibitions to Black and African Cultural Festivals. Tallahassee, 20–​22 October. Williams, Raymond. 1975. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wise, Christopher. 2001. The Desert Shore: Literature of the Sahel. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Section VII

T H E R E L IG IOU S L A N D S C A P E I N F LU X Section editor: Benjamin Soares

INTRODU C T I ON Benjamin Soares

When thinking about religion in the Sahel, most commentators tend to equate the region with Islam and Islamic religious practice. This is understandable given the long presence of Muslims and Islam in the region and the fact that it includes such famous and important centers of Islamic learning and scholarship as Timbuktu. There is evidence that Islam has been practiced in places in the Sahara for more than one thousand years. Arab geographers and the writers of chronicles discussed Bilad al-​Sudan, the so-​called Land of Sudan or “the Black Peoples,” sometimes in detail. In various written sources, Arab travelers to the region encountered Muslims and described the conversion of rulers. In the early and medieval period in the Sahel, a succession of polities or states—​Ghana/​Wagadu, Mali, and Songhay—​were increasingly associated with Islam over time (see Gomez 2018). At the same time, some of the chroniclers also described practices in the region that they identified as un-​Islamic or non-​Islamic. Some of these practices—​such as forms of spirit possession and use of “power objects”—​seem similar to what are usually called African “traditional” religions, practiced in one form another in the recent past and sometimes even today in the region. In its long history, the religious landscape of the Sahel has changed dramatically. This is no less the case in more recent times. Today the Sahel is overwhelmingly Muslim; Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal all have populations estimated to be over 90 percent Muslim, and Burkina Faso and Chad are both majority Muslim countries (Central Intelligence Agency 2018). The long historical association of the region with Islam notwithstanding, it is, however, important to note that widespread Islamization of the region is actually relatively recent. At the time of the French conquest of large parts of the interior of what was to become Afrique Occidentale Française (AOF, French West Africa) in the late nineteenth century, Muslims were in fact not the majority in many places. Indeed, in the early twentieth century Muslims were actually a minority among colonial subjects in many places in the region. Outside such longstanding urban centers as Timbuktu and Djenné in present-​day Mali, and polities such as Fouta Toro in the central Senegal River Valley, the Sultanate of Agadez in Niger, or the Sultanate of Ouaddaï in Chad, in all of which Muslims had been a majority for centuries, the majority of

530   Benjamin Soares the population in many regions of the Sahel was comprised of non-​Muslims. These non-​Muslims engaged in a multiplicity of practices, including certain forms of spirit possession and the use of “power objects” with various names in vernacular languages, or “fetishes” in European lexicons, that are sometimes associated with blood sacrifice, various masking “traditions,” and secret societies. One of the unexpected outcomes of French colonial rule in the Sahel was the Islamization of many colonial subjects, who previously might have engaged in some of these various “un-​Islamic” practices and “traditions.” Although such historical processes of Islamization are difficult to reconstruct, it is clear that political and economic changes associated with colonial rule led to the development of a colonial sphere of activities in which Muslim subjects, who were usually subject to strict surveillance and control, were allowed to practice Islam as long as they did not contest colonial authority (see Launay and Soares 1999). During the colonial period, many originally non-​Muslim colonial subjects were Islamized as they attended colonial schools (i.e., state secular schools), joined or were conscripted into the army, worked for the colonial civil service, engaged in forced labor, or as they moved to new centers of economic activities such as colonial agricultural schemes. Along with Muslim traders who were able to move more freely in the era of the “colonial peace,” Muslim subjects often helped to introduce Islam to new areas sometimes through example, including in rural areas throughout the Sahel. Among the unintended consequences of widespread Islamization that accompanied French colonial rule was the proliferation of more uniform ways of being Muslim through more standardized practices—​including regular prayer and fasting during the month of Ramadan—​that became more generalized. Throughout the Sahel many of those who continued to engage in “un-​Islamic” practices and “traditions” often did so in rural areas or in increasingly less public venues, that is, out of the view of possible critics. The rapid and far-​reaching Islamization during colonial rule alarmed many members of the colonial administration, who, for obvious geopolitical reasons, had sought to keep the many Muslims living in their colonies in Africa isolated from other variants of Islam and Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East, and free from the bogeys of pan-​Islam and later pan-​Arabism. Such mass Islamization also seemed to alarm the Roman Catholic missionaries in the region. Although there had been Roman Catholic activities in Senegal for centuries and Senegal had a relatively large and established community of Catholics, it was only in the late nineteenth century that Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the interior regions of the Sahel alongside colonial armies and administrators. They eventually made inroads in some of the other countries of the Sahel, most notably, with a large number of converts to Catholicism in Burkina Faso and Chad. Various mainline Protestant missions followed along with the different waves of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. Today, the Christians in the Sahel remain overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Although Mali, Niger, and Senegal have relatively small Christian minorities, more than one third of Burkinabe and Chadians are Christians.

introduction to Section VII    531 Aside from Christians and practitioners of what are now called African “traditional” religions, there are other religious minorities in the Sahel. The Ahmadiyya, a missionary movement founded in colonial India, has been present in West Africa since the first decades of the twentieth century and has its most important presence in the Sahel in Burkina Faso (see Cissé and Langewiesche 2019). Beginning in the late colonial period, Baha’i missionaries successfully introduced the Baha’i faith into West Africa and into the Sahel (see Lee 2011), and one can find a small number of Baha’is in all of the Sahelian countries. Today, the vast majority of Muslims in the Sahel are Sunni Muslims, like the majority of the world’s Muslims. We should also underscore the importance of the Maliki school of jurisprudence, Ash’ari theology, and Sufism, the mystical tradition in Islam, in this region, as in much of Sub-​Saharan Africa (Seesemann Chapter 28). There are, however, also some Shi’a Muslims in the Sahel, the majority of whom are descendants of migrants from the Levant who arrived during the colonial period. Since the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s, the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has sometimes played out in Africa. In recent years, there has been some conversion to Sh’ism in all of the countries of the Sahel (for the case of Senegal, see Leichtman 2015). Given sometimes vehement anti-​Shi’a sentiment, which certain Sunni Muslims have promoted, some Shi’a in the Sahel do not publicly reveal their Shi’ism. With the exception of Mauritania, which was founded as an Islamic Republic, the other Sahelian countries are secular republics in the French tradition of laïcité, which was inherited from the colonial state. However, as Thurston discusses in Chapter 32, actually existing secularism across the region has sometimes been fraught. There is considerable complexity and diversity among Muslims in the Sahel, and their ways of being Muslim have been changing over time. For that reason, it is sometimes difficult to make them fit within the existing categories of analysis. Be that as it may, as Seesemann argues in this section, there are basically three different Islamic intellectual currents among the region’s Sunni Muslims—​traditionalist, reformist, and Islamist. If in the traditionalist current a personal connection to a master is emphasized, in the reformist current, frequently glossed as “Salafi” or “Wahhabi,” textual evidence takes precedence over a master. Finally, in the Islamist current, Islamic and “Western” knowledge are brought together. This last current sometimes seems to connect with jihadism as in the recent jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel in the early twenty-​first century, as explored in Chapter 30 by Yahaya Ibrahim. At the same time, there have also been various forms of activism by Muslims in the Sahel that cannot be mapped onto these intellectual currents, or that seem to be complex hybrids. For example, since the media revolution and increased global interconnections there are numerous Muslim media stars in the Sahel who employ the mass media to talk about Islam and intervene in public debates in sometimes surprising ways (Soares 2016; Chapter 29). Muslim women’s activism in the Sahel is another telling example, as Alidou discusses in Chapter 31. Although there are certainly those one might characterize as Islamic reformist in orientation, there are other Muslim women activists whose

532   Benjamin Soares approaches and aspirations could be characterized as feminist and progressive, even though certainly not blindly mimetic of Western feminism. If over the last millennium the Sahel has come to be closely associated with Islam and Islamic religious practice, it is important to underscore the diversity of the religious landscape over space and time in the region. Not only is there complexity and diversity in the practice of Islam—​ranging from quietist Sufis and secular Muslims to recent converts to Shi’ism or the Ahmadiyya to Muslim media stars and armed jihadists—​but there are many other ordinary Muslims whose ways of practicing the religion have varied over time in this region. At the same time, given the frequent scholarly overemphasis of Islam there is also the risk that the non-​Muslim “Others”—​Christians, Baha’is, practitioners of African “traditional” religions, secularists, and even atheists—​ do not get the attention they certainly deserve in this region in flux.

REFERENCES Central Intelligence Agency. 2018. The World Factbook https://​www.cia.gov/​library/​ publications/​the-​world-​factbook/​ Cissé, Issa, and Katrin Langewiesche. 2019. “L’Association islamique ahmadiyya au Burkina Faso,” in Alice Degorce, Ludovic O. Kibora, and Katrin Langewiesche, eds., 2019. Rencontres religieuses et dynamiques sociales au Burkina Faso. Dakar: Amalion, 90–​107. Gomez, Michael. 2018. African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Launay, Robert, and Benjamin Soares. 1999. “The Formation of an ‘Islamic Sphere’ in French Colonial West Africa.” Economy and Society 28(4): 497–​519. Lee, Anthony A. 2011. The Baha’i Faith in Africa: Establishing a New Religious Movement, 1952–​ 1962. Leiden: Brill. Leichtman, Mara A. 2015. Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2010. “Sufism in West Africa.” Religion Compass, 10(4): 606–​614. Soares, Benjamin. 2016. “New Muslim Public Figures in West Africa,” in Robert Launay, ed., Islamic Education in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 268–​284.

chapter 28

ISL AMIC INTEL L E C T UA L TR ADITIONS IN T H E S A H E L Rüdiger Seesemann 1

The Sahel has long been known for its vibrant Islamic intellectual traditions. Emblematic for these traditions is the city of Timbuktu in present-​day northern Mali (Kane 2016), which emerged as a beacon of Islamic learning as early as the sixteenth century. No less famous are the centers of Islamic scholarship located in present-​day Mauritania, whose histories go back to the seventeenth century and earlier (Stewart 1973). Other Sahelian countries, most notably Senegal, Niger, and northern Nigeria also look back to longstanding and enduring traditions of Islamic learning, making the Sahel not only an intriguing field of study for historians and Islamicists2 but also—​as this chapter will show—​relevant for the understanding of the interplay between competing Islamic currents in the contemporary period more generally. One important observation that needs to be made at the outset pertains to the fluidity of the geographical limits of the Sahel. The Islamic intellectual traditions to be discussed here extend beyond the region defined as the “Sahel” for the purpose of the present handbook. One principal current, to be called “traditionalist” in the following, reached the Sahel from the Maghreb and spread in the entire Sudanic belt, up to the Nile River. In terms of Islamic scholarly culture, regions such as northern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, or Darfur in present-​day Sudan share many features with Senegal, Mali, or Mauritania (for Darfur, see Seesemann 1999). This is not to deny the fact that colonial rule and the rise of the nation-​state have produced unique “national” expressions of Islam. Yet we do have to keep in mind that the nation-​state is not necessarily the principal frame of reference within which Islamic intellectual traditions evolve (and of course, for the most part of the history of Islam in the region, it has never played a role). We thus need to conceive of “Islam in the Sahel” in terms of a vast network with strong nodes not only within the narrower region but also in places such as Cairo in Egypt, Algiers and Constantine in Algeria, Qayrawan in Tunisia, Marrakesh and Fez in Morocco, Kumasi in Ghana, Zaria, Kaduna, Kano, and Maiduguri in Nigeria, Maroua

534   Rüdiger Seesemann and Ngaoundéré in Cameroon, up to Khartoum and Wad Madani along the Nile; not to mention the many links with the Middle East. For centuries, Islamic intellectual currents in the Sahel have been relatively stable, though certainly not static. There have always been competing interpretations and understandings of Islam, often resulting in contestations and revolts (Robinson 2002). Still, as this chapter argues, well into the twentieth century the principal doctrinal foundations and epistemological premises of Islamic scholarly culture were largely the same throughout the Sahel and the Sudanic belt. Significant changes came by the middle of the twentieth century, when reformist Islamic intellectual currents of Middle Eastern provenance found a growing audience among Muslims in the French and British colonies in the Sudanic belt and West Africa more broadly. These currents, often branded as Wahhabism or Salafism, gradually grew stronger toward the end of the twentieth century. Around that time, they were joined by yet another competing intellectual tradition that can be called “Islamist.” The present chapter is not intended as a descriptive overview of the wide spectrum of Islamic intellectual life in the Sahel. Rather, it takes an analytical approach to the relationship between the three currents introduced earlier as traditionalist, reformist, and Islamist. Other than previous categorizations of “African” versus “Middle Eastern” Islam, or “Sufi Islam” versus “reformist Islam” that abound in the academic literature and often lack analytical depth (e.g., Westerlund and Rosander 1997), the approach proposed here focuses on divisions in the Islamic field in the wider Sahel and traces them back to different epistemological premises. Thus, rather than trying to explain these divisions in terms of religious ideology, they are viewed through the lens of different approaches to and conceptions of Islamic knowledge. This change of perspective also helps one to understand the significant overlaps that can be observed between the various Islamic currents in spite of their ideological divisions (see further Seesemann 2018). The focus is therefore on the relationship between competing epistemologies, a relationship that expresses itself in terms of both a prolonged struggle between the protagonists involved and also mutual borrowing and blending of knowledge practices, which are often connected to broader intellectual developments within global Islam. The analysis presented here draws on extensive research in various settings of Islamic learning in Mauritania, Senegal, Chad, and Sudan, though it does not go into ethnographic details.3 The aim is to sketch the main features of, as well as the changing relationship between, the three epistemological patterns under discussion. Traditionalist Islam, widely seen as the dominant strand within Islam in Africa, can indeed be described as based on the Islamic tradition passed on through enduring knowledge practices since the formative period of Islam. It is a tradition that is cultivated, handed down, and also changing, but the modes of engaging with this tradition follow certain epistemological suppositions that have remained remarkably stable over time. We can characterize the traditionalist approach as having the master–​disciple relationship at its core and thus as revolving around the primacy of the master. The current qualified in the following as reformist, on the other hand, attributes the primacy to the text. As already mentioned, Islamic reformism made its first

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    535 appearance in the Sahel (and other parts of Sub-​Saharan Africa) in the twentieth century and has been on the rise after the creation of independent nation-​states. Whereas the sanad (Arabic, literally, “support”), that is, the chain of transmission, guarantees the authenticity of knowledge in the traditionalist paradigm, the reformist paradigm relies on the dalil, or evidence, as the most important tool to confirm knowledge as valid. These two modalities only play a lesser role in the third paradigm put forward here, labeled as Islamist. The designation “Islamism” usually invokes the image of Muslim radicals determined to establish an Islamic state based on their rigid understanding of the sharia by all means necessary, sometimes including violence disguised as jihad. As will become clear in the treatment of the three paradigms, Islamism as understood here introduces a novel conception of Islamic knowledge, its political character notwithstanding. Militancy is a potential, but not necessarily major component of this concept; in fact, it is not primarily the Islamist current, but radical readings of reformist tenets that have provided the doctrinal basis for jihadist action in the Sahel in the early twenty-​ first century (see Yahaya Ibrahim Chapter 30 in this volume).

THE TRADITIONALIST PARADIGM Many studies of Islam in the Sahel (and Sub-​Saharan Africa more generally) emphasize the central role of “Sufi Islam” in the region. The latter is frequently equated with “popular” or “traditional” Islam and juxtaposed to “orthodox” or “reformist” Islam. This purported divide is often expressed in other binary oppositions, such as “tolerant” versus (potentially) “militant” or “syncretistic” versus “fundamentalist” (Seesemann 2006a). Whereas Sufi orders do indeed have a strong presence in many parts of the Sahel, such assumptions tend to overlook important historical instances of Sufi militancy or the promotion of the return to the Sunna, that is, the Prophetic model of practicing Islam, by “orthodox” Sufi movements, most notably in the nineteenth century (Last, 1967; Robinson 1985). Moreover, the depiction of “African” Islam as Sufi Islam obscures the fact that the historical roots of Sufism’s presence in the region are not as deep as the tenacity of the “African Islam is Sufi Islam” equation might suggest. Since the advent of Islam in the Sahel in the eleventh century, the most outstanding feature of the Islamic intellectual tradition in the region has been the dominance of the Maliki School of Law, named after its founder Malik b. Anas (died 795 in Medina, present-​day Saudi Arabia). As one of the four major legal schools of Sunni Islam, Maliki jurisprudence (Arabic, fiqh) has been a hallmark of Islamic scholarly culture in the Islamic West, from where it spread into the Sahara, the Sahel, and the entire Sudanic belt. Malik’s approach not only centered on literal readings of the vast hadith corpus, that is, reports about the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, but also emphasized the emulation of the practice (‘amal) of the early Muslims of Medina (Wymann-​ Landgraf 2013). This approach rests on an important epistemological premise that forms

536   Rüdiger Seesemann the foundation for knowledge transmission and Islamic learning in the traditionalist paradigm, expressed as follows in the words of Malik b. Anas: “Knowledge should only be acquired from one who has memorized [the text], who has himself kept company with the scholars, who has put his knowledge into practice, and who possesses piety” (Wright 2015, 35). Only person-​to-​person transmission can guarantee the authenticity of knowledge. It is transmitted from breast to breast, because “knowledge resides in the breasts, not in the lines of books” (“al-​‘ilm fi l-​sudur laysa fi l-​sutur”), as a famous adage puts it (Chih, Mayeur, and Seesemann 2015, 18). Although primarily attested in Sufi contexts, where it serves to emphasize the impossibility of seeking experiential knowledge through books, this aphorism posits that students learn through (literally) sitting at the feet of a master, whose qualification consists of embodying the knowledge that he—​and, in some cases, she—​passes on. Here, the transmission of knowledge is an interactive, oral, and mimetic process where the master conveys the contents—​usually of a book—​to the students and explains its proper understanding. In this sense, the Maliki tradition is more than simply a “School of Law”; it has epistemological ramifications epitomized in the term sanad, which denotes the chain of transmission that links the student to the master, who is in turn connected to many generations of masters all the way back to the founding figures of Islam and ultimately to the Prophet Muhammad as the source of all authentic knowledge. Just as Malikism has long been a key element of Islamic intellectual traditions in the Sahel in terms of jurisprudence as well as in terms of their underlying knowledge practices, Ash’ari theology (Arabic, ‘aqida) provided another enduring component of Islamic scholarly culture in the wider region. The doctrines of the eponym of this theological school, Abu l-​Hasan al-​Ash’ari (died 935 in Baghdad), have inspired Muslim scholars in North Africa and the Sahel alike to compose manuals and didactic poems that convey the major theological tenets of the Ash’ari School.4 Together with Maliki legal handbooks, these works became an integral part of the curriculum taught at institutions of higher Islamic education throughout the Sahel (Hall and Stewart 2011). In brief, Malikism as a jurisprudential tradition and Ash’arism as a theological orientation were well established in the Sahel by the time when the Sufi presence—​though attested from the sixteenth century onwards (Norris 1990)—​grew significantly stronger over the course of the nineteenth century. From this period onwards, we can speak of a Maliki-​Ash’ari-​Sufi nexus firmly inscribed in the sanad paradigm; a nexus that has subsequently shaped the course of Islam in much of Sub-​Saharan Africa from the Atlantic to the Nile. As has been indicated, a major characteristic of the traditionalist paradigm is the primacy of the master. To a large part, the latter’s authority rests on his—​or her—​position in the sanad, that is, the chain of knowledge transmission. This applies to the spiritual lineages of the Sufis, where the disciple (Arabic, murid) establishes a connection with the order’s masters by way of initiation, as well as to the educational contexts of advanced Islamic schools, where the student ultimately receives an ijaza (Arabic, authorization to teach or diploma) that allows him to pass on the acquired knowledge and includes the names of the masters involved in its transmission. In other words, the term sanad

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    537 describes the modality through which knowledge is authenticated and transmitted in the traditionalist paradigm. Learning at the feet of the master is much more than a discursive process. Getting connected to the master’s sanad also implies the acquisition of the required habitus (adab), whether for a murid in a Sufi order or for a student who is introduced to the canon of Islamic sciences. Adab, a key term in the traditionalist paradigm that can also be translated as “proper behavior” or “disposition” (Seesemann 2017)—​is learned through emulating the master, usually by spending extensive periods of time in his (or, in the few instances of female masters, her) company. Formal education in the majlis (assembly; literally, “the place where people sit”), the paradigmatic site for knowledge transmission in traditionalist settings where students surround their master in the learning circle (Arabic, ḥalaqa), is not the only occasion for learning through emulation and mimesis. Other occasions include the time students and teachers spend together in congregational prayer in the mosque and during the performance of Sufi rituals, or even instances of services (Arabic, khidma) students render to the master; these may even take the form of physical labor. In the Sahelian and especially the Senegalese context, the latter practice has widely been interpreted in terms of exploitation, particularly in the case of the Muridiyya Sufi order (Cruise O’Brien 1971). However, it is pertinent to note that all such practices follow a premise of classical Islamic pedagogy, which holds that “knowledge can only effectively be imparted through the inculcation of adab” (Seesemann 2017, 17). In other words, in the traditionalist paradigm, the acquisition of knowledge—​whether exoteric or esoteric5—​goes hand in hand with character formation; hence the emphasis on the personal presence of the master as the embodiment of knowledge and model of the proper disposition (see also Wright 2015, 35). The account offered so far has sketched the main lines of the traditionalist paradigm as it has historically unfolded in the Sahel and the Sudanic belt. After highlighting the principal features of this paradigm—​the primacy of the master, the epistemological premises of knowledge transmission, and character formation as an intrinsic part of Islamic intellectual practice—​it is necessary to shift the focus to contextualizing and historicizing these features. In many ways, the Maliki-​Ash’ari-​Sufi complex has been (and continues to be) tied to specific settings and environments. Mauritania provides perhaps the best example: the strongholds of this tradition of Islamic learning used to be, and still are, located in the countryside. The inculcation of adab and the acquisition of knowledge according to the sanad paradigm are intimately linked to the austere environment of the mahadhra, the famous desert schools of the Western Sahara (Nouhi 2016). In parts of Fouta Toro along the Senegal River and in rural Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, similar schools are thriving up to the present day. Whereas many important Sahelian centers of Sufi activity used to be located in rural areas until the middle of the twentieth century, quite a few of them later turned into actual cities (Touba in Senegal being a case in point; Guèye 2002) or established branches in urban contexts. Other developments connected with what can be termed “colonial modernity” (Seesemann and Soares 2009), such as the spread of new communication technologies and means of transportation, led to higher mobility and connectivity among Muslims in the Sahel, and ultimately to the

538   Rüdiger Seesemann formation of new traditionalist networks, but also to the proliferation of new religious ideas connected to reformist currents, as will be discussed further. The reformist challenge and the changes it triggered notwithstanding, the traditionalist paradigm endures among Muslims in the Sahel and continues to evolve as an intellectual tradition (Ayong 2016; Seesemann 2011; Wright 2012). Even though the contents and methods of teaching in Maliki-​Ash’ari-​Sufi contexts are in the process of transformation, the relatively uniform pattern of traditionalist Quranic schooling in the Sahel has remained the main pillar of this intellectual tradition (Seesemann 1999; Fortier 2003; Ware 2014). Although new styles of Quran schooling have been introduced in the many “modern” educational institutions, whether private or run by the state, that have emerged in the Sahel since the mid-​twentieth century (see The Reformist Paradigm section), such schools continue to constitute the primary locus for the religious socialization of young children. Often decried as useless for or even detrimental to the children’s development by outside observers, the Quran school is still considered by many Sahelian Muslims as effectively conveying crucial religious and social skills. While it is true that many children leave the school without memorizing more than a few chapters of the Quran, most if not all of them will be imbued with a peculiar reverence for the Sacred Word. It is through this channel that children start their character formation through self-​discipline and physical demeanor designed to transform the individual into a worthy vessel of knowledge; and it is the Quran school that allows students to acquire the indispensable mnemonic prowess needed to proceed with the advanced curriculum of the Islamic sciences in the majlis—​a process that still culminates for some of them in a career as accomplished traditionalist Muslim scholars.

THE REFORMIST PARADIGM Using the label “religious reform” in the context of Islam, whether in the Sahel or elsewhere, certainly needs terminological scrutiny. The first synthetic monograph on Islamic reform in Africa adopts a rather general understanding of reform by defining it as “change with a programme” (Loimeier 2016, 20). This definition might not sound very specific, but it has the advantage of opening up the field of religious reform to include a variety of movements that promote agendas of change, such as those led by Sufi reformers in the nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century Sahel. However, for the purpose of this chapter, the term “reformist” is applied to Islamic currents widely referred to as Wahhabism or Salafism (although their supporters often prefer different denominations, such as “Supporters of the Sunna” or “People of the Sunna”). Although each of these currents has its own history and particularities, as well as competing factions that advocate different strategies and disagree in certain matters of religious doctrine, they eventually converged over the course of the twentieth century, thus giving birth to a broader Salafi movement featuring various branches (Lauzière 2015). Seen through the lens of Islamic epistemologies, all of these branches share an important feature that sets them

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    539 apart from the Maliki-​Ash’ari-​Sufi complex: they promote the use of dalil, or evidence, as the primary tool that authenticates knowledge. As this evidence is derived from proof texts (dalil naqli), usually the Quran and the Prophetic traditions, the reformist paradigm as understood here signals a significant shift in emphasis away from the primacy of the master—​seen as the guarantor of authentic knowledge in the traditionalist paradigm—​toward the primacy of the text. The adoption of the dalil as the principal modality through which knowledge practices are conducted in reformist scholarly circles has a series of far-​reaching implications. As primacy is accorded to text, the scope of human authority is considerably reduced; the text is seen as speaking for itself and does therefore not require an intermediary who interprets it (at least, this claim is often made by proponents of the dalil; see Brown 2015). Engagement with the text proceeds primarily through discursive, rational methods, and less through an experiential approach built on the notion of embodied knowledge. Accordingly, supra-​rational sources of knowledge—​paramount in Sufi epistemology—​are denied, and the esoteric sciences are rejected. Furthermore, advocating direct recourse to the evidence amounts to a negative attitude toward the elaborate edifice of traditionalist jurisprudence, epitomized by the Maliki legal school in particular. The Sunni legal school that comes closest to the understanding of dalil promoted here is the Hanbali one, named after its eponym Ahmad b. Hanbal (died 855 in Baghdad), which largely though not exclusively inspired the legal doctrine of the Islamic State founded by Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-​Wahhab (died 1792) on the Arabian Peninsula, on whose heritage modern-​day Saudi Arabia is built. It should be noted, however, that protagonists of the dalil paradigm approach Islamic jurisprudence in various manners, ranging from outright rejection of the Sunni legal schools to selective reliance on legal doctrines drawn from all four schools, though often with a preference for Hanbali positions. In matters of theology, this paradigm is closely connected with the creed expounded by Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-​Wahhab in his Kitab al-​ Tawhid, which is in turn largely based on Ahmad b. Hanbal’s and Ibn Taymiyya’s (died 1328 in Damascus) theological teachings.6 To a certain extent, it is therefore possible to juxtapose the Maliki-​Ash’ari-​Sufi complex of the sanad-​based paradigm with the Hanbali-​Wahhabi-​Salafi complex as the characteristic, though not exclusive, expression of the dalil paradigm in the Sahelian context. The latter leans toward Hanbali jurisprudence (at least partially; as opposed to Malikism) and theology, endorses Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-​Wahhab’s theological tenets (as opposed to Ash’arism), and largely follows a basic “Salafi canon” (Thurston 2016, 31–​63) with strong anti-​Sufi underpinnings consisting of several seminal works by Salafi scholars. From the late colonial period onwards, the call to following the dalil rather than relying on the master’s sanad became a distinctive feature of the reformist intellectual tradition in the Sahel. Its proponents turned against the traditionalist authorities and embarked on new educational projects that became important channels for the dissemination of their ideas. Of course, these projects were not only born out of opposition to the traditionalist religious establishment. To a large extent, they also constituted responses to the spread of Western educational models under colonial rule. Although

540   Rüdiger Seesemann originally conceived as Islamic alternatives to “secular” education as introduced by the colonial masters, the new models of schooling (widely referred to as madrasa, Arabic for “school”) often integrated religious and nonreligious subjects, thereby appropriating quite a few elements from “secular” schools (Brenner 2001). The resulting implications for the spatial and social organization of learning, as well as the transformation of Islamic intellectual practice more broadly, are significant (Launay 2016). Expressed in terms of a comparison between new and old styles of learning, the reformist madrasa features classrooms and blackboards, dispensing with the learning circles of the majlis and the wooden slates used in Quran schools. Students in the madrasa usually share the classroom with their age-​mates and follow a standardized curriculum, while students in traditionalist learning settings come from different age groups and learn on the basis of a loosely structured and flexible curriculum. Most madrasas use a syllabus with precise class schedules and strict time management, whereas the learning circles may convene for different time spans at different times of the day, usually determined by the prayer times. Madrasa teachers hold diplomas and receive salaries; majlis teachers hold chains of transmission and are not formally employed. On graduation, madrasa students obtain a certificate issued by the institution, while majlis students receive an authorization to teach (ijaza), either orally or in writing, which identifies them as having studied with a particular master and connects them to his—​or her—​sanad. Thus, as the principal locus for the promotion of the dalil paradigm in the Sahelian context, the madrasa constitutes a rupture with the pattern of person-​ to-​person knowledge transmission and character formation cultivated in the sanad paradigm. As a result, “learning has become a standardized, open, depersonalized process of sequential learning in which learning has lost its sacred and initiatic character” (Loimeier 2009, 162). This observation stems from Zanzibar, but it is also very pertinent to the Sahel. However, the relevance of the dalil paradigm extends beyond the confines of educational settings. The impetus for its expansion in the wider public sphere of Muslim societies in the Sahel largely stems from the adoption of a more egalitarian conception of knowledge that confronts the hierarchical organization of knowledge in the traditionalist paradigm. Putting the dalil to work means extending its potential to as many people as possible—​a proposition sanad protagonists would consider undesirable and impractical. Thus, the full scale of the reformist challenge is realized only through the wide social ramifications of the evidentiary claims put forward in the Hanbali-​Wahhabi-​ Salafi complex. The propensity of the evidentiary approach for less personalized ways of knowing is further increased by the appropriation of other channels for the dissemination of knowledge, initially mostly books in vernacular languages, audiocassettes, and audiovisual materials, which were eventually superseded by electronic media. Thus, even if the reformists, especially those conversant in Arabic because of their training at Middle Eastern institutions of higher education, ardently supported the spread of the Arabic language, it was the use of African languages, in print or in electronic media, that has enabled them to convey their evidentiary claims to wider audiences among African Muslims.7 Through these channels, reformist ideas left the mosques and classrooms and

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    541 became easily accessible to ordinary Muslims. As a result, more Muslims have greater access to more evidence-​based Islamic knowledge—​an effect that cannot be replicated for sanad-​based knowledge in the same way. Another consequence of the wider proliferation of presumably objective evidentiary methods based on a purportedly universal logic lies in their application by larger groups of people. This does not amount to a simple “democratization of knowledge through texts,” but the attendant claim that potentially “everyone has interpretative purchase on sacred texts” produces popularized versions of evidentiary discourse (Salomon, forthcoming). Whereas the question “What is your dalil?” may be raised even in everyday conversations, the question “What is your sanad?” is rarely heard outside the circles of Sufis or traditionalist scholars. In this way, the reformist paradigm creates new epistemic configurations that form a different type of Muslim subject.

DIVISIONS AND OVERLAPS IN THE ISLAMIC FIELD So far, this chapter has dwelled in some detail on epistemological differences as a basis for distinguishing theories and practices of Islamic knowledge within the Islamic intellectual traditions in the Sahel. This approach to the divisions in the Islamic field is not, however, meant as an attempt to put forward an alternative classification of Islamic currents.8 While the differentiation of Islamic intellectual traditions on account of the epistemological premises on which they rest offers an alternative view, the epistemes expounded here do not lend themselves to easy—​let alone full—​identification with specific movements, organizations, or groups. As some studies of contemporary Islam indicate, many ordinary Muslims would probably identify themselves as “just Muslim” and represent a category described as “generic Islam” by some and “Islam mondain” by others (see Otayek and Soares 2007). Therefore, the paradigms fleshed out here should not be read as ideal types. The Islamic intellectual traditions are not closed entities. Although they revolve around profound differences in terms of epistemic modalities, there are perhaps as many overlaps between the paradigms as there are divisions. In order to account for the many hybrid forms and blurred boundaries that we encounter in actual Islamic knowledge practices, the Islamic intellectual traditions are best understood by viewing them through a relational perspective (Seesemann 2018). The relationship between the paradigms needs to be conceived in terms of a complex interplay that can only be fully understood by analyzing the connections and debates between protagonists of different Islamic currents in the Sahel (and beyond) against the backdrop of the wider social and political context, including the wide-​ranging educational reforms and the encounter with secularism that have shaped Muslim societies from the colonial period onward.

542   Rüdiger Seesemann Changing approaches in the field of schooling offer good examples of overlaps between the paradigms. For instance, some proponents of the traditionalist approach eventually opened up to the idea of formal schooling and ventured into the madrasa sector, thus complementing the majlis system of teaching (for a Senegalese case study, see Wright 2012). When more and more (though not all) traditionalist scholars and activists began to adopt the madrasa, their institutions of learning also featured classrooms, blackboards, professional teachers, and standardized curricula that included “secular” subjects. In other words, the hybrid pedagogies produced in traditionalist settings of formalized education were not essentially different from those of the reformist madrasa. In order to mitigate the vulgarizing effects of madrasa-​style learning, traditionalist educationists strove to keep the curriculum in line with their religious tenets, especially in the contested fields of jurisprudence and theology. These efforts notwithstanding, the madrasa’s discursive approach to knowledge transmission was more conducive to popularizing the dalil paradigm than to preserving the sanad tradition. In a related development, protagonists of the sanad paradigm feel increasingly compelled to complement their reliance on the sanad with scriptural evidence. They nowadays tend to back up their teachings with proof texts, in an attempt to counter the reformist evidentiary claims. This tendency is particularly pronounced in certain Sufi circles. A rare in-​depth study of traditional Islamic scholarly culture in the context of northern Cameroon describes this phenomenon in terms of “dalilization” of the sanad paradigm (Ayong 2016, 344). Although it may appear that this move amounts to letting “Salafis set the epistemological terms of the debate” (Thurston 2016, 163), the increasing traditionalist recourse to the dalil can also be read as an attempt to reassert their scholarly authority against less refined ways of applying the dalil, sometimes dubbed “dalil lite”—​that is, vulgarized versions of evidentiary argumentations that abound in reformist circles due to their more egalitarian approach to religious knowledge. Borrowing from the other paradigm is not a one-​way process, however. Recently, there has been an increasing tendency among reformists to turn to the majlis as a complement to learning in the madrasa. Recognizing its advantages for conveying the contents of seminal books especially in the fields of jurisprudence and hadith, and realizing its potential for the students’ character formation, reformist have begun to adopt the formal features and teaching methods of the majlis in various regions of the Sahel (for northern Cameroon, see Ayong 2016, 329–​333). Thus, just as we can observe the dalilization of the traditionalist paradigm, we can also speak of the majlisization of the reformist paradigm. It should also be noted that reformist claims to the exclusive reliance on authoritative texts that purportedly speak for themselves tell us more about the ideological underpinnings of this paradigm than about actual practice. As a matter of fact, employing the dalil does not mean to preclude human agency, and the textual practices of the reformists are not entirely impersonal. In fact, their engagements with text-​based evidence are also embedded in personal relations, albeit in ways that are different from

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    543 the practices of their traditionalist antagonists, who unequivocally emphasize the central position of the master. Even in reformist practice, the text is not simply a “depository of evidence,” but “achieves meaning and authority [ . . . ] in conversation with the social and supernatural world in which it exists” (Salomon, forthcoming). In a similar way as the democratization of knowledge serves as a rhetorical device in the reformist paradigm (Brown 2015, 144), claims about the exclusive reliance on knowledge handed down through chains of scholarly authorities reflect an epistemic principle held up in theory but not consistently followed in practice. Neither do reformists dispense entirely with the sanad, nor do traditionalists discard the dalil. Ideological assertions about competing epistemological tenets thus form part of the battlefield where protagonists from different Islamic currents stake out their claims. The latter consideration highlights once again that it is imperative to pay attention to the contextualization of the respective intellectual traditions.9 Describing “Salafism on the African continent as something shaped by the African realities, and which obviously would contain significant local varieties,” Østebø advances the notion of “African Salafism,” which is “neither a foreign nor a homegrown phenomenon, but rather something constantly being produced through complex dialogues between broader and local discourses” (2015, 6). This is an important corrective to narratives that depict Salafism as an alien import to Africa and juxtapose it with the allegedly localized and Africanized religious tradition of Sufism. As a matter of fact, and as the earlier discussion of overlaps and mutual borrowings between the Islamic currents demonstrates, Østebø’s observation about dialogues between broader and local discourses pertains to Islamic intellectual traditions in general. This also applies to the third paradigm to be considered here, which is certainly not as influential as the other two, but without which the picture of Islamic intellectual traditions in the Sahel would not be complete.

THE ISLAMIST PARADIGM Labeled “Islamist” for the purpose of the present analysis, this paradigm is chronologically the latest to make its appearance in the Sahel, especially from the 1990s onwards. As I have argued elsewhere (Seesemann 2018), Islamism should not simply be understood in the sense of a movement promoting violent jihad or even terrorism, as the term is often used in Western publics. In Arabic, the equivalent of “Islamists” is islamiyyun, a term that refers to activists desiring a larger public role for Islam, which usually includes the goal of attaining political power and building an “Islamic state.” Largely inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood originally established in Egypt in the 1920s, later intellectuals of various orientations and backgrounds (i.e., usually not classically trained religious scholars) laid the groundwork for the epistemological underpinnings of the Islamist paradigm. Paramount in this epistemology is the notion of maqasid al-​sharia, the purposes or objectives of Islamic law, originally developed as an important analytical

544   Rüdiger Seesemann tool in Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-​fiqh) from the eleventh century CE onwards. Almost a millennium later, modern debates about the maqasid produced “a turn in the epistemology and hermeneutics of twentieth century uṣūl al-​fiqh” (Johnston 2004).10 Rather than embracing conservatism or intellectual rigidity, the Islamist agenda of identifying the objectives of the sharia took on a progressive garb and aimed to reconcile the principles of Islam with changing realities and the insights of scientific, “Western” knowledge. Emblematic for this approach in the African context was the Sudanese Hasan al-​ Turabi (died 2016), often portrayed as the eminence grise behind the Islamist regime in the Sudan, who held that, “with a few exceptions reflecting the eternal components of the divine message, everything can be reviewed” (El-​Affendi 1988, 408–​409). Islamists and progressive Muslim intellectuals such as al-​Turabi thus appropriate the epistemological and hermeneutical propositions of the maqasid paradigm in order to increase the interpretive leverage needed for a more general renewal of Islamic thought. Notably, their methodology draws on legal concepts turned into rational evidence (or logical proofs, dalil ‘aqli), thus departing from the mere reliance on textual evidence (or proof texts, dalil naqli), which is characteristic of the reformist paradigm. The buzzword in this endeavor is ta’sil, literally “taking something back to the roots” or “giving something a pedigree.” This method provides the basis for the “Islamization of knowledge,” another major characteristic of Islamist intellectual practice that has received wide attention in such diverse places as Herndon (Virginia, United States), Leicester (United Kingdom), Islamabad (Pakistan), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Kano (Nigeria), and others, where Muslim intellectuals are engaged in the search for a new Islamic epistemology.11 This sets the Islamist paradigm apart from the traditionalist paradigm: knowledge, including modern science, that is “Islamized” does not need a chain of transmitters, because it is not handed down but rather taken back to its Islamic roots. The maqasid paradigm thus reverses the direction of the traditionalist paradigm, where knowledge is transmitted from earlier generations to the next as documented in the sanad. Of course, much more could be said about Islamist thought and practice.12 Suffice it here to state that such ideas have not taken deep roots in the Sahel, though certain Muslim intellectual circles in Nouakchott and some think tanks in urban centers—​ especially those with connections to the Sudan—​have participated in the debates about the “Islamization of knowledge.” Nonetheless, the influence of these debates on Muslim publics in the Sahel seems to be growing, and it would not be surprising if they were to create dynamics similar to the Sudan, where some Sufi circles adopted the notion of ta’sil and applied it to the reformulation of some of their doctrines (Seesemann 2006b). In any case, a close look at the Islamist intellectual tradition, which is still in the process of defining its canon, reveals that it is clearly rooted in different epistemological premises than the traditionalist and the reformist paradigms, thus rendering presumptions about purportedly “old” patterns of Islamism in the Sahel and Sudanic Africa obsolete (cf. Kane 2008).

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    545

CONCLUSION To conclude this cursory outline of Islamic intellectual traditions in the Sahel, it is necessary to emphasize once again the relational character of the interplay between the three currents distinguished here. They do not represent fixed paradigms in the sense of ideal types, but rather constitute complex patterns that continuously evolve through mutual exchange and overlaps. Moreover, it is important to analyze the epistemological stances of the respective currents against the backdrop of intense competition and contestation in the Islamic field. As observed, the protagonists of the three paradigms tend to uphold epistemic principles that do not always represent actual practice. At the same time, however, epistemological variations are not merely the product of ideological positioning. After all, it does make a difference whether knowledge is attributed to the embodiment of the text, the letter of the text, or the purpose of the text; it does make a difference whether knowledge is authenticated by personal authority, by evidence drawn directly from the text, or by the “ethical direction behind it” (Johnston 2007, 186). Furthermore, the tools that validate knowledge in the three paradigms serve different purposes: the maintenance and reproduction of the tradition in the sanad paradigm, the purification of religious beliefs and practices in order to return them to their pristine condition in the dalil paradigm, and the Islamization of modernity through reconciling scientific and Islamic knowledge regimes in the maqasid paradigm. Therefore, as mentioned before, the relationship between the epistemological patterns needs to be understood within their social and political contexts. The ways in which the three paradigms relate to “secular” education, new forms of Islamic education, the hegemonic project of the colonial and the postcolonial state, or the proliferation of new media are constitutive of the different trajectories that the various Islamic currents take. A further significant insight from the analysis in this chapter pertains to the connection between epistemological orientations and militant Islamic movements in the Sahel. While it is true that, at different historical junctures, all three currents discussed here have provided religious legitimization for jihadist action, the wave of Islamic militancy that has swept across parts of the Sahel in the early twenty-​first century draws its inspiration from the dalil paradigm as expounded in Salafi or Wahhabi epistemology. Jihadi theorists, whether in northern Mali or the Lake Chad region, justify their turn to jihad by applying the principles of the evidentiary method, regardless of the many twist and turns their internal debates may take (Brigaglia 2018). Of course, analyzing doctrinal arguments alone is not sufficient to explain a phenomenon as complex as early twenty-​first-​century jihadism. Once more, due attention has to be paid to the wider social and political context that has prepared the ground for the emergence and evolution of such movements. Still, it is striking to see how purportedly evidence-​ based justifications for the fight against “unbelievers” have become popular in certain Muslim circles, where vulgarized versions of evidentiary arguments have inspired

546   Rüdiger Seesemann physical attacks against mosques, tombs, and even fellow Muslims, based on the accusation that they have left the fold of Islam.13 The increase of such instances of takfir (i.e., accusing a fellow Muslim of unbelief) is related to the reformist egalitarian notion that even ordinary Muslims are capable of identifying the evidence in the text (Seesemann 2018, 254). Even if the surge of instances of “dalil lite,” that is, evidentiary arguments made by Muslims lacking the scholarly qualification, constitutes an unintended consequence of reformist zeal, it is apparent that the appeal of twenty-​first-​century Islamic militant ideology is at least partially rooted in the peculiar workings of Salafi epistemology.

Notes 1. This chapter is part of the research output of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—​EXC 2052/​1—​390713894. 2. Major works dealing with Islamic learning and intellectual traditions in the Sahel include (in chronological order): Brenner 1984; Hunwick 1996; Hall and Stewart, 2011; Ware 2014; Wright, 2015. 3. For empirical glimpses into this material, see, for instance, Seesemann 1999 and 2017. 4. Prominent theological themes include the correct understanding of the Divine Attributes and the question of predestination. For a thorough study of a seventeenth-​century Ash’ari theologian from the Lake Chad region, see van Dalen 2016. 5. The actual integration of exoteric and esoteric knowledge into the same paradigm of knowledge transmission suggests modifying Louis Brenner’s distinction between the “esoteric” and the “rationalistic” episteme (Brenner 2001; Seesemann 2018, 235–​237). 6. Among other things, this creed is characterized by its distinct definition of shirk (“polytheism,” associating partners with God) and its peculiar approach to the attributes of God, which has prompted the Ash’ari opponents of the Wahhabiyya to accuse them of anthropomorphism. For a case study of such theological controversies in Chad, see Seesemann 2005. 7. Of course, traditionalist scholars also take frequent recourse to vernacular languages, though mostly in the context of oral teaching. Also, the Internet is replete with recordings of teaching sessions, religious performances, and events, especially those organized by Sufis. 8. The problem with many such attempts is that they are often guided by foreign or domestic policy interests—​hence the focus on ideological and political positions as the main criterion that purportedly helps to differentiate between Islamic currents. A case in point is the 2003 RAND Report (Bernard 2003). 9. For an approach that seeks to contextualize Salafism in the Sahel in terms of a “revolution,” see Sounaye 2017. 10. The point of departure of the modern maqasid approach is the proposition that “Islamic law is purposive in nature, that is, to mean that the law serves particular purposes [ . . . ] that are either explicitly present in or can be derived from the fountainheads of the sources of Islamic law, namely, the Qurʾān and the Sunna” (Duderija 2014, 2). 11. This list of think tanks involved in pushing Islamic thought to new directions is by no means exhaustive. Herndon is the headquarters of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT); Leicester houses the Islamic Foundation; Islamabad and Kuala Lumpur

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    547 feature influential Islamic universities; Kano’s Bayero University is one of several universities in northern Nigeria where Muslim academics participate in debates about the “Islamization of knowledge” (see Kane 2016, 144). 12. For details, see Seesemann 2018, 248–​253. 13. For example, the so-​called “Nullifiers of Islam” (Arabic, nawaqid al-​islam), a list of ten transgressions compiled by Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-​Wahhab that “nullify” the religion of a Muslim. Different versions of this list circulate widely, especially on the Internet and in online discussion groups, where they inspire heated debates and accusations of unbelief. From the perspective of a traditionalist Muslim scholar, each of the purported “nullifiers” would require careful scrutiny before it could serve as an evidence that establishes a person’s unbelief.

REFERENCES Ayong, Ahmed Khalid. 2016. “Traditional Islamic Scholarly Culture in Northern Cameroon, 1900 to the Present.” PhD thesis, Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany. Bernard, Cheryl. 2003. Civil Democratic Islam. Partners, Resources, and Strategies. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation. Brenner, Louis. 1984. West African Sufi: The Religious Heritage and Spiritual Search of Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal. London: Hurst. Brenner, Louis. 2001. Controlling Knowledge: Religion, Power and Schooling in a West African Muslim Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Brigaglia, Andrea. 2018. “Slicing off the Tumour: The History of Global Jihad in Nigeria, as Narrated by the Islamic State.” The CCI Occasional Papers, No. 1, Cape Town: Centre for Contemporary Islam. Brown, Jonathan A. 2015. “Is Islam Easy to Understand or Not? Salafis, the Democratization of Interpretation, and the Need for the Ulema.” Journal of Islamic Studies 26(2): 117–​144. Chih, Rachida, Catherine Mayeur-​Jaouen, and Rüdiger Seesemann. 2015. “The Nineteenth Century: A Sufi Century?,” in Rachida Chih, Catherine Mayeur-​Jaouen, and Rüdiger Seesemann, eds., Sufism, Literary Production, and Printing in the Nineteenth Century. Würzburg: Ergon, 3–​22. Cruise O’Brien, Donal B. 1971. The Mourides of Senegal: The Political and Economic Organization of an Islamic Brotherhood. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Duderija, Adis. 2014. “Contemporary Muslim Reformist Thought and maqāṣid cum maṣlaḥa Approaches to Islamic Law: An Introduction,” in Adis Duderija, ed., Maqāṣid al-​Sharīʿa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought: An Examination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–​11. El-​ Affendi, Abdelwahab. 1988. “The Ideological Development of the Sudanese Ikhwan Movement,” in Proceedings of the 1988 International Conference on Middle Eastern Studies. Oxford: British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, 387–​430. Fortier, Corinne. 2003. “‘Une pédagogie coranique’: Modes de transmission des savoirs islamiques (Mauritanie).” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 43(169–​170): 235–​260. Guèye, Cheikh. 2002. Touba: La Capitale des Mourides. Paris: Karthala. Hall, Bruce, and Charles Stewart. 2011. “The Historic ʽCore Curriculumʼ and the Book Market in Islamic West Africa,” in Graziano Krätli and Ghislaine Lydon, eds., The Trans-​Saharan

548   Rüdiger Seesemann Book Trade: Arabic Literacy, Manuscript Culture, and Intellectual History in Islamic Africa. Leiden: Brill, 109–​174. Hunwick, John O. 1996. “Sub-​Saharan Africa and the Wider World of Islam: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” Journal of Religion in Africa 26(3): 230–​257. Johnston, David. 2004. “A Turn in the Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Twentieth Century uṣūl al-​fiqh.” Islamic Law and Society 11(2): 233–​282. Johnston, David, 2007. “Maqāṣid al-​Sharīʿa: Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Muslim Theologies of Human Rights.” Die Welt des Islams 47(2): 149–​187. Kane, Ousmane. 2008. “Islamism: What is New, What is Not? Lessons from West Africa.” African Journal of International Affairs 11(2): 157–​187. Kane, Ousmane Oumar. 2016. Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Last, Murray. 1967. The Sokoto Caliphate. New York: Humanities Press. Launay, Robert, ed. 2016. Islamic Education in Africa: Writing Boards and Blackboards. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lauzière, Henri. 2015. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. Loimeier, Roman. 2009. Between Social Skills and Marketable Skills: The Politics of Islamic Education in Twentieth-​Century Zanzibar. Leiden: Brill. Loimeier, Roman. 2016. Islamic Reform in Twentieth-​Century Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Norris, H. T. 1990. Sufi Mystics of the Niger Desert. Sidi Mahmud and the Hermits of Aïr. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nouhi, Mohamed Lahbib (with Charles C. Stewart). 2016. “The Maḥaẓra Educational Institution,” in Charles C. Stewart, ed., Arabic Literature of Africa, Volume 5: The Writings of Mauritania and the Western Sahara. Leiden: Brill, 18–​48. Otayek, René, and Benjamin F. Soares. 2007. “Introduction: Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa,” in Benjamin F. Soares and René Otayek, eds., Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 1–​24. Østebø, Terje. 2015. “African Salafism: Religious Purity and the Politicization of Purity.” Islamic Africa 6: 1–​29. Robinson, David. 1985. The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-​Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Robinson, David. 2002. “Revolutions in the Western Sudan,” in Nehemia Levtzion and Randall Pouwels, eds., The History of Islam in Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 131–​152. Salomon, Noah. Forthcoming. “Rethinking Scripturalism: Ethics, Knowledge and Textual Practice in Contemporary Sudanese Salafism,” in Britta Frede, Rüdiger Seesemann, and Noah Salomon, eds., Trajectories of Islamic Knowledge in Africa. Leiden: Brill. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 1999. “‘Where East Meets West’: Islamic Educational Institutions in Darfur/​Sudan.” Islam et sociétés au Sud du Sahara 13: 41–​61. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2005. “The Quotidian Dimension of Islamic Reformism in Wadai (Chad),” in Muriel Gomez-​Perez, ed., L’Islam politique au sud du Sahara. Identités, discours et enjeux. Paris: Karthala, 327–​346 Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2006a. “African Islam or Islam in Africa? Evidence from Kenya,” in Roman Loimeier and Rüdiger Seesemann, eds., The Global Worlds of the Swahili. Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th—​and 20th-​Century East Africa. Berlin: LIT: 229–​250.

ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS IN THE SAHEL    549 Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2006b. “Between Sufism and Islamism: The Tijâniyya and Islamist rule in the Sudan.” Princeton Papers. Interdisciplinary Journal for Middle Eastern Studies 15: 23–​57. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2011. The Divine Flood. Ibrāhīm Niasse and the Roots of a Twentieth-​ Century Sufi Revival. New York: Oxford University Press. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2017. “‘Ilm and adab Revisited: Knowledge Transmission and Character Formation in Islamic Africa,” in Ralf Elger and Michael Kemper, eds., The Piety of Learning: Islamic Studies in Honor of Stefan Reichmuth. Leiden: Brill, 15–​37. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2018. “Epistemology or Ideology? Toward a Relational Perspective on Islamic Knowledge in Africa.” Journal of Africana Religions 6(2): 232–​268. Seesemann, Rüdiger, and Benjamin F. Soares. 2009. “‘Being as Good Muslims as Frenchmen’: On Marabouts, Colonial Modernity, and the Islamic Sphere in French West Africa.” Journal of Religion in Africa 39(1): 91–​120. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2017. “Salafi Revolution in West Africa.” ZMO Working Papers No. 19, Berlin: Leibniz-​Zentrum Moderner Orient. Stewart, Charles. 1976. “Southern Saharan Scholarship and the Bilad al-​Sudan.” Journal of African History 17: 73–​93. Stewart, Charles. 1973. Islam and Social Order in Mauritania. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thurston, Alexander. 2016. Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Dalen, Dorrit. 2016. Doubt, Scholarship and Society in 17-​Century Central Sudanic Africa. Leiden: Brill. Ware, Rudolph T. 2014. The Walking Quran. Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Westerlund, David and Eva E. Rosander, eds. 1997. African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists. Athens: Ohio University Press. Wright, Zachary V. 2012. “Traditional Islam and Pedagogical Change: The Majlis and the Madrasa in Medina-​Baye, Senegal.” Journal for Islamic Studies 32: 91–​110. Wright, Zachary V. 2015. Living Knowledge in West African Islam. The Sufi Community of Ibrāhīm Niasse. Leiden: Brill. Wymann-​Landgraf, Umar F. Abd-​Allah. 2013. Mālik and Medina. Islamic Legal Reasoning in the Formative Period. Leiden: Brill.

chapter 29

ISL AM AND MU SL I M SO CIETIES I N T H E C ONTEM P ORA RY S A H E L Benjamin Soares

Over the past few decades, Sub-​Saharan Africa and the Sahel in particular have witnessed a series of important developments—​political liberalization and regular multiparty elections, much greater space for debate in the public sphere, increased global interconnections (with the broader Muslim world, Europe, North America, and increasingly Asia), and the spread of new media technologies—​all of which have helped to transform the Sahelian countries. These developments have also influenced the practice of Islam and Muslim societies in the region. This chapter presents an overview of the Islamic landscape in the contemporary Sahel and points to broad patterns and major trends as they relate to the practice of Islam in the region. Given limitations of space, after some introductory remarks about the conventional wisdom about Islam in Africa, in which Islam is frequently equated with Sufism and “reform,” the chapter addresses several interrelated themes: Islam and its broad appeal to Muslims in the region; intra-​Muslim debate; global interconnections and the media revolution; and Salafi and Islamist trends, as well as jihadism. As this overview shows, the Islamic landscape in the Sahel is much more diverse and complex than most commentary usually suggests. It also underscores the importance of understanding how the practice of Islam in the region has been changing in recent years in an increasingly globalized world. Finally, this chapter emphasizes how much more there is to know about Islam and Muslim societies in this region in flux.

552   Benjamin Soares

ISLAM IN THE SAHEL: BEYOND THE DICHOTOMIES An overview of Islam in Africa and not just the Sahel requires looking back at the conventional, and often misleading, understandings of Islam many commentators have frequently recycled in recent years.1 With the exception of Mauritania, officially an Islamic republic since independence, all of the other francophone Sahelian countries are ostensibly secular states on the French model of secularism, laïcité (see Thurston Chapter 32 in this volume). The religious demography of the Sahel is noteworthy for the clear preponderance of Islam in the region, the difficulties of identifying and enumerating different religious groups notwithstanding. Four of the Sahelian countries—​ Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal—​are overwhelmingly Muslim; indeed, all are estimated to have populations that are more than 90 percent Muslim (Central Intelligence Agency 2018). The other two countries, Burkina Faso and Chad, are majority Muslim. However, there is a significant minority of non-​Muslims in the Sahel. This is not only the case in Burkina Faso, where more than one-​third of the population is estimated to be Christian, or in Chad, where approximately 40 percent is Christian (Central Intelligence Agency 2018; cf. Degorce, Kibora, and Langewiesche 2019). Those who identify themselves as non-​Muslims in the Sahel include Roman Catholics, who are the largest grouping of Christians. Although Protestants are certainly fewer in number, one finds members of mainline Protestant denominations, including Baptists, Lutherans, and others, in the region. Evangelical Protestants include those affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Sudan Interior Mission, and Red Sea Mission (also known as ReachAcross). Among Pentecostals one finds the Assemblies of God Church, as well as newer churches such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God from Brazil and Living Faith Church Worldwide (also called Winner’s Chapel) from Nigeria (to cite only some of the most prominent). In addition, there are Baha’is throughout the region, and they are especially numerous in Chad and Niger. Finally, there are many practitioners of what are usually called African “traditional” religions or African religions. These African religions vary considerably in how they are practiced and organized across the region, and this chapter will only be able to mention such non-​Muslims and Christians in passing. There are some Shi’a in the Sahel, most of whom are migrants or descendants of migrants from Lebanon/​Syria, or converts after the Iranian revolution (see Leichtman 2015), and some Muslims, especially Salafis, seem to fear the spread of Shi’ism. There are also members of the Ahmadiyya, the missionary movement founded in late nineteenth-​ century colonial India, and present in West Africa since the first decades of the twentieth century.2 However, the vast majority of Muslims in the region are Sunni, like most Muslims in the world today. According to the conventional wisdom, most Muslims in West Africa and particularly in the Sahel practice a presumably “traditional” form of Islam, which is also frequently glossed as “African” Islam. Many assume that Muslims in the Sahel practice a form of Islam in which the mystical tradition in Islam, Sufism,

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    553 is central. In this way of practicing Islam, Muslims engage in practices to purify the self and frequently treat charismatic persons, living or deceased religious leaders, as special manifestations of spiritual excellence and even as intermediaries with God. In recent years, many commentators have also emphasized how most West African Muslims—​ like many in North Africa—​adhere to a particular school of Islamic jurisprudence, the Maliki school, one of the four major schools of jurisprudence among Sunni Muslims (see Seesemann Chapter 28 in this volume). In many parts of the Muslim world Sufi orders (Arabic tariqa, literally “path”) historically became an important organizational form for the practice of Islam. Many assume that this “traditional” Islam in Africa is local and in keeping with, or even a veneer over, African traditions; and it is also presumably peaceful and tolerant. In recent years, some commentators have even presented the combination of Sufism and the Maliki school in places like the Sahel as somehow the guarantor of toleration and peacefulness. Various Sufi orders and their branches such as the Qadiriyya, whose founder ‘Abd al-​ Qadir al-​Jilani lived in twelfth-​century Baghdad, the Shadhiliyya, founded in Morocco in the thirteenth century, and others have been present in the Sahel for centuries.3 However, prior to the eighteenth century, Sufi affiliation in the region was largely an affair of highly educated Muslim scholarly elites. After that time, and especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there was mass affiliation to certain Sufi orders with Sufi affiliation becoming a more collective phenomenon. One can see this perhaps most clearly with the Tijaniyya, the Sufi order founded by Ahmad al-​Tijani (died 1815) in North Africa. The Tijaniyya is present throughout all of the countries of the Sahel, and it is clearly the most widespread and important Sufi order in the six francophone Sahelian countries. Indeed, the most prominent branches of the Tijaniyya in Africa extend across the Sahel, and they include the following: 1) The branch associated with al-​Hajj Umar Tall (died 1864), who led a jihad across what is present-​day Guinea, Senegal, and Mali in the nineteenth century, has a strong presence in Senegal, including its sub-​branch associated with al-​Hajj Malik Sy (died 1922) in Tivaouane, as well as in Mali and Mauritania. 2) The Hamawiyya, which is linked to Shaykh Hamallah (died 1943) from what is present-​day Mali, is strongly represented in Mali and Burkina Faso (and Côte d’Ivoire), as well as in regions of Mauritania contiguous with Mali. 3) The Ibrahimiyya, the branch established by Ibrahim Niasse (died 1975) from Kaolack in Senegal, whose followers can be found in large numbers in Mauritania, Niger, and Chad and are increasingly numerous in Senegal.

One can also see the phenomenon of mass affiliation to Sufi orders in the important case of the Mourides or the Mouridiyya in Senegal and among Senegalese in diaspora. The Mourides, an offshoot of the Qadiriyya founded by Amadou Bamba (died 1927), are now the second largest grouping of Muslims in Senegal after the Tijaniyya (with its various branches). These two Sufi orders—​the Tijaniyya and the Mourides—​spread widely and deeply during the colonial period when changes in the colonial economy allowed for the greater movement of persons, objects, and ideas, including such religious

554   Benjamin Soares affiliations. They continued to spread in the postcolonial period with the Tijaniyya becoming perhaps the most important Sufi order across Sub-​Saharan Africa. In recent years, through global connections and travel for study, work, and other economic activities some Sahelian Muslims have introduced other Sufi orders into the region, most notably, the Naqshbandiyya through Nazim al-​Qubrusi (died 2014), a Turkish Cypriot Sufi shaykh whose branch of the order his followers have propagated widely, and the Boutchichiya, a Moroccan branch of the Qadiriyya, which has been especially popular among Moroccan elites and young aspirational middle classes in various places in the Sahel. A major limitation of the conventional understanding of “traditional” Islam in the region is that Muslims who are part of this tradition do not necessarily conform to the way they are usually characterized—​tolerant, peaceful, or approving of Western policies, or even of their own government’s policies. In fact, for decades some African Muslims in the Sahel, including some within the Sufi traditions, have espoused views—​pro-​ Islam and sometimes anti-​Western—​that are similar (if not identical) to those of many Islamists. This would include nostalgia for the golden age of Islam, yearnings for a caliphate that certainly pre-​date the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS/​ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, and other such views. Perhaps even more important is the fact that most Muslims in the Sahel are not formally affiliated with Sufi orders (with the possible exceptions of Senegal where the majority of Muslims are ostensibly affiliated to one Sufi order and/​or leader or another).4 Moreover, many Muslims in the Sahel only have a tenuous link to the Maliki school of jurisprudence. To the extent that they exist, such connections to Islamic jurisprudence are frequently through everyday religious practice, that is, in how Muslims worship, perform rituals of the lifecycle (birth, marriage, and death), and the more general ways in which they organize their daily lives. For example, many Muslims in the Sahel ordinarily interpret and apply Islamic legal principles from the Maliki school in areas of social life related to the family such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance—​ efforts by various Sahelian countries to adopt or reform existing family law (code de la famille) notwithstanding (see Alidou Chapter 31 in this volume). Islamic legal principles not only inform many Muslims’ social practices related to the family but also their daily lives and culture in the anthropological sense. According to the conventional wisdom, so-​called Islamic reform or reformist Islam is the other major tradition of Islam in the Sahel, and many assume that such reform either comes from outside of the African continent or the immediate region. Quite often, the assumption is that this tradition is alien to Africa with its presumably peaceful and tolerant “African Islam” promoted by the Sufi orders. Many invoke “Wahhabism” or the “Wahhabiyya,” thereby referring to the Muslim thinker Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-​ Wahhab (died 1792) in eighteenth-​century Arabia and the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Others point to Islamic reformist currents emanating from twentieth-​century Egypt. The ideas of Hasan al-​Banna (died 1949), the Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-​Ikhwan al-​Muslimin), which was founded in 1928, have been particularly influential in certain places in the Sahel. Tawassoul (or Tawasul), whose name is the acronym in Arabic for the Mauritanian political party, National Rally for Reform and

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    555 Development, is the largest legal Islamist political party in Mauritania (and the Sahel more generally). Directly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and its other affiliates, Tawassoul appeals to many upwardly mobile educated urban youths in Mauritania. Although there are no other significant groups in the Sahel that are as directly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood as Tawassoul, Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane (or its French name, Association des Serviteurs de Dieu), the influential Muslim reformist organization in Senegal, certainly seems to draw inspiration from such figures as Tariq Ramadan (born 1962), the Swiss-​born grandson of Hasan al-​Banna, through the organization for francophone Muslims, CIMEF (Colloque international des musulmans de l’espace francophone), in which he has been a central figure. Indeed, both Tawassoul and Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane operate in some ways like Muslim nationalist organizations, emphasizing Muslims’ sense of solidarity and brotherhood with other Muslims. More recently, some Muslims in the Sahel invoke Salafis and the Salafiyya or Salafism, referring to those Muslims who invoke “the pious ancestors” or “predecessors” (Arabic, al-​salaf), the first generation of Muslims, as their preferred models for Muslims, their lives, and societies. Here rhetoric is key: there is the explicit notion of a desire to return to the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate successors, and certain Muslim scholars in the region refer to the Salafi “canon” of texts that are also frequently anti-​ Sufi in orientation (see Thurston 2016). Such self-​styled Salafis, whether they are pietist and apolitical in orientation or political and even jihadist, have received more attention with the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS/​ISIL). Many commentators refer to Islamic reform as “fundamentalism” or Islamism, especially when an objective is to take control of the state (hence the term political Islam) and/​or to Islamize society. However, many observers use such terms as “fundamentalist,” Wahhabi, Salafi, reformist, “orthodox,” Islamist, and “extremist” indiscriminately, and the explanatory value and analytical usefulness of such poorly defined terms is often limited. According to the conventional wisdom, so-​called reformist Islam is allegedly more militant, intolerant, and rigid or austere than “traditional” African Islam, and is therefore presumably less authentic. In adhering to “reformist” Islam, African Muslims are presumed to have fallen under the influence of outsiders and their ideas—​from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere. All of these countries (and others such as Libya under Muammar al-​Qaddafi and Sudan under its Islamist regime) have indeed sometimes wielded influence among Muslims in the region, particularly through largesse in aid, support for Islamic education, and scholarships for students. To take only a partial listing of such external “Islamic” actors in the Sahel (see Table 29.1), one can see the wide range of state actors and institutions with which Muslims in the Sahel have been interacting for decades. If in a previous era a young Muslim in the Sahel who wanted to engage in Islamic studies might aspire to a scholarship to study at the prestigious al-​Azhar University in Cairo or at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, many today might first try their luck at the International University of Africa in Khartoum, Sudan, originally founded as an Islamic educational institution for African Muslims, as a stepping stone to a scholarship to the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) in Kuala Lumpur. Others are opting for Islamic studies in Turkey,

556   Benjamin Soares Table 29.1 External “Islamic” actors in the Sahel •  Saudi Arabia (e.g., Muslim World League, WAMY [World Assembly of Muslim Youth]) •  Egypt (e.g., Islamic university of al-​Azhar) •  Gulf states, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates • Iran •  Libya in the Qaddafi era •  Sudan (e.g., International University of Africa) •  Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia •  Turkey (e.g., Islamic missionary schools, including Gülen movement schools) •  India & Pakistan (e.g., Tablighi Jama’at) •  Malaysia (e.g., International Islamic University) •  OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) Source: Compiled by the author.

or the pursuit of more secular subjects in some of these other countries. In all of these places, Sahelian Muslims are exposed to new and different ideas. Over the past few decades, Sahelian Muslims have also converted in substantial numbers to the Tablighi Jama’at, the world’s largest Muslim missionary organization founded in colonial India, and more recently to Salafism. Given the complexity of the Islamic landscape in the Sahel, then, it is not illuminating to talk about Islam in Africa in terms of a simple opposition between “traditional” African Islam and “reformist” or possibly even militant Islam. After all, most Muslims in the Sahel are not formally affiliated to Sufi orders, on the one hand, nor are they simply potential recruits to jihad, on the other, the fact that in recent years there have been considerably more Africans involved in various Islamic militant groups notwithstanding (see Yahaya Ibrahim Chapter 30 in this volume). Before broaching that topic and emphasizing the need for a more nuanced way of categorizing Muslims in the region, it is important to address the questions of the appeal of Islam in the Sahel, debates between Muslims, and increased global interconnections.

THE APPEAL OF ISLAM In order to understand the strong appeal of Islam in the Sahel one must appreciate the cultural and historical importance of Islam in the Muslim-​majority countries of the region. This is not to suggest that Islam is the most important factor or that it somehow plays a determining role in the various societies in question. Rather, it is to underscore how Islam is bound up with culture and history, including the long history of traditions of Islamic education and the various precolonial Islamic polities across the region. It

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    557 is also to emphasize how much Islam is an integral part of daily life and public culture. For this reason, it is difficult to talk about secular societies in a strictly Western sense. In fact, nowhere in the broader region has secularism been the straightforward or uncontested implementation of European models of secularism (see Thurston Chapter 32 in this volume). Indeed, religion is so important in these countries that it is misleading to say that political actors or even certain political formations or groups are “secular” in the Western political sense of the term. Although various secularizing processes have indeed been important in the Sahel since the colonial period, it is more instructive to talk about varieties of secularism and secularists in relation to non-​secularists or anti-​ secularists. The latter would include some of the many Muslims in the Sahel who might call into question the boundary between the secular and the religious. Such people might want to see more religion in public life, education, and law; they also might call for the Islamization of public space, public norms, and gender segregation in ways that are unsettling to Western liberal democratic societies and norms. People asking for more Islam in sociopolitical life—​what one might call the demand for Islam—​is a trend across the region that dates back at least to the 1980s. Although paradoxically the commitment to Islam in the sense of observable public piety might not necessarily be on the rise, this demand for Islam is indeed a key factor that needs to be appreciated in most Sahelian countries. It would be misleading to apply the label of Islamist indiscriminately to all those who might want Islam to be more prominent in their lives and societies. The appeal of Islam, for example, to those asking for and expecting more Islam in their lives or in public life, must be understood in relation to issues of political economy and governance. In all of the countries in the Sahel, the state largely fails to deliver basic services or even to offer its citizens security; there is widespread corruption and cronyism; massive un-​and underemployment; and many people’s political and economic aspirations are frequently frustrated. Given such a context, religion (and not just Islam) for many people is particularly appealing. Such a turn to religion might be a way to make sense of one’s situation given precarious economic circumstances or the political situation. Or it might serve as a refuge, a channel, or simply a way to make a living, for the many religious entrepreneurs one finds across the Sahel. Indeed, it frequently gives some a sense that they are transforming themselves and their societies. Changes in associational life across the Sahel help to illustrate the appeal of Islam in its complexity. Prior to the 1990s most Sahelian countries had national Islamic bodies, frequently the only officially authorized Islamic association and sometimes paralleling the one-​party state. With political liberalization in the 1990s and the subsequent greater commitment to freedom of association in most places in the Sahel, African Muslims founded many new Islamic associations and groups, including Islamic NGOs, with a variety of local agendas, aspirations, and transnational ties for personnel, funding, and support that challenged the national Islamic organizations. There has been extensive entrepreneurial activity around these new Islamic organizations and associations by women, youth, and students in particular (on youth, see LeBlanc and Soares 2015; LeBlanc and Gosselin 2016; on women activists, see Alidou Chapter 31 in this volume).

558   Benjamin Soares Since the 1990s, associations of Muslim youths and Muslim students have been particularly important vectors through which many young people have directed their youthful enthusiasm and energy toward the promotion of da’wa (Arabic, the call to Islam) or propagation of the religion, ethical reform and improvement, and the “correct” practice of the religion. Since the 1990s the Tablighi Jama’at, present in the region since the 1970s, has played a key role in recruiting numerous young people into da’wa activities, sometimes drawing them away from other established ways of practicing Islam, whether the existing Sufi orders or even Muslim students’ associations. Aside from the Tablighi Jama’at, some of the prominent, newer Islamic associations or organizations one could cite include: Cercle d’Études, de recherches et de formation islamiques (Cercle for Islamic Study, Research, and Training) or CERFI, an organization founded by francophone Muslim youths in Burkina Faso (see Madore 2016); Ançar Dine (literally, “the helpers of the religion”), the modernist Islamic organization the charismatic preacher Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara founded in Mali (see Soares 2016); the Dahiratoul Moustarchidina wal Moustarchidaty (the “Moustarchidine”), a vibrant youth movement that emerged from within the Tivaouane branch of the Tijaniyya in Senegal (see Villalón 1997); or the various reformist movements and associations linked to the Nigerian reformist organization, “the Society for the Removal of Innovation and Reinstatement of Tradition” (better known by its Hausa name, Yan Izala) that have proliferated in Chad and Niger (see Sounaye 2015a). Even in Mauritania, the anti-​slavery movement, Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste (IRA, Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement), which Biram Dah Abeid leads, demonstrates a striking variation on what one might call the “NGOization” of Islam. IRA is an NGO that is seemingly secular in orientation and focused on the rights of slaves and former slaves. However, IRA’s leadership seeks to promote Islam and, in this case, particular understandings of the religion that delegitimize the textual bases in Maliki jurisprudence that are used to justify the practice of slavery and the marginalization of former slaves in social life. In some cases, the turn to religion and greater involvement in Islamic associational life have led to greater social tensions and sometimes even radical or violent expressions of the religion. In various places in the Sahel, charismatic and persuasive spokespersons or ideologues—​Islamist or otherwise (e.g., leftists)—​have been able to speak to receptive audiences, sometimes drawing on anti-​Western sentiment, resentment of support for corrupt and repressive regimes, and/​or various conspiracy theories suggesting that “the West” and France in particular want things to fall apart or aim to undermine Islam and Muslims, witness the inability to curb rising insecurity. Others promote ideas that “the West” is simply seeking to gain access to resources, such as the presumed mineral wealth in the Sahara. In certain places, such resentments can also be focused not just on “the West,” but also on Christians, which has led on some occasions to communal violence in Niger, and even more often in Nigeria, the regional powerhouse that borders the Sahel. Part of the larger context has been the expansion of both Muslim and Christian proselytization activities over the last few decades in Africa more generally. Both Christian

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    559 and Muslim individuals, groups, and associations in many countries have sought greater transnational links for funding and support for their activities and have sometimes engaged in mutual demonization. This has led to considerable tension and even violence in some places in the region. The popular mobilization under the banner of Islam that provoked the violent events in Niger in 2015 in the wake of the “Charlie Hebdo” attacks and a massive demonstration in Paris attended by African heads of state—​and which left at least ten dead and destruction of property, including many churches—​ seems to have caught most people by surprise, perhaps except the perpetrators (on the attacks, see Schritt 2015). Although Christians constitute a tiny minority in Niger, violence against them raises serious issues about the rights of minorities in a climate when there is a “fear of small numbers,” to borrow from Arjun Appadurai’s (2006) work on communal violence. Although the larger trend of people asking for more Islam is likely to continue, the demand for Islam might not come in predictable ways. Violent incidents like those in Niger, which are not the kind of organized jihadi violence associated with groups like Boko Haram, al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and so forth, now seem possible in places where that seemed unlikely not long ago. In recent years, attacks by Islamist and jihadist groups against Christians and churches in Burkina Faso have been on the rise, as have more general attacks related to Boko Haram in Niger and Chad and other Islamist groups, particularly in Mali. This raises a number of pressing, open questions. Indeed, one wonders whether those advocating a greater role for religion in public life will permit the rights of minorities (without mentioning practitioners of African “traditional” religions, or even atheists) to be infringed upon, and whether the state and its institutions in the Sahelian countries will be able to guarantee the rights of minorities.

INTRA-​MUSLIM DEBATE Historians have carefully documented some of the important debates between Muslims in the Sahel in the precolonial and colonial periods that predated recent Arab (Saudi, Qatari, or Gulf) or Iranian channels of influence, funding, and support. Such longstanding debates have centered on how to interpret the religion and its “correct” practice (e.g., whether Sufism is part of the central traditions of Islam) and who has the authority to interpret Islam and lead the Muslim community, however defined. Many have asserted (usually with little concrete evidence) the importance of Saudi and Iranian influence to intra-​Muslim debate in the region, and most assume such influence has almost always been nefarious. After the Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia and Iran openly competed for influence across the Muslim world and in Africa in particular. The Saudis used their vast resources to fund and support various Sunni Islamic institutions (e.g., the Muslim World League, founded in 1962, and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth or WAMY) that seek to promote Saudi interests, including the monarchy, and particularly

560   Benjamin Soares conservative ideas about Islam. These institutions have also sought to counter the influence of Iran. Saudi and Iranian rivalry played itself out in various places, and particularly in Nigeria, as both countries sought to influence and mobilize Africa’s restless Muslim youths. Although many young Muslims were inspired by the Iranian revolution, in spite of Iranian efforts there were few converts to Shi’ism in the 1980s and 1990s in West Africa; only recently have Sahelians converted in substantial numbers to Shi’ism (see Leichtman 2015). The conduit of Saudi education, particularly via the Islamic University of Medina, has been particularly important in the region. A considerable number of those who have studied in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in the Arab world have sometimes adopted Saudi-​ style views of Islam—​frequently and quite often vehemently sectarian, anti-​Sufi, anti-​ Shi’a, anti-​Christian, and anti-​Western. Many more West Africans have studied in local and regional institutions in Mauritania, Niger (notably the Islamic University in Say, a project of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), Nigeria, and Sudan, where conservative ideas have been promoted extensively. The propagation of such views in the Sahel has led to debates between Muslims in the region, at times tensions, and even violence between various groups, often between Sufis and anti-​Sufis. Some of those exposed to such ideas who might not have themselves conducted any formal studies in Saudi Arabia have been radicalized over time—​for example, the young Mauritanians who went off to join AQIM and engage in jihad in northern Mali. Another example is the leader of Boko Haram (Mohammed Yusuf 1970–​2009) who declared that those who did not accept his views were not Muslims, and therefore could be killed. Both AQIM and Boko Haram are Salafi jihadi groups that have focused largely on local issues rather than the “far enemy” (in the language of al-​Qaeda), but that changed over time, as the subsequent pledge of allegiance of Boko Haram and splinter groups of AQIM to ISIS/​ISIL in the region suggests. In the last decade, one has learned much more about the active involvement of some Sahelians in AQIM and the many more Africans who have supported various militant and armed groups organized under the banner of Islam in the region. Such developments have also helped to challenge the view of a static “traditional” Islam in the region even if such militancy seems to be a minority position in the Sahel. Before turning to these trends, it is important to consider more closely greater global interconnections and the media revolution in particular.

GLOBAL INTERCONNECTIONS AND THE MEDIA REVOLUTION It is not possible to understand Islam in the contemporary Sahel without taking into consideration the media revolution, especially over the past two decades (see Hackett and Soares 2015). In the wake of media liberalization and the greater availability and

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    561 use of both old and new media many Muslims have had greater exposure to a broader range of information and ideas—​and not just about Islam. These media include radio, television, audio, video, CDs, DVDs, satellite television, the Internet, and mobile telephony. The media revolution has simultaneously entailed diversification, for example, through the growth of niche media such as Mouride media in Senegal or WhatsApp groups around a particular religious leader or Sufi shaykh, and standardization through a “generic” Islam of assumed universals promoted via various media on such themes as instructions about ritual daily prayer, the hajj, and Ramadan. The importance of the media revolution to the shifting Islamic landscape is perhaps best illustrated in how clips of unknown religious figures can go viral, drawing attention, creating buzz, and generating debates. However, a few key global Muslim media personalities who have had a significant influence in the Sahel merit highlighting, before considering Muslim media stars from the region. With the advent of satellite television, the Qatar-​based media star Yusuf al-​Qaradawi (born 1926) became well-​known, indeed, perhaps the most important Muslim global media personality through his Al Jazeera program. He quickly became a household name among Muslims in the Sahel literate in Arabic who tuned in to the new satellite television programming about Islam. Tariq Ramadan, mentioned earlier, with his longstanding and close ties in francophone Africa through CIMEF, which has held its international conferences in Bamako, Dakar, Niamey, and Ouagadougou, is also widely known through mass media. The telegenic Egyptian preacher Amr Khalid (born 1967) is another important media personality in the Sahel. Known for his sermons about the compatibility of Islamic morality and economic success, Amr Khalid has attracted youth fan clubs in the Sahel. There is also the medical doctor cum preacher Zakir Naik (born 1965), originally from Mumbai but based in Malaysia, decorated by Saudi Arabia, Sharjah, and the Gambia but denied entry to the United Kingdom and Canada ostensibly for his intolerant views. Naik and Peace TV, his satellite television channel broadcast from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, have been highly influential in Africa. Even if Peace TV is broadcast in English, it has many viewers among Muslim youth in francophone Africa who are increasingly adept at spoken and written English. Through new media Muslims in the region have also had greater access to such thinkers as Abu Muhammad al-​Maqdisi (born 1959), the Jordanian theorist of jihad who has been an inspiration to violent Islamist groups, including Boko Haram, perhaps through his website. At the same time, there is a whole range of influential Sahelian Muslim media personalities, some of whom call themselves “moderates” or “centrists,” none of whom can be easily placed in the received categories about Islam in Africa. Some of these media personalities seem to be able to speak to youth and others who want more Islam in their lives. One might point in particular to a few such figures: two Nigeriens with a somewhat limited range of influence, a Malian with a national and regional focus, and two Mauritanians with huge audiences and platforms, including on social media. In Niger there are two particularly striking new Muslim media personalities who have risen to prominence in recent years. First, Alarama, a young preacher focused

562   Benjamin Soares on personal moral reform, hosts television and radio programs and a so-​called Islamic discothèque where his recorded sermons in vernacular languages and French are diffused (Sounaye 2013). He connects to his many youthful and middle-​aged fans in Niger as well as the Nigerien diaspora via big and small media, as well as his occasional visits to diaspora communities in Europe and the United States. Second, Boureima Daouda, who is a graduate of both the Université Abdou Moumouni in Niamey and the University of Medina, is imam of the main mosque of the Université Abdou Moumouni campus. His objective seems to be to spread Islam in educated francophone circles, and he produces sermons exclusively in French that are available to his publics via various media (Sounaye 2015b). In Mali, there is the country’s most celebrated Muslim preacher, Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara (born 1955), mentioned earlier, whose sermons have circulated on cassette for decades (and later on video, DVD, and private radio stations). He founded the country’s most successful modernist Islamic organization, Ançar Dine (not to be confused with Iyad ag Ghali’s jihadi organization of the same name) with branches throughout Mali and among the Malian diaspora, most notably in Burkina Faso. Although Haïdara is not himself a Sufi he is an ally to Sufis in Mali who want to defend themselves against anti-​Sufi Muslims. He has been an outspoken critic of Islamists in Mali, including those from the south of the country, whom he thinks share ideas with the Islamists who seized control of northern Mali in 2012. Mohammed Hassan Ould Dedew (born 1963) is one of Mauritania’s foremost Muslim intellectuals, a scholar of jurisprudence (fiqh), and founder of the country’s Ulama Training Centre (Markaz Takwin al-​Ulama) with an active website and recordings of his sermons and legal opinions online. The Saudi-​educated Dedew is hard to categorize. Although he has Salafi leanings and is close to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist party Tawassoul, he is apparently on good terms with some Sufi leaders and groups in Mauritania. He was a very vocal supporter of the Arab Spring and an equally vehement critic of the French intervention in Mali, as he has been of the Islamic State. He has personally been involved in deradicalization efforts, though his sometimes contentious relations with government led to the closure of his center in 2018. With his high-​profile online presence, Dedew is someone with a global reach, at least among Arabic-​speaking audiences. Finally, Mohamed El-​Moctar El-​Shinqiti (born 1966), a professor of Islam and Political Ethics in Doha, began his studies in “traditional” Islamic education in Mauritania before eventually completing a PhD in Comparative Religion in Texas. He is best known for his publications, mostly in Arabic—​several books (on such topics as the Islamic movement in Sudan, and Sunni–​Shi’a relations) and literally hundreds of articles on various topics on Al Jazeera’s website. While he is not easy to categorize, El-​Shinqiti is a modernist close to thinkers within the Muslim Brotherhood and with Tariq Ramadan with whom he has collaborated in Doha. El-​Shinqiti advocates certain liberal ideas, toleration, and Muslim–​Christian understanding. With more than seven hundred thousand followers on Twitter and an avid fan base through his writing on Al Jazeera in Arabic, he is perhaps one of the Muslim media personalities from the Sahel with the greatest audience.

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    563 It is striking how these Muslim media personalities from the Sahel position themselves, including how they clearly distance themselves from most violent individuals and groups. At the same time, radical groups in the region have also been adept at using the media—​and new media in particular—​to spread their messages and to attempt to attract new recruits and sympathizers.

SALAFISM, ISLAMISM, AND JIHADISM If in earlier periods commentators about Islam in Africa focused on reformists and/​ or “Wahhabis,” there has recently been a preoccupation with Salafis, Salafism, and so-​ called Salafi jihadis, which has intensified with the rise of the Islamic State. Indeed, one needs to know more about those who refer to themselves as Salafis and more specifically those Salafis who say they are jihadis, as well as those Muslims who might share some of their views. Although most self-​styled Salafis are quietist, usually eschewing politics to focus on da’wa, what one might call “Islamization from below,” Salafi jihadis are those who are quick to denounce other Muslims (often including Shi’a) as not Muslims (Arabic, takfir, hence takfiris) because they fail to adhere to the tenets of Islam according to their understanding of the religion; they usually reject existing rulers and call for jihad/​struggle against such rulers. This is what one can call an agenda of “Islamization from above.” For such people, control of the state or a counter-​state is often one of the most immediate, pressing objectives, as in the case of the Islamic State. As one also knows from the Islamic State, millenarian ideas about the coming of the end times seem to motivate some of those involved. Examples of groups in Africa that one can either characterize or that self-​designate as Salafi are readily available. These include Al-​Shabab in Somalia and Kenya, and Boko Haram in West Africa. For the Sahel, in rough chronological order, these groups include AQIM, Iyad ag Ghali’s Ansar Dine (Mali), MUJAO (Mouvement pour l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest, Mali), Macina Liberation Front (or Katibat Macina, Mali), Jama’at Nasr al-​Islam wa’l-​Muslimin (Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims or JNIM, Mali), Ansarul Islam (Burkina Faso), and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), which is an affiliate of the Islamic State (Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso). Throughout the region there have been important conversions to Salafism (and earlier to the Tablighi Jama’at) and/​or adoption of Salafi jihadi ideas. At the same time, it is important to talk about the appeal of radical ideas and the factors involved. First, although one should be wary of crude instrumentalist readings of religious motivations, the palpable frustration of the Sahel’s teeming mass of un-​and underemployed youth and their thwarted efforts for a better life in countries with staggering levels of corruption cannot easily be dismissed. Indeed, this must certainly help to animate the appeal of some of the groups listed earlier. According to some in the Sahel, this sense of frustration also helps to explain some of the support Islamist groups have received

564   Benjamin Soares from local populations. However, long before the Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012, certain Islamist ideals—​a strict moral code, the application of Islamic (hudud) punishments, and destruction of saints’ tombs seen as idolatrous—​appealed to some people, including a substantial number of people frustrated with a government that provides almost nothing to them as far as services (security, education, social services, health, etc.) or is predatory (taxes, extortion). For this reason, some Malians actually supported the Islamist takeover from the ostensibly secular MNLA (Mouvement national de libération de l’Azawad), a group that may Malians saw as venal and rapacious. Or they have forged links with Islamist groups and leaders. After the French intervention and the routing of the Islamist groups, this put those Malians who shared some of the Islamists’ views in a rather awkward position. But most Malians initially openly supported the French intervention and publicly castigated those in the Arab world who condemned the French intervention. Second, one must countenance various forms of contestation—​generational struggles and struggles against elites (political/​religious/​economic) by various groups, some of whom might be marginalized, for example, when youths attack symbols of state power and existing elites. One must also take into consideration struggles against the failing or predatory state and/​or against other dominant groups, including over ideology. These are factors in all of the countries in the region where Islamist and Salafi jihadi groups are active. Third, another related factor has been the democratization of access to Islamic knowledge. Although educational levels in the Sahel remain lower than in the rest of the world, it is no longer only religious elites and a tiny minority with advanced Islamic education or those with inherited knowledge and charisma who can talk about Islam and interpret it. There are various forms of Muslim self-​affirmation, some of which are new and changing, and sometimes articulated by the Muslim media stars that have been mentioned here. There are many people one might call “born-​again Muslims.” Some of these include members of Tablighi Jama’at and Salafis, most of whom are quietist, or other groups such as Izala-​related or derived groups in Niger (Sounaye 2015a) or Muslim activists in Burkina Faso (Ouédraogo 2019), Mali (Soares 2006), Mauritania (Ould Ahmed Salem 2013), and Senegal (Seck et al. 2015). In its popular forms, Salafi jihadism and its messaging sometimes appeals to frustrated youth who might be seeking validation and adventure via jihad and martyrdom. As Faisal Devji (2005) has pointed out, many jihadis are concerned with the ethical—​they want to change the world through direct action. In addition, there are the sympathizers—​those who might sympathize with radical groups in the face of repression or those who might actually support some of their ideas or ideals (e.g., sharia, notions of justice, etc.). There is also an array of supporters, funders, and potential recruits. Although there does not seem to be widespread support for any of the Salafi jihadi groups in the region, there are perhaps many silent supporters such as women who might not take up arms; those who might provide funding or material support; and both willing and unwilling recruits. Finally, there is the important category of opportunists, that is, those who benefit politically and/​or economically from the situation in those

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    565 Sahelian countries that have been destabilized in the last decade or so with the rise of these groups, and the economies in which they are embedded. In addition, there are those who might ally with Islamists to protect themselves, their communities, and interests or what they perceive to be their interests, when faced with a state that is absent or predatory. The case of northern Mali is particularly illustrative of some of these issues. At some point certain members of the ostensibly secular Tuareg organization MNLA switched allegiance to the Islamist group Ansar Dine, and shortly after the French intervention some prominent members of Ansar Dine almost immediately shifted their allegiance away from that Islamist organization to other newly formed groups, some of which were decidedly non-​Islamist. As this suggests, things have been rather fluid and have continued to be so, as Ansar Dine has been folded into JNIM. This should serve as a reminder that all labels such as “Salafi” are at best heuristic devices and might need adjusting as reality and people change over time. Some commentators and ordinary people are convinced that the experience of Islamist rule in northern Mali was so negative that this has helped to discredit Islamists and other groups who want to organize society along religious lines. However, the failure of the state to deliver services, reopen schools, provide health services, and otherwise legitimate itself has left a huge vacuum in northern Mali, and also in places in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad that have been affected by conflict in recent years. There is considerable uncertainty about the future in such places where the state has not returned, and it is plausible that some might look again to advocates of jihad for solutions to their plight. In all of these countries, one can also expect that ruling elites or armies will continue to play the Islamist/​jihadi card. Indeed, the bogeyman of Islamists can always be invoked to request more military aid and development assistance, or possibly as an excuse to cling to power. One can expect that certain donor countries or those with economic interests to protect will continue to be indulgent with political leaders, their militaries, and security services in the Sahel that are engaged in the fight against Islamists and jihadis, whether at home (Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Senegal) or abroad (Chad). For example, in Niger, the government arrested an outspoken journalist, accusing him of collaborating with Boko Haram. The journalist had been critical of the government’s treatment of displaced persons after the operations against Boko Haram.

CONCLUSION Contemporary Islam in the Sahel is much more diverse and complex, and the Islamic landscape more shifting and fluid, than much commentary suggests. Indeed, Muslims in the Sahel, including ordinary Muslims, are often difficult to classify within the existing categories of analysis, and their ways of being Muslim have been changing over time, including in relation to an increasingly globalized world in which the media revolution

566   Benjamin Soares has been key. A more nuanced way of categorizing Muslims in the region that takes the complexity of the Islamic landscape briefly outlined here into consideration is urgently required. Finally, it is important to underscore how much about the Islamic landscape in the Sahel, a region in flux, remains to be fully studied and understood.

Notes 1. Some of the themes in this section are discussed at greater length in Soares and Otayek 2007. There have been a few recent studies of Islam in the Sahel to which the reader’s attention is drawn. On Burkina Faso, see the contributions to Degorce et al. 2019; on Mali, see Soares 2005; and on Senegal, see Seck et al. 2015. Although there are no recent general overviews of Islam in Chad, Mauritania, or Niger, on Chad, see Seesemann 2005 and Kaag 2007; on Mauritania, see Ould Ahmed Salem 2013 and Ould Mohamed Baba Moustapha 2014; and on Niger, see Alidou 2005 and Sounaye 2016. 2. The Ahmadiyya has a particularly visible presence in Burkina Faso (see Cissé and Langewiesche 2019). It is also present in Mali and Niger but studies of the Ahmadiyya in those countries are lacking. 3. For an excellent, concise overview of Sufism in West Africa, see Seesemann 2010. 4. In Chad Tijanis are very influential in the public sphere.

REFERENCES Alidou, Ousseina. 2005. Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Appadurai, Arjun. 2006. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham: Duke University Press. Central Intelligence Agency. 2018. The World Factbook, https://​www.cia.gov/​library/​ publications/​the-​world-​factbook/​. Cissé, Issa, and Katrin Langewiesche. 2019. “L’Association islamique ahmadiyya au Burkina Faso,” in Alice Degorce, Ludovic O. Kibora, and Katrin Langewiesche, eds., 2019. Rencontres religieuses et dynamiques sociales au Burkina Faso. Dakar: Amalion, 90–​107. Degorce, Alice, Ludovic O. Kibora, and Katrin Langewiesche, eds. 2019. Rencontres religieuses et dynamiques sociales au Burkina Faso. Dakar: Amalion. Devji, Faisal. 2005. Landscapes of Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hackett, Rosalind, and Benjamin Soares, eds. 2015. New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kaag, Mayke. 2007. “Aid, Umma, and Politics: Transnational NGO’s in Chad,” in Benjamin Soares and R. Otayek, eds., Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 85–​103. LeBlanc, Marie Nathalie, and Louis Audet Gosselin, eds. 2016. Faith and Charity: Religion and Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa. London: Pluto Press. LeBlanc, Marie Nathalie, and Benjamin Soares. 2015. “Islam et jeunesse en Afrique de l’Ouest dans l’ère néolibérale: un regard anthropologique,” in Kadya Tall, Marie-​Emmanuelle

Islam and Muslim Societies in the Contemporary Sahel    567 Pommerolle, and Michel Cahen, eds., Collective Mobilisations in Africa/​ Mobilisations collectives en Afrique. Leiden: Brill, 67–​90. Leichtman, Mara A. 2015. Shi‘i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Madore, Frédérick. 2016. La construction d’une sphère publique musulmane en Afrique de l’Ouest. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Ouédraogo, Yacouba. 2019. “Le réformisme islamique francophone au Burkina Faso,” in Alice Degorce, Ludovic O. Kibora, and Katrin Langewiesche, eds., 2019. Rencontres religieuses et dynamiques sociales au Burkina Faso. Dakar: Amalion, 74–​89. Ould Ahmed Salem, Zekeria. 2013. Prêcher dans le désert: Islam politique et changement social en Mauritanie. Paris: Karthala. Ould Mohamed Baba Moustapha, Elemine. 2014. “Negotiating Islamic Revival: Public Religiosity in Nouakchott City.” Islamic Africa 5(1): 45–​82. Schritt, Jannik. 2015. “The ‘Protests against Charlie Hebdo’ in Niger: A Background Analysis.” Africa Spectrum 50(1): 49–​64. Seck, Abdourahmane, Mayke Kaag, Cheikh Guèye, and Abdou Salam Fall, eds. 2015. Etat, Islam et Société au Sénégal: Un air de nouveau temps? Paris: Karthala. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2005. “The Quotidian Dimension of Islamic Reformism in Wadai (Chad),” in Muriel Gomez-​Perez, ed., L’Islam politique au sud du Sahara: identités, discours et enjeux. Paris: Karthala, 327–​346. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2010. “Sufism in West Africa.” Religion Compass, 10(4): 606–​614. Soares, Benjamin. 2005. Islam and the Prayer Economy: History and Authority in a Malian Town. Edinburgh/​Ann Arbor: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute/​University of Michigan Press. Soares, Benjamin. 2006. “Islam in Mali in the Neoliberal Era.” African Affairs 104 (418):77–​95 Soares, Benjamin. 2016. “New Muslim Public Figures in West Africa,” in Robert Launay, ed., Writing Boards and Blackboards: Islamic Education in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 268–​84. Soares, Benjamin F., and René Otayek, eds., 2007. Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2013. “Alarama is All at Once: Preacher, Media Savvy and Religious Entrepreneur.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 25(1): 88–​102. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2015a. “Irwo Sunnance yan-​ no!: Youth Claiming, Contesting and Transforming Salafism.” Islamic Africa 6: 82–​108. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2015b. “Le français: langue d’élite, langue de religiosité, outil de réislamisation au Niger.” Histoire, Monde & Cultures religieuses 36: 118–​140. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2016. Islam et modernité: contribution à l’analyse de la ré-​islamisation au Niger. Paris: L’Harmattan. Thurston, Alex. 2016. Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the International African Institute. Villalón, Leonardo. 1997. “The Moustarchidine of Senegal: The Family Politics of a Contemporary Tijan Movement,” in Jean-​Louis Triaud and David Robinson, eds., La Tijâniyya: Une confrérie musulmane à la conquête de l’Afrique. Paris: Karthala, 469–​497.

chapter 30

J IHADIST INSURG E NC I E S IN THE SA H E L Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim

Over the last decade and half, the Sahel has experienced unprecedented jihadist insurgency. Two movements that emerged in the early 2000s have been responsible for jihadist violence: Boko Haram in the areas around the Lake Chad Basin and al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its affiliates in the Sahelo-​Saharan region. All countries of the francophone Sahel, with the exception of Senegal, have suffered jihadist attacks, ranging from sporadic assaults on military barracks to the kidnapping and abduction of civilians, suicide bombings in markets, mosques, and churches, and invasion of their territories. The scope and impact of these attacks are not the same across the Sahel. Mali, where jihadist groups temporarily conquered and administered large swathes of territory, has suffered greater consequences than the other Sahelian countries. Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso have faced deadly attacks, but the jihadists’ attempts to occupy territory have been less successful. Beginning in 2007, Mauritania developed a homegrown jihadist insurgency. However, by 2011 the government had effectively overcome the uprising. Senegal has so far avoided an outbreak of jihadist violence on its territory, holding up a precarious stability in an increasingly unstable region. This chapter provides an overview of the jihadist phenomenon in the Sahel. It addresses the questions: How did a region known for the ostensibly peaceful character of its religious beliefs and practices develop some of the deadliest jihadi movements in the world? What role does ideology play in these movements? Why has jihadist insurgency tended to be more successful in rural and peripheral areas as opposed to urban centers? What explains the jihadists’ success in mobilizing large numbers of followers from diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds? Contrary to most studies of Boko Haram and AQIM that have treated them separately, the chapter considers the regional dynamics of jihadism and emphasizes interactions between the two movements and their similarities. Scholarly attempts to explain the rise of jihadism in the Sahel can be classified into two approaches. On the one hand, culturalist approaches emphasize the role that certain interpretations of Islamic doctrine, particularly Salafism and Wahhabism, play in

570   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim jihadist ideology (Thurston 2016, 2018; Kassim 2015; Brigaglia 2015; Sambe 2015). Such explanations usually highlight the opposition between the Sufi tradition of Islam, which they associate with piety, spirituality, and obedience to authority, and the rise of reformist Islam, which they associate with religious extremism and politicization of Islam (Sambe 2016, 2013; Elischer 2015). A structuralist approach, on the other hand, treats Islam as a secondary factor and instead emphasizes the social and political dynamics in the local context where these jihadist conflicts arise (Ould Ahmed Salem 2013; Agbiboa 2015; Mustapha 2015; Bøås 2015; Sangaré 2016). These analyses suggest that jihadist insurgency, like all conflicts, is the outcome of social and economic grievances, the ineffectiveness of state governance, the marginalization of certain communities, and the proliferation of arms and armed movements (Thiam 2017; Wing 2013; Bøås and Torheim 2013; Raineri and Strazzari 2015). Both ideology and local dynamics are important factors in jihadist ideology. Yet, taken individually, these factors only provide a partial explanation of the complex phenomenon of jihadist insurgency. I argue that it is the interaction between ideology, the structure of the local context, and individual motivations that explains the incidence of jihadist insurgency in the Sahel. Jihadism in the Sahel must be understood as a concatenation of a series of processes at three levels: global, local, and individual. At the global level, there is the formation and dissemination of jihadism, which is a global ideology conceptualized by Muslim activists and scholars based on a particular understanding of Islam in response to challenges that contemporary Muslim societies are facing. At the local level, jihadist ideology is appropriated by local jihadist “entrepreneurs” who have used it to formulate a discourse that taps into local social and political demands to justify revolt against the state in the name of Islam. Although jihadi entrepreneurs can emerge in urban areas, jihadist insurgency is largely a rural phenomenon, particularly successful around border areas and in difficult terrain. Finally, at the individual level, the process by which individuals decide to join a group can be ideological, situational, and/​or strategic. The first section discusses the trajectory of jihadist movements over some two decades, starting from their emergence in the early 2000s. Second, I outline the major characteristics of the jihadist insurgencies. Third, I discuss jihadist ideology and the ways Sahelian jihadist “entrepreneurs” have appropriated it. Fourth, I focus on how the local context and the structure and dynamics of the Sahelian rural periphery have provided fertile ground for the enactment of jihadist ideology. Finally, I analyze how and why the rank-​and-​file decide to join jihadist movements.

EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF SAHELIAN JIHADIST MOVEMENTS The contemporary wave of jihadist insurgency in the Sahel is a recent phenomenon that started in the early 2000s, following the 9/​11 attacks and the so-​called “Global War

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    571 on Terror.” Widespread media coverage of these events generated passionate debates among Muslims throughout the world and helped disseminate and popularize jihadist discourse. In the Sahel, Muslim scholars hotly debated the legitimacy of jihadist discourse and argued over whether “jihad”—​understood as holy war—​is permissible in the current world context. Some of these scholars argued in favor of jihad and went so far as to organize public prayers in support of jihadists in Afghanistan and Iraq. While limited in their scope, these debates nonetheless contributed to the heightening of Muslims’ consciousness regarding their identity as part of a global Muslim community. They also added to an already elevated sense of grievance vis-​à-​vis the West and its perceived hostility toward Islam and Muslims. More important, jihadist discourse offered a new language and framework to some Muslim activists to express local grievances vis-​à-​ vis political authorities. Soon thereafter, grievances such as dissatisfaction with local governance and sharia implementation in northern Nigeria as well as government repression of Muslim activists in Mauritania became the motives and justifications for a handful of militants to engage in jihad locally. Two jihadist movements appeared in the Sahel region almost simultaneously, though quite independently of each other: The so-​ called Nigerian Taliban in northern Nigeria, and the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC in its French acronym) in northern Mali.1 These two movements eventually evolved to become, respectively, Jama’atu Ahl al-​Sunna li’l-​da’awati w’al-​jihad—​ best known as Boko Haram—​and AQIM. Boko Haram and AQIM interacted with each other throughout their development and evolved following a similar trajectory that can be summarized into five phases. First, between 2003 and 2004, is the period of the emergence of early jihadist movements. In 2003 the so-​called Nigerian Taliban appeared in northern Nigeria with dozens of young Muslim militants declaring the government un-​Islamic and withdrawing to Kanama, a remote area on the border between Niger and Nigeria, where they started an insurgency. They conducted dozens of attacks targeting police stations and government buildings until 2004 when the Nigerian army intervened, putting an end to the insurgency. The rise of the Nigerian Taliban occurred almost simultaneously with the spillover of Algerian jihadist violence into northern Mali. Starting in 2003, GSPC jihadists escaped military operations in Algeria and established camps in the mountainous areas of northern Mali. They transformed the area into a refuge from the Algerian military and a rear base from which they expanded operations throughout the Sahel. In 2004, however, dozens of GSPC militants, including their leader, Abdel Razak El-​Para, were arrested in Chad and transferred to Algeria where they received prison sentences. By the end of 2004, both jihadist experiments in northern Mali and northern Nigeria faced serious setbacks that seriously undermined their ability to wage war. The burgeoning movements, however, were far from totally eliminated. Surviving militants re-​emerged only a few months later with a new strategy for the long term. Second, the period between 2004 and 2009 roughly corresponds to the ideological grounding of the two jihadist movements as well as recruitment and military training. In the mid-​2000s, after the failure of the Kanama experience, surviving members of the Nigerian Taliban regrouped again in Maiduguri—​the capital of Borno State—​under

572   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim the leadership of a young and charismatic scholar named Muhammad Yusuf. Between 2005 and 2009, Yusuf adopted a less confrontational attitude vis-​à-​vis the Nigerian government. He focused on conceptualizing and disseminating his ideological discourse, which was centered around core ideas, including the idea that Western education is a sin, state institutions and democracy are un-​Islamic, and working for the Nigerian government would lead to apostasy (Kyari 2014). Yusuf ’s preachings were recorded and disseminated throughout the region via audiocassettes, CDs, and memory cards. As early as 2006, Boko Haram followers had not only established networks of followers in Maiduguri but also in and around the Lake Chad Basin. Around the same time that Boko Haram was establishing its bases in northern Nigeria, surviving militants of the GSPC established training camps and embedded themselves within local communities in northern Mali. They used charity, trade, and proselytizing to attract the local population, spread their ideology, and recruit followers (Bøås 2015). Shared cultural and linguistic affinities between the Algerians and certain communities in northern Mali facilitated early contacts. The jihadists encouraged their members to marry local women, and they established partnerships with interest groups, including traffickers and rebels (Abu al-​Ma’ali 2014). They were particularly successful in coopting powerful leaders within both Arab and Tuareg communities. The GSPC attracted recruits not only from northern Mali but also from different countries in the region. Most notably, they attracted numerous young Mauritanians who fled government repression of religious circles in 2003.2 During that period, some members of the Nigerian Taliban may have joined the GSPC training camps in northern Mali.3 The GSPC officially pledged allegiance to al-​Qaeda in 2007, thus shifting its strategy from an Algerian insurgency to a regional jihadi movement. The group adopted the name al-​ Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to reflect this strategic shift. Third, roughly between 2008 and 2011 is the period when jihadist movements began to clash with governments. While in the mid-​2000s both Boko Haram and AQIM avoided direct confrontation with states, they later adopted an increasingly defiant and criminal attitude toward state authorities. The first confrontations occurred when AQIM jihadists began to kidnap Westerners in Mali, Mauritania, and Niger for ransom. During the same period, AQIM started to experiment with decentralization, attempting to establish jihadist cells outside of Mali and Algeria. The group’s first target was Mauritania, where a number of jihadists who had received military training in AQIM camps in northern Mali created a movement called Ansarullah al-​Murabitun fi Bilad Shinguit (Allah’s Helpers the Murabitun in the Land of Shinguit). In northeastern Nigeria, Yusuf ’s followers began to put their ideology into action by refusing to abide by government laws, an attitude that brought them into direct confrontation with the police. In 2009, the Nigerian security forces attacked Boko Haram’s headquarters and killed hundreds of militants, including Yusuf. Militants who escaped the massacre went underground temporarily. Yusuf ’s deputy Abubakar Shekau assumed leadership of Boko Haram and supervised the group’s shift from a religious movement to a violent insurgent militia. In 2010, Boko Haram began an urban insurgency that targeted Nigerian security forces and people they suspected of involvement in the 2009 massacre. But the

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    573 targets evolved gradually to involve churches, schools, mosques, and markets. The violence also expanded to other Nigerian states, including Kano, Bauchi, Jos, and Abuja. Fourth, between 2012 and 2015 was the period of insurgency as well as the occupation and governance of territories. Following the 2010–​2011 Libyan civil war and the fall of Qaddafi’s regime, a massive disbursement of weapons and the return of Tuareg fighters who had taken part in the Libyan conflict unsettled the power dynamics in northern Mali and created conditions for a new insurgency. Different armed groups, including separatists and jihadists, emerged and coalesced together to wage war on the Malian state. They quickly defeated the Malian army and occupied the regions of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu. For nine months between April 2012 and January 2013, the jihadists ruled over northern Mali, implementing a harsh interpretation of sharia rule. An attempt to expand their control to Mali’s southern regions prompted an international military intervention led by France. Defeated in the major cities, the jihadists moved to rural areas where they continue to operate (Jezequel and Foucher 2017). Since 2015, their activism has even expanded to the regions of Mopti and Segou in central Mali and northern and eastern Burkina Faso. Similar developments occurred around Lake Chad where, as result of increased military pressure, Boko Haram moved out from the city of Maiduguri in 2012 and relocated to the rural areas. It was in those rural areas around the Sambisa Forest, the Mandara Mountains, and the Lake Chad Basin that the insurgency finally gained momentum. After occupying significant territory in northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram expanded its insurgency across the borders into Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. In Niger, the jihadist group enlisted young recruits particularly among the Buduma—​a fishing community that lives in and around the Lake Chad Basin—​as well as among the Kanuri who inhabit villages along the border with Nigeria. Fifth, starting in 2015 we have witnessed the period defined by counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. The jihadist insurgency generated reactions at the local, national, and international levels. At the local level, jihadist violence exacerbated inter-​communal tensions and created a climate of generalized insecurity. In northern and central Mali, local communities created self-​defense militias and vigilante groups to provide for their own security, leading to the proliferation of armed groups and criminality. At the national level, governments reacted with vigorous counterinsurgency measures, which focused primarily on attempting to defeat the jihadist groups’ militarily. Although national armies have performed differently in these counterinsurgency efforts, they have all revealed serious weaknesses in dealing with the type of guerilla warfare the jihadists have employed. The governments have also imposed states of emergency in the conflict zones. In Niger and Chad, the state of emergency involved restrictions on the use of motorcycles and the banning of the fish and pepper trades as an attempt to cripple Boko Haram’s mobility and source of revenue. These restrictions, however, crippled the local economies and negatively affected local populations (Crisis Group 2018; Oxfam 2016). Internationally, the rise of jihadist movements drew the world’s attention to the potential danger that the Sahel poses to international stability. In northern Mali, three international forces, including the UN Peacekeeping mission MINUSMA, the French

574   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim Opération Barkhane, and the G5 Sahel Joint Force—​have deployed and tried to stabilize the region, protect civilian populations, and alleviate the threat of terrorism. Success, thus far, has been limited.

MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF JIHADIST INSURGENCY IN THE SAHEL Jihad is not a completely new phenomenon in the Sahel. Several jihadist movements arose in West Africa between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and led to the formation of such precolonial Islamic states as the Sokoto Caliphate (1804–​1903), Macina (1820–​1862), and the polity of al-​Hajj Umar Tall (1848–​1893). Whether this early wave of jihad is related to the contemporary one is a matter of debate among scholars. Last (2009, 11) sees in the emergence of Boko Haram “a pattern of dissidence that goes back at least some 200 years in northern Nigeria,” whereas Lovejoy (2016) stresses the fact that earlier jihads were led by Sufi clerics while modern-​day jihadists are Salafi. Contemporary jihadists often refer to earlier jihads in their discourse, attempting to frame their struggle as a continuation of the struggle against unbelievers that started centuries ago. The Malian Islamist leader Iyad Ag Ghaly emphasized such continuity in an interview with the jihadist newspaper Al Masra: Our message to all [is that] your historical enemy has come closer to you. He wants to destroy your religion and plunder your resources. You [must] stand up and fight. Declare jihad and expel him miserably and undignified outside your territory, just as your predecessors did before you. Recall the history of Uqba Bin Nafi’, Musa Bin Nassir, Tariq Bin Ziyad, Abdallah Bin Yassin, Abi Bakar Bin Amir, Yusuf Bin Tashfin, Muhammad Askia, Abd al-​Karim al-​Maghili, Umar al-​Mukhtar, Abd al-​Karim al-​ Khitabi, Uthman [Dan] Fodi, and others (Abu Feras 2017).

Precolonial and contemporary jihadist insurgencies share a number of characteristics in common: the purpose of the jihad is to overthrow the existing political authorities considered impious and replace them with pious governments that would implement a more rigorous interpretation of Islam. The nature of the discourse is also strikingly similar. As Kassim (2018) argues, the idea of jihad both in precolonial and contemporary jihad revolved around key theological principles, including takfir (excommunication), al-​wala’ wa-​l-​bara’ (literally, loyalty and disavowal), and the separation between dar al-​kufr (abode of unbelief) and dar al-​Islam (abode of Islam). Thus, the fact that early jihadists were Sufi and contemporary jihadists are Salafi does not alter the nature and goal of jihadist discourse. However, such similarities notwithstanding, contemporary jihad appears as a revolt against the legacy of precolonial jihad. Jihad today is as much a rebellion against political authority as it is a revolt against the Islamic establishments, many of whom are descendants of precolonial jihadi leaders. In central

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    575 Mali, Hamadoun Kouffa, the leader of the Katiba Macina first came to prominence due to his critical preaching that targeted the Macina clerical class that is largely constituted of descendants of the founders of Macina (Thiam 2017). Boko Haram has accused the current traditional leadership of Sokoto of apostasy, and has attempted to assassinate the emirs of Kano and Borno. In short, contemporary jihadists have shifted the boundaries of dar al-​Islam to exclude some of those who established those boundaries in the first place. One important particularity of contemporary jihadist movements is their diversity and inclusiveness. Jihadist groups have been successful in mobilizing large numbers of people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. In their discourse, jihadists discard ethnic and racial identity as asabiyya (group feeling), which is a characteristic of jahiliyya (pre-​Islamic ignorance). They highlight the fact that Islam has united all Muslims under the banner of one religion and one identity. In their discourse, jihadists frequently evoke the hadith that says “[t]‌here is no privilege for an Arab over a foreigner, nor for a foreigner over an Arab, and neither for white skin over black skin, nor for black skin over white skin, except by righteousness.” This unifying and egalitarian discourse has broadened the recruitment field of jihadist movements. Beyond the façade of unity and inclusiveness, however, Sahelian jihadist groups are deeply fragmented. They constitute a loose coalition of quasi-​independent cells and katibas (military unit) that are divided along the same ethnic and racial particularisms they have ostensibly tried to transcend. In Mali, most jihadist movements are associated with a particular ethnic or factional group: Ansar Dine was dominated by Tuareg Ifoghas, al-​Murabitun by Arab Lamhar, and the Katiba Masina by pastoralist Fulani. Although these three groups have recently coalesced together to create Jama’at Nusrat al-​Islam wal-​Muslimin (JNIM), they still seem to operate quite autonomously with some level of coordination. In addition to ethnicity, ideological differences constitute another line of fragmentation within Sahelian jihadist movements. Disagreements over the interpretation of certain ideological principles have led to division and even confrontations between factions. The notion of takfir and the scope of its implementation are among the most contentious issues that have divided jihadist movements (Kassim 2018). Jihadist movements define “legitimate targets” based on their interpretation of the notion of takfir. Depending on their interpretation, they determine who is and who is not Muslim and set the boundary between dar al-​Islam, which is to be protected, and dar al-​kufr, which can be a legitimate target of jihad. The debate about takfir is perhaps the most important ideological contention between al-​Qaeda and the Islamic State, the two competing global jihadist organizations: al-​Qaeda limits the scope of implementation of takfir to non-​Muslims, Muslim rulers, and individual Muslims who participate in or collaborate with government and Western military forces. ISIS, however, considers Muslim civilians who do not support them as kuffar (infidels, sing. kafir), thus as legitimate targets of jihad (Al-​Maqlaat 2016). Ideological disputes over takfir between Boko Haram’s leaders led to the movement’s fragmentation and infighting between opposing factions. Abubakar Shekau’s faction was largely responsible for Boko Haram’s killing of Muslim civilians, the abduction and enslavement of women, and use of young girls for

576   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim suicide bombings. Shekau justifies this violence by applying the principle of takfir to almost everyone who lives outside his caliphate. “Any Muslim who lives in the ‘lands of unbelief ’ and does not show hostility to infidels[,]‌” Shekau (2016) says, “is an infidel himself.” Many leaders who disagreed with Shekau’s position split from the group and created Ansaru in 2012, which evolved to become the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Reacting to Shekau’s radical position on takfir, Abu Mus’ab al-​Barnawi, the leader of ISWAP declares: We will fight for the cause of Allah and work against personalizing jihad and against unjustifiable killings and shedding of blood . . . We want our people to know proper Islam because Allah in the Quran forbids killings without justification. Just like Allah gave us power to kill infidels, there are those he said we shouldn’t kill without reason . . . In the Quran, Allah forbade Muslims from killing one another.

Jihadists have become notorious for their brutality against those they consider infidels, but little is known on their governance style in places that came under their control. Although life under sharia rule may seem atrocious—​with whipping, amputations, and death by stoning—​not all Sahelian Muslims are opposed to the implementation of these punishments. Most important, jihadist governance is not limited to punishment. The jihadists’ ability to provide security, the rule of law, justice, and effective management of public affairs contrasts with decades of states’ failure in these key aspects of governance. Stories that have emerged recently on life under Boko Haram rule describe two extremes: abject violence and chaos outside the caliphate’s boundaries and relative security and prosperity within those boundaries, with an abundance of food and solidarity between members and their families. Hilary Matfess (2017) argues that this polarized environment, characterized by security and prosperity within and violence without, is what motivated many young girls to join Boko Haram and/​or to return willingly to their abductors even after being freed. In central Mali, many “citizens” of the caliphate praise the jihadists’ strong sense of justice and effective administration in comparison with the Malian state’s corrupt and abusive practices. Local communities often seem to support jihadist movements not because of ideology or even effective administration but rather in response to violence committed by government security forces. There is considerable evidence of torture, rape, and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by counterterrorism forces in the region (Human Rights Watch 2012, 2017). Sahelian security forces are ill-​equipped to address jihadist guerrilla warfare where small groups of combatants carry out attacks and then withdraw to the villages and mix with civilian populations. While security forces require intelligence to identify jihadists, local populations, fearful of retaliation from the jihadists, have often not been forthcoming. The security forces have interpreted the unwillingness to denounce jihadists as collusion and as justification for repression, arbitrary imprisonment, and the extrajudicial killing of civilian villagers (Yahaya Ibrahim and Zapata 2018). Furthermore, the security forces’ lack of investigation skills and equipment have made it difficult to produce evidence that might establish the culpability of suspected

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    577 jihadists. Many arrested suspects are eventually freed for lack of evidence. Frustrated by this outcome, the security forces often execute jihadist suspects instead of sending them to the courts.4 As security forces have become more repressive, local communities have viewed them more as enemies than as defenders of their communities. The resentment has resulted in less cooperation and more recruitment to jihadist and other armed militias.

JIHADIST DISCOURSE IN THE SAHEL Jihadism is of course not specific to the Sahel region. It is a global phenomenon. Most jihadist movements share some core ideological beliefs that give them their distinctive character and distinguish them from other non-​jihadist movements. First, Islam is at war with the West—​and its local allies in Muslim societies—​both militarily as in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and culturally through what they view as a relentless effort to “Westernize” Muslim societies. They consider jihad, in the form of armed struggle to defend and protect Islam, as a religious obligation (fard ‘ayn in Arabic) upon all Muslims. Second, modern state institutions and democratic systems of governance are un-​Islamic and must be abolished and replaced with the caliphate system and sharia law, as they interpret it. Third, Muslims can be declared “apostates” or “unbelievers,” if they commit certain sins and, as a result, they can be legitimate targets of violence. Muslim societies’ rulers in particular are considered taghut (infidels) and must be overthrown through violent jihad. These core principles constitute the quintessence of jihadism, a global ideology that has motivated and justified jihadist insurgencies around the world. Sahelian Muslim activists have appropriated this ideology and used it to tap into local grievances. Such “entrepreneurs” have constructed discourses that combine ideological argumentation with local demands and grievances, indeed, using symbols, idioms, and images from the local cultural repertoires. The purpose is to maximize the discourse’s resonance and appeal among local communities. Although the core principles of jihadist ideology remain the same, given that local grievances and cultural repertoires vary from one place to another, the framing of jihadist discourse have also varied accordingly. Iyad Ag Ghaly’s discourses draw both on global jihadist ideology and powerful symbols of Tuareg nationalism. Ansar Dine’s propaganda videos often feature the glorious history of the Azawad region—​which is the mythical land many Tuareg believe to be their historical home—​and evoke the legacy of Tariq Ibn Ziyad (670–​720 CE) and Yusuf Ibn Tashfin (1009–​1106) both historic figures of Muslim conquests of North Africa and present-​day Spain, and believed to be of Berber origins. Boko Haram’s discourse, however, emphasizes the role of Western education in corrupting Islamic values and producing corrupt elites that nothing, not even the implementation of sharia rule since 1999, could moralize. The idea that Western education corrupts Islamic values is well-​engrained in local culture. In places like Zinder, such Hausa idioms as “‘yan boko ‘yan wuta” (Hausa, “Western school students will burn in hell”) were widely used even

578   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim before the jihadist group emerged. Thus, the Boko Haram slogan conveys an idea that is not totally foreign to local populations. In fact, it is a slogan that resonates particularly well with gardawa (sing. gardi in Hausa) or graduates from Islamic schools (in Hausa makarantar allo). Ideology plays a central role in the wave of jihadist insurgency and is the lens through which people view the world, understand their condition, and project their actions. As Strauss (2016, 59) puts it, “Ideology shapes the interpretation of events and the choice of response . . . [It] helps to explain how elites frame threats, in terms of whom they are protecting and whom they are fighting.” Believing in jihadist ideology predisposes an individual or a group to perceive things in and act in certain ways. Both Muhammad Yusuf and Iyad Ag Ghaly are Muslim activists who took ideas seriously. They rationalize their actions through religious argumentation. They rarely refer to social or economic incentives to justify their actions. Poverty and political marginalization appear to be the least of their concerns. The idea that their engagement in jihad might be motivated by ideology is to be taken seriously. However, whether Iyad Ag Ghaly or Muhammad Yusuf are motivated by ideology or social and political incentives is difficult—​and perhaps even impossible—​to determine. In fact, ideological motivation and social and political interests are not necessarily mutually exclusive. While Iyad Ag Ghaly ostensibly fights to advance sharia in northern Mali, he may also very well attempt to advance the interests of his community and consolidate his position as leader within that community. The fact that the Ifoghas have based their political leadership on their social and religious status as noble and sharifian (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) makes Iyad’s jihadist narrative of defending Islam and promoting sharia all the more relevant and legitimate. Jihadist ideology is largely disseminated through printed books and newspapers, but more importantly through preaching propaganda videos published online in social media or circulated via smartphones. Jihadist ideologues have made use of the internet to disseminate their views with numerous websites and social media accounts devoted to jihadist propaganda. The website Minbar al-​tawhid w’al-​jihad constitutes a large online library that makes available thousands of publications by jihadist ideologues worldwide. Not only do Muslim activists in the Sahel have access to such jihadist ideas but there are also Sahelian jihadist ideologues who have made significant contributions to global jihadist literature. Two Mauritanian scholars-​cum-​activists deserve a mention. Muhammad Salim al-​Majlisi is a jihadist ideologue who has published books, papers, and commentaries in Minbar al-​tawhid, as well as in the Mauritanian media. His paper Al-​Islam al-​dimuqrati badil Amriki” (“The Democratic Islam: An American Choice”), published in 2006, is an important contribution to jihadists’ rebuttal of the idea of Islamizing democracy (Al-​Majlisi 2006). Mahfouz Ould Walid (born 1967), a former companion of Osama bin Laden and renowned mufti of al-​Qaeda, continues to be influential within global jihadist circles mostly through commentary in various media. He advocates defensive jihad against what he calls “Western aggression against Islam and Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” though he believes that jihad in Muslim

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    579 lands and against Western civilians is unlawful. He thinks that jihad in Muslim lands should be focused on da’wa (“preaching of Islam”).5 Muhammad Yusuf, the Boko Haram ideologue, published a manifesto titled “Hadhihi aqidatuna wa manhaj da’awatina” (“This is our creed and the method of our da’wa”) in which he clarified and defended his ideology. The jihadist ideology is only a set of idioms of contestations. For these idioms to translate into action there must be an infrastructure for political mobilization. This infrastructure is exogenous to the ideology, and it is found in local social and political contexts.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE LOCAL CONTEXT Ideology is a necessary but not sufficient condition for jihadist insurgency. Jihadist insurgency—​just like other collective actions—​is only possible when there is a context of political opportunity that makes its organization possible and its success likely (Sedgwick 2007). Wald, Silverman, and Fridy (2005, 140) note that for religion to engage in political action “three conditions must be satisfied. Religious groups must come to consider political action as a sacred obligation, draw on various internal resources to prosecute that action, and confront a political environment that may hinder such efforts.” In other words, aside from ideological framing, for jihadist entrepreneurs to act on their ideological beliefs there is a need for material and organizational resources as well as a political environment that is open for insurgency. Not all local social and political environments provide equal opportunity and resources. Paraphrasing Swidler (1986, 277), ideology operates as a toolkit for constructing strategies for action. Just as some tools fit well in certain contexts and are “unfit” in others, certain ideologies are better equipped to perform effectively in certain social and political contexts. The rural periphery in the Sahel provides a fertile environment for jihadist entrepreneurs to move from ideas to action. Most Sahelian jihadist insurgencies have occurred in rural areas and border zones. While jihadist insurgency might start in urban areas or find its origins in “urban malaise,” eventually, for the insurgency to succeed it has to move to the countryside or run the risk of being easily defeated by state forces. Boko Haram originated in Maiduguri, but it was only after jihadists withdrew to rural areas that the insurgency gained momentum and was able to conquer and occupy territories. Around 2008 in Mauritania, Ansarullah al-​ Murabitun fi Bilad al-​Shinguit initiated an urban insurgency in the capital Nouakchott. However, it took government forces only three years to identify the insurgents and crack down on them. By 2011, Ansarullah had been disbanded and its members either killed, imprisoned, or chased outside the country.

580   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim Jihadist groups in the Sahel have exploited state weakness in rural and peripheral areas, particularly places that have previously experienced social and political disorder (Crisis Group 2017). Most rural and peripheral areas are peaceful and stable due to the effectiveness of customary laws, traditional leadership, and norms and mechanisms of conflict resolution. However, the rural periphery in the Sahel is increasingly conflict-​ ridden due to increasing tension over natural resources and rivalry over political leadership. As both human and livestock demographics increase, pressure on natural resources—​land, pasture, and water—​in these areas becomes greater and fuels disputes between pastoralist and agriculturalist communities. The ineffectiveness of state institutions to mediate between parties and resolve disputes prompts communities to take upon themselves the responsibility to do justice for themselves. Second, another conflict mechanism is related to conflict over leadership, particularly within hierarchical societies. Social and political leadership in Sahelian societies is traditionally based on hierarchy and religious legitimacy while modern social and political leadership is increasingly based on popular democratic legitimacy. In the transition from traditional to modern social and political organization there are tensions between dominant lineages who have benefited from the traditional system and lower strata who contest their domination. The recent conflict between the Ifoghas and Imghad, as well as tensions between Fulani elites and pastoralist Fulani in central Mali, are significant manifestations of this transitional crisis. The contexts of the rural periphery provide fertile ground for a successful insurgency for three reasons. First, the rural periphery is replete with the means and resources that jihadist groups can marshal and invest for the success of insurgencies. These include weapons, space for military training, flourishing illicit economies, and lootable resources that provide ample opportunities for jihadist entrepreneurs. Second, the condition of limited statehood in the rural periphery provides an open opportunity for insurgency. The state’s inability to enforce law and order has created an authority vacuum and opened the door to different non-​state actors including jihadists to try to fill the vacuum in using violence. Finally, jihadist ideology provides a compelling narrative that speaks to the grievances of marginalized communities who feel neglected by the state and consider the state an extractive and exploitative force rather than a protector and provider of welfare. Jihadist ideology has greater appeal in areas where groups with different ideologies fight each other, with jihadists easily emerging as a major voice, also providing fighters with a symbolically greater and nobler cause to fight for and allowing for the creation of a larger coalition that bridges tribal, ethnic, and racial cleavages. This has opened the door to foreign jihadists to come and support the different groups, sometimes to the detriment of non-​violent Islamists and conservative Muslims. While ideology and the structure of the local contexts appear to be strong determinants of jihadist entrepreneurs’ decisions to engage in insurgency, the background and motivation of the individuals who join the insurgency appear more diverse and difficult to theorize.

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    581

INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATIONS Jihadist movements in the Sahel have recruited a large number of followers from diverse social and economic backgrounds, both among educated and non-​educated, employed and non-​employed graduates from secular universities and Islamic schools, and school dropouts (MercyCorps 2016). The analysis of the motivation of rank-​and-​ file jihadists are inconclusive. A recent study of jihadist motivation finds that 40 percent of African jihadists mention religious ideas as the driving force behind their engagement in jihadist movements, 13 percent joined for employment opportunities, 10 percent because of friend or family connections, 5 percent for ethnic reasons, and only 1 percent mention political marginalization or social exclusion (UNDP 2017). The diversity of backgrounds and motives has confounded all attempts to identify the profile of a “typical jihadist.” Drawing on recent research on participation in collective political contestations, I argue that participation in jihadist insurgency is a function of four major factors, including the resonance of jihadist discourse, collective identity, network relationships, and material incentives. Religious belief is an important motive in an individual’s decision to join a jihadist movement. Many people participate in collective action because they agree with the message and the cause. The degree of resonance of the collective action frame varies from one individual to another. Jihadist discourse appears to resonate more with adherents of certain religious groups than others. It would be overly simplistic to associate any Islamic theological movement such as Sufism, Salafism, or Tabligh Jama’at with jihadist ideology. Mainstream leaders of all these religious groups have unambiguously distanced themselves from jihadist ideology. In Mali, Tabligh Jama’at is peaceful and apolitical, and its leaders are outspoken critics of jihadist violence. Yet, dozens of individual members of the group were among the first to join the call for jihad in Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu. In northeastern Nigeria, the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’a is a Salafi group that has strongly advocated for the implementation of sharia and lobbied politicians to achieve this goal peacefully. Yet, the Nigerian Taliban initially emerged out of the Ahlus Sunnah, and Muhammad Yusuf started as a preacher within the same Salafi group before his radical position led him out. Mainstream Ahlus Sunnah scholars have criticized Boko Haram’s radical positions and are on the frontline, fighting the movements theologically. Some people participate in jihadist movements not because of ideology but because they belong to communities that pledged allegiance to a jihadist movement. The decision to join a jihadist movement is often made by community leaders who strike an alliance with jihadist groups for the sake of protection against rival communities, and they subsequently encourage their young men to join the movements. Fulani pastoralists in northern and central Mali struck alliances with jihadist movements not because they necessarily advocated their ideology but for the sake of getting military training and weapons to counter the rising influence of their Tuareg rivals (Sangaré

582   Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim 2016). The fact that communities have supported and encouraged youths to join these movements made recruitment attractive. Many youths in northern Mali claim to have joined armed groups out of a sense of duty to, and solidarity with, their community and because they thought fighting on behalf of their community would increase their respectability (MercyCorps 2017). Strong interpersonal linkages such as kinship and friendship ties with leaders or influential members within the group facilitate recruitment and longstanding membership in the group. Network relations have influenced participation by facilitating the circulation of information, creating and reproducing bonds of solidarity, and enforcing social approval through a reward and sanction mechanism. Jihadists have appealed particularly to individuals associated with networks of illicit trafficking and other criminal activity (Crisis Group, 2013). Kinship networks have also played a significant role in determining who joins jihadist movements. Jihadist entrepreneurs are most often successful in recruiting supporters from within their immediate families, clans, and ethnic groups before expanding to other networks. Not only do family and tribal ties facilitate recruitment, but in a context of widespread insecurity family and tribes are also valuable sources of protection against rival communities. Other individuals have joined jihadist movements for financial incentives, including salaries, distribution of booty, or opportunity for young men to marry abducted women or female jihadists at minimal cost (Matfess 2016). A combination of multiple motives increases the chance of an individual’s decision to participate.

CONCLUSION This chapter has provided an overview of recent jihadism in the Sahel, focusing on Boko Haram around the Lake Chad Basin and AQIM and its affiliates in the Sahelo-​Saharan region. It has addressed the interaction and trajectory of these movements starting from their beginning in the early 2000s to the current period and has identified their major characteristics. It has also focused on the role of ideology, the local context in the outbreak of jihadist insurgency as well as the determinant of individuals’ decision to join such movements. Sahelian jihadist entrepreneurs have demonstrated a strong commitment to jihadist ideology. Their discourse is a selective collection of ideas that emanate from a particular hermeneutic of Islamic scriptures. They rationalize their actions through religious argumentation and rarely refer to socioeconomic and political grievances. Both their discourses and actions testify to the fact that they take ideas seriously. This ideological commitment does not diminish the fact that these jihadist entrepreneurs are also political activists who pursue social, political, and economic interests. Whether the decision to launch a jihadist movement is motivated by ideological commitment or other various interests and incentives is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine. The two, however, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. To the contrary, they can be complementary.

Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    583 Regardless of the nature of motivation, jihadist entrepreneurs have found fertile ground in the Sahel where their discourses resonate with local grievances. Here they have found ample opportunities to conduct insurgencies and plenty of resources for mobilizing, ensuring the success of their insurgencies. It is particularly in rural and peripheral areas where the state has a limited presence and little legitimacy and where traditional institutions of kinship and social hierarchy have remained strong and legitimate. Jihadists have attracted thousands of recruits among young Sahelians from diverse social and economic backgrounds, urban dwellers as well as rural inhabitants, educated and non-​educated, who are motivated by a variety of reasons, including religion, social and economic incentives, and community protection.

Notes 1. The GSPC was an Algerian militant group that was initially focused on ending the military regime in Algeria and establishing an Islamic regime, apparently influenced by Osama bin Laden’s call. 2. Interview with a former AQIM recruit, Nouakchott, January 2016. 3. A letter from Abdul Hamid Abu Zayd (1965–​2013), former AQIM commander in Mali to AQIM’s top commander in Algeria demonstrates that the GSPC had trained members of Boko Haram in their camps. The letter was found in bin Laden’s archive. 4. Interview with a former judge based in Mopti, Bamako, July 2017 5. Interview with Mahfouz Ould al-​Walid, Nouakchott, August 2016.

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Jihadist Insurgencies in the Sahel    585 Raineri, Luca, and Francesco Strazzari. 2015. “State, Secession, and Jihad: The Micropolitical Economy of Conflict in Northern Mali.” African Security 8(4): 249–​271. Sambe, Bakary, Djibril Ba, and Col Djibril Ba. 2013. “The Potential Danger of Religious Radicalism in Senegal.” Timbuktu Institute African Center for Security Studies 27 June. Sambe, Bakary. 2015. Boko Haram: Du Problème Nigérian à la Menace Régionale. Montréal: Presse Panafricaine. Sambe, Bakary. 2016. “Dr. Bakary Sambe: Prevention is Vital as West African Countries Battle the Rise of Violent Extremism.” Timbuktu Institute African Center for Security Studies March. Sangaré, Boukary. 2016. “Le Centre du Mali: Épicentre du Djihadisme?” Note d’Analyse du GRIP. Brussels, 20 May. Sedgwick, Mark. 2007. “Jihad, Modernity, and Sectarianism.” Nova Religio 11(2): 6–​27. Shekau, Abubakar. 2016 “Message to the World.” YouTube 3 August, https://​www.youtube.com/​ watch?v=AhYR37fvB-​k. Strauss, Scott. 2016. Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention. Washington DC: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological Review 51(2): 273–​286. Thiam, Adam. 2017. “Centre du Mali: Enjeux et Dangers d’une Crise Négligée.” HD, Centre pour le Dialogue Humanitaire. Thurston, Alexander. 2016. Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thurston, Alexander. 2018. Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wald, Kenneth D., Adam L. Silverman, and Kevin S., Fridy. 2005. “Making Sense of Religion in Political Life.” Annual Review of Political Science 8: 121–​143. Wing, Susanna D. 2013. “Mali’s Precarious Democracy and the Causes of Conflict.” Special Report 331, The United State Institute for Peace, Washington DC. Yahaya Ibrahim, Ibrahim, and Mollie Zapata. 2018. “Regions at Risk: Preventing Mass Atrocities in Mali.” Early Warning Country Report, The United State Holocaust Memorial Museum. Yahaya Ibrahim, Ibrahim. 2014. “Managing the Sahelo-​ Saharan Islamic Insurgency in Mauritania: The Local Stakes of the Sahelian Crisis.” Working Paper No. 003 in paper Series: The Stakes of the Malian Crisis in the Sahel, The Sahel Research Group, Gainesville: University of Florida.

chapter 31

MUSLIM WOMEN’ S S O C IA L MOVEM ENTS IN T H E S A H E L Ousseina Alidou

There is a new diversity of Muslim women’s social movements in the francophone Sahel. In the complex sociopolitical dynamics of the region, movements led by Muslim women pursue both seemingly “secular” as well as “Islamic” goals. As I will argue, the quest by Muslim women activists for gender justice in accordance with new readings of Islam and of state law must be understood at the juncture of economic liberalization, democratic pluralism, and religious transformations. Muslim women’s social movements in the Sahel have often taken the form of secular movements, both feminist and otherwise, and sometimes they have taken the form of Islamic movements. What unites these social movements is that they have all been concerned with similar issues affecting women’s lives in the Sahel in particular, and in Africa more generally, albeit at times from different ideological or strategic positions and subject to different readings of the interplay between Islam, gender, class, and social positioning. Women’s shared interests have included access to state services, social protection, and education (both secular and religious), as well as centrally to the contested issue of family law, which frames various women’s rights, including the right to work outside the home and to earn an income, freedom of movement, the right to own land, and the regulation of divorce, child custody, and alimony. As I will show, there is a wide diversity of leadership and internal dynamics—​and at times tensions—​in these movements, and the inequalities produced by neoliberal globalization sometimes facilitate the rise of intolerant and violent religious movements, frequently glossed as “fundamentalism.” Finally, some women’s rights activists have sought to raise awareness of women’s rights and gender-​related issues through artistic performance in music as well as through novels, film, and other artistic means, at times providing new interpretations of Islam and society and visions of social justice.

588   Ousseina Alidou

WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS, DIVERSE AND PLURAL Much earlier scholarship and international media reports on the Sahel in recent decades has tended to focus on secular “civil society” Muslim women’s social movements—​some led by feminists and some by NGOs dedicated to women’s rights—​whose leaders and members have participated in international and regional women’s rights forums, such as those the UN has sponsored. Many secular feminists and other women’s rights activists advocate for women’s rights through an endorsement of the assumed universal principles of gender equality as articulated in such documents as the UN Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). However, with the advent of democratic pluralism in the 1990s, new Muslim women’s social movements with a religious orientation emerged, and these have also become important voices and actors in debates centered around women’s issues and gender justice. Some of these religiously oriented streams of Muslim women’s activism advocate woman-​centered readings of Islam, and a re-​ examination of historical Islamic exegesis or interpretation as a means for achieving gender justice. In general, post-​1990s Muslim women activists in the Sahel argue that Islam has granted women specific rights, but that these have been undermined through historically patriarchal cultural readings of religion. Instead of endorsing a conception of women’s rights and gender equality independent of religion and advocated by secular Muslim feminists and women’s rights activists, this strand of activists engages directly with religion to attempt to redress what they regard as biased readings of scripture and the Islamic tradition. These new activists have had a significant impact. It is noteworthy that the majority of non-​elite Muslim women in the Sahel, whether involved in Islamic movements or not, readily align themselves with Muslim women activists once given the opportunity to express themselves on gender justice as interpreted within their local Islamic traditions. Some women’s Islamic movements focus primarily on the promotion of girls’ and women’s Islamic knowledge and literacy and, in some cases, Arabic language acquisition, competencies that they see as fundamental to Muslim women’s rights and gender justice within Islam. Others, by contrasts, tend to be focused on piety and rituals of devotion rather than on patriarchy or other hegemonic forces. In this way, women’s piety movements in the Sahel (Augis 2002, 2014; Hill 2014, 2010; Alidou 2016) are similar to women’s mosque movements in the Middle East and Southeast Asia (see Mahmood 2005; van Doorn-​Harder 2006). Muslim women who participate in piety-​focused movements in the Sahel believe that by committing moral, social, and economic labor to uplift themselves on a personal level, they also empower their communities through both labor and acts of

Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel    589 charity. For example, in Senegal, some women Sufi leaders have become foster parents to rural youth migrants in Dakar’s disadvantaged neighborhoods (Hill 2014, 2018). In Niger, Muslim women’s secular and Islamic organizations have provided sanctuary to refugee families, and to orphaned children in particular. Muslim women in Niger argue that religious ethics inform their commitment to adopt refugee children who have been victims of armed conflict in neighboring Mali and Libya or subject to displacement and migration (see Alidou 2016, 2018). Such acts of assuming the role of foster parents or adoptive parents in Muslim societies where legal adoption has until now been largely unacceptable given the predominant understanding of the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence (Guillermet 2009) raise interesting social and legal questions for such women’s groups. Various studies have highlighted Muslim women’s activism to promote women’s economic empowerment in the Sahel. For example, in Senegal, women in the Islamic reformist organization Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane have been involved in religious and economic activities through women’s beauty salons (Augis 2014). In Niger important economic activities and entrepreneurial ventures have been undertaken by the reformist organization known as Izala (the Society for the Removal of Innovation and Reinstatement of Tradition), led by the well-​known Dr Haoua Nargungu (Alidou 2005). Similarly, one of the leading media preachers and head of a Sufi Muslim women’s organization Saida Oumoul Khairy Niasse (known popularly as Mama Kiota) has encouraged women to undertake commercial activities (Robinson 2016). Sufi leaders who are entrepreneurs inside Senegal and abroad frequently use the social capital earned through their piety and networks as a source of empowerment in navigating the commercial streets of Harlem in New York (Hill 2014, 2018). Similarly, the economic activities of migrant Senegalese women Mourides in the United States bring a gendered impact to their contributions to social welfare back in Senegal (Buggenhagen 2013). As these examples suggest, an important feature of Muslim women’s new movements is their transnational character. Given how many national Islamic movements trace their historical roots within Sahel-​Saharan spaces to Saudi Arabian and Iranian rivalry after the Iranian revolution and the Shi’a revival, the case of the Lebanese-​influenced Shi’ism globalized in the Sahel with a feminine brand is particularly striking (Leichtman 2009, 322). Women’s reformist movements—​whether Sunni, Sufi, Wahhabi, or Shi’a in inspiration—​have also been globalized through their leaders’ agency, entrepreneurial acumen, and use of ethics to extend social networks throughout the world (Alidou 2005; Leichtman 2009; Augis 2014; Gomez-​Perez 2016; Hill 2018). As modern cosmopolitan agents, transnational Sahelian Muslim women leaders and members of these movements are contributing to global, national, and transnational religious industries whose revenues include remittances, which often help local communities to manage without the state’s provisioning of basic public goods and services.

590   Ousseina Alidou

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MUSLIM WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS Access to formal education in European languages has led to social mobility and exposure to types of political mobilization shaped within Western epistemological traditions, which elite African women have acquired, internalized, transformed, and adapted to local circumstances. Given such an educational trajectory, secular African feminists and women’s rights activists have also transformed global feminism through their own political philosophies and activist praxis. Muslim feminists and secular women’s rights organizations have also made their mark in local and global dialogues at both the national and the international levels—​including in UN Women (the UN entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women), the International Criminal Court, and such organizations as Women Living Under Muslim Laws (MLUML) in London. Scholar-​activists from the Sahel continue to contribute to the global women’s movements in addressing local and global gender issues and advocating for women’s rights and legal reforms. A number of secular Muslim feminists from the region are among the global feminists who have contributed to important critiques of the gendered implications of neoliberal economic globalization (Traoré 1999; Fall 2001; Sow 2003; Alidou 2005; Runyan and Peterson 2016, 193). Indeed, these feminists have warned against the increased feminization of poverty engendered by neoliberal globalization because it has gendered states’ abilities to provide basic public services— clean water and health, negative structuring of African education, gendered mass labor migrations—​which produce conditions that make building and sustaining democratic culture vulnerable. For example, this is why Senegalese sociologist Fatou Sow has poignantly questioned human rights advocacy efforts of the global North since they fall short in addressing the inequalities produced by neoliberal globalization. Moreover, she adds: Women experience globalization daily when they go in search of water . . . or when they busy themselves in thousands of other ways to fulfill the needs of their families. These are needs that men are no longer able to meet, or needs arising from the cutting of state provision for education or health services, under the constraints of structural adjustment policies. It is primarily women who pay the actual costs of the privatization of the economy. All these factors have favored the emergence of fundamentalist movements, in environments where religion is an integral part of culture (Sow 2003)

A significant highlight of Sow’s statement is that while international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF endorse democratization in Africa, they do so more to promote their own economic agenda, which produces vulnerabilities with women paying a higher price. Arguably, neoliberal globalization does not meet the aspirations of many people in the Sahel for a new democratic social order that would promote social justice platforms aiming to eliminate all forms of social and economic inequalities, with

Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel    591 their gendered implications. By weakening the ability of states to provide social protection to their citizens, or education and employment to their youth, the democratic pluralism that emerged in the Sahel in the 1990s has sometimes facilitated other forms of social, political, and economic harm, including the increased militarization of societies through legitimate or illegitimate armies, religious fundamentalism, and mass labor migration with severe gendered consequences. Neoliberal globalization has also impacted the principle of laïcité (secularism) in the Sahel by inadvertently creating conditions for the proliferation of religious education that is more affordable for the majority of impoverished populations than secular education. It has promoted policies that have undermined the gains of government-​ sponsored secular education systems, however imbalanced in terms, achieved by post-​ independence states in their efforts to promote compulsory education for all. Many studies have shown that structural adjustment programs negatively affected girls’ education and women’s employment. In Niger, scholars have looked at the interplay between neoliberal globalization, gender, and education while accounting for the emergence of alternative private modern Islamic schools focusing on Arabic and Islamic studies through Middle Eastern financial support (Alidou 2005; Hadari 2002, 2005; Robinson 2005, 2016; Sounaye 2016; Villalón and Bodian Chapter 36 in this volume). Numerous studies have examined similar processes of the feminization of Islamic education in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal (Ware 2014; Mbow 2009; André and Demonsant 2009; Augis 2002, 2014; Hill 2018; Schulz 2011; Gomez-​Perez 2016; LeBlanc 2014). Some of these studies further highlight how Muslim women use these new feminized spaces of Islamic education to develop self-​empowering Islamic social and economic networks (Alidou 2005; Augis 2014; Hill 2014; Schulz 2011). Thus, these Muslim women educators and activists transform the religious landscape and the political economy of religion and education by promoting Arabic and Islamic literacy alongside vocational training to respond to the crisis of secular education, which the majority of impoverished populations often cannot afford. In addition, the increased numbers of unemployed educated youth from mainstream secular education further convinces them of the merit of their alternative choices for religious education, especially for girls and women. As noted earlier, inequalities produced by neoliberal globalization have facilitated the rise of certain intolerant and violent religious movements (“fundamentalism”), which have flourished in jihadi movements in the region (see Yahaya Ibrahim Chapter 30 in this volume). Such movements have undermined the security of the Sahelian states and have led to population displacement and migration in regions where human trafficking and drug trafficking have also been long entrenched. The various armed Islamic movements in the region have used gender-​based violence as weapons of war; the tragedy of Boko Haram’s abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria and massive population displacement in neighboring Niger, Chad, and northern Cameroon underline the heavy price paid by girls and women in these situations.

592   Ousseina Alidou In contrast to such violent movements operating in the Sahel, the Islamic reformist movements and groups to which most Sahelian Muslim women belong embrace Islam as the space through which they can create alternative and empowering spiritual and developmental paradigms. Their quest for gender justice in accordance with their new readings of Islam and state law must be understood within this conjuncture of economic liberalization, democratic pluralism, and religious transformations. Unlike secular Muslim feminists who articulate their advocacy for women’s rights and gender equality within a liberal human rights framework, Muslim women activists seek justice for women through Islamic notions of gender entitlement that they nevertheless argue should be protected by the secular state. This difference in legal ideologies in the pursuit of justice and rights for women as articulated by feminists and Muslim women activists have to contend with the secular patriarchal state’s governmentality that frequently seeks the support of male-​dominated religious associations. Whether secular or Islamic, both Muslim women’s reformist movements engage in what can be called patriarchal bargaining (Kandiyoti 2005; Alidou 2005; Kang 2015) through various strategies to achieve their goals. The struggles over the reform of family codes in the democratic era in various Sahelian countries illustrate this dynamic well (Soares 2006; Villalón 1996). Moreover, Muslim women enact different forms of autonomy and agency in the roles they play in both secular and Islamic movements. There has been a wide range of Muslim women’s articulations of consciousness within 1990s democratization processes, and new religious landscapes that clearly challenge claims that Muslim women’s activism does not produce female autonomous agentive leadership because of the male-​dominated and hierarchical structure of religious associations (Sow 2003, 70–​ 71; Bop 2005). In contrast to widespread popular views of Muslim women as lacking in agency, numerous studies show the workings of female agency and leadership within Islamic activism. Furthermore, these studies examine how Muslim women activists construct their autonomous space of leadership and actions within male-​dominated Islamic movements.

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP, EDUCATION, AND THE NEW ISLAMIC ACTIVISM Saba Mahmood’s influential concept of female agency within Islamic pious paradigms (2005) can be usefully applied to the Sahel. Throughout the Sahel, female Muslim religious authorities reveal their agency by creating autonomous female spaces where women can develop competency in Islamic knowledge as well as feminine self-​ empowering and community-​ empowering networks. These sometimes challenge secular feminist contentions that patriarchal and hierarchal gendered ideologies inherent in Islamic organization of all orders hinder any possibility for women’s empowering self-​realization as agentive autonomous subjects (Sow 2003; Bop 2005).

Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel    593 One of the important dimensions of democratization processes in the French-​ speaking Sahel in the 1990s was the public visibility of Muslim women’s leadership and activism for the promotion of Arabic language and mass Islamic education. These programs targeted girls and senior women who hitherto either had only basic knowledge of some Quranic verses—​necessary for the carrying out of ritual duties such as regular daily prayer—​or none whatsoever. This feminization of the Islamic public sphere and the rise of new educated Muslim women activists—​in either the Quranic tradition or Islamic studies in both French and Arabic—​has presented a new challenge to secular elite feminists and women’s rights activists more generally. This newer Muslim women’s movement is in line with a global movement toward the feminization of religious authority, the rise of Arabic literacy, and Islamic social activism observed elsewhere in the Muslim world. Muslim women’s reformism reveals a diversity of leadership and internal dynamism and tensions. Wahhabi and Salafi movements—​which a significant share of youth throughout the Sahel has embraced as a form of contesting “traditional” forms of local, often Sufi, leadership—​also has a female constituency, operating through Islamic educational and social activism with their specific ideological visions. Studies focusing on Niger, for example, illustrate the breadth and diversity of Muslim women’s leadership in promoting women’s literacy in Arabic and agency in Islamic studies in major cities, towns, and rural areas (Alidou 2005; Hadari 2005; Idrissa 2005; Kang 2015; Sounaye 2009, 2016; Robinson 2016). These studies have highlighted the importance of female Muslim religious authorities in Niger, including the late Malama Aishhatu Dancandu, Oumoul Khairy Niasse and her daughter Malama Zaharaou of Kiota, and Malama Houdou, to name only a few who belong to both Sufi and the new Islamist trends. The latter have made girls’ and women’s Islamic literacy one of the key areas of reforming modern Islamic education, focusing in particular on the rejection of what they consider unlawful innovation (bid’a). In Senegal, female Sufi leaders tied to the country’s various Sufi orders—​the different branches of the Tijaniyya, as well as the Qadiriyya, and the Mouride order—​have been central to the propagation of Islamic knowledge (Mbow 1997; Rosander 1997; Gemmeke 2009; Hill 2010, 2018). These women Sufi leaders operate within the same public sphere as female religious authorities from the reformist organization Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane, active on university campuses (Augis 2005). In all the Sahelian countries women preachers have also played a significant role in the promotion of female Islamic education (Gomez-​Perez 2016; Schulz 2011; Soares 2016; LeBlanc 2014). In Mali, Muslim women: have organized themselves into neighborhood-​based ‘learning groups’ (singular, kalaniton), a label that, similar to their reference to group members as ‘disciples’ (singular, kalaniden), indicates that they single out learning (‘kalan’) as the main objective of their gatherings. Also implied in these terms is an intellectualist definition of learning: learning as the capacity to read and write . . . Muslim women’s groups are much more than that. In their combination of educational, moral, and social motivations, the groups are clearly inspired by a broader, transnational

594   Ousseina Alidou da’wa movement that aims to reform the moral and the social simultaneously. (Schulz 2011, 99)

In Burkina Faso female Muslim preachers of Mouvement Sunnite (Sunni Movement) and Al Itihad al Islami (the Islamic Union) have agentive leadership roles, propagating Islamic knowledge within both domestic spaces of women’s neighborhood associations and through public spaces using modern electronic media. As Muriel Gomez-​Perez has noted: female preachers have claimed a new role for women within Islam through a better knowledge and understanding of Islamic texts. In doing so these women drew on modernist speeches made by men used in the media and aligned themselves with internal movements with the aim of claiming a new social identity for their sisters in Islam establishing greater equality between men and women in the religion and finding a way of being a good mother and woman while maintaining an independent social position. In fact, these female preachers sought to spark a quiet yet real social revolution in religion by casting a critical and modernist eye on local cultural traditions and Islamic identity. (Gomez-​Perez 2016, 45)

Muslim women preachers in Burkina Faso, who may or may not have kinship ties to male Muslim clerics, autonomously use their agency “to challenge the status quo, even when faced with coercion” (Gomez-​Perez 2016, 47). This Muslim women’s educational activism led by female Muslim preachers in the era of political democratization in Burkina Faso has also attracted mainstream French-​ educated Muslim women in ways similar to other Sahelian countries (LeBlanc 2014; Augis 2005; Alidou 2005; Sounaye 2011, 2016; Robinshon 2005, 2016; Schulz 2010a, 2010b; Hill 2010, 2018). “Women educated in French-​language institutions (‘the white man’s schools’) and who pursue the studies necessary to become civil servants . . . have begun to re-​read Islamic texts with an eye to exposing the principle of gender equality and to fight against masculine interpretations of Islam” (Saint-​Lary 2016, quoted in Gomez-​Perez 2016, 47). However, Arabic is not the only language through which Muslim women study Islam; they also use French-​language translations of the Quran to advance their Islamic knowledge and educate other women in places such as Niger (see Sounaye 2016).

MUSLIM WOMEN’S ACTIVISM AND FAMILY LAW One of the striking acts of dissidence within the post-​1990s democratization processes in the Sahel was Muslim women’s rise as political actors to challenge their exclusion and to inscribe themselves as agents of change both within secularist political formations and within religiously based organizations. Throughout the region, there were also heated debates and struggles over the so-​called “family code” or family law.

Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel    595 During the struggle for democratization in Niger, a secular state that operates with a religious ethos, Nigerien women publicly protested to demand their recognition as leaders along with their male counterparts in preparing for the Sovereign National Conference, which opened on 29 July 1991. Women’s social mobilization demanding inclusion in the Sovereign National Conference in Niger was highly significant: The first victory was won on May 13, 1991 by the feminist camp with thousands of women . . . The women stormed into the building and demanded representation at the all-​male conference, upon which five seats were granted to women. The day of 13 May subsequently became the Nigerien Woman’s Day and a national holiday, but the more immediate reward was the establishment by the National Conference of a committee in charge of preparing and adopting the Family Code. (Idrissa and Decalo 2012, 468)

At the same time, patriarchal structures worked to undermine the call for gender equality promoted by the adoption of a more progressive family code. There were also major tensions, which appeared in the class disparity between the minority elite of formally educated women supported by international networks versus the majority of unlettered rural female constituents whose struggles lie in quotidian survivals (Idrissa and Delcalo 2012, 468). Nigerien feminists subsequently proceeded to mobilize for national adoption of the family code through the leadership of the Association of Nigerien Women Jurists (AFJN) and the Association of Nigerien Women’s Non-​Governmental Organizations (CONGANFEN). The religious challenges to the family code proved to be an important foreshadowing of the ambiguous standing of Niger’s official laïcité or secularism (see Villalón and Idrissa 2005; Sounaye 2009). Even after the ratification of portions of the family code, and as a compromise with the religious bodies, the state did not legally adopt it beyond its symbolic endorsement in front of television cameras to reduce pressure from international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF (Villalón 1996, 2005; Alidou 2005; Souley 2005; Sounaye 2005; Idrissa and Delcalo 2012). Those associated with both “traditionalist” Sufi orders and the new revivalist movements rejected the terms of the family code as contravening both the Islamic tradition and Nigerien practice (Alidou 2005, 166; Sounaye 2005; Alidou and Alidou 2008). In spite of the secular state’s failure to endorse their rights-​based agenda or Islamist opposition, Nigerien feminists nonetheless recorded some important gains. These included the adoption of the May 2000 Quota Law on appointments and elective offices, which resulted in an increase in the number of women in executive leadership in public service. In 2011 there were fifteen women appointed among 113 members of parliament, in sharp contrast to 1999, before the adoption of the Quota Act, when only one woman figured among eighty-​three members. At the same time, women’s representation in the government rose from 8 percent in 1999 to 25 percent in 2011. Some observers partially credit women’s agency in mobilizing through several communicative avenues—​ the media (radio and television), discursive practices of workshops, artists’ activism, monitoring and shaming, and engaging with the international community and

596   Ousseina Alidou donors—​as factors in the success of the adoption of the gender quota law in Niger (Kang 2013). In fact, Niger is one of the first democratic African nations to implement a gender provision in appointments and electoral politics (Kang 2013, 98). Moreover, the diversity of ministerial cabinet posts held by women, including agriculture, labor, commerce, and foreign affairs, has been a dramatic change from the one portfolio, the Ministry of Women and Family Welfare, historically held by a woman. Niger is not, however, an exception with regard to opposition to secularist women’s advocacy for the adoption of an egalitarian family code similar to the Tunisian model of a reformed family code within a predominantly Muslim country. Indeed, laïcité in the Sahel remains ambiguous, whether in Niger and Mali—​two countries that have experienced military dictatorship—​or in Senegal with its history of uninterrupted civilian rule (Villalón 2010). As in its neighbors, the greater political opening in Senegal in the 1990s saw Islamists openly contest the much weaker family code that had been adopted post-​independence in 1972 and that, in any case, most Senegalese Muslims had come to accept (Brossier 2004; Villalón 2010). There have been similar debates about the family code in Mali, where opposition to reform comes within a context of legal pluralism where the majority of Malian Muslims use “customary” law and Islamic jurisprudence predominantly to mediate social and marital praxis (Soares 2009). Two consecutive Malian heads of state attempted to court Western international institutions through such proposed reforms (Soares 2009; cf. Schulz 2006). Furthermore, elite liberal proponents of the family code failed to consider the Malian majority’s protest against the existing code, which fails to recognize religious marriage and, as a result, undermines the rights of wives and mothers without registered civil marriages. With the support of Muslim women’s associations, prominent leaders of Malian religious associations proposed the adoption of a Muslim marriage certificate, which would have responded to their needs, but the idea of religious marriage certificates was rejected by the government (Soares 2009). Sahelian Muslim feminist movements have also experienced opposition and criticism for class elitism from fellow women who are adherents of religious movements, both Sufi orders as well as those who espouse Islamic reformism, and even from other secular Muslim women who want to promote Islamic jurisprudential norms for Muslim personal law. The new Muslim women’s movements of both Sufi and Islamic reformist groups in the region include members who are highly educated in Islamic studies and in Arabic. They present a challenge to the classism characterizing secular Muslim women elites. This is substantiated by the wide range of Muslim women’s responses to the heated national debates, on the constitutional adoption of the family code in various countries (Soares 2009; Dunbar 1991, 2002, 24–​27; Reynolds 1997, 125–​127; Alidou and Alidou 2008, 34). As Dunbar points out about Niger: In 1992, six Muslim women’s organizations publicly opposed the Family Code. The Union des Femmes Musulmanes demonstrated its willingness to ally with secular organizations and government’s ministries to support the rights of women, although its leaders stopped short of advocating the Family Code. In July 1995, the Association

Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel    597 of Muslim women of Niger petitioned the government to begin teaching Islam in the public schools . . . The organizers of the 1996 conference on women’s rights and responsibilities in Islam demonstrated an interesting shift in strategy that perhaps anticipated future developments in language, discourse, and organizational styles. Speakers at the conference appeared in conservative Muslim dress and spoke in African languages about sensitive issues facing Muslim women. Both choice of dress and language defused the capacity of opponents to levy charges of Westernization against them and open up debates on issues of family law within the context of Islam itself. In these debates, some women emphasized that women have important rights under Muslim law (and therefore don’t need a Family Code), but say that they are being denied them by current interpretations. Others argue that the reason the Family Code is needed is because of this denial (Dunbar 2002, 26–​7).

In Mali, some Muslim women belonging to religious associations were present to support the public protest of male Islamic religious authorities against the proposed reform of the 1962 Family Code (Soares 2009, 424). In Senegal, the severe economic impact of neoliberalism, which promotes the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and a culture of consumerism and materialism, which the majority cannot sustain, has called into question secularist governmentality and its model of family life that the family code would purport to protect (Buggenhagen 2012). Muslim women activists also bargain with patriarchy to articulate their own vision of women’s rights within their own readings of Islam and cultural ethics of gender justice. By so doing they promote new conceptions of the “good Muslim wife,” “good Muslim husband,” and “good Muslim parents” (Gomez-​Perez 2016, 53–​56). This appeal to “Muslim goodness” within an Islamic ethical and cultural framework builds on an understanding of what is fair and just within everyday local and/​or globalized cultural praxis of Islam in the Sahel, where most citizens do not abide by secular state laws as represented by the family code even though they might suffer its consequences. Through female religious circles or “daaira” in Senegal, Muslim women creatively apply their own understanding of Islamic ethics of gender justice to endorse the reform of the family code. They achieve this by providing a new ethical language that respects both their Islamic and their cultural understanding of women’s conjugal rights as ethical entitlement within society (Sieveking 2007). They voice their grievances within an ethical principle compatible with Islam and local cultures that effectively draws the support of male religious authorities who acknowledge women’s new roles within the family, roles engendered by prolonged male labor migration, which leaves women to bear the social and economic responsibilities of the family in the absence of their husbands and the fathers of their children. By advocating a change of language from “paternal” authority to “parental” authority Muslim daaira activists in Senegal successfully engaged in patriarchal bargaining for their rights within both Islamic and secular patriarchal structures. Imam Hassane Cissé, a leader of the Tijaniyya Sufi order in Kaolack, insightfully commented: The whole society must join this movement which consists in reinstituting the working women’s rights. This is a disposition from which the whole society will

598   Ousseina Alidou profit. In Islam, the woman has to have the same legal rights as men. The responsibility has to be executed by both parents to the benefit of the child and the woman has the right to aspire to a social coverage by the state (quoted in Sieveking 2007, 42).

ACTIVISM THROUGH MEDIA, ART, AND PERFORMANCE It is also instructive to consider some of the new methods, styles, and techniques Muslim women activists have been using to promote their messages. In recent years, some young Muslim women in the Sahel have been actively using the media, art, film, and performance to denounce the structural violence and injustices they are facing in their societies. Young Muslim women artists such as Senegalese diasporic writer Fatou Diome addresses such injustices in her novel, The Belly of the Atlantic. Fatoumata Diawara, the Malian cosmopolitan singer, has used her musical activism to rally musicians to call for peace in Mali in the face of Islamist and jihadist violence in Mali. Mali-​ko as a peacebuilding song of communal dialogue and solidarity is an illustration of an aesthetics and ethics of peace (Skinner 2015) to which Sahelian Muslim artists are contributing. Through an ethical stand, Diawara sings Clandestin (clandestine) about the plight of African refugee youths in search of better livelihoods stranded on global shores. A number of her songs, such as Boloko, advocate against gender-​based violence. Young Sahelian Muslim female artists have also been mobilizing in support of Nigerian women’s #bringbackourgirls movement against the violent abduction by Boko Haram of the Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria. Sahelian hip-​hop artists commonly address issues such as the importance of social justice, fighting corruption, dealing with high youth unemployment rates, and rallying youth including young Muslim women to demand democratic social change. Rap songs sometimes employ an Islamic ethos to assert Muslim identity and demonstrate authoritative knowledge of Islam that the artists deploy to inscribe social commentary into their artistic narratives. Some of these artists effectively and peacefully confront religious intolerance through their lyrics and performance. In Niger, hip-​hop artist Safiya Imanani and her band Kaidan Gaskia 2 meld Islamic spirituality and social justice in their music. In the lyrics to their song Allahu Akbar (God is Great) they use Islam as a framework through which they denounce corruption, political nepotism, and sectarianism, which, they warn, might lead to violent conflicts as witnessed in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Iraq. Another song M. Le Directeur (Mr Director) talks about the scourge of youth unemployment and exploitation. Her solo jazz piece entitled Assallatu (Prayer) is an Islamic meditative performance that is similar to Senegal female rap artists who also invoke Islam in their music (see Niang 2010, 2013). Film provides another medium for Sahelian Muslim women’s social activism. Young Nigerien Muslim female filmmakers such as Kidy Aicha Macky have been using the art

Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel    599 of film to interrogate what is and is not Islamic in tackling issues related to gender, sexuality, and reproductive health from an Islamic perspective. Macky produced a world-​ acclaimed documentary film entitled L’Arbre sans fruit (The Fruitless Tree) (2016), in Hausa with French and English subtitles, that puts Islam, patriarchal cultural ideology, and male infertility into the conversation in a society where the female partner is ordinarily blamed for a couple’s misfortune of childlessness. The young Malian filmmaker Hawwa Aliou N’diaye also offers a powerful social text through her film Les Mains d’or de Samba (The Golden Hands of Samba), presented at the 2017 FESPACO, the biennial Panafrican film and television festival held in Ouagadougou. The film depicts the heroic act of a young girl, Noury, who saves a young male beggar under the foster care of a harsh Quran schoolteacher. The boy, who is gifted with healing powers, reciprocates the gesture by healing Noury from sickle cell anemia. N’diaye’s film exposes the predatory relationship characterizing some Quran schools while also dismantling patriarchal ideologies that promote gender hierarchy. The film also identifies the endangerment of underage children who can be indoctrinated with intolerance and violent militancy. The work of these young Muslim women film and documentary makers and other artists underscores the ways in female media artists can mobilize religious reference and themes in support of civic engagement and peacebuilding in the Sahel.

CONCLUSION In recent years Muslim women in the Sahel have been developing a diversity of social movements within both secular and religious frameworks, with the goals of advancing women’s rights and gender justice. Feminist Muslim women in the Sahel are credited for playing crucial roles in social movements that resulted in the restoration of a democratic system of governance. As numerous case studies from the different francophone countries of the Sahel show, democratization in the 1990s helped to open the doors for the emergence of new groups of religiously inspired Muslim women activists alongside secularist feminists and advocates of women’s rights. This new diversity in Muslim women’s activism in the Sahel that takes into consideration the religious perspectives and objectives of Muslim women has helped to reframe debates about Islam, family law, and women’s rights in countries where officially secular states frequently in fact operate within a religious ethos. The emergence of Muslim female authorities, including graduates of Islamic centers of learning, and the proliferation of female Islamic sermons in mass media, has transformed the public sphere through the promotion of both traditional and modern Islamic education to women. In addition, there are new forms of agency and ethical self-​formation of female Muslim religious leaders who use devotional piety as a source of self-​empowerment and a space for the development of Muslim female entrepreneurship and charity work in the face of the austerity engendered by neoliberalism. Twenty-​first century Muslim female hip-​hop activists and other artists in the Sahel mobilize new information and communication technologies, visual arts such

600   Ousseina Alidou as cinema and documentary filmmaking, and the performing arts, along with other mobilization strategies, to offer their own readings of Islam and society promoting alternative visions of social justice and of a democratic and inclusive social order.

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chapter 32

NEGOTIATING SE C U L A RI SM IN THE SA H E L Alexander Thurston

French-​style secularism or laïcité is part of the constitutional order and the elite political culture in most of the Sahel. Yet in this region, laïcité—​sometimes defined as the effort to protect the state from religion, as opposed to the American style of protecting religion from the state—​does not entail complete aloofness on the part of the state. Rather, Sahelian laïcité has tended to involve: (i) state regulation of religion; (ii) strategic partnerships between politicians and religious leaders; and (iii) recurring renegotiation of the role that religious ideas and actors will play in political culture, elections, and policymaking. Sahelian laïcité covers a range of configurations that have varied both geographically and chronologically. The region has one explicit exception to the laïc model: the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. This case, however, is less an exception to the Sahelian model of laïcité than one might assume.

SAHELIAN MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LEADERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD LAÏCITÉ There are prominent voices in the Sahel who argue that religion—​and especially Islam—​should have a greater political role in majority-​Muslim societies. The Sahel as a whole is largely Muslim, as are the individual countries in the region. Demographic estimates suggest that Mauritania is virtually 100 percent Muslim, while the proportions of Muslims in other countries in the regions are as follows: Niger, 99 percent; Senegal, 96 percent; Mali, 95 percent; Burkina Faso, 61.5 percent; and Chad, 52 percent (Central Intelligence Agency 2018). The Muslim majorities of Sahelian countries, however, are far from homogeneous. Minority currents, such as Shi’ism, are increasingly visible (Leichtman 2015), and

606   Alexander Thurston there are multiple ways of being Muslim (Otayek and Soares 2007; see also Soares Chapter 29 in this volume). Different Muslim leaders and constituencies have shifting and variable relationships with states and politicians, relationships affected by both state policy and internal group dynamics (Gomez-​Perez 2017). The political behaviors of Muslim actors—​like other religious actors—​can be shaped by ideology and religiosity, but also by perceived self-​interest, a dynamic that extends to actors’ positions on questions pertaining to laïcité (Villalón 2015). From the colonial period, partnerships have developed between Sahelian states and particular constituencies, especially Sufi orders; some of these relationships are reflected in official government bodies and councils, often dominated by Sufis and other traditionalists, that are charged with (i) regulating Islam in a given country and/​or (ii) serving as intermediaries between states and Muslim communities. Today, these bodies include Mali’s High Islamic Council, Niger’s Islamic Council, and Chad’s High Council of Islamic Affairs. The mandates of such bodies include setting holiday dates, regulating preaching and mosque construction, and promoting Muslim unity at the national level (Brenner 2001; Elischer 2015, 2019). Sahelian political authorities have tended to view these institutions as complementing rather than undermining laïcité, and the councils—​with the exception of Mali—​have frequently been vehicles for containing Salafism and attempting to maintain the religious status quo, especially in terms of the contours of laïcité. Indeed, as Fabienne Samson has written concerning Senegal and Burkina Faso, “the State, constitutionally laïc, uses this Islamic diversity and competition in accordance with its own interests in order to entrench its authority and control the competing actors” (2013, 1). If laïcité has an opposite in the Sahelian context, it might be intégrisme, a notion that originated in reference to French Catholics who defended conservative church teachings in the twentieth century. In the Sahel, intégrisme tends to refer to Muslim activist movements, especially Salafism, which is often dismissed as “Wahhabisme” by its Sahelian opponents. One reason for the prominence of Salafis in Sahelian intégrisme is that most of the Sahel, except Mauritania (Jourde 2009; Ould Ahmed Salem 2013; Thurston 2012), lacks formalized, mass-​based Islamist movements in the mold of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, explicitly religious political parties are constitutionally banned in all the Sahelian countries except Mauritania. In addition, Sahelian political organizations that might be termed Islamist are often small and/​or short-​lived. Beyond the Salafis, however, the label intégriste can also be used as an epithet against anyone demanding further Islamization of politics and policymaking. At the same time, as Otayek and Soares have pointed out, “African Muslims cannot be reduced to a simple dichotomy” between Salafis and Sufis (2007, 7; see also Seesemann Chapter 28 in this volume), including in terms of their relationships to laïcité. Not only are there forms of Muslim identity that do not fit neatly into either category, but Salafis, Sufis, Islamists, and other activists have all borrowed liberally from one another’s repertoires. Thus, Senegalese Sufism’s “dominant forms and manifestations are adapting in ways that have blurred, if not completely erased, the distinction between ‘traditional’ Sufi and Islamist groups” (Villalón 2004, 62).

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    607

DEFENDERS OF LAÏCITÉ The foremost explicit and implicit defenders of Sahelian laïcité include politicians and intellectuals who might be labeled “francophone.” The archetype of the Sahelian politician is a French-​educated career politician with a professional background as a technocrat. As a shorthand, I refer to such figures as francophone not merely to indicate their French language fluency, but more importantly to underscore the continued influence of the former metropole on their worldviews. This archetype has dominated the region’s politics since the 1940s and even earlier in some cases. There has been substantial continuity in terms of politicians’ professional backgrounds throughout what might be considered the three broad phases of post-​independence Sahelian politics: (1) one-​party civilian rule from 1960 to the late 1960s in some countries and the mid-​1970s in others, (2) military dictatorships until the 1990s, and (3) multi-​party civilian systems (genuinely competitive in some countries and a mere veneer over authoritarianism in other countries) since the 1990s. The lasting archetype of the Sahelian politician reflects the legacy of French colonialism and World War II-​era political party and labor union formation in the region, processes that brought well-​educated, elite, technocratic figures to the fore. Another early influence on secular political culture in the Sahel was African socialism, the political orientation of major independence-​era politicians such as Senegal’s first president Léopold Senghor (1906–​2001, in office 1960–​1980) and Mali’s first president, Modibo Keïta (1915–​1977, in office 1960–​1968). These politicians did not view socialism as anti-​ religious or as irreligious, and figures such as Senghor cultivated crucial relationships with religious leaders, but their policies, ideologies, and rhetoric tended to presume interaction—​rather than interpenetration—​between the state and the religious sphere (Villalón 1995, 81–​82). It is worth noting that even in the case of the Mauritanian exception, the country’s first president, Moktar Ould Daddah (1924–​2003, in office 1960–​1978) fit the model of the French-​educated professional with a developmentalist political agenda. Even the professional soldiers who overthrew the independence-​era civilian heads of state in many Sahelian countries tended to share something of this francophone background and outlook. Military dictators such as Mali’s Moussa Traoré (born 1936, in office 1968–​1991) and Niger’s Seyni Kountché (1931–​1987, in office 1974–​1987) began their military service under colonial rule and received training at military academies in France. These dictators also relied significantly on political and material support from France, even as they attempted to domesticate movements calling for increased Islamization of society and as the influence of Arab Gulf countries rose in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, with the turn to genuine multipartyism in some countries and nominal multipartyism in other countries, professional civilian politicians or highly adaptable soldiers have typically dominated the scene. As a snapshot of the continued dominance of the archetype of the francophone politician, consider the educational and

608   Alexander Thurston professional backgrounds of the region’s heads of state in late 2019: the career civilians (Senegal’s Macky Sall, Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Niger’s Mahamadou Issoufou, and Burkina Faso’s Roch Marc Kaboré) were all former technocrats turned professional politicians; each of them served as prime minister in the 1990s or early 2000s, and had earlier careers in sectors such as engineering and banking. Meanwhile, both of the soldiers-​turned-​civilians (Mauritania’s Mohamed Ould Ghazouani and Chad’s Idriss Déby) were one-​time right-​hand men for military predecessors. There is substantial continuity in terms of who makes up the political scene. Nearly all of these figures, moreover, received some type of extended education or training in France. The formal political opposition in Sahelian countries also largely conforms to the political archetype. When one looks to the main challengers in presidential elections, they are largely indistinguishable from incumbents in terms of educational background and professional resumés. There is also substantial continuity in Sahelian politics, with incumbents almost always winning re-​election and with major opposition candidates running again and again (or moving in and out of alliances with incumbents). Figures such as Ahmed Ould Daddah, Idrissa Seck, Soumaïla Cissé, or Hama Amadou may or may not offer different visions and paths for their countries in comparison with incumbents, but they come from the same basic mold. Meanwhile, it is rare to see Muslim scholars and activists competing in elections, and their forays into the electoral arena typically yield little. For example, the Senegalese cleric Kara Mbacké’s Parti de la Vérité pour le Développement earned only two seats in the 2012 legislative elections and just one seat in the 2017 elections. Buttressing the secular strand of political culture in the Sahel are defenders of laïcité among the region’s educated elites and intellectuals. Although the Sahel has become infamous in recent years for instability and violence, it is worth recalling that the region boasts numerous prominent philosophers, academicians, journalists, novelists, filmmakers, musicians, and artists. By no means have all of these voices been secularists—​some, indeed, have been proponents of Islamization, such as the Senegalese media mogul Sidi Lamine Niasse (1950–​2018), and universities (as well as, interestingly, the diplomatic corps) can be career vehicles for a selected stratum of arabophone activist Muslim intellectuals. Yet many of the region’s intellectuals are culturally francophone and are skeptical of politicians’ explicitly religious gestures. For example, when newly elected president Abdoulaye Wade was photographed in a very public genuflection before the head of the Mouride Sufi order in 2000, philosophy professor Ousseynou Kane published a much-​discussed editorial in the independent newspaper Wal Fadjri (8 May 2001) entitled “La République Couchée” (“The Republic Lying Down”) criticizing the gesture (Villalón 2015). Through their roles in political culture and public life, intellectuals can attempt to act as referees for laïcité. In the Sahel, many politicians today are adept at what we could call “cultural code-​ switching”: one might see President Macky Sall of Senegal or Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger in a business suit in one appearance, but wearing a traditional boubou or babban riga in the next. Yet the root of their pitch to supporters lies in the claim that they can use the levers of statecraft and diplomacy to foster economic development and deliver

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    609 security and progress, rather than in any claim to be vehicles for Islamization. The francophone politicians have also been adept at establishing divisions of labor and modes of complementarity with Muslim religious leaders, yet the very distinction in roles is itself a pillar of laïcité. With the passage of time, however, negotiating these arrangements has become more complex and ambiguous, as politicians seek to directly deploy (rather than simply access) religious “capital,” and as religious leaders experiment with new forms of political involvement. In this sense, one can say that laïcité constitutes a field of negotiation between various actors—​state authorities, politicians, clerics, religious movements, and citizens. For their part, Sahelian Christians have sometimes been keen defenders of laïcité, partly out of concern that alternative models would lead to greater Islamization of state and society. In the Sahel, Christians and other non-​Muslims often have prominent roles in civic and political life. Non-​Muslims have been heads of state in Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Chad, and have served in prominent positions in other Sahelian countries. There is a wider Christian presence in the Sahel, and a longer Christian history there, than is sometimes acknowledged (Cooper 2006). In events discussed later in this chapter—​such as debates over laïcité under Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade in the 2000s, or in the more recent controversy over confessional oath-​swearing requirements imposed by Chad’s 2018 Constitution—​Christians have been at the forefront of defending laïcité against perceived challenges.

HISTORICAL TRAJECTORIES OF LAÏCITÉ The history of laïcité in the Sahel might be divided into three broad phases. In the first phase, from roughly 1960 to the early 1990s, Sahelian states—​authoritarian to greater or lesser degrees—​cultivated partnerships with religious leaders. At independence, the Sahel’s civilian leaders—​both Muslims and Christians—​upheld laïcité as a value but did not seek, and likely never wanted, to institute French conceptions wholesale. For example, as Souleymane Bachir Diagne puts it, Senegal’s first president, Léopold Senghor (1960–​1980), thought that “religious fervor could and should play a role in bringing a cultural energy to the task of achieving modernization and development” (Diagne 2013, 45). Or as Benjamin Soares has written, “Since independence in 1960, every Malian government from the first postcolonial socialist regime to the most recent democratically elected one [as of 2006] has sought to associate itself with Islam and with certain public expressions of Islam” (2006, 82). Often, in this early period, divisions of labor between politicians and clerics were relatively clear, aside from a few abortive efforts by Muslim religious leaders to form political parties. In the second phase, beginning in the early 1990s, liberalization amplified Muslim activists’ voices (Brenner 2001; Soares 2006). In several Sahelian countries, this period saw wide debate about the meaning and trajectory of laïcité. In Mali and Burkina Faso, laïcité was reasserted in new constitutions even as it was contested in the public sphere.

610   Alexander Thurston The preamble to Mali’s 1992 Constitution says that the “sovereign Malian people . . . solemnly commits itself to defend the Republican form and the laïcité of the State [and] proclaims its determination to defend the rights of the Woman and the Child as well as the cultural and linguistic diversity of the national community.” At the same time, some Muslim intellectuals openly challenged laïcité and its assumptions. Consider, for example, the 1993 book Al-​Islam fi al-​Dawla al-​‘Ilmaniyya Mali (Islam in the Secularist State of Mali) by the Tijani Sufi scholar Thierno Hady Oumar Thiam. To quote Thiam’s brief conclusion in its entirety: This is our Islam in Mali, an Islam threatened by the revival of the pagan national heritage, and the intellectual invasion, including la Francophonie (al-​ frankufuniyya). And it is difficult to differentiate between the Christianizing movements and the language of the colonizer, old and new. Our youth are confused and worried, because the preachers calling people to God, the Mighty and Majestic, and their styles, and likewise the intellectual and the civilizational drive, and the contradictions in words and deeds—​do not help our youth move toward Islam. As for our mothers, our wives, and our sisters, their state makes hearts bleed, and eyes flow with tears for them. This does not mean that Islam is not found—​God forbid, indeed not, Islam is found, and with force. But it needs sincere and conscious leadership to make it a religion and a state (din wa-​dawla) in this country, because ruling [a population that] is more than 80% Muslim with a secular constitution is a major injustice! (Thiam 1993, 131)

Thiam expresses and links a number of binary oppositions in this work. On the one side, there are the interlinked notions of externally imposed threats to Islam in Mali, especially the threats of nationalism, Christianity (or Christianization, to be more precise), colonialism, and neocolonialism. On the other side, there is Islam, which Thiam viewed as nearly hamstrung due to these external threats as well as internal vulnerabilities, particularly those affecting leaders, youth, and women. In Niger, Abdoulaye Sounaye writes, democratization in the early 1990s brought an initial burst of enthusiasm for laïcité. Yet, under pressure from Muslim clerics and constituencies, Nigerien laïcité soon gave way to “a soft secularism within which political actors as well as state institutions are seeking to capitalize on religiosity” (Sounaye 2009a, 42, 2009b). Rahmane Idrissa argues that “Salafi nationalists” in Niger successfully weakened laïcité when they sat on constitution-​drafting committees in the 1990s and 2000s, pulling the government-​linked Islamic Association of Niger along with them and leaving laïcité as “a defensive position of the state before the forces of religion in society” (Idrissa 2017, 97). The constitution eventually dropped explicit references to laïcité. Nevertheless, the Nigerien system maintains an implicit laïcité in that the 2010 Constitution (Title I, Article 9) forbids religiously based political parties, along with those founded on ethnic or regionalist lines. Niger’s Constitution also asserts that “the Republic of Niger is a State of law. It ensures equality for everyone before the law, without distinction of sex or social, racial, ethnic, or religious origin. It respects and protects all beliefs. No religion, no belief can seize political power nor meddle in the affairs of the

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    611 State” (Title I, Article 8). This is defensive language, but language that still attempts to circumscribe Islam’s political influence. The third phase is less distinct from the second than the disjuncture between the early 1990s and what came before it. This phase, dating from the early 2000s, constitutes a field of experimentation where politicians and religious leaders seek to create or disrupt new equilibria. The net effect is a further softening of laïcité. One area where this transformation appears is with law, and particularly with family codes. In Senegal, the 1972 Family Code initially prompted major opposition and resistance from Muslim leaders, especially in the countryside. A compromise gradually evolved, with the Senghor administration defending the code and largely enforcing it in cities but allowing widespread noncompliance in rural areas (Creevey 1996, 296–​ 298). Three decades later, however, Muslim activists in the Islamic Committee for the Reform of the Family Code in Senegal mounted a reform campaign, tapping into an issue with “strong popular resonance” and probing the limits of laïcité (Villalón 2004, 67–​68). More dramatically, Malian politicians have repeatedly backed down when facing organized resistance from clerics concerned with issues of sexuality. In 2009, after years of discussion and debate, Mali’s then-​President Amadou Toumani Touré steered a revised Family Code to passage in the National Assembly. Major Muslim clerics quickly objected to provisions in the code that raised the age of marriage, imposed gender equality in inheritance, and affected other matters (Soares 2011). Key religious figures such as Mahmoud Dicko and Ousmane Madani Haïdara mobilized mass protests, which prompted Touré to essentially shelve and redraft the Family Code. Ultimately, the National Assembly passed a substantially changed version in late 2011, acceding to many of the clerics’ demands (Ahmed 2011). Dicko and Haïdara are some of the most prominent Muslim clerics in Mali, although their religious positions are very distinct. Dicko, a Salafi in orientation, was president of the HCIM from 2008 to 2019, while Haïdara is leader of the Sufi-​inspired Ançar Dine movement (Schulz 2011; Holder 2012). Quite often opposed on other questions, Dicko and Haïdara nevertheless cooperated in this episode. Amid the protests, Dicko did not explicitly challenge laïcité. In one representative interview with a journalist who pressed Dicko on the implications of his position, the HCIM president said, “I am fighting for my religion, but it would be premature to apply sharia in Mali. I am a Muslim, I cannot oppose myself to the installation of an Islamic republic, but I feel very comfortable in this secular country (pays laïc)” (Jeune Afrique 2010). These words could be interpreted in multiple ways—​as a token endorsement of an Islamic ideal amid overall satisfaction with a secularist status quo, or as a gradualist program for the Islamization of the Malian state. Dicko also said that the family code was “maladapted to Malian values,” and that its backers were “the so-​called civil society financed by the Westerners” (Jeune Afrique 2010). These sentiments echoed a recurring argument against laïcité, namely that a society deserved to be governed based on the religious values held by the majority of its population, and that the interlinked concepts of laïcité and human rights were

612   Alexander Thurston foreign imports. Dicko’s arguments point to a major dynamic in the negotiation of laïcité in the Sahel: This negotiation is not just a bilateral one between laïcité-​skeptical Muslim constituencies and states but also a triangular one that involves liberal civil society actors and laïcité skeptics competing for states’ attention even as they compete with and criticize one another. Actors such as Dicko can thus draw not just on religious arguments but also on populist themes centered on resistance to an alleged Westernization agenda. Since the family code debate, Dicko and his allies—​including the Chérif of Nioro du Sahel, Mali’s preeminent Sufi leader—​have won victories against successive administrations on questions relating to sexuality, for example, by forcing Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta’s government to drop a proposed sexual education curriculum for schools in late 2018. If clerics are asserting themselves as lobbying blocs and pressure groups, that does not mean that they control the political agenda—​in Mali, notably, Dicko and the Chérif opposed Keïta’s re-​election in 2018, but their influence could not prevent him from winning in the second round of voting. Transformations in the meaning and contours of laïcité, then, come from politicians as well as clerics and activists. One theater for this type of experimentation has been Senegal, where a long democratic transition (roughly 1988–​2000) elicited new forms of public questioning of laïcité. The challenges came from multiple directions: drafters of the 2001 Constitution initially dropped the adjective “laïque” in favor of “non-​confessional,” before restoring the classic French formula for its Article One: La République du Sénégal est laïque, démocratique et sociale; the election of 2000 saw minor candidates campaign with explicitly religious messages; and the election’s victor—​Abdoulaye Wade (in office 2000–​2012)—​broadcast his affiliation to the Mouride Sufi order (Villalón 2015, 323–​326). Nevertheless, as Abdoulaye Dièye (2009, 11) notes, a coalition of voices arose to defend laïcité, ranging from Catholics to women’s associations to human rights organizations. Under Wade, laïcité was renegotiated in multiple ways, not just through Wade’s open displays of Mouride allegiance but also through his creation, in 2010, of a Ministry of Religious Affairs. That move was in part a response to the critiques by religious leaders of Wade’s controversial project of a monumental statue, intended to represent the “African Renaissance.” Wade had dismissed religious objections to the statue of a couple with a child looming over the Dakar skyline, though he eventually agreed to a modification that would cover the female figure’s breasts. Wade’s successor, Macky Sall (in office 2012–​), has been less openly partisan in terms of his religious affiliations, but has been careful to make repeated public gestures of respect and deference toward the Mouride order. One highly publicized moment came in 2018, during the months leading up to the February 2019 election, when Sall’s wife Marieme took a seat with the rest of the crowd when entering late to a joint event featuring the Mouride Khalifa and her husband (Kobar 2018). In contexts more authoritarian than Senegal and Mali, namely Blaise Compaoré’s Burkina Faso (1987–​2014) and Idriss Déby’s Chad (1990–​), heads of state sometimes revisited the meaning of laïcité in the 2010s. Although it is difficult to assess leaders’

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    613 motives, one might hypothesize that reopening public debates on laïcité could help leaders take the public’s temperature on sensitive issues, offer new bargains to religious constituencies, and strategically inject controversy into public debates in order to distract attention away from other issues. For example, in Burkina Faso, the Compaoré administration organized a three-​ day National Forum on Laïcité in September 2012. According to one government official, the Forum’s purpose was to generate recommendations that could help “consolidate social peace in our country”; then-​Prime Minister Luc Adolphe Tiao indicated that the Forum also sought to anticipate potential threats stemming from religious “extremism” (Bayala, Baki, and Saoura 2012). Already by 2009, Burkinabè authorities privately expressed concerns that al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was infiltrating communities, and the turmoil in neighboring Mali reinforced the sense that “religious extremism” was a key danger. Another theme at the Forum was the desire, expressed particularly by Catholics, for more interreligious dialogue in the country (Sawadogo 2012). The Burkinabè Forum might have also represented the government’s tacit acknowledgment that the politics of Muslim religious representation and access to the state were changing. In the 1980s, new Muslim civic associations, especially the Association des elèves et étudiants musulmans au Burkina (AEEMB) and Cercle d’étude, de recherche et de formation Islamique (CERFI), arose to rival the older and largely gerontocratic organizations that received substantial state patronage. Although AEEMB and CERFI were included in the Fédération des associations islamiques du Burkina (FAIB), a new umbrella organization established in 2005, they were excluded from the “presidium” of the FAIB, which had veto power (Madore 2020). Meanwhile, some Burkinabè Muslims had come to feel that Burkina Faso’s iteration of laïcité was inherently pro-​Christian and anti-​Muslim, even as the state was struggling to respond to rising Muslim influence in politics and growing appetite for increased Muslim public religiosity (International Crisis Group 2016). Following the 2012 Forum, subsequent public events featured discussion of the shifting politics of religious representation in the country, with one panel calling attention to the rising francophone, modernist Muslim elite represented by AEEMB and CERFI (Badolo and Zongo 2013). The Forum may have reflected the Compaoré government’s desire to uphold the privileged positions of Catholic, Protestant, and FAIB leaders while also hearing from a wider range of interlocutors. In any case, the period following the overthrow of Compaoré saw the influence of AEEMB and CERFI increase further, particularly as intermediaries between the Muslims community and the government (Madore 2020). The shifting landscape of religious representation has contributed to an incipient shift in Burkinabè laïcité from a Christian-​dominated model where the state fostered interreligious cooperation but does not attempt to shape belief, to an evolving model where institutions such as the National Observatory of Religious Occurrences (l’Observatoire national des faits religieux) reflect a growing state interest in anticipating and curtailing religious radicalization in the country (Beucher, Kibora, and Kolesnore 2019).

614   Alexander Thurston The Forum, even years after its conclusion, remained a reference point in debates over laïcité in Burkina Faso. In 2016, a writer named Coulibaly Junwel caused a stir in the Burkinabè press with an opinion editorial entitled “Incivisme and Anti-​ Laïcité: Grave Infringements of Liberty.” One might translate “incivisme” as “lack of civic-​mindedness”; responding to continued debate over the Forum’s utility, Junwel denounced what he saw as a rising tide of religiosity that threatened social cohesion, especially since the 2014 revolution. As examples, he mentioned, “wearing ostentatious signs of religious adherence . . . blocking public roads for the needs of prayer . . . sound pollution . . . disturbance of nighttime tranquility because of night prayers . . . [and] the prayers in the schools” (Junwel 2016). As will be discussed later, such debates partly responded to the perception—​inside and outside Burkina Faso—​ that the country’s much-​touted fabric of interreligious harmony was unraveling amid political upheaval and encroaching jihadism. The Forum’s political meaning continues to shift, from its initial context as a display of gerontocratic authority in the late Compaoré regime to a symbol of Burkina Faso’s self-​examination in the post-​ Compaoré context. In Chad, Idriss Déby’s government, wittingly or unwittingly, reopened debates about laïcité amid the inauguration of the Fourth Republic in 2018. Chad’s 2018 Constitution defines the country as “sovereign, independent, laïc, [and] social, one and indivisible, founded on the principles of democracy, the rule of law, and justice” (Title I, Article 1). The 2018 constitutional reform and the transition to the Fourth Republic, however, occasioned public debates about whether specific new provisions had undermined laïcité. A May 2018 swearing-​in ceremony for new ministers brought an unexpected drama when Rosine Amane Djibergui, minister-​designate for civil aviation, declined to follow a new constitutional stipulation that oaths be sworn on a copy of the Bible or the Quran, and that the oath-​taker mention the name of God. When both she and the president, who was in attendance, refused to back down from their respective positions, she was fired (RFI 2018a). Her case was followed by at least five other sub-​cabinet officials, all of them reportedly Christians, who also refused to swear and were therefore dismissed. These incidents prompted public outcry, especially by Protestant clergy, who organized a public conference to protest the new stipulation in August 2018. The clergy and the noncompliant bureaucrats framed their objections in terms of concerns about the integrity of Chad’s laïcité (RFI 2018b), but their comments may also reflect deeper and specifically Christian concerns and fears of Islamization in Chad. Amid the broader politics of the Fourth Republic, meanwhile—​whose promulgation was widely seen as yet another power grab by Déby, to whom the new constitution gave the opportunity to remain in power through 2033—​it was difficult to determine whether the issue of confessional oaths was a blunder or a deliberate move by the regime. If the latter, Déby might have sought to stir up controversy and thereby deflect attention away from the austerity measures, authoritarianism, and other grievances that have sparked waves of protests in recent years. In this context, laïcité offers advantages to incumbents as a political tool.

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    615

JIHADISM AND LAÏCITÉ As noted when discussing Burkina Faso’s 2012 Forum on Laïcité, the rise of Sahelian jihadism has cast a shadow over debates around laïcité, in both direct and indirect ways. On one level, jihadists are sometimes described in the francophone media as the ultimate intégristes, actors who will undo laïcité by force. Jihadists certainly oppose laïcité, but in some sense the wider jihadist opposition to republicanism renders discussions of jihadists’ attitudes toward laïcité moot, given that jihadists claim to want to destroy existing states altogether, and do not seek to simply tinker with states’ relationships to religion and religious communities. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that regional and Western militaries would destroy any future jihadist “proto-​states” in the Sahel. On another level, the more consequential aspect of jihadists’ rise as it concerns laïcité is how jihadism affects other actors’ behaviors and reputations. In a sense, the most consequential debates around laïcité are not between states and jihadists but between actors who want a republic but who disagree about that Republican model’s religious content. Key participants in these debates, however, are routinely accused of peddling a soft version of jihadism. In Mali, jihadism has expanded dramatically since the early 2000s. In northern Mali, AQIM implanted itself through “guns, money, and prayers” (Bøås 2014; Ould M. Salem 2014). The region then witnessed the rise of the Mali-​born jihadist-​leaning movements Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) and Katibat Macina (Macina Battalion), and the formation of the Mali-​centric jihadist coalition Jama’at Nusrat al-​Islam wa-​l-​Muslimin (the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims) (Yahaya Ibrahim 2017; see also Yahaya Ibrahim Chapter 30 in this volume). Jihadist violence has sparked wider public debates about other actors and their intentions vis-​à-​vis laïcité. Is Mahmoud Dicko, for example, a potential agent for peace and mediation with jihadists, or is Dicko’s brand of politicized religiosity progressively undermining laïcité? Are calls for greater devolution of authority to the local level in northern Mali a welcome step toward ending conflict in Mali and recognizing the country’s diversity, or are these maneuvers another threat toward the unitary and laïc foundations of the Malian state? Such questions came to the fore when the ex-​ rebel bloc la Coordination des mouvements de l’Azawad (CMA, the Coordination of Azawad Movements) announced a set of new regulations for the city of Kidal in January 2019. The CMA declared that it would henceforth be referring numerous issues related to public order and security, such as the presence of armed motorcyclists, to Islamic judges (qadis) for resolution. The CMA’s declaration also banned the sale and consumption of alcohol, imposed new regulations affecting matters ranging from public gatherings to what could be sold in pharmacies. The declaration did not explicitly reference the 2015 Algiers Accord, which was meant to bring peace to Mali following the crisis of 2012; yet the declaration implicitly drew on the Algiers Accord’s vague references to “revalorizing” the role of Islamic judges (qadis) in the north. The committee for monitoring the accord, however, quickly

616   Alexander Thurston denounced the CMA’s move, calling it a violation of the Accord. Other Malian voices went further, with one opinion writer saying that the CMA had been “unmasked” as a front for jihadism and that the regulations in Kidal “call into question the very foundation of the Republic of Mali, which rests on laïcité” (Cissé 2019). In Burkina Faso, the expansion and localization of jihadism, particularly since 2015, has also affected debates concerning laïcité. Muslim associations and leaders have been keen to define terms such as “terrorism” and “jihadism,” and Muslim voices frequently plead for the public and the authorities not to conflate Islam and terrorism. The interconnected questions of what laïcité does or should mean in Burkina Faso, and where the country’s interreligious relationships are headed, hangs over this public discourse. In a 2018 interview, CERFI official and prominent imam Alidou Ilboudo laid out his definitions of contested terms and then evoked Burkina Faso’s history of religious coexistence. Without mentioning laïcité, he nevertheless pointed to a shared set of cultural values that he believed had helped and would help Burkinabè manage interreligious tensions. “When [social] problems bring communities into conflict, they have to go outside of religion to resolve them according to accepted standards” (Sawadogo 2018). Muslim leaders in the Sahel want to avoid being demonized as crypto terrorists; yet in a parallel trend, Sahelian states are increasingly adopting Washington’s language of “countering violent extremism” (CVE), even as CVE lost favor with the Trump administration. Across the Sahel, calls are heard—​as one Burkinabè intellectual frames it—​for “our states . . . to courageously take up the question of the radicalization of certain persons and certain groups, or their sympathy with the ideas conveyed by those ‘mad for Allah’ in order to find suitable and durable responses” (Diallo 2017). When CVE becomes a vehicle for state-​managed “deradicalization,” the practices and attitudes involved in the effort can reinforce earlier Sahelian patterns of laïcité, especially in terms of state management of Islam. Yet CVE programs can also entail new efforts to expand state authority over religious life, especially in terms of state interventions in managing and domesticating Quran schools. In West Africa as a whole, the politics surrounding Quran schools are growing more complex, as schools become subject to accusations that they incubate extremism and/​or miseducate children and/​or perpetuate child abuse (Ware 2014; Hoechner 2018). When CVE focuses on Quran schools in the Sahel, or on a broader effort to steer trajectories of Muslim thought and religiosity, laïcité is once again renegotiated, implicitly or explicitly. For example, although it made no direct reference to laïcité, a 2018 Nigerien government study on radicalization recommended substantial state intervention in religious affairs, especially among the rural youth whom the study’s authors considered the population most vulnerable to jihadist recruitment. Among other recommendations, the authors wrote, “The state and its partners must target the youth most vulnerable to radicalization by initiating a technical training program for them, paired with a literacy program and a Qur’anic education program” (CNESS 2018: 99). The irony, however, is that where jihadism has spread in the Sahel, authorities have progressively lost control over the education sector in particular, with jihadists closing schools en masse in the Mopti Region of Mali and beyond. If evolving models of laïcité

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    617 entail, in theory, more state control over religion, in practice the challenges will be formidable.

THE MAURITANIAN EXCEPTION? Of the Sahelian countries, only Mauritania adopted the designation “Islamic Republic” upon independence in 1960. The moniker reflected not just Mauritania’s widespread Islamic identity and legal-​scholarly culture, but also a feeling—​on the part of the French and Mauritanian authorities who midwifed the country’s birth—​that Islam could unite and hold together the country’s diverse communities. It is not that other Sahelian countries had no internal divisions or tensions, but the architects of Mauritanian independence seem to have been particularly worried that without Islam there would be no basis for a national identity in the heavily rural and sparsely populated country. Mauritania’s self-​description as an “Islamic Republic,” however, merits critical examination. The country’s first president, Moktar Ould Daddah, conformed to the model of the francophone technocrat. In the 1960s, Ould Daddah made fewer gestures toward creating an Islamic state and an Islamic political culture than one might have expected; initially and in many ways up to the present, the country’s legal system remained derivative of the French system. It was not until the military regime of Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah (1980–​1984) that a form of sharia was placed on the books. Ould Daddah’s decision to “Arabize” the country’s educational system in 1966, moreover, played more to racialist sentiment than to any Islamization agenda. Both civilian and military authorities, meanwhile, brought key loyalist clerics into ministerial and governmental positions in ways that reinforced the domestication of Islam while keeping dissenting Muslim movements away from power. The two most important soldiers who have ruled Mauritania—​Maaouya Ould al-​Taya (1984–​2005) and Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (2008–​2019)—​both carried themselves more or less in the mode of the secularist layman, often appearing in Western-​style suits and focusing on economic, security, and geopolitical affairs rather than on the Islamization of Mauritania. Ould Taya, of course, (in)famously arranged for Mauritania’s diplomatic recognition of Israel in 1999, a move that aimed to put Mauritania back into the good graces of the United States after the First Gulf War when Mauritania had supported Saddam Hussein, but one that also enflamed anti-​government and anti-​Israel sentiment among a wide swath of the population. Ould Taya also cracked down repeatedly on Mauritania’s Islamist movements, imprisoning and forcing into exile some of the most popular and well-​liked politicians and scholars in the Islamists’ ranks (Ould Ahmed Salem 2007). Under Ould Abdel Aziz, Islamists had more room to maneuver, given that the Islamist Tawassoul Party, which is loosely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, was legalized in 2007—​before Ould Abdel Aziz took power, but during a period when he had pronounced influence (Foster 2011). Yet Ould Abdel Aziz repeatedly communicated

618   Alexander Thurston that the Islamists could only go so far in contesting his power. For example, in September 2018, Mauritanian authorities closed Markaz Takwin al-​Ulama (The Center for Training Muslim Scholars), a school run by the Islamists’ most prominent (and arguably only major) clerical supporter, Muhammad al-​Hasan Ould al-​Dedew. Additionally, Islamists have had real but also very limited electoral success; in the 2009 presidential elections, for example, Tawassoul’s candidate placed fourth, receiving less than 5 percent of the vote. In the 2018 legislative elections, Tawassoul place second overall, but lost two seats in parliament and garnered only 11 percent of the vote. In a sense, Mauritania gives clerics a wider array of powers and prerogatives than in other francophone Sahelian countries. Notably, Mauritania’s premier governmental religious body, al-​Majlis al-​A’la li-​l-​Fatwa wa-​l-​Mazalim (The High Council for Islamic Legal Rulings and Grievances, created in 2012) has a power that the Islamic councils in Mali, Niger, and Chad lack: issuing official Islamic legal opinions in the name of the state. Additionally, the Mauritanian state has gone further than its peers in bringing clerics into officially sanctioned dialogues with imprisoned jihadists and hardliners, particularly in a series of events in 2010 that culminated with the release of several dozen prisoners. Niger, however, is experimenting with dialogue models as well, and the Malian state has periodically tapped clerics to act as mediators in prisoner exchanges and efforts at dialogue with jihadists (Thurston 2018). Meanwhile, if the range of clerical powers in Mauritania is wider than elsewhere, the intensity of clerical influence is not necessarily greater in Mauritania than in Chad or Mali. Also, the Mauritanian Fatwa Council is, unsurprisingly, staffed with loyalist clerics whose opinions rarely touch on political controversies. Meanwhile, bodies such as the l’Association des ulama de Mauritanie take openly loyalist positions, such as advocating for an extra-​constitutional third term for Ould Abdel Aziz in the phase before he had named an official successor. Finally, although Mauritanian clerics can mobilize popular sentiment to apply pressure to the state, Ould Abdel Aziz has overruled clerics on contentious issues. For example, in January 2014, a blogger named Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaïtir was arrested for his writing and was eventually charged with apostasy. He was sentenced to death in December 2015, and Muslim scholars and activists mobilized substantial protests calling for his execution. Yet authorities ultimately decided to keep Ould Mkhaïtir in legal limbo—​an appeals court overturned the death sentence in 2017, but authorities continued to detain him (Human Rights Watch 2018) until 2019 when he was released. Even in Mauritania’s “Islamic Republic,” power ultimately rests with a military-​ political-​business elite that treats clerics as a resource but is not obliged to defer to them.

CONCLUSION In the Sahel, secularism—​in its specifically French-​derived variant, laïcité—​is a pillar of constitutional order and political culture, but it also simultaneously functions as a field of negotiation in each country. In terms of states’ roles, both ostensibly secular states

Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel    619 and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania have leveraged religious bureaucracies, individual clerics, and Muslim constituencies in efforts to domesticate and shape Islam. That trend may grow amid the expanding presence of jihadists in some subregions, which in turn drives a focus on state-​driven CVE policies that frequently include and envision substantial efforts to intervene further in the religious field. Meanwhile, Muslim clerics, activists, and associations can function as pressure groups, profoundly affecting state policies. Some religious actors have also sought, with varying degrees of success, to transform religious capital into formal political capital, establishing political parties and seeking office. Finally, Christians have often been prominent defenders of laïcité, whether out of concerns that Islamization could threaten them politically or physically, or out of a desire to preserve what many Sahelians—​both Muslim and Christian—​see as a longstanding but increasingly threatened culture of positive religious coexistence.

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Section VIII

T H E C HA N G I N G S O C IA L M O S A IC Section editor: Fiona Mc Laughlin

INTRODU C T I ON Fiona Mc Laughlin

Social dynamics in the Sahel, while no less contingent or fluid than social dynamics elsewhere, have been shaped by the unique history of the region as well as by its precarious physical environment. Beyond the diversity of Sahelian societies in terms of livelihoods, cultural practices, and modes of engagement with modernity, it is also posIntroduction sible to trace some commonalities that might be considered, however incompletely or imperfectly, characteristic of the region as a whole. Many of these commonalities stem from the ways in which Sahelian societies have been in contact with each other over the centuries, through political alliances, through trade and commerce, through the circulation of ideas within communities of knowledge and learning, and through war and slavery. Identities here are complex, multifaceted, and mutable, and the lexicon of the old dispensation—​ethnicity, language, religion—​may at some moments come into focus but often remains blurred. Sahelian identities emerge not only from Islam and French colonialism—​both of which have shaped Sahelian life in profound ways—​but also from the vitality and adaptability of local cultures, and from the persistence of pastoralism and of hierarchical social structures. Flexible and responsive to change, Sahelian societies and their institutions have generally proven to be resilient over time, and all of the aforementioned factors have interacted in complex and sometimes surprising ways, changing and metamorphosing according to historical exigencies and social circumstances to reflect shifting power structures and new challenges to authority. This can be seen, for example, in the instrumentalization of Islamic arguments about equality to justify otherwise taboo marriages across social strata; in activist Biram Dah Abeid’s stance against the afterlife of slavery in Mauritania, couched within a discourse of human rights; and in the emergence of state-​run Franco-​Arabic schools that respond to the desire of Sahelian parents to have their children educated not only in the language of the state but in the language of their religion. Most striking about the region in terms of identities and social dynamics is the vast number of societies that are hierarchically organized, not necessarily in terms of

626   Fiona Mc Laughlin class—​although socioeconomic class plays an increasingly important role with the emergence of an urban middle class in many cities across the region in the early years of the twenty-​first century—​but in terms of so-​called “inalienable” status into which one is born. These typically Sahelian hierarchies consist of higher caste groups (géer in Wolof, rimbe in Fula, horonw in Bamanankan) whose identity is negatively defined in relation to the lower caste of artisans (ñeeño in Wolof, ñeeñbe in Fula, nyamakalaw in Bamanankan) who possess specialized, exclusive, and often occult knowledge of a craft such as metalwork, leatherwork, and jewelry-​making, mastery of a musical instrument such as the kora, or verbal art, genealogy, and praise-​singing, the domain of griots. Finally, there are those of servile status, namely slaves, former slaves, or descendants of slaves. Slavery is of course illegal, and the category has been eroded in many Sahelian societies, but it persists in myriad forms in others. There is a strong trend throughout the Sahel for the self-​perpetuation of these three social categories through endogamy, although it is not absolute and not without contestation, and there is a certain amount of blurring between social status and ethnicity. The status of artisans, musicians, and griots is referred to as caste, as opposed to social class, in much of the literature, (e.g., Diop 1981; Tamari 1997), not only because such groups are generally endogamous but also because their status is perceived as inherent rather than contingent: blacksmiths or griots, for example, will always be known as such, regardless of whether they practice blacksmithing or praise-​singing as a profession. Historically, however, such groups have found innovative ways, often through religious pathways, to elevate themselves socially and create new identities for themselves. Other scholarly approaches to Sahelian artisan groups, exemplified by the essays in Conrad and Frank (1995), de-​emphasize social hierarchy and focus rather on the contribution of artisans to the overall society and their symbiotic relationship with géer, rimbe, or horonw. The paradox of these complex relationships is portrayed in Senegalese filmmaker Sembène Ousmane’s 1963 film, Borom Sarret, where the géer—​here an impoverished horse-​cart driver—​is filled with pride in listening to a prosperous griot sing his praises even as he is compelled, thanks to his higher social status, to hand over his last bit of money to the man. This relationship between géer and griot is motivated by the impulse to be remembered, not to be forgotten, an impulse that can inspire great and memorable deeds and notable acts of generosity. Karin Barber draws our attention to a Sahelian text, sung by a griot at the end of Mauritanian filmmaker Med Hondo’s 1986 cinematic adaptation of Nigerien writer Abdoulaye Mamani’s 1980 novel, Sarraounia: What would remain of men’s actions when they vanish and their bodies turn to dust? Nothing but obscure oblivion, oblivion like ashes Cold, dead ashes after a forest fire For man’s memory is brief. Not even the most glorious exploits would survive time without the undying devotion of singers and musicians. They immortalize them and keep them alive through the ages. (Barber 2007, 2)

introduction to Section VIII    627 Sentiments such as these, and the persistence of social structures that sustain them, have lead Hale and Stoller (1985) to propose the possibility of what they call a “deep Sahelian culture,” based on the imbrication of social hierarchy and oral culture common to the region. Oral traditions are based on local Sahelian languages, and the Sahel is a region of great linguistic diversity and multilingualism. Multilingualism can contribute to blurring identities and fostering conviviality by facilitating people’s belonging in any number of contexts, thereby ensuring its survival. As Lüpke and Storch (2013) have so vividly described, multilingualism is sustained through social institutions that can be found throughout the Sahel such as child fostering, exogenous marriage patterns, and joking relationships that transcend ethnic boundaries, as well as migration and mobility. Islam and colonization each brought with them a new language, yet Sahelian languages prevail, not only in the village marketplace and on urban streets, but also within spaces such as schools where language, either Arabic or French, is regulated. Fula, Maninka, and Hausa have long served as languages of religious explanation in Quranic schools (Brenner and Last 1985), helping to convey an understanding of religious knowledge to pupils who have not mastered Arabic, and Sahelian languages are spoken in the playgrounds and corridors of state-​run French-​medium schools. State schools in the Sahel have been sites of contention and negotiation since they were first established under French colonial rule as a means of promoting a policy of assimilation. Early attempts at education in local languages, such as that of Jean Dard in Saint-​Louis du Sénégal who favored Wolof-​language education, were quickly shut down by the colonial administration, and French became the sole medium of instruction. For parents, this was a watershed moment as they debated and wondered what a French-​ language education would mean for their children. While the advantages that such an education might offer, particularly the prospect of salaried employment, attracted many parents, others refused to send their children to the state school, believing secular education not to be in the best interest of a profoundly religious society. As an important preoccupation, the school experience recurs as a principal theme in the work of many Sahelian writers of the pre-​independence and independence period, such as Mariama Bâ, Aoua Kéita, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and Amadou Hampaté Bâ, among others, themselves products of the French-​medium school system, and they sometimes afford glimpses into Quranic education as well. The general ambivalence toward French-​language education by more conservative members of society has resulted in a longstanding bifurcated educational system where religiously affiliated Arabic language schools based on a curriculum of Islamic learning continued to flourish alongside the state French-​language schools, with younger pupils often attending both—​the state school during the academic year and the Quranic school on weekends and during summer holidays. This continues to be the case in much of the Sahel, and successive government attempts to regulate religiously based Arabic language schools have been contentious and subject to debate across the region. The introduction of Franco-​Arabic schools, first by NGOs and more recently by various Sahelian governments, provides an

628   Fiona Mc Laughlin alternative model of education that is attractive to Muslim parents and students because of the close association between their religion and the Arabic language, even when such education is secular. Literacy in both languages, Arabic and French, is widespread across the Sahel, although rates of literacy are typically low. A restricted Sahelian language literacy, although rarely taught in formal contexts, is a vernacular byproduct of education in French or Arabic. Some in the region write their own languages for record keeping or correspondence by adapting the Arabic alphabet for their own purposes, a writing tradition known as ajami, which also incorporates a vast body of erudite and literary writing, much of it produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Latin alphabet and French orthography are also harnessed to write Sahelian languages, resulting in not only a multilingual but also a multi-​graphic linguistic environment. Along with Central Asia, the Sahel is one of the few remaining places in the world where pastoralism persists as a way of life, despite the challenges facing semi-​nomads and their herds in the face of climate change and civil unrest. The main groups who practice a pastoralist lifestyle are to be found among Fulbe, Tuareg, and Toubou populations. Fulbe are widely dispersed across the Sahel from Mauritania and Senegal in the west to Chad and beyond, while pastoralist Tuareg live principally in Mali, Niger, and Algeria, and Toubou in northern Chad and Libya. Tuareg and Fulbe have often lived symbiotically with their settled neighbors, supplying them with protection in the case of Tuareg or with milk and animals, but local conflicts between pastoralists and farmers have inevitably arisen when crops are trampled or eaten by herds. Many aspects of pastoralist life and culture, such as seasonal transhumance or the annual daddo ceremony that affirms social ties between competing lineages among Nigerien Fulbe (Wodaabe) have persisted, yet climate change, drought, and other pressures—​including violent separatist movements and jihadist activity—​have proved to be major challenges to these fragile societies. Periodic Tuareg rebellions and bids for an independent Tuareg state have engendered political violence and armed conflict on a grander scale, and an endangered way of life has precipitated a constant movement of pastoralists toward Sahelian and Saharan cities such as Kidal, Agadez, Tamanrasset, and Niamey. Conflict and crisis in the Sahel, and especially those provoked by armed jihadist groups have brought ethnicity to the forefront in facile analyses of complex situations, and both Fulbe and Tuareg have borne the brunt of these characterizations. Despite new forms of political participation and diversification of production systems on the part of herders, the future of pastoralism in the Sahel is fraught with uncertainty.

REFERENCES Barber, Karin. 2007. The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics: Oral and Written Culture in Africa and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brenner, Louis, and Murray Last. 1985. “The Role of Language in West African Islam.” Africa 55(4):432–​446.

introduction to Section VIII    629 Conrad, David C., and Barbara E. Frank. 1995. Status and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Diop, Abdoulaye-​Bara. 1981. La société wolof: Tradition et changement. Les systèmes d’inégalité et de domination. Paris: Karthala. Hale, Thomas A., and Paul Stoller. 1985. “Oral Art, Society, and Survival in the Sahel,” in Stephen Arnold, ed., African Literature Studies: The Present State/​L’état présent. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 163–​169. Lüpke, Friederike, and Anne Storch. 2013. Repertoires and Choices in African Languages. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Tamari, Tal. 1997. Les castes de l’Afrique occidentale: Artisans et musiciens endogames. Nanterre: Société d’Ethnologie.

chapter 33

SO C IAL STRAT I FI C AT I ON IN THE SA H E L Cédric Jourde

In March of 1978, a small group of Mauritanian haratine, descendants of slaves, founded a movement called El Hor, the “freed one.” In a highly stratified society that had just fought a difficult war in the Western Sahara, and where inordinate numbers of haratine had been used to serve in the young and inexperienced Mauritanian army, El Hor inscribed the question of slavery on the political agenda (Ould Ahmed Salem 2010). Three years later, the Mauritanian government nominally abolished slavery. Thanks to the work of a small group of militants, slavery and social status hierarchies more generally became central themes in the country’s national political arena. Drawing from the outstanding scholarship on social status hierarchies (often referred to as “caste systems”) and from my own research in Mauritania and Senegal, this chapter explores two key dimensions of status politics in the Sahel. The first of these is the paradoxical relationship between Islam and social status stratification. The doctrinal equality of true believers before God has often been negated in practice since so-​called freeborn lineages began taking over positions of Islamic leadership in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But in the mid-​twentieth century, and even more so at the turn of the millennium, Islamist movements and reformed Sufi movements (and possibility even jihadist groups) have challenged the hierarchy of status differences, some in words only, and others in deeds as well. The second dimension touches on the ambiguous relationship between the construction of colonial and postcolonial states and status hierarchies. Officially, postcolonial states and their “modern” laws do not recognize status categories and the inequality of rights and duties they generate: citizens are all equal under the law. But informally, some state practices contribute to the perpetuation of status differences, or at least, do not do much to counter social status discrimination. For instance, electoral politics, a key political feature of most Sahelian states, can both crystalize social status differences, acting as a mechanism of power consolidation for freeborn lineages, as well

632   Cédric Jourde as help mobilize people against status inequalities, as seen in rise of social movements devoted to the defense of low-​status communities (Ould Saleck 2000).

THE CHALLENGE OF DEFINITIONS Before delving into the politics of castes, a brief discussion of the object under scrutiny is warranted. Social status stratification can be found in many ethno-​linguistic groups across the Sahel, including Wolof, Songhay, Moors, Fulbe, Soninke, and Tuareg, among others (Manchuelle 1989; Kyburz 1994; Olivier de Sardan 1984). It consists mainly of the differentiation between freeborn individuals at the top of the stratificational hierarchy, and freed slaves and slaves at the bottom. In between, especially in the Western Sahel, are the “artisan” categories, including blacksmiths, bards, wood carvers, weavers, and others (Tamari 1991). Numerous subcategories exist within each of the two poles, freeborn and unfree. For instance, the most common division within the freeborn category is the one between lineages of “warriors” and “clerics” (Islamic scholars), which was most probably formalized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Hall 2011a, 56; Schmitz 1994). This stratification was, and still is, partially based on endogamy. The meaning and the significance of social status categories have changed over time (Hall 2011c), but in various social settings they continue to influence, to various degrees, the capacity of individuals to own land, to run for elected office, to lead the prayer in the Friday mosque, to preside over the hometown association among the diaspora in Lyons or Cleveland, to marry the person of one’s choice, or more generally to be considered an honorable individual by others (Klein 2005; Lecocq 2005; McDougall 2005, 2010; N’Gaïde 2003). Scholars remind us to be careful with unwarranted generalizations, and to pay close attention to emic understandings of these categories, as well as to think simultaneously about continuities and changes. As Rossi (2009, 1) aptly says about slave status, but with identical implications for other statuses, it “has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances.” The ambiguity of change is well captured by the concept of “post-​slavery,” which for Pelckmans and Hardung (2015, 7) refers to the “dynamics of servitude which reproduce themselves, under altered forms, despite the indisputable ruptures which abolition and emancipation did to the slavery system.” For Lecocq and Hahonou (2015, 184), “(w)hile ‘post’ is intended as a disruptive marker, it is also its opposite: a connecting marker, a reminder that the condition it refers to may not be over” (see also Lecocq 2015; Rossi 2009, 2015; Sy 2000). In sum, the social statuses of freeborn, clerics, warriors, herders, blacksmiths, bards, freed slaves, and slaves, are important social categories that still make sense within many societies across the Sahel. Their meanings change over time, but they have not suddenly disappeared just by virtue of having a “modern” constitution that grants citizenship to all.

Social Stratification in the Sahel    633

THE INTERSECTION OF ISLAM AND STATUS CATEGORIES The intersection between Islam and status stratification is an ambiguous one, as Rossi (2009, 18) suggests. The theological equality of believers that is often invoked has in practice been contradicted: since the seventeenth century, in many Sahelian societies, positions of Islamic leadership have been increasingly monopolized by “freeborn” lineages, which, through endogamous matrimonial strategies, have consolidated status stratification while excluding individuals from subaltern groups (Jourde 2017b). However, it has also been from within Islam that the most vehement critiques of social status hierarchy have been voiced, most often by words, but at times by the sword, or more recently by the AK-​47. Indeed, as I will discuss, the various waves of Islamic reforms, Islamist movements and parties, and even some Sufi figures, have often targeted precisely this socially enforced inequality among believers and called for its abolition.

Constructing the Status Hierarchy upon Islamic Foundations: The “Managers of the Invisible” and a “Revolution Betrayed”? The constitution of statutory hierarchies across the Sahel is inseparable from the evolution of Islam in the region. Interestingly, within a number of communities, Islam was at first a medium of emancipation and equality. The theocratic revolutions or attempted revolutions in seventeenth-​century Gîbla (Southern Mauritania), in Fouta Toro (1776), and in Maasina (1818) were at first justified by a willingness to suppress regimes of inequality and of slavery led by “warrior” tribes. However, some of the revolutionary movements eventually turned into endogamous aristocracies of freeborn lineages with a religious specialization—​for instance, among the zwâya lineages (Moors), tooroobe (Haalpulaaren), inesleman (Tuareg), and others. In analyzing the theocratic revolution of the Almaamy in Fouta Toro, Ware (2014, 144) explains this clearly: “within a generation, the Toorooɓɓe, a multiethnic clerisy that had risen from low origins through knowledge, had become a slave-​owning landed aristocracy . . . instead of using Islam as a shield against enslavement the way the Almaami did, most Toorooɓɓe used it as a sword”. He concludes with this powerful observation: “This was a revolution betrayed” (Ware 2014, 145). Similar patterns occurred elsewhere. Commenting on the case of the Caliphate of Hamdullahi (in today’s Mali) in the first half of the nineteenth century, we learn from Hanretta (2009, 43) that “slaves and casted persons” decided to join the movement “because they believed (erroneously, it turned out) that the conflict was a social revolution in which they could win their freedom and the abolition of caste distinctions.”

634   Cédric Jourde After the turbulent years of revolutions and jihad, claiming ancestors who conducted or participated in these jihads served to justify a monopolistic position in the social hierarchy. This was the case of Mauritania’s beydan @ society, where Ould Ahmed Salem (2013, 230–​231) finds that “ownership of religious authority by clerical families and tribes always implied the exclusion of other social categories from the domain of transcendence and spirituality.” Clerical lineages enforced stratification and prevented significant change to it through their mastering of the power of the invisible, including the power to curse and to use divine retribution to punish those who contested the stratification. Summarizing Hardung’s (2009) work, Rossi (2009, 18) explains that “the belief in the supernatural power to curse of the Fulɓe masters underscores fear of disobeying them or denying their superiority, even where ex-​slaves have attained economic and political emancipation.” In a similar vein, Boyer (2005, 782) shows how, in Bankiléré (Niger), the Islamic knowledge of the Tuareg inesleman lineages provides them with substantial power over iklan (former slaves), which they can use to resist changes in social stratification. Controlling access to Islamic education constituted another mechanism through which social stratification was reproduced: it rested on the exclusion of low-​status individuals from gaining sustained Islamic education, which in turn impeded them from reaching positions of Islamic leadership. This was seen, for instance, among the Fulbe population of central Mali where “Islam was primarily a religion for the political center, the weheeɓe, closely associated with the nobility. Knowledge of Islam was denied to the riimayɓe [former slaves]” (De Bruijn and van Dijk 1994, 103). In the borderland between Mali and Mauritania, the Hamawiyya Sufi movement was often said to be against the caste system, but as Soares (2005, 78) notes, “with one known exception, Hamallah only appointed deputies who were members of ‘free’ lineages, that is, those not of ‘caste’ or slave origins.” Similarly, in the beydan society of Mauritania, Ould Ahmed Salem (2013, 232) explains how the idea of allowing haratine to gain some Islamic education was considered as nothing less than a heresy, and their ensuing exclusion from any “religious dignity resulted in a form of ‘social death.’ ”

Contesting the Religious Foundations of the Status Hierarchy On the other hand, the religious foundations of status hierarchies have been increasingly challenged in various societies of the Sahel. This of course echoes earlier theological debates about slavery and social stratification (Cleaveland 2015; Hall 2011c; Botte 1994:110) and earlier political upheavals, such as that which occurred in southern Senegal (Fuladu) at the end of the nineteenth century (N’Gaïdé 1999). Looking at the contemporary era, Rossi (2009, 3) cogently demonstrates that “ex-​slaves are beginning to access religious knowledge and use it to develop a reformist ideology, in contrast with their traditional position outside their masters’ faith.” As a Nigerien informant told

Social Stratification in the Sahel    635 Tidjani Alou (2000, 183), “Islam knows no other discrimination than the one based on your membership in the Islamic umma.” In central Mali, de Bruijn and van Dijk (1994, 99) note how “(f)or the riimayɓe (descendants of slaves), conversion and adherence to Islam contributed to their social status. When becoming pious Moslems, they acquire more ndimu [nobility].” These changes become possible because of major socioeconomic transformations such as urbanization and migration, but also because specific individuals and reformist movements, both Islamist and Sufi, have pushed directly or indirectly for such developments. In my work among Senegalese and Mauritanian Haalpulaaren (Jourde 2010, 2012, 2017a), in ways that echo what Searing (2002) argued about the early twentieth-​century Muridiyya, I noticed that the rapid rise of the Tijaniyya Niassiyya among this community could be explained, at least in part, by the movement’s vision, which offers a fast and comprehensive access to religious knowledge, an access not filtered by social stratification (see Seesemann 2011). My informants, young Haalpulaaren in their twenties and thirties, perceive the dominant Sufi order in Fouta Toro as favoring high status elders. In the words of a disciple who decided to leave the dominant Sufi branch to join the Niassiyya: “I told them, the rimɓe [freeborn clerical lineages], I have read the Qur’an and nowhere is it written that you can keep everything for yourself! What I have read is that we are all the slaves of God, and of nobody else. And I told them, don’t be surprised if some day one of ours becomes an Imam, because the knowledge is there!”1 In the beydan (Moorish) community of Mauritania, the status of haratine has also begun to change thanks to these movements. Ould Ahmed Salem observes that numerous fundamentalist Gulf-​based Islamist NGOs that came to Mauritania in the 1990s–​2000s opened their doors to haratine (2013, 237; see also Bullard 2005). This new competition then compelled established Mauritanian Islamic centers, which traditionally contributed to social stratification and the exclusion of haratine, to be more inclusive. The global Islamist movement Jama’at wa Tabligh also played a central role, through a local charismatic figure, Mohamed Ould Sidi Yahya (from a zwâya tribe no less), in criticizing clerical tribes and encouraging religious education and leadership for haratine (Ould Ahmed Salem 2013, 237–​238). Brhane (2000, 230) was also told by her haratine informants about the key role of Ould Sidy Yahya: “he is not racist at all . . . He lets them [haratine] study . . . He says that everyone is equal. [He] says that Allah never said anything about being sûdanî [black].” But the most virulent attacks against the religious foundations of the statutory hierarchy came not from an imam or a religious movement, but rather from the anti-​slavery organization, Initiative pour la résurgence du mouvement abolitionniste (IRA), led by Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid. In 2012, Biram made the unprecedented move of burning specific Islamic books that, in his view, were propagating false Islamic justifications in favor of slavery. In 2009, Biram wrote a letter to the Secretary General of Mauritania’s Ulama Association, saying “You, the imams and the fuqaha’ of this country, you have consecrated our oppression, which you have legitimized and justified and you persist in your denial to repent and apologize!” (cited in Ould Ahmed Salem 2013, 217).

636   Cédric Jourde Some scholars, however, remain cautious concerning the emancipatory potential of movements that draw from Islam to contest the statutory hierarchy. As Klein (2005, 832) observes, despite pro-​emancipation dynamics in the former French West Africa, “former slaves could not become imams, except possibly in mosques built by and for former slaves.” With regard to central Mali, de Bruijn and van Dijk (1994, 103–​104) explain that “To our knowledge, there are no practicing riimayɓe moodibaaɓe [clerics of freed slave status] yet . . . (t)he moodibaaɓe, who are attached to the weheeɓe, are still the religious core of Fulɓe society.” In Mauritania, it is undeniable that the work accomplished by Islamic haratine figures who battled a rigid social hierarchy embedded in Islamic discourses is impressive, and a real “subversion” argues Ould Ahmed Salem (2013, 230–​231). But then again, only 8 percent of mosques in Nouakchott (out of six thousand mosques) are led by haratine imams; knowing that haratine may represent about 50 percent of the population, this is a relatively small number (Ould Ahmed Salem 2013, 240). The perplexing example of Mauritanian blogger Ould M’khaitir offers another example. He was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2014 over an article in which he allegedly criticized the Prophet and argued that local interpretations of Islam improperly justified Mauritania’s rigid caste system, especially the marginalization of the “blacksmith” caste. Islamist leaders organized numerous demonstrations in Mauritania’s urban centers to call for his immediate execution. Though the Supreme Court eventually ordered his liberation in November 2017, the violent reactions to his blog demonstrated how risky it could be to link criticism of the status hierarchy to Islam.2

THE AMBIGUITY OF STATE CONSTRUCTION IN THE SAHEL: MOVING OUT OR STAYING IN THE STATUS HIERARCHY The construction of colonial and postcolonial states, and the various dynamics that were constitutive of this process, shaped the politics of social status stratification in many ways. This section looks at three of these dynamics, which have both heightened mobilization of subaltern groups and reinvented a status quo: electoral politics; the building and juxtaposition of different legal frameworks; and the deployment of violence.

Electoral Politics and Status Hierarchies Electoral politics were a core dynamic in the 1945–​1960 phase of the formation of Sahelian colonial states and continue to be so in the postcolonial state. The competition

Social Stratification in the Sahel    637 surrounding elections heightened the politicization of ethnicity, which then impacted status hierarchies in interesting ways. The combination of electoral politics, introduced throughout France’s West African territories with the Fourth French Republic (1946), and new administrative positions in the state apparatus, contributed to the politicization of ethnic identities. The mobilization of ethnicity became one medium by which political entrepreneurs could win electoral seats, obtain (salaried) jobs in the civil service, and build clientelistic networks, in close collaboration with colonial officers in the field (Berman 1998). But the vision of ethnicity that was mobilized, “We the Tuareg/​the Peuls/​ the Mossi,” was predicated upon a homogeneous vision of the group, and of the “Others.” This “billiard ball” perspective on ethnic groups as “self-​contained, externally bounded, collective groups” (Lonsdale 2004, 77) was hiding another reality, one where heterogeneity, inequality, and tensions within the presumed homogeneous group prevailed or even increased. Moving into the postcolonial era, status inequalities, predicated upon an unequal access to political and economic power through land or salaried jobs, for example, increasingly bred “moral” debates about who the ethnic “We” and “They” really are (Lonsdale 2004). These debates were reenergized after the single-​party era, with the liberalization of African regimes and the reinjection of multipartyism in the early 1990s. Electoral politics was, and still is, an increasingly important site in the process of state construction where one can see intra-​ethnic and status politics unfolding, where the consolidation of an ethnic “We” is concomitant with intra-​ethnic debates. This pattern has precedents in colonial times, as Lecocq demonstrates in the case of Tuareg communities in the Soudan Français, where some iklan seized the opportunity offered by the new party politics: “the efforts of the US-​RDA [Sudanese Union-​African Democratic Rally] to abolish servitude focused on Tuareg and Moorish society, where it hoped to gain the electoral support of the ‘liberated’ slaves” (Lecocq 2005, 50). Mauxion confirms this trend, showing that “US-​RDA played a particularly significant role in this process. Local and regional leaders of this new political party found a powerful electoral base in the iklan populations” (2012, 204). Some local French officers, many of whom had faithfully served the Vichy regime in French West Africa, realized the emancipatory power of this new politics of election and expressed their anxiety about the potential decline of the “traditional” order, led by freeborn lineages, that had contributed to the consolidation of their own colonial interests. In a colonial report from 1947, a Commandant de Cercle in Mauritania depicted an apocalyptic picture of the new electoral politics implemented after 1945: During the 1934–​1944 period . . . the political situation was healthy and balanced. Native authority was stable: chiefs solidly maintained the traditional structure . . . It is only after the war that the symptoms of an external evolution appear . . . a rising tide that besieges, overflows and drowns the ancestral dams. [. . . ..] Neither law nor master, this is how the new ideas are interpreted, leaning towards confusion and anarchy.3

In the postcolonial era, and more specifically with the liberalization era that started in the early 1990s, electoral politics continued to impact social status hierarchies in

638   Cédric Jourde ambiguous ways. Though in theory elections have the potential to become mechanisms of emancipation, given the democratic spirit that justifies their existence, freeborn lineages adapted to new political conditions, thereby reproducing their domination over subaltern groups. Electoral campaigns have a high entry cost, requiring important financial resources, and noble lineages have a financial advantage over others. They also capitalize on the ideological conception of their “traditional” superior capacity and right to rule. They can additionally take advantage of their insertion into the neopatrimonial networks that tie the center of the state to the terroirs. In sum, in various localities, electoral politics, this key institution of state-​making, has been a constitutive element in the perpetuation of freeborn ruling families. For instance, in Eric Hanonou’s (2009) fascinating study of three small towns in Niger and Benin, he shows that in the Songhay town of Gorouol (Niger), not a single slave descendant won a seat in the National Assembly between 1946 and the time he was writing. He concludes that “the unsaid factors that structure the representations of ‘slaves’ among noble Songhay of Gorouol result in the quiet removal of ex-​slaves from positions of responsibility through various manipulations (160).” On the other hand, the instauration of electoral politics can also be seized upon by low-​status groups. In Bankiléré, which is mostly inhabited by sedentarized Tuaregs, at least for most of the 1990s, “all council seats had been monopolized by the customary and religious chieftaincies (Hahonou 2009, 162).” However, “at the end of 1999, the struggle for the emancipation of slave descendants led by the Timidria association finally resulted in the first slave descendant winning a seat in the National Assembly” (2009, 162). In 2004, when Hahonou’s study ends, iklan elected representatives were consolidating their position. Similarly, a number of iklan were also able to elect municipal councilors in Mali’s cercle of Menaka in the early 2000s, as Lecocq notes (2005, 63). A similar dynamic occurred in a few towns of Fouta Toro, mostly on the Senegalese side, where people of low-​status background constitute a significant portion of the population, if not a majority. The “power of numbers” thus became a resource that political actors could capitalize on. The case of Mbuumba in Senegal (Schmitz 2009) and Fouta Toro more generally (Kamara 2000; Leservoisier 2011) offers an interesting example. Declared a commune in 2008, Mbuumba had its first mayoral election in 2009. Historically, Mbuumba was the powerhouse of the Wane lineage, a dominant tooroodo lineage that provided many of Fouta Toro’s almaamy during the theocratic era (1776–​1891). Numerically, as compared to “free” lineages, the various subgroups of former slaves, in all their diversity, probably constituted a demographic majority in Mbuumba. It is this demographic majority that the winner of the municipal election, a well-​established Dakar-​based lawyer, successfully mobilized in 2009, leading to the unexpected and unprecedented result of the City of the Almaamy being ruled by a gallunke (a particular subgroup of former slave status). Surprisingly enough, his main contender was a well-​known man of the ruling Wane lineage and, more specifically, of the most dominant family within this lineage (his father and his uncle were government ministers in the 1960s, one in Mauritania and the other in Senegal). He also had a

Social Stratification in the Sahel    639 successful career as an international high-​ranking cadre and could count on substantial financial resources. But in Mbuumba, as informants explained to me, most tooroobe had left the town a long time ago, for Dakar and abroad. As one informant told me (March 2010): “they [the former slaves] could mobilize many people, they are numerous over there (in Mbuumba), they have many young people, whereas we (the tooroobe), we are in the diaspora [they migrated out of Mbuumba], we’re everywhere, in Africa, in Europe, in New York even!” Furthermore, as seen in numerous other towns, due to factional (and matrimonial) competitions, some “junior” branches of the Wane family actually supported the gallunke candidate, a support that proved to be crucial in the victory. As a maccudo [former slave] activist told me, “what happened in Mbuumba was a revolution!” and he added that what made the battle more difficult “was that the nyeenɓe (artisans) were all with the Wane, so the maccuɓe and gallunkoobe, we were alone.”4 Though this is only a conjecture, when these internal debates reach a certain level of intensity, a potential outcome could be the complete rupture with their former exclusionary ethnic community, and eventually, the formation of a new and separate ethnic “We.” Lecocq and Hahonou (2015, 188) argue that “there is a strong link between processes of emancipation and the ethnicization of former slave groups . . . ethnicization of collective identities is sought as a way out of slave status.” Similarly, Rossi (2009, 18) also shows how the “legacies of slavery have a tendency to mutate into racism and discrimination rooted in the body and physical characteristics of the stigmatized group. Accordingly, changing ethnic affiliation becomes a precondition for social mobility.” We may be witnessing this dynamic in the case of haratine in Mauritania (Ould Ahmed Salem 2010, 288).5 It is difficult to draw a generalizable explanation to make sense of these electoral victories by subaltern candidates. Although this would require a systematic comparison of cases, which is beyond the scope of this chapter, one partial hypothesis could be that when demography aligns with democracy, low-​status candidates can win elections: the more open, freer, and fairer the elections are, in a context where subalterns form demographic majorities, the more likely it is that they can be seized upon by low-​ status candidates. In turn, taking control of elected positions gives them access to resources that were unreachable before, including a say in land redistribution and development aid from the state, international NGOs, and donor countries (De Bruijn and Pelckmans 2005). Overall, the introduction of electoral politics, a key pillar of the political life of Sahelian states, interacted in various ways with the pre-​existing statutory hierarchies. Of course, a major caveat here is that having a low-​status elected representative (a mayor, a député) does not offer the guarantee that the interests of low-​status communities will be considered, that the elected official in question will have the power (or perhaps the willingness) to confront and challenge established structures of inequality. We can add to this the fact that the individual may have his or her own agenda in mind and may not necessarily be interested in fighting for the interests of a community, one that is

640   Cédric Jourde itself probably divided by various interests and antagonisms. But one could nonetheless say that, in comparison to contexts where it was not even thinkable for an individual ascribed as a blacksmith or a slave to occupy a position of political leadership, the electoral victories of low-​status candidates are significant.

Social Movements and the Struggle to Reform the State’s Legal Framework The construction of colonial and postcolonial states meant, among many things, designing and implementing new rules that would govern these polities (Miers and Roberts 1988). It thus raised questions about the relationship between these new state rules and precolonial “customary” and Islamic rules (Klein 1998). These debates would of course impact the politics of status stratification. A concrete example of this can be seen in the contrast between the French government’s 1905 law abolishing slavery in West Africa, and the preferences of colonial state officers on the ground, who preferred not to challenge nobles and other slave-​holding families and let them informally maintain these systems of dominance (Roberts and Klein 1980; Roberts 1988; Boyer 2005, 779; Giuffrida 2005, 813; Klein 2009, 29; Mauxion 2012, 199). The new legal systems put in place at the onset of the independence era, however, provided a new opportunity for subaltern groups. The constitutions adopted by the independent states of the Sahel all proclaimed the full equality of citizens: descendants of slaves, blacksmiths, or praise singers would have the same rights as individuals claiming a warrior or clerical ancestry. This new legal framework, however, did not erase local and customary rules; instead, it led to cases of legal pluralism, whereby laws and norms belonging to different, and often contradictory, legal traditions overlapped (Rossi 2009, 12). This can be seen in a variety of cases, such as that of low-​status Sooninke communities of Fouta Toro, where despite the proclamation of equal citizenship for all, as enshrined in the Mauritanian Constitution, noble lineages (hooro) usually win most of their land conflicts against komo (former slaves), drawing from local norms to validate their land ownership claims, while using their informal connection with state officials to prevent the true implementation of Mauritania’s state laws (N’Diaye 2016, 114; Pelckmans 2012, 2015a). But the state’s incapacity, unwillingness, or both to implement its new legal frameworks contributed to the rise of social movements that aimed at mobilizing domestic and international audiences around status inequalities. The main objective here was, and is, to point to the contradiction between the formal existence of state laws and their non-​implementation, and the ensuing informal marginalization of low-​status individuals (Pelckmans and Hardung 2015). Though these calls to draw from the laws of the state to improve the status of subaltern groups is for the most part recent, there were precursors. As Mauxion (2012) shows, for instance, in colonial times, some iklan in the Gao region of Mali used the colonial Code du Travail to achieve greater autonomy. Though it “did not revolutionize the living conditions of all iklan, many of whom

Social Stratification in the Sahel    641 continued to work for their masters, it constituted a major milestone in the emancipation process” (Mauxion 2012, 195; see also Hall 2011b). With respect to contemporary movements, Hahonou and Pelckmans (2011) offer a remarkable comparative analysis of eight of the most well-​known anti-​slavery movements across the Sahel. They discuss, for example, the case of Temedt, a movement whose objective is to publicize “how Iklan are marginalized in public affairs despite their demographic weight, economic contribution and their intellectual ‘cadres’ ” (2011, 149). In the case of Niger, Botte (1999, 2003, 2005), Hahonou (2008, 2009), and Tidjani Alou (2000) have analyzed the role of the Timidria movement and its mobilization campaigns in favor of Tuareg slave descendants. In Mauritania, the gap between formal rules stipulating citizens’ equality and the informal perpetuation of status inequalities is significant. Since Independence Day in 1960, the government has adopted no less than four laws to address the issue of slavery. The French had already abolished slavery in 1905, but the Mauritanian government made it illegal again in 1981, under Ould Haidallah, after much pressure from the haratine movement El Hor, founded in 1978 (Ruf 2000; Villasante-​de Beauvais 2000). Later, the emergence of new anti-​slavery movements, such as SOS-​Esclaves in 1995 and IRA in 2007, helped to generate more pressure on the state, which adopted a new law in 2007 that criminalized slavery (Ould Ahmed Salem 2010; McDougall 2010). This was followed by another law, in 2012, which eliminated the ten-​year statute of limitations, and another adopted in August 2015, which treats crimes of slavery as crimes against humanity and moves the maximum sentence from ten to twenty years. This was completed with the creation of three regional criminal courts devoted specifically to crimes of slavery. But as already explained, the actual implementation of these laws remains a major problem. In Mauritania, the government has continuously harassed IRA activists since 2014, arresting and sentencing its leaders for eighteen months (2014–​2016), followed by another wave of arrests of activists in the summer of 2016. The great paradox is that only two former masters have been sentenced to jail, not even serving the entire sentence, while dozens of anti-​slavery activists were arrested and jailed.6 But some scholars have shown that calling for the full implementation of the law in postcolonial states might not be sufficient to ensure the survival of low-​status individuals and families. Sahelian states are among the poorest on the planet, built upon an ecosystem that generates much uncertainty and keeps its communities in a highly vulnerable and precarious situation. As a consequence, resorting to local social ties, including calling upon the norms of the ethnic (or tribal) community, may prove to be a more efficient strategy of survival than drawing from the “modern” and individual-​centered notions of citizenship (Pelckmans and Hardung 2015, 14). Jean Schmitz (2009, 105), for instance, shows how former slaves of the Haalpulaaren communities in Mbuumba (Fouta Toro) undertook a process of emancipation, by “renegotiat[ing] the relationship with their masters through clientelistic and patrimonial practices.” For Rossi (2009, 14), such negotiations can bear fruit, but they nonetheless “presuppose the acceptance of hierarchy.” In a similar way, Leservoisier (2003, 2005) demonstrates the ambiguity of a community of former slaves whose main goal has been to move upward in the social status hierarchy, but not to seek the destruction of the hierarchy itself. McDougall’s

642   Cédric Jourde research among haratine living in affluent neighborhoods in Nouakchott, shows the continuation of “the tradition of establishing individual relationships with ‘patrons’—​ identifying with the former master’s family or more often than not, a ‘stranger-​ substitute’ family rather than former slaves belonging to other families” (2015, 277; see also McDougall 2005, 2010; Wiley 2014). Given the challenging political and economic context of Sahelian states, survival and resilience implies that one resorts to more than one strategy, including the possibility of a more violent mode of living.

Between a Predatory State and an Absent State: Low-​Status Individuals and the Use of Violence Since gaining independence, postcolonial Sahelian states have known many episodes of violence, with a frequency and intensity that has varied greatly across the region, including ethnic insurrection (such as the “Tuareg rebellions”), state-​sponsored ethnic violence, jihadist-​ inspired violence, pastoralists-​ farmers clashes, and so on. These episodes of violence raise the question of the relationship between status hierarchies and violence. Researchers have pointed out that, in cases where the state has failed to protect local communities against predatory groups, or where the state itself is seen as the predator, the use of violence becomes a thinkable option, including for individuals and communities of low status. Though this dynamic is emerging in the context of the current wave of violence in Mali, it had its antecedents in previous violent events, such as the Western Sahara War (1974–​1978) and earlier Tuareg uprisings in the 1960s and 1990s. To put it (too) simplistically, the AK-​47 can provide the means to circumvent, if not destabilize, the status hierarchy. Although it is quite difficult to undertake intensive field research in war-​torn localities and regions, such as northern and central Mali and northern Burkina, some recent publications seem to suggest that this pattern could be under way (De Bruijn and Both 2017, 785). For instance, in his fascinating study of Fulbe communities in the current conflict in Mali, Sangaré (2013, 2016) shows how the decision to join armed groups can be at least partially related to social status hierarchy. Fulbe herders of lower status (seedoobe) have been accused of joining the ranks of the armed group MUJAO to fight against invading Tuaregs but also to settle scores with the ruling Fulbe aristocracy (weheebe). Similarly, Pelckmans (2015b, 49) pertinently observes that among the Fulbe communities of central Mali, “ex-​slave groups of the nomads’ and ‘nomadic Fulani . . . join[ed] the jihadist movement of [MUJAO]” and, as a consequence, “the alliance between nomadic Fulani and [MUJAO] increased already existing tensions between these nomads and the pro-​government Fulani elite.” The rise of the armed group Katibat al-​Macina among central Mali’s Fulbe, led by Hamadoun Kouffa, can be explained, according to Thiam (2017, 23), by an aspiration “for social elevation that motivates some young recruits of Hamadoun Kouffa’s group, who belong to ancient vassal classes such as the Rimayɓe [former Fulbe slave] and the Bellah [former Tuareg slaves.]”

Social Stratification in the Sahel    643

CONCLUSION This chapter sought to shed light on the politics of social status stratification in the Sahel. It certainly does not do justice to the impressive scholarship on this topic, especially that of historians who have analyzed the historical development of these dynamics in the precolonial and colonial era. Though there are many angles from which the politics of status hierarchies could be analyzed, this chapter first looked more specifically at the intersection between Islam and social status. It highlighted how Islam has been used both as an ideological foundation to justify and consolidate status stratification and as an inspiration to fight the inequalities among believers. Second, this chapter argued that the construction of colonial and postcolonial states significantly impacted the politics of social status. The creation of electoral arenas, the erection of “modern” legal frameworks, and the cycles of violence across Sahelian states have all shaped how social status differences unfold. On one hand, some individuals and lineages of “free” status have adapted well to new political conditions, seizing control of elected arenas or consolidating their hold on land through alliances with state officials. On the other hand, however, people of low status have shaped the status hierarchy through the politics of demography or by creating social movements that fight for the rights of subaltern groups. Many fascinating avenues of research could be explored further, including more comparative studies of anti-​slavery and anti-​stratification social movements: What explains the variation in the degrees of mobilization of these movements? Why have some movements been more effective than others in effecting changes? In addition, we know little about the role of factionalism among freeborn lineages as a contributing factor for the rise of low-​status politicians in local settings (towns and villages). Also, and this surely is a major caveat in this chapter, building upon McDougall (2015), Pelckmans (2007), Rossi (2009, 2015), Wiley (2014), and others, we need to research more thoroughly the gender dimension in the politics of social status stratification. Finally, taking inspiration from Rossi (2015), Lecocq and Hahonou (2015), Pelckmans (2012), McDougall (2005), and Schmitz (2009), among others, there is certainly a need for a systematic comparative analysis of the role of migration and urbanization in changing the meanings and implications of statutory hierarchy.

Notes * All translations from French are by the author. 1. Interview, Guédiawaye, 7 April 2010. 2. http://​www.cridem.org/​C_​Info.php?article=704440. 3. Archives nationales de Mauritanie, Dossier E2/​106, Rapport politique annuel, Cercle du Gorgol 1947, 1–​5.

644   Cédric Jourde 4. This quotation and other material in this paragraph are drawn from fieldnotes between 2010 and 2012. 5. A different pattern, one of erasing memories of slavery, could be happening in Western Mali (Rodet 2010). 6. http://​cridem.org/​C_​Info.php?article=707768.

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chapter 34

THE LINGUISTI C E C OL O G Y OF THE S A H E L Fiona Mc Laughlin

The Sahel is an area of great linguistic diversity within Africa, given that three of the four African language families (Niger-​Congo, Afroasiatic, and Nilo-​Saharan) are represented in the region, sometimes even within the repertoire of a single individual. This is especially true in Mali and Niger, where a given individual might speak Bamanankan or Fula (Niger-​Congo), Hausa or Tamasheq (Afroasiatic), and Songhay (Nilo-​Saharan).1 The region is of particular interest to historical and comparative linguists, who seek to identify “genetic” relationships between languages2 and to reconstruct earlier forms of language. Combined with findings from archaeology, anthropology, and related disciplines, this line of research can tell us much about the prehistory of the region, including patterns of migration and cultural exchange, but it tells us less about the contemporary social dynamics of the Sahel, and will thus not be pursued in this chapter, which focuses rather on language in colonial and postcolonial society. Any discussion of language in Sahelian societies must begin with multilingualism. Sahelians typically command complex linguistic repertoires that may change and expand over the course of a lifetime due to factors such as mobility, marriage, and education (Lüpke and Storch 2013), and the incidence of societal and individual multilingualism in the Sahel is consequently quite high. The Sahel has always been characterized by mobility, be it for pastoralism, seasonal migration, rural to urban migration, or displacement, and as trajectories become more complex, so too do repertoires. Most of the languages that go to make up these repertoires are African languages, learned from the immediate social context of home and village, town, or city life, while other languages included in Sahelian repertoires, such as French or Arabic, are generally learned through formal education. In attempting to make sense of multilingualism, many sociolinguistic studies of language in the Sahel, and in Africa more generally, tend to compartmentalize languages into binaries such as official or colonial languages versus indigenous or local languages, attributing their use to so-​called formal and informal sociolinguistic domains such as

650   Fiona Mc Laughlin administration and education in the case of the former, and home or street life in the case of the latter. Such an approach provides a convenient framework, but is nonetheless overly simplistic and at odds with how Sahelians actually use language in both spoken and written forms. The Friday court ceremony with the Mogho Naaba, the Mossi king, in Ouagadougou, for example, is a formal event, yet it is conducted in Moore, which is also a language of the home and street. Moreover, and as this chapter illustrates, language practices in the Sahel show robust patterns of skilled and purposeful “slippage” between languages, a consequence of multilingualism and language contact, so that in practice the boundaries between languages are blurred rather than discrete. Basing her observations on how Malians talk about language, Canut (2008) proposes that language is fluid, multifaceted, and unbounded, a premise that also underpins this chapter. Proceeding from the premise that named languages, like ethnic groups, are social and often colonial constructs (Blommaert 2008; Irvine 2008), this chapter privileges the notion of “linguistic repertoire” to understand the ways in which groups and individuals use their linguistic resources for various purposes. Linguistic repertoires such as those mastered by Sahelian populations consist not only of different named languages, but also of registers and dialects,3 and of regional and social variation, all of which allow speakers to establish and maintain variable social identities and relationships and to enact social difference and belonging. Language is thus in itself constitutive of social life in the Sahel. The six countries that are the focus of this volume are commonly called francophone countries by both linguists and non-​linguists alike. In one sense, the term francophone is a euphemism, a synecdoche that stands in for the totality of a colonial history, and that avoids reference to extraction or violence by pointing simply to language. But since the French viewed language as an instrument of colonial governmentality—​and even though colonial educational policy was stratified to include a “reduced” variety of French to be taught to non-​elites (Goheneix 2012)—​the francophone designation also points to societies that were profoundly shaped by France’s colonial engagement. The term has furthermore taken on a sociopolitical connotation in much of the Sahel since the advent of democratization in the early 1990s; in contrast to “arabophone” it may suggest an ideological position in debates about laïcité and the role of religion in society (Brossier 2019). The francophone Sahel is thus a term that evokes a colonial heritage, but in most cases, it also reflects the contemporary reality of the official language that sometimes competes or co-​exists with Arabic, as in Mauritania and Chad. French is no longer a foreign language in the Sahel, as Sounaye (2015) remarks specifically for Niger, and distinctive and recognizable Sahelian varieties of French have emerged that incorporate linguistic aspects of the native languages of their speakers. On the ground, however, the francophone reality applies only to an educated elite in the countries under consideration, and reflects an official designation that reinforces a set of international alliances and networks. Moreover, it hides the robust multilingualism that lies beneath the veneer, and tells us little about how people speak on a daily basis. This chapter is concerned with the linguistic ecology of the Sahel, namely the ways in which different

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    651 languages, registers, and dialects cohabit Sahelian repertoires, and the myriad ways in which they are harnessed for communicative, political, and religious purposes, as well as for enjoyment.

REGIMES OF LANGUAGE Language is often a site of intervention for exercising authority, whether by the state or other regulatory actors. Such interventions are generally supported by a “regime of language,” taken here to mean a normative set of language practices, both spoken and written, that are backed and reinforced by authoritative texts (e.g., dictionaries, grammars, textbooks), practices (e.g., games, spelling bees), and bodies such as governmental and other educational institutions. The most overt manifestation of state involvement in language is in the designation of an official language by edict, law, or some other formal process, and its implementation via education and administration. The equation of a nation, a people, and a language that sprang from German Romantic philosophy, though as starkly at odds with the multilingual nature of the postcolony as it was with, for example, nineteenth-​century France, lives on in the political imagination worldwide, including in the Sahel. In early 2012, when popular Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour announced his candidacy for president, he made two videos of the announcement, one in French, and another in Wolof, a language in which he was clearly much more at ease. Both videos were posted on various sites on the internet, thereby inviting comments from viewers. N’Dour’s perceived shortcomings in French led a number of Senegalese viewers to question his eligibility as a candidate, as he did not master the official language, a requirement for becoming president (Mc Laughlin 2014). Likewise, in contesting the hegemony of the Malian state during the Tuareg rebellion that began in 2012, Tuareg actors, and especially the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, used French, rather than their own language, Tamasheq, or Songhay or Arabic, the more usual lingua francas in northern Mali, in creating written propaganda. As the official language of the Malian state, French is clearly perceived as the legitimate language of state negotiation (Mc Laughlin 2015). In almost all cases, the Sahelian countries under consideration have inherited the colonial language, French, as their official language, or as one of two official languages, as in Chad. The exception is Mauritania, which has followed the countries of the Maghreb in progressively making Arabic the sole official language during the 1990s at the expense of French (Taine-​Cheikh 2004). Many Mauritanian elites, however, continue to send their children to private French-​speaking schools, and French continues to be widely used in state administration and public space. The ideological basis for maintaining the former colonial language as the official one includes the perception of French as a neutral language, so that no language of one particular African ethnic or linguistic group is favored over another, thereby promoting a sense of nationalism. In addition, French is seen as a bridge to a wider francophone world beyond the Sahel, although English is

652   Fiona Mc Laughlin increasingly valued for this role (Diallo 2018). In practical terms, the carryover of an administrative language from pre-​independence to post-​independence in the Sahel was an easier transition and less politically and socially fraught than switching to an African language, and it also ensured that the educated elite would maintain control. This means that for most of the Sahel, French continues to be the primary and sometimes sole medium of state education and bureaucracy, even though proficiency in French among the populations of these countries is low. Based on multiple sources, Beck et al. (2018) provide figures on the estimated number of people who can read and write French in countries around the world. According to their estimates, the greatest concentration of those who know French in the Sahel are to be found in Senegal and Burkina Faso, but even in those countries these equal only a quarter of the population. For Mali and Niger, where French is the only official language, the numbers are significantly lower, as illustrated in Table 34.1. These numbers, however, do not reflect the actual use of spoken French across the Sahel, which is certainly much lower. Based on these figures, there are two observations to be made. First, the francophone designation of these countries can best be understood as a veneer, albeit an important one, that conceals an altogether different set of language practices, especially since even for those members of the population who are considered francophone, communication with non-​French speakers necessarily takes place in languages other than French. Second, the educational system, the primary means by which a state attempts to impose a regime of language and literacy on its citizenry, is undersubscribed and weak. Thus, while the Sahel continues to be an important part of la francophonie, and French continues to play an important role in education and cultural production, including literature (see Sow Chapter 27 in this volume), there are other language dynamics at work, including the implementation of African languages, to varying degrees, in primary education, often as a bridge to learning French. In addition to designating an official language, Sahelian governments accord the official status of “national language” to a number of African languages. These are often languages with large numbers of speakers, and ones for which an official orthography has been developed, but it does not include all African languages. National languages benefit from airtime on radio and television, and in some cases, they may be introduced

Table 34.1 Estimated Percentage of French Speakers in the Sahel by Country Country

MAURITANIA

SENEGAL

MALI

BURKINA FASO

NIGER

CHAD

Official language(s)

Arabic

French

French

French

French

Arabic & French

Estimated % of French speakers

13

26

17

24

13

13

Source: compiled by author from figures in Beck et al. 2018.

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    653 into the primary school curriculum, as in Mali (Skattum 2008, 117–​118), but they may also be subject to benign neglect, with few or no resources allocated for their development and promotion. While French looms large as an elite language in the Sahelian linguistic sphere, it has a competitor in Arabic, a language whose use predates the arrival of the French in the region by several centuries. Many dialects of Arabic are spoken natively in the Sahel, the most important of which are Hassaniyya, spoken by Moorish populations in Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, and Niger, and Chadian Arabic. These are so-​called low varieties or vernaculars that, like Arabic dialects elsewhere in the world, stand in a diglossic relationship with more prestigious high varieties of the language. The most important of these are Classical Arabic, the language of the Quran used by a Muslim elite, and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), often called arabe littéraire in the Sahel, a revised and simplified form of Classical Arabic, standardized in the nineteenth century (Leperlier 2012, 2). A crucial aspect of the dynamics of diglossia is that Classical Arabic and MSA are learned solely through education, and they have no native speakers. Only the vernacular forms of Arabic spoken in the Arabic-​speaking world, whether it be in Syria or Algeria or Mauritania, have native speaker populations. These vernacular forms are often subject to disdain by their own speakers, a situation that Sayahi (2014) calls the diglossia paradox. This paradox was played out during the Sovereign National Conference of 1993 in Chad, where, championed by the director of the national radio station and the francophone political elite, and motivated by populist sentiments of nationalism, Chadians opted for making the widely spoken Chadian Arabic rather than MSA the co-​official language of the conference (Coudray 1998). This move was viewed by the arabisants as sabotaging the Arabic language by elevating the vernacular to a status it did not merit, and they vehemently protested, arguing that there was no difference between arabe littéraire and the Chadian dialect, because the latter “ensues” (découle) from the former (Jullien de Pommerol 1997, 77). Their attempt to argue for MSA was also a bid to reinforce their own status as an Arabic-​educated elite with access to a prestigious language unavailable to most Chadians. Because Sahelian populations are primarily Muslim, especially in Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, and Niger (Muslims constitute just over half of the population in Burkina Faso and Chad), Arabic has long been esteemed as a religious language. It is also the language used by a Sahelian intellectual elite who produced important religious, historical, scientific, and literary texts in the language (see Seesemann Chapter 28 in this volume). Sahelian languages have borrowed many words and phrases from Arabic, not only those broadly related to religion but also words from numerous other semantic domains such as time (e.g., names for the days of the week are often derived from Arabic) or ethics and philosophy. At a more popular level, the Arabic language is believed to have healing, magical, and protective powers. The wearing of protective amulets containing Quranic verses or written papers based on esoteric Sufi knowledge associated with the arrangement of Arabic letters or numbers is a widespread practice among Sahelian Muslim populations, and many practices associated with child rearing, such as weaning or soothing the pain of teething, likewise employ spoken or written Arabic.

654   Fiona Mc Laughlin Elementary Islamic education in the Sahel takes place in Quranic schools, under the tutelage and guidance of a teacher, usually known in French as a marabout. Attendance is quite high because Islamic education is viewed as part of parental religious duty. The primary goal of the Quranic school, however, is not to teach Arabic, but rather to form children as Muslims by imbuing them with the word of God, and teaching them mental and physical discipline and respect for religious authority through rote memorization and recitation of Quranic verses (Brenner 2001; Moore 2006; Ware 2004, 2014). Although some pupils continue their primary and secondary education in Quranic schools, and may go on to master the Arabic language within a classical Islamic curriculum, the vast majority do not. Those who continue their formal education most often go to the state school where instruction is generally in French, although recent years have seen the flourishing of private and state-​run Franco-​Arabic schools. These present an appealing option for many parents, and one that to some extent resolves the tension between Arabic (the language of Islam) and French language (secular) education that has existed since the establishment of French language schools in the Sahel in the nineteenth century (Bouche 1975; see also Villalón and Bodian Chapter 36 in this volume). Within the Quranic school tradition, languages of religious explanation such as Fula, Mandinka, or Hausa are also used to discuss Arabic grammar and the meaning of Quranic verses or other texts (Brenner and Last 1985). Likewise, in schools where French is the medium of instruction, African languages are the languages of the corridors and playgrounds, and they are also used to facilitate communication in the classroom. In most cases, children enter Quranic or state-​run schools with very limited exposure to Arabic or French, so a great deal of linguistic mediation goes on both to keep order in the classes and to explain what is being taught. School environments in the Sahel are thus also multilingual spaces, reflecting broader societal multilingualism.

LIVED MULTILINGUALISM IN THE SAHEL Sahelian linguistic repertoires reflect the life experiences of their speakers, and include language practices learned at home and in the larger local, regional, or national spheres, as well as those learned at school. The purposeful “slippage” between languages has a multiplicity of functions such as showing solidarity with interlocutors or signaling identity, or it may simply be the default way of speaking in a certain context, mastery of which signals social belonging. Even in cases where speakers know only fragments of some language, these can still be deployed for the same purposes. Contemporary scholarly approaches to multilingualism, in Africa and elsewhere, have grappled with how to characterize these patterns of language use, working within a paradigm that rejects bounded and named languages as social and often colonial constructs, with varying degrees of success. New concepts such as “translanguaging,” or simply “languaging,”

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    655 have consequently gained theoretical currency, replacing older concepts such as codeswitching and code mixing. In multilingual contexts such as the Sahel, certain discourse items can belong equally and simultaneously to more than one named language as Nunez and Léglise (2017) have argued (see also Woolard 1999). They show, for example, that in naturally occurring discourse a lexical item such as the word pa/​paa (father) can belong simultaneously to Wolof, Casamance Creole, and French (Nunez and Léglise 2017,109). Language as a primordial category has not been deconstructed to the same extent that ethnicity has, thus an analogy with the latter may serve to clarify the concept. Ethnicity in the Sahel, as anthropologists have shown (e.g., Amselle 1990), is contingent and fluid, so that people may have complex and multifaceted ethnic identities. Lüpke and Storch (2013, 26–​27) give the example of a married Baïnounk woman in the Casamance region of Senegal who was deemed infertile and underwent the process of becoming a kanyaleen. This cultural practice involved being taken into another family and eventually having children and then moving back to her matrimonial home. As part of the process, she adopted a Mandinka, rather than Baïnounk, ethnic identity and became known by a Muslim rather than a Christian name, all of which was facilitated by her multilingualism. Even after she returned to her matrimonial home, the woman’s ethnicity continued to be responsive and contingent so that she was simultaneously Baïnounk and Mandinka. The fluidity of ethnicity is also reflected in comments such as that of a schoolteacher from the Senegalese town of Fatick, who claimed that when he was at home, he was Haalpulaar and when he was in Dakar, he was Wolof (Mc Laughlin 2000). Even though this is facilitated by his proficiency in both Wolof and Pulaar, the ethnic category of Wolof in the context of Dakar has come to signify an urban, post-​ ethnic identity, further undermining ethnicity as a bounded category, and rendering it contingent. Lived multilingualism in the Sahel likewise disturbs the notion of bounded, discrete languages. In addition to the countless examples of single lexical items like Nunez and Léglise’s, cited earlier, broader stretches of fluent integral discourse often cannot be pinned down as belonging to a single named language. An example from a Senegalese news broadcast on channel 7TV that bills itself as a news program in Wolof helps to make this point. The anchorman and reporters all explicitly speak in Wolof and they interview people in Wolof. In a midday news program recorded on 20 June 2019, a prominent lawyer is speaking about leadership problems in his union, SYTJUST (Syndicat des Travailleurs de la Justice). From a structural point of view, his discourse can be identified as alternating or codeswitching between Wolof (represented in the following extract in boldface) and French (represented in italics), but more importantly he, his interlocutors, and the producers of the news program understand his discourse as being in Wolof: Parce que ñoom ñiy wax sax ils ne sont pas membres de SYTJUST parce que SYTJUST boo ko nekkee, dangay jënd carte waaye chaque weer ngay dompat mille francs sa poche di ko ci duggal. Man maangi koy def depuis dix-​huit ans.

656   Fiona Mc Laughlin [Because the ones who are talking, they aren’t even members of SYTJUST, because SYTJUST, if you’re a member, you buy a card, but every month you take a thousand francs out of your pocket and you put it in. I’ve been doing it for eighteen years. ]

Interviewed on the same day by French language stations, the same lawyer speaks in a very different way, devoid of words or phrases that could be identified as Wolof, thereby reinforcing the idea that the excerpt just given is in Wolof. Whether a fragment such as depuis dix-​huit ans “for eighteen years” is French or Wolof is thus contingent, and can simultaneously be both, depending upon what interlocutors understand themselves to be speaking or hearing. All the examples of slippage provided thus far have involved lexical items, yet there are other ways that languages can become imbricated, including borrowing grammatical structure from each other. Such is the case in Niger, where the dominant language is Hausa, but Zarma, a variety of Songhay, is the dominant language of the capital, Niamey. In his 2013 study of the Hausa spoken in Niamey, Abdoulaziz Abdoulaye provides multiple examples of Zarma grammatical structures in the Hausa of urban residents. A parallel situation is captured by a Fula speaker, in this case from northern Nigeria, who commented that when Hausa people spoke Fula they were “speaking our language in Hausa” (Ahmad Shehu, p.c.). The transfer of grammatical structure from Zarma to Hausa or from Hausa to Fula, respectively, is a different kind of slippage, but also one that calls into question the boundedness of named languages. Most Sahelians speak at least one lingua franca, namely a vehicular language with broad communicative functions, spoken by large numbers of people and used for communication between speakers who may have no other languages in common. For some speakers, the lingua franca may be their native language, in which case there is little pressure or motivation to learn additional African languages. This is the case for native Wolof speakers in Senegal where upward of 80 percent of the population speaks Wolof as a first, second, or other language. Skattum (2008, 106) gives similar figures for Bamanankan (frequently called Bambara) in Mali. Table 34.2 presents the major lingua franca of each of the six countries under consideration, as well as the more important regional lingua francas. A number of observations can be made about this non-​exhaustive list of languages and their distribution. Fula, also known as Pulaar in Mauritania, Senegal, and western Mali, and Fulfulde further east, is spoken widely in the Sahel, even though it is a minority language in every country under consideration. This situation has prompted Fula-​speaking activists to state their grievances and claims for equality and political power in terms of linguistic rights (Hames 2017). It has also led the Academy of African Languages (ACALAN), an organ of the African Union, to identify it as a vehicular, cross-​border language scheduled for development and promotion. Other Sahelian languages that fall within this category include the widely spoken Hausa; the Mande languages, including Bamanankan, Dioula, and Mandinka, which form a dialect chain that stretches from Mali and Burkina Faso westward and southward to Guinea, Guinea-​Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire; as well as Wolof. The

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    657 Table 34.2 Lingua Francas of the Sahel Country

MAURITANIA

SENEGAL

MALI

BURKINA FASO

NIGER

CHAD

Major lingua franca

Hassaniyya

Wolof

Bamanankan

Moore

Hausa

Chadian Arabic

Diola Mandinka Fula

Songhay Fula Tamasheq Soninke

Dioula Fula

Zarma Tamasheq Kanuri Fula

Sara Bagirmi Sango

Regional lingua Fula franca(s) Soninke Wolof

dispersion of Fula-​speaking populations across the Sahel has much to do with the pastoralist traditions of the Fulbe, whose herds of cattle dot the landscape from Mauritania to the Central African Republic. Both Hausa and the Mande languages have long been associated with trade in West Africa, and along with Fula they have been important in the history of the transmission of Islam in the Sahel. Sahelian lingua francas take on special importance as ecologies change and individuals or populations move, whether through labor migration, migration due to climate change, or displacement from civil conflict. Albaugh (2019), for example, shows how recent gold mining activities have promoted the use of Dioula among labor migrants in southwest Burkina Faso; and Smith (2019) illustrates the way in which Wolof has become the language of the Senegalese diaspora in Europe and the United States. The displacement of populations in Mali and Niger due to civil conflict may likewise favor the use of certain regional lingua francas. Repertoires are reflections of individual biographies and trajectories, but there are some generalizations that can be drawn from the domains of interaction in which different languages are used. Speakers of small minority languages that have limited domains of use and are used primarily at a very local level invariably also speak a regional lingua franca, and many times they also speak a larger, urban, national or supranational lingua franca. Speakers of small languages, unless they are isolated or very young and have not yet ventured far from home, have more complex repertoires than do native speakers of larger regional, national, or international lingua francas. Conversely, native speakers of major Sahelian lingua francas like Hausa, Mandinka, or Wolof are generally less motivated to learn other African languages. Within this framework, language endangerment and death, a major preoccupation of linguists in the twenty-​first century, may be reformulated as the loss of a specific part of a repertoire (Lüpke and Storch 2013). Languages with small numbers of speakers can remain robust as long as another language within the repertoire of the community does not replace it in the domains in which it is spoken. Within living memory, Wolof has eclipsed Portuguese Creole as the lingua franca of the city of Ziguinchor in Casamance, Senegal (Juillard 1995; Dreyfus and Juillard 2004), because it is used in many of the same domains as the creole. Yet in the Sereer-​Safen village of Bandia, where all the adults speak fluent Wolof, Wolof has not so

658   Fiona Mc Laughlin far supplanted the local language, Saafi-​Saafi, because it is seen as an outsider’s language. Within the village, and especially when outsiders are not present, Saafi-​Saafi is the only language spoken, thus children are monolingual until they have to leave Bandia to go to French-​language school, where they also pick up Wolof. Ecologies such as this can easily be dismantled if significant changes occur. For example, the building up of infrastructure around the new international airport in Diass, Senegal, which opened in December 2017, will no doubt contribute to an increase in the use of Wolof in surrounding Sereer villages such as Bandia. But in the event that minority Sahelian languages are lost, it is almost always the case that their roles are filled by other, larger Sahelian languages rather than the official language, a point that is often overlooked.

WRITING AND LITERACY IN SAHELIAN LANGUAGES Literacy in the Sahel is, more often than not, measured in terms of what is acquired in the formal school system, namely Roman alphabet literacy in French, or MSA written in the Arabic alphabet, resulting in statistics compiled by governments or NGOs that reflect low regional rates of literacy. While French and MSA are both important literacies in the Sahel, they reflect a situation known as “exographia” (Lüpke 2004) by which people write in a language other than the one(s) they habitually speak. What then of literacy in African languages? African language literacy in the Sahel is characterized by diverse writing systems, some of which have their origins in the region, and others, like the Roman and Arabic alphabets, that come from elsewhere. One of the oldest writing systems is the Tifinagh alphabet (Casajus 2015), a Libyco-​Berber script used for writing the Berber or Amazigh languages in the Sahel and North Africa. Medieval epigraphs on rocks in the region of Kidal in Mali in both Tifinagh and Arabic scripts are the first examples of writing in West Africa (Moraes Farias 1990), and have been used to support a central role for the Tuareg in the Islamic history of the region. Documentation from Niger shows that Tifinagh is still used to write Tamasheq and is often associated with language play and other ludic or sentimental modes of writing (Elghamis 2011). The alphabet carries a high symbolic value, even for those who do not master it (Ouaras 2009; Mc Laughlin 2015). Nigerien artist Rissa Ixa, whose paintings document an idyllic and endangered Tuareg way of life, often includes Tifinagh inscriptions on rocks and boulders as a motif in his paintings of the Sahara, and Tuareg silversmiths in Mali and Niger frequently use it to sign their jewelry. One letter in particular, , known as ezza or yaz, has come to represent Amazigh identity, and has figured as a prominent political symbol signifying the “free man” in activist movements from northern Mali and Niger to Morocco. As byproducts of Islamization and colonization respectively, both the Arabic and Roman (Latin) alphabets have been harnessed to write Sahelian languages. One of the

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    659 most important developments to arise out of Arabic-​language literacy in the Sahel is the establishment of written traditions in African languages in the Arabic script. This practice, known as ajami, is widespread in the Muslim world, and is starting to receive the scholarly attention it deserves in the Sahel (e.g., Souag 2010; Bondarev 2014; Lüpke and Bao-​Diop 2014; Vydrin 2014; Vydrin and Dumestre 2014; Ngom 2016; McLaughlin forthcoming). The practice has its origins in religious settings, especially in Quranic schools, via the recitation and copying of literary works by Muslim elites who wrote poetry and panegyrics in both Arabic and African languages of religious explanation. Arabic manuscripts from the Sahel, such as those housed in the Ahmed Baba library and other collections in Timbuktu (Jeppie and Diagne 2008; Molins Lliteras 2017), often include marginalia like translations and commentaries in Sahelian languages. Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, and Wolof in particular have robust writing traditions in the Arabic script, and although in the absence of any regulating body they are rarely standardized, they are certainly conventionalized. In recent years, the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) has attempted to standardize ajami writing, but it is unclear whether such an initiative can be implemented on the ground, or whether it would even be desirable. Standardization efforts can sometimes backfire because they might have the effect of discouraging writers by introducing the concepts of misspelling and error, and promoting an idealized pure language that is at odds with the way people speak. They may also inadvertently undermine traditional authority. While many promoters of standardization view it as a neutral, scientific project, literacy is in reality a socially embedded practice. As it stands, different writing traditions have found ways to depict the many phonemes (sounds) that do not exist in Arabic, and the writing system has been modified largely through the use of diacritics or special markings to represent sounds in Sahelian languages. This sometimes leads to a single character representing more than one sound, but this is largely unproblematic for writers and readers since the character is always contextualized within a word. Moreover, it is the way that successful writing systems normally emerge and become conventionalized historically. At present, Sahelians write their own languages in Arabic script for record keeping, and for writing notes, letters, and diaries, thus it remains a robust practical literacy for everyday purposes, especially for those who have not attended a French-​language school. Sahelian languages may also be written in the Roman script, often as the result of interventions in the form of missionary or NGO literacy instruction, but also as a consequence of formal instruction in public schools at the primary level, as in Mali (Skattum 2008, 117–​118). A number of West African languages have standardized writing systems in the Roman alphabet that date from the early days of independence, many of which come out of a 1966 UNESCO-​sponsored conference in Bamako on the unification of national language alphabets. Although these are sometimes taught in public schools and adult literacy classes, in practice much Roman-​script writing in Sahelian languages is improvised and heavily influenced by French orthography through the adoption of French spelling conventions. Examples can be found in place names such as Tchad and Ouagadougou, or in proper names such as Traoré, N’Diaye, Ouedraogo, and Ould Ghazouani, spellings that date from the colonial period. They are also commonly found

660   Fiona Mc Laughlin in the contemporary writing of shop and business names (e.g., Keur Serigne Touba in Wolof, as opposed to the standardized form Kër Sériñ Tuubaa), and in electronic writing such as Internet fora and text messaging. French orthography is used by writers who have learned French spelling conventions in school, and who are consequently literate in French but have not been exposed systematically to the standardized orthography of the Sahelian languages in which they are writing. The choice of a script almost always carries social meaning, and can often be political (Sebba 2007). Among the many complex historical reasons that Pulaar speakers in Mauritania and Senegal prefer the use of the Roman alphabet for writing their language are the threats of Arabization and Wolofization, respectively (Humery 2014, 188). Both Arabic and Wolof are more commonly written in Arabic script, so that by using the Roman script Pulaar speakers are dissociating themselves from those languages and making a covert political statement. Similarly, in Chad, where Arabic and French are co-​official languages, the Islamic arabophone elite advocate the use of the Arabic alphabet for writing arabe littéraire, while the francophone elite are in favor of Chadian Arabic written in the Roman script as a way of dissociating the language from religion (Jullien de Pommerol 1997). Beyond Tifinagh, Arabic, and Roman scripts, the Sahel is home to other alphabets developed by intellectuals, Sufi mystics, or cultural activists. Some of these writing systems, such as the Garay script for writing Wolof, invented by Assane Fall in 1961, have names, while others do not. Most of these scripts are used by only a very small number of people, with the exception of N’ko, a writing system created by Guinean Soulemaana Kante in 1949 for writing Mande languages (Amselle 1996; Oyler 2005). Used to varying degrees across the Mande-​speaking region, N’ko has been imbued with various anti-​ colonial and ethno-​nationalist ideologies (Wyrod 2008; Donaldson 2017, 2019) to become an important latecomer to the rich and varied ecology of writing in the Sahel.

SAHELIAN WAYS OF SPEAKING Predating the literary genres that have been described here, which are intimately related to the Islamization and colonization of the Sahel, there are a number of important oral genres that are prized both for their aesthetic qualities and for the reflexive ways in which they evaluate and comment on society (Barber 2007, 4–​5). The Sahel constitutes an important part of the “African epic belt” (Johnson 1980), associated variously with the presence of specialist bards, contact with literacy, and state formation. The most famous of these is undoubtedly the Epic of Sundjata, which recounts the founding of the Mali Empire by Sundjata Keïta (died 1255). Widely performed in the Mande-​speaking world, it has also become a referent in popular music and film. The figure of the griot, a specialist bard or verbal artist, is central to Sahelian oral culture (Camara 1992; Hoffman 2000; Hale 2007). As people who work with powerful and dangerous materials—​in this case speech, which has the potential to make or destroy an individual’s reputation—​griots are members of the endogamous artisan caste of

The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    661 nyamakalaw (Mande) or ñeeño (Wolof), along with blacksmiths, leather workers, and others, in the highly stratified hierarchy of Sahelian societies (Tamari 1997; Conrad and Frank 1995; see also Jourde Chapter 33 in this volume).4 Despite their low social status, their eloquence as performers and praise singers makes griots a required presence at life ceremonies, and they fulfill a wide variety of roles as genealogists, intermediaries, and communicators throughout the Sahel. Griots are remunerated for their work, sometimes lavishly, especially when they sing the praises of high-​status individuals such as nobles. Jelikan, or the speech of griots, is elaborate, powerful, and often intimidating, and is characterized by an ambiguity that gives it power in the form of a force known as nyama in the Mande languages. The power of this speech and the fear it can instill in addressees are illustrated by Hoffman (1995, 42), who recounts, “I have seen many a horon’s [noble’s] hand quake as it thrust forth a bill, sometimes accompanied by a verbal plea, ‘ka nyama bò’ (Please take away the nyama).” Beyond the performances of verbal artists like griots, there are other genres such as tales and proverbs that are not uniquely Sahelian but are characteristic of most societies in Africa and beyond. These are almost never deployed in isolation, a fact that published collections of folktales and proverbs cannot capture. The full meaning of a proverb such as the Wolof Ku boot bukki xaj bów la (If you carry a hyena on your back, dogs will bark at you) can come only partially from the words themselves; to be fully understood it must be filled in and sharpened by the context in which it is uttered. The affirmation of social ties at a number of levels is enacted through extensive greetings (Irvine 1974; Donaldson 2018) and by the joking relationships between certain ethnic or kinship groups, characteristic of many Sahelian societies. Joking relationships are expressed primarily through language and may take the form of playful insults such as the reciprocal attribution of slave status between Haalpulaar and Sereer in Senegal, or the attribution of greed between interlocutors who enact a joking relationship based on their patronyms. Yet these relationships, too, are fluid and contingent (Canut and Smith 2006).

CONCLUSION The linguistic ecology of the Sahel is rich and complex in ways that go far beyond what a chapter such as this can capture. It is possible, nonetheless, to point to a set of unique features that are common to the linguistic landscape of the Sahel, and that differentiate it from linguistic ecologies elsewhere in Africa. First among these is the widespread fact of the social differentiation of a caste of people, namely griots, to whom mastery of eloquent language and verbal acumen is entrusted, and who hold an ambiguous status within the social hierarchy. Second is the shared history of Islamization and its concomitant influence on the linguistic landscape of the Sahel. This includes not only loanwords and the transfer of Arabic structures to the speech of Muslim elites but also an adaptable alphabet for writing Sahelian languages, and a literary tradition. Finally, French colonialism has left its mark on the linguistic ecology of the Sahel in many of the same ways as

662   Fiona Mc Laughlin Arabic, through its imposition on the lexicon of Sahelian languages and in the introduction of a second alphabet. Rather than adopting Arabic or French, the languages of historical forces that have shaped the region, the vast majority of Sahelians continue to use their own languages in ways that reflect their complex linguistic legacy.

Notes 1. African languages and their dialects often have multiple names, all of which are spelled in diverse ways in the literature, some reflecting French or English orthography, and others reflecting a more phonetic type of spelling. This chapter aims simply for consistency, and where necessary, disambiguation through parenthetical information, e.g., Dioula (Dyula, Jula). 2. Linguists use the notion of genetic relationships between languages solely by analogy to the way genetic relationships are understood in biology. Languages said to be genetically related have a common ancestor from which they are descended, regardless of whether their speakers are related or not. Thus, the Romance languages, including Catalan, French, Italian, or Spanish, are said to be genetically related because they are all descended from Latin. Genetic relationships between languages make no claims about biological genetic relationships between their speakers, although the two may of course coincide. 3. In common parlance the word “dialect” has a number of mostly negative connotations, and is often taken to mean a non-​standard form of language without a written system. Here I am using dialect in the neutral, linguistic sense simply to mean a variety of a language. Thus, we can speak geographically of the Adamawa dialect of Fula spoken in Cameroon, the Fouta Djallon dialect spoken in northern Guinea, and the Fouta Toro dialect spoken in northern Senegal and southern Mauritania, without attributing any other connotation to them. 4. The so-​called caste systems of the western Sahel have received much attention in scholarly literature. While some studies focus on the persistence and rigidity of social hierarchies as defining features, other approaches highlight fluidity and change across time. For an overview of this debate, see Jourde Chapter 33 in this volume.

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The Linguistic Ecology of the Sahel    665 Moore, Leslie. 2006. “Learning by Heart in Qur’anic and Public Schools in Northern Cameroon.” Social Analysis 50(3): 109–​126. Moraes Farias, Paulo F. de. 1990. “The Oldest Extant Writing of West Africa: Medieval Epigraphs from Issuk, Saney and Egef-​n-​Tawaqqast (Mali).” Journal des Africanistes 60: 65–​113. Ngom, Fallou. 2016. Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridiyya. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nunez, Joseph Jean François, and Isabelle Léglise. 2017. “Ce que les pratiques langagières plurilingues au Sénégal disent à la linguistique du contact,” in Michelle Auzanneau, Margaret Bento, and Malory Leclère, eds., Espaces, mobilités et éducation plurilingues: Éclairages d’Afrique ou d’ailleurs. Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 99–​119. Ouaras, Karim. 2009. “Les graffiti de la ville d’Alger: Carrefour des langues, des signes et de discours. Les murs parlent.” Insaniyat: Revue Algérienne d’Anthropologie et de Sciences Sociales 44/​45: 159–​174. Oyler, Dianne W. 2005. The History of the N’ko Alphabet and its Role in Mande Transnational Identity: Words as Weapons. Cherry Hill: Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers. Sayahi, Lotfi. 2014. Diglossia and Language Contact: Language Variation and Change in North Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sebba, Mark. 2007. Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skattum, Ingse. 2008. “Mali: In Defence of Cultural and Linguistic Pluralism,” in Andrew Simpson, ed., Language and National Identity in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 98–​121. Smith, Maya Angela. 2018. Senegal Abroad: Linguistic Borders, Racial Formations, and Diasporic Imaginaries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Souag, Lameen. 2010. Ajami in West Africa. Afrikanistik Aegyptologie Online, http://​www. afrikanistik-​aegyptologie-​online.de/​archiv/​2010/​2957, Accessed 28 August 2019, accessed 28 August 2019. Sounaye, Abdoulaye. 2015. “Le français: langue d’élite, langue de religiosité, outil de réislamisation au Niger.” Histoire, Monde et Cultures Religieuses 36: 119–​140. Taine-​Cheikh, Catherine. 2004. “La Mauritanie: vers une nouvelle politique linguistique?” Revue d’Aménagement Linguistique 107: 205–​226 Tamari, Tal. 1997. Les castes de l’Afrique occidentale. Nanterre: Société d’Ethnologie. Vydrin, Valentin. 2014. “Ajami Scripts for Mande Languages,” in Meikal Mumin and Kees Versteegh, eds., The Arabic Script in Africa: Studies in the Use of a Writing System. Leiden: Brill, 199–​223. Vydrin, Valentin, and Gérard Dumestre. “Manding Ajami Samples: Mandinka and Bamana,” in Meikal Mumin and Kees Versteegh, eds., The Arabic Script in Africa: Studies in the Use of a Writing System. Leiden: Brill, 225–​260. Ware, Rudolph T., III. 2004. “Njàngaan: The Daily Regime of Qur’ânic Students in Twentieth-​ Century Senegal.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 37(3): 515–​538. Ware, Rudolph T., III. 2014. The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Woolard, Kathryn A. 1999. “Simultaneity and Bivalency as Strategies in Bilingualism.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8(1): 3–​29. Wyrod, Christopher. 2008. “A Social Orthography of Identity: The N’ko Literacy Movement in West Africa.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192(1): 27–​44.

chapter 35

PASTORALIST S O C I ET I E S IN THE SA H E L Wendy Wilson-​Fall

In the twenty-​first century, pastoralists in the Sahel are faced with diverse challenges, some of which stem from external forces that are largely not within their control. In the 1990s, the greatest menace for Sahelian pastoralists was the increasing shift of family owned herds to herds owned by sedentary, town-​based entrepreneurs. In the first decades of the twenty-​first century, however, critical threats have included constraints on pastoral pasture access, criminal activity, climate instability, and religious radicalism. These major challenges are related and together pose the need for an expansive rather than narrow view of the situation of Sahelian pastoralists. This chapter argues that intra-​regional issues of land use policy and tension between extensive pastoral production systems and projects of nation-​building are at the center of current political instability in pastoral communities. The chapter also suggests that the violent disturbances of the 2010s more likely have economic and political dislocation at their origin than religious fervor, and that sentiments of so-​called nomadic nostalgia, which idealizes the past, are a response to the vacuum left by failed state attempts to create a public civic culture. Due to the region’s geography and political history, Sahelian pastoral communities exhibit notable cultural continuities over an immense geographic space, characterized by economically interdependent zones and tension between mobile and widely spread communities and centralized governments. This dynamic, and the networks that support it, affect identity and social relations among nomads and between pastoralists and farmers. This chapter emphasizes the interdependence of Sahelian pastoral systems, presenting pastoral communities as an archipelago of contiguous cultural niches that run on an east-​west axis across the Sahel, tied to related systems in the savannah grasslands and desert oases. In this context of interdependence, cultural identities reflect economic occupation and settlement patterns.

668   Wendy Wilson-Fall

PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON PASTORALISM From the colonial period to the first decades of the twenty-​first century, views on the efficacy and economic significance of mobile livestock production evolved from the proverbial tragedy of the commons to a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the ecological and social dynamics of transhumance. In scholarly circles, as well as among herders, civil servants, and development workers, opinions about pastoralists and range management diverge widely. Propositions range from the complete commercialization of pasturelands into private ranch facilities, to more minimalist approaches of mobile livestock management entailing only the provision of additional bore holes, health care and literacy training for pastoralists, improved veterinary services, and animal nutrition. It is impossible to discuss the future of pastoral peoples in the Sahel without discussing environmental sustainability, water management, climate trends, land tenure, and agricultural and forestry concerns. This is one reason there is such a wide and diverse range of voices in debates about pastoralist futures. Pastoralists are the historical custodians of a large swath of land that stretches across the breadth of West Africa, an area almost the size of the continental United States, that borders productive grain-​producing areas of the region. Second, there is a growing trend among local, regional, and national leaders to lease out large tracts of land to foreign governments and/​ or corporations for agribusiness, and significant amounts of land have also been sold to private citizens. Violence originating among pro-​radical, self-​defined Islamists has increased in the twenty-​first century, and disenchanted and disenfranchised pastoralists have been recruited into their ranks. This violence has ranged from placing explosives in the natural gas facilities of southern Algeria in 2013, to the takeover of Gao and Timbuktu in 2012, and to individual attacks on prisons, marketplaces, and hotels. Lease agreements, as argued by Camara (2013, 77–​78), are created with little or no consideration of historic land use patterns in the Sahel, which favored interdependence between pastoralists and village farmers. Many Sahelian scholars have joined the agribusiness debate and support the view that it is necessary to sustain herder–​farmer relations in the Sahel for strong economic growth. Based on scientific studies on the nature of pasturelands, and on pastoral household economy, as discussed by Pedersen and Benjaminsen (2008), it is clear that informal land use agreements between farmers and herders, and among herders regarding water access, have been foundational in keeping the peace until very recently. Scientists are aware of the critical importance of region-​wide systems of land use and production among Fulbe and Tuareg communities to the north, and Fulbe pastoralists and various farmer communities to the south. Specialists Touré (2013), Saley (1996), and Camara (2013) call for a more thoughtful, integrated approach to the problem of supporting pastoralists in the Sahel that includes sustainable natural resource management. Part of their concern, particularly in the case of Camara, is how the pastoralist–​farmer interface can be supported in the face of

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    669 increasing expansion of agribusiness ventures. In order to adequately assess the state of pastoralism in the Sahel, then, it is necessary to approach the problem with an interdisciplinary focus. In reviewing the literature, one notices that household or regional level ethnographies of various Fulbe groups dominate the scholarly literature from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.1 New household studies were also done in the 1990s (De Bruijn 1997). The dramatic conditions of the two droughts of the mid-​1970s and 1980s revealed climate and local politics to be important factors in pasture management, including herder access to emergency grazing lands. By the early 1990s, it was recognized that West African pasturelands were as biodiverse as woodlands further south, and that herders understood the nutritional advantages of various grasslands and oases in ways that had not earlier been accounted for among scholars or government decision-​makers. Scholars also developed a much more nuanced understanding of pastoralist identity, which is tied to economic factors as much as it is to cultural values for livestock and mobility. Scoones’ seminal volume, Living with Uncertainty (1994), included articles on the interface of social organization, economics, and the natural resource base with a particular focus on the biological nature of African pasturelands.

GEOGRAPHIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CONSIDERATIONS There have been trade and social interactions between the regions known as the Sudanic grasslands (also known as savanna lands), the Sahel, and the Saharan zone (the southern reaches of the Maghreb) since at least the Roman period (Gomez 2018). The southern border of this system, the Sudanic grasslands, which take the name Sudan from precolonial Arab descriptions (Hall 2011), historically have constituted an important zone of grain production, and offer a space of southern dry-​season routes for Fulbe cattle producers. The Sahel and grassland regions are the historical homeland of Fulbe cattle-​herding communities, while Moorish communities predominate in the far northwest, and Tuareg populations predominate from north central Mali to central Niger. The main debates regarding pastoralism as a viable production system reflect earlier prejudices that originated with the French colonial regime. These debates center around questions of perceived deleterious effects of pastoral systems on the natural environment. The French colonial position on transhumant herding in Algeria was a precursor to their ideas about herding activities in the Sahel: they perceived these systems as primitive and injurious to the environment. These colonial ideas survived in the post-​independence period and affected policy development, much as they did in British-​controlled territories (see e.g., Herskovits (1926); Evans-​Pritchard (1940); Dyson-​Hudson and Dyson-​Hudson (1980)). Discussions among government

670   Wendy Wilson-Fall decision-​makers and extension agents tended toward ideas of herder sedentarization. Governments were concerned that nomads habitually crossed national borders, and were socially distant from new trends in civic life brought about by independence. Yet meat and dairy production remained significant to national economies. By the late 1980s investments in the pastoral sector through bilateral and multilateral development agreements began to make an impact. Through various social assessments, pasture studies, and hydraulic research, these interventions demonstrated that mobile livestock production meant agricultural profitability in arid lands, and together with technical studies, they started to impact national and wider regional policies for the protection of pasturelands or some form of land tenure policy for pastoralist populations. Due to the high financial investment necessary to conduct studies in the rural Sahel among nomads, policy research on these populations almost always requires recourse to technical reports from rural development projects. As such projects became less popular among donors in the late 1990s, the availability of good data diminished considerably. Farmer income needs and population growth led to shorter cultivation life for fields, and expansion of farmed territory was accompanied by shorter fallow periods, and often poorer soils. Governments sometimes sought the intervention of large companies able to cover agricultural input costs. Agribusiness from Europe, Saudi Arabia, and China has viewed this as an opportunity to expand farming areas, often moving into former pasture zones, and resulting in confusion and resource-​based conflict on the local level, as Camara points out in the case of the Niger Basin (2013, 78). The inability to defend pasture rights has been at the root of many low-​level conflicts between farmers and herders in the twenty-​first century. Through all of this, pastoralists in the Sahel have managed to skirt large-​scale antagonisms by adjusting herding patterns, but this response has evident limits. Conflicts in southern Niger between Fulani herders and Hausa farmers, and the increased volatility of Tuareg communities in Mali, are in great part a result of increased pressures of diminishing pasture and unstable climate conditions. Their resilience, on the other hand, is largely due to the consistency of cattle cash value through the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-​first, exploitation of markets further south, and growing internal urban markets, and their unequaled knowledge of the natural environment of the region. Ethnic groups that depend primarily on cattle or cattle production and who are transhumant in West Africa are relatively few. Over the centuries, almost all cattle herding communities in the western and central Sahel have been absorbed by, fractured from, or are recognized by others as belonging to the Fulbe. Exceptions are groups of nomadic Kanuri or various Arab groups. It is in fact east of Lake Chad that other groups dominate, such as the Fur and Baggara, and where the Fulani hegemony on grasslands actually diminishes, though they are present in smaller groups (Barth 1969; Horowitz 1979; Boesen 2007, 31; Boesen, Marfaing, and de Bruijn 2014). In the northern Sahel, Moorish communities continue to practice transhumant camel and cattle management, as do various Tuareg communities further east. In the first two decades of the

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    671 twenty-​first century, however, these systems have been severely affected by violence, namely Tuareg efforts at secession from the state, Islamic radicalism as evidenced by the actions of branches of al-​Qaida such as AQIM, or some combination of the two. There is also considerable contraband trade across the Sahara, entailing the movement of illegal cigarettes, arms, and cocaine, as well as human trafficking (Ellis 2009; Keenan 2000).

CATTLE HERDERS: PASTORALIST FULBE The pastures used by Fulbe run from the niayes wet-​season grasslands of western Senegal to the grasslands surrounding Lake Chad. Three exceptions are the Fulbe communities who exploit high elevation areas or other Sudanic micro-​regions. Though Sudan/​savanna transhumance zones sometimes overlap or are contiguous, such as in the case of the Bundu and Kedougou areas of eastern Senegal, each region constitutes a particular herding adaptation, and each is exploited by particular lineages and clans who have historically been associated with those geographies. Later in this chapter, factors such as lineage and well ownership will be explored as tools that have been used by pastoral Fulbe to establish property rights, if not ownership, over various territories. Throughout the Sahel, pastoralist Fulbe co-​exist with sedentary farming communities of diverse ethnicities, such as the Hausa and the Kanuri in the east, the Hausa, Mossi, Bambara, Bozo, Songhay, and Mandinka in the central part of the Sahel, and the Mandinka, Sereer, Wolof, and Haalpulaar in the west. Transhumant herding Fulbe are also often linked with less nomadic Fulbe groups and sedentary Fulbe villages. Occasionally women from pastoral communities marry into more settled Fulbe communities, creating long-​lasting kin networks among different types of Fulani society and thus increasing pasture options. Increasingly, young people, both male and female, from all Fulbe communities, marry outside their ethnic group into settled farming communities or into families living in towns and cities. At the same time, as a result of such forces as access to primary education, military inscription, and NGO activity, increasing numbers of Fulbe now live in West Africa’s cities. Although people marry widely according to factors such as geography, class, and education, West African pastoralists historically did not intermarry to any great extent with each other. This may be understood as a historic choice of good neighbors keeping a safe distance. The majority of rural Fulbe live in small farming communities, practice limited transhumance, and return to their home farms on a weekly or seasonal basis. Many reside in peri-​urban settings, on the city outskirts, where they are able to take advantage of densely populated neighborhoods for the sale of dairy products and animals, and occasional wage labor opportunities (Wilson-​Fall 2003). This is true for most suburbs of the major cities in the Sahel, where there is high mobility within households between city life and rural destinations. Culture cannot be reduced to climate or environment, nor can the history of a region be limited to ideological or religious trends such as reformist Islam, Sufism, or Salafism.

672   Wendy Wilson-Fall The expansion, contraction, and fragmentation of Fulbe communities are processes linked to a mobile, transhumant lifestyle, and coincident to religious organization rather than the other way around, as some scholars have argued. Much about transhumance and mobile livestock management can be understood as strategic behavior aimed at maximizing nutritional value from the grasses of pasturelands in the context of limited water resources and various political constraints, as Swift (1994) and others have shown. In addition to the land’s carrying capacity there are significant social factors such as the ratio of labor needs to herd size, the number of young men in a patrilineal household expecting to inherit cattle, and the number of young women expecting to take animals with them when they marry. The prices for cattle fluctuate according to season and demand, rising in particular before holidays. Prices for cattle that were long stable across the Sahel began to rise in the first decades of the twenty-​first century, and there is a growing price differential across the region. Sales in urban areas like Dakar command higher prices because they have greater concentrations of better-​off populations. A steer can sell for anything from 300,000–​450,000 CFA, and the upper price range is fairly close to European and American prices, which average about US$1,000–​1,500 per head. The market has remained relatively stable, and this gives evidence of the financial logic of herders who balance meeting cash needs for purchases such as medicines in urban centers with the need to be distant from urban centers to manage their animals, which remain the economic foundation of the household. The resilience of Fulbe pastoralist communities has much to do with economic factors, but can also be attributed to their historical political strategies of maintaining outward links to sedentary farming communities and establishing rapport with regional political leaders, practices that preceded the advent of the colonial period and that have endured. Where these links have weakened, new community efforts toward civic participation are emerging.

CAMEL HERDERS: TUAREG, MOORS, AND ARABS Among camel herders of the western and central Sahel, the Tuareg are the most numerous, followed by the Moors, and smaller communities of Arab descent who historically inhabited the northern Sahel. Some Tuareg claim that their geographic spread was considerably further north before the arrival of the Arabs in the eighth century. Both Moors and Tuaregs are of Berber descent, although Moors intermarried with Arabs and speak Hassaniyya, a dialect of Arabic, while the Tuareg speak Tamasheq (see Mc Laughlin Chapter 34 in this volume). Of the pastoralist communities discussed in this chapter, the Tuareg have suffered the greatest losses to their historical way of life so far (Keenan 2000). This is due in large part to significant changes from the way in which labor was distributed in nineteenth-​and early twentieth-​century Tuareg encampments. Pedersen and Benjaminsen (2008, 43) give a clear description of former patterns of

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    673 Tuareg organization of labor that, because of encampment locations in the far north, relied on a great diversity of collected as well as cultivated food sources, in addition to the nutrition gained through camel milk, purchased, traded, or taxed grains, and goat products. Taxed grains were grains gifted to Tuareg nobles by lower caste Tuareg client communities. Unlike in the case of the Fulbe, meeting nutritional needs of the Tuareg household or encampment was organized vertically through several social classes along with clan and patrilineal lines. Each affiliated group in a lineage was responsible for securing different sorts of food. Thus, nobles and their close affiliates, the clerics, managed camels for milk, while other groups were responsible for goat management, foraging for wild grasses and fruits (key to Tuareg survival strategies), or for cultivating grain further south in related villages. These client communities, former slaves known as Bella or Bouzou, were expected to gift an established portion of their grain harvest to their Tuareg masters. Once colonialism disturbed this social system with its dependence on enslaved communities and a rigid hierarchy, the entire Tuareg pastoral system was enfeebled. In the twenty-​first century, most Bella or Bouzou have pulled away from these relationships, further weakening the economic base of Tuareg pastoralists, and even the metalworking class has embarked on independent cultivation of markets outside of their historic relationship to Tuareg nobles (Davis 1999). Tuareg society has been subject to other transnational forces that contribute to its transformation, notably the drug trade and radical Islamic militantism. Ellis (2009) cites a 2007 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which estimates that about a quarter of Europe’s annual consumption of 135–​145 tons of cocaine, with a wholesale value of some US$1.8 billion, transits via West Africa. In addition to the cocaine trade, West Africa is also a transit point for much smaller transshipped quantities of heroin, and arms, ammunition, and narcotics are frequently seized by the police and army in Agadez, an important crossroads in the trans-​Saharan drug trade. Writing in 2007, Rasmussen believed that reformist Salafi or Wahabist movements would not get a foothold in Tuareg communities. She stated that “(i)ndeed, issues other than religion are the primary concern of the two major Tuareg rebellions since the early 1990s: namely, uneven economic development and political representation” (Rasmussen 2007, 190). She was correct, but by the end of the first decade of the twenty-​first century, events in the northern Sahel would prove the importance of religion as a rallying point.

HISTORICAL POINTS OF INTEREST, RESILIENCE, AND ADAPTATION The intense communication and frequent travel between centers of Fulbe rule in the nineteenth century resulted in a constellation of Fulbe states that stretched from the Atlantic to Lake Chad by the time the French colonial regime was implanted. The unique interface of nomadic, semi-​nomadic, and town-​dwelling Fulbe allowed for

674   Wendy Wilson-Fall an important degree of cultural homogeneity along a continuum of very diverse lifestyles, ranging from pastoral herder communities to semi-​nomadic villages and village-​based Muslim communities that created off-​shoot herder encampments that often evolved into nomadic or semi-​nomadic branches. These factors allowed for the isolation of nomadic communities because they related to the state through their village affiliates. Trade relationships with intermediate farming communities were for a long time sufficient for pastoral household sustainability. The attempts of French colonial administrators had little to do with the reality of how nomads governed themselves or how decision-​making occurs in nomadic societies. Tuaregs fought the French bitterly and remained marginalized throughout the colonial and early post-​ colonial era. An important factor for Fulbe pastoralists has been their economic and social links with settled Fulbe communities. In this, they have engaged a very different strategy of coexistence than their northern neighbors, the Tuareg, who generally are seen as more self-​segregating and whose system of animal husbandry and trade relied heavily on slave and client communities. This historical difference has turned out to be a critical factor in political relations for the Tuareg. The way in which slave communities participated historically in labor organization among the Fulbe differs from that of the Tuareg. The most nomadic Fulbe such as the Wodaabe or Bororoji depended on trade relations with Hausa neighbors for access to grain. In semi-​nomadic Fulbe communities, where transhumance is carried out by a particular age group on a seasonal basis, slave communities were attached to Fulbe villages, spoke Fulfulde or Pulaar, and were and still are often included in Fulbe village life, albeit in marginal or socially reduced ways. Fulbe slave management focused on the integration of slaves into Fulbe society and their gradual assimilation as Fulbe (Wilson 1984). The Tuareg, by contrast, maintained client communities geographically distant from their nomadic settlements, even though they also maintained some people of captive origin among nobles and other free persons in their encampments (Pedersen and Benjaminsen 2008). Because of the sedentarism achieved through satellite communities, the Tuareg system required greater dependence on slaves for food production and also developed more specialized castes of metal workers and other craftspeople such as leather workers. Fulbe attempts at state development and hegemony throughout the region during the latter half of the nineteenth century saw them competing with the French for control and influence, and the French colonial administration considered them recalcitrant and untrustworthy. With the installation of bore holes during the colonial period, pastoralist Fulbe retreated to the bush and continued their nomadic lifestyle. The Tuareg, unlike the Fulbe, engaged in sustained, direct battle with the French colonialists, which finally led to Tuareg’s loss of power in 1916–​1917. Historical transitions such as these have attracted the interest of multiple scholars. An important discussion of the question of captive populations and their fate following French domination can be found in Rossi (2015), while Wilson-​Fall (2015) addresses lost slave labor and current Tuareg identity. Useful discussions of French colonialism and slavery in the Sahel can be found in Klein (1998)

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    675 and Hall (2011), while Jourde (Chapter 33 in this volume) provides new and compelling analyses on the recent history of casted persons and slaves in both Tuareg and Fulbe communities.

NATURAL ENVIRONMENT CHALLENGES Due to high mobility rates among pastoralists, the Fulbe historically managed wide social networks that enhanced their access to grain and dry season pastures. Pastoral encampments tend to be small, usually including no more than three to five households. This settlement pattern, based on livestock management needs and inheritance, affects local governance practices for Fulbe and Tuareg. Twenty-​first century pressures on mobility include the northward movement of small-​scale farmers to pastoralist zones, as such land occupation forces overuse in other more northerly zones. Decisions about pasture use may be discussed or negotiated among older men, but historically there has been no regional centralized authority that impacted day-​to-​day decisions throughout diverse encampments. As will be discussed further, climate variability gravely affects pasture renewal from one year to the next.

Water Resources There are generally three types of water resources for humans and animals that are exploited by Sahelian pastoralists. These are natural water sources, inherited hand-​ dug wells, and community bore holes. Among natural sources, rivers, seasonal lakes, and areas of high water tables where water can be accessed seasonally through manual digging are used. All of these resources remain an integral part of transhumance planning for pastoralists, and remain accessible, though some high water table areas have been claimed by government or private corporate entities to establish cattle ranches or cash cropping. In most pastoral areas Fulbe and Tuareg communities exploit inherited, hand-​dug wells. While in some ways the pastoralists might be seen as landless, and they rarely have title to any of the territories they exploit, family wells retain an important role in organizing space and property rights. Wells have continued to function as markers of governed, if not owned, pasture territory throughout the Sahel. Defense of customary practice intensified after independence, but the power of the state and increasing globalization mean that peasant practices and beliefs have gradually adjusted to an aggressive, globalized, and highly monetized environment. This adjustment takes place against a backdrop of legal pluralism and, in some instances, conflicts between various stakeholders (Camara 2013, 78). The use of family wells was never the sole factor in maintaining livestock herds; family wells were seasonal resources that were complemented by the exploitation of seasonal ponds and other natural water sources.

676   Wendy Wilson-Fall When access to other water sources is threatened or impossible, it affects the entire pasture use strategy of the affected community. Inherited, manually created water points remain important nodes in pastoral production networks. Increasingly, such sources are coming under threat as more and more herders are from other pastoral areas. Scholars have reported on the likelihood that stranger wage-​earning herders often do not respect local mores and traditions regarding well and water management. The most common problem is bringing too many animals to such wells at the same time, thereby destroying pasture in an expanding circumference around the well, or exploiting the well with little regard for existing transhumant patterns and needs. This problem is most common with regard to the use of bore holes, which are a community resource. Community, in this sense, means all rural users. This new category of users has at times been calculated by governments as a consumer group that must be held responsible for upkeep costs interpreted as water costs. Inasmuch as rural communities do not have the habit of conceptualizing water as a commodity to be bought and sold, this approach has encountered significant resistance among pastoralists and farmers alike. Not least among constraints to these efforts are the low level of education and literacy among pastoralists.

Pasturelands Fulbe, Moorish, and Tuareg communities have rarely had conflict over pasture use because they exploit different ecological zones. They have each, however, had considerable conflict with farmers, such as along the Senegal River and where farmers exploit fertile lands around Mali’s Lake Gossi. Generally, Moorish and Tuareg communities exploit pastures that are to the north of the zones where cattle production dominates, thus avoiding conflict with Fulbe. All of these pastoralist groups raise goats and sheep. The ruminant behavior of goats and sheep differs from that of cattle, which are grazers. Because goats and sheep browse closer to the ground than cattle, they are herded apart. Camels are browsers who feed mostly on tree leaves and buds. These are the reasons that pasture conflict is rare among these groups, as the Tuareg and Moors often exploit seasonal pastures or oases farther north than habitual cattle pastures. The Fulbe pastoralists also herd their goats and sheep separately, although they may move them together. For each pastoralist group, sufficient herding labor must be available to separate the various herds, and at times large cattle herds are also divided among different herders in order to assure adequate monitoring. The predominant technical point of view is that a broader regional framework that looks at the material issues of grassland maintenance is the answer to the degradation of pasturelands and the perceived need for optimal use of West Africa’s grasslands. Many such studies are problematic because they fail to take political influence on demographic shifts into account. Scientific research has also revealed that Sahelian and savanna grasslands provide important carbon sinks, and mitigate against global atmospheric pollution. Studies of the organization of transhumance routes, which admittedly are

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    677 focused on a smaller scale, have been more successful in integrating natural science data with ethnographic information, as in the work of Adriansen and Nielsen (2002). Given the economic importance of the livestock sector (see Eilittä Chapter 15 in this volume), governments will no doubt defend this sector against global corporate interests as much as possible.

CURRENT VIEW OF PASTORALIST FULBE, MOORS, AND TUAREG The perception of pastoral Fulbe as proud and recalcitrant prevails, but the creation in 2003 of the region-​wide federation of herder community groups, Réseau Billital Maroobe (RBM), which includes all of the Sahel region, as well as other pastoralist projects, has contributed to changing attitudes. Although the practice of herder mobility typically received little support or affirmation in government discourse, national governments are now committed to regional policy frameworks on pastoralism. RBM began recruiting active membership throughout the region in 2013. Farmers and herders are increasingly less interdependent, so that today’s generation of farmers often do not maintain the manuring contracts that their parents and grandparents held with Fulbe of their region. This, too, has contributed to a lack of public understanding of the reasons that pastoral Fulbe continue their transhumant lifestyles. Beginning with the democratic turn of the 1990s, this public ignorance has had serious consequences for land use planning in the rural sector. Organizations such as Billital Maroobe attempt to respond to this void by organizing regional and national lobbying efforts on behalf of pastoralist herders. In 2014, the World Bank, in concert with the Food and Agriculture Office of the United Nations, initiated a region-​wide project for pastoralists with RBM as its counterpart institution. The aim of this project is focused on the traditional inputs of increased water points, veterinary support, and market linkage development. It also aims to improve the political or civic status of pastoralists in the region. European and Arab Gulf nongovernmental agencies also supply support to these endeavors. It is evident that large investors such as the World Bank were hopeful that their support would help buffer pastoral communities from the sweep of violent radicalism at the beginning of the twenty-​first century. However, the lack of clear policy development in the areas of land tenure and water use threatens to become an increasingly thorny issue for pastoralists, and consequently for local and national governments. Relations between pastoralist communities and national police suffered considerably due to the Tuareg uprisings of the mid-​twentieth and early twenty-​first centuries. The result has been that negative attitudes that evolved in the context of Tuareg and police or army encounters have spread to include Fulbe pastoralists in a growing number of incidents. This partially explains the development of violent clashes, where local pastoralist leaders cite violent and disrespectful behavior on the part of security forces

678   Wendy Wilson-Fall and their failure to understand and support pastoralist strategies for land and water use. On the other hand, though numbers of Fulbe among the radical Islamist forces of the Sahel were initially small, their participation grew as the future of pastoralism as a viable life occupation appeared to be increasingly under threat (see Yahaya Ibrahim Chapter 30 in this volume). Alternatively, RBM appears to be a regional counterforce that is attracting participation in civic life and working toward protecting the rights of pastoralists. Though Moorish communities are participants in RBM and discuss their fates along with Fulbe and Tuareg members, theirs is a problem in some ways similar to that of the Tuaregs. They are seen as backward and racist by most other populations in the region due to their failure to eradicate slavery in Mauritania, which nonetheless has a strong abolitionist movement. It is, however, complicated by social ties of kinship and dependency which crosscut Moorish society (again, see Jourde Chapter 33 in this volume). Further, due to a lower number of people directly dependent on livestock production for household needs, as well as privilege among white Moors, there is less dependence on transhumance as an economic base. The future for pastoralist Moors is also complicated by the need for renewed trust between themselves and the Fulbe of Mauritania, who lost land in the late 1980s when conflict broke out between Moorish farm owners, haratine, or their client communities, and Haalpulaar farmers and pastoralist Fulbe along the Senegal River.

CONCLUSION The argument that Pedersen and Benjaminsen (2008, 43) make regarding diversification is applicable to all Sahelian pastoral production systems. They argue that the diversification of production activity in pastoral systems does not generally lead to increased economic productivity because of strains on labor and the resource demands for pasture and water that are germinal to the pastoral enterprise. Memory and history converge in the popular imagination of pastoralist youth to compensate for the political and economic failures of the modern nation-​state in the Sahel. They are rethinking citizenship and participation. Youth understand that the world is changing and that choices must be made regarding how, and if, to sustain pastoralist lifestyles. In spite of the cultural conservatism of pastoralists that has been widely recorded in the past, pastoralists have been quick to respond to the opportunities of Reseau Billital Maroobe. On the other hand, twenty-​first-​century instability among the Tuareg has much to do with weak household economies that earlier had been mitigated by cash remittances from Algeria and Libya. After Qaddafi’s downfall, many Tuareg returnees arrived with guns as well as new ideas about how development looked elsewhere. Not only had many young people been absent from home, thus missing a nuanced understanding of current national politics, they also returned with a greater sense of Berber identity and less empathy for their Songhay, Bambara, and Fulbe

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    679 neighbors. In many ways, they were confronted with starting again at zero, with little to show for the years they had spent abroad. Response to Saharan economic opportunity through crime offered a way to maintain households as well as links to the Maghreb that had been nurtured over the previous decade. This conundrum of national and ethnic identity was complicated by Tuareg efforts to secede from Mali and the founding of the Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad (MNLA). In some ways, the independence movement among Tuaregs was stolen or handed over to Islamic jihadists before it became fully developed, adding to political confusion in the northern pastoral zone. For some, the rise of the jihadist movements was a silencing of a local political discourse that had been years in the making, and thus represented a failure of Tuareg leaders to pull their communities together to confront the state in strategic ways. The call for secession of Tuareg communities can be seen in the context of a dwindling economic base. Dreams of oil, gas, and uranium wealth revenues helped motivate ideas of secession. In order to understand the violence that followed the rise of the MNLA, it is critical to remember the Tuareg and Fulbe are minority communities stretched between several Sahelian states, and this affects their ability to control the environments they depend upon. They know that conditions today differ from what they perceive as a better past existence. Entwined in this history are the control of farming labor and the development of hierarchical societies that assured the continuance of transhumant animal husbandry as a specialization. The loss of control over these factors has caused severe instability in nomadic communities across the spectrum, whatever the moral questions may be regarding these social hierarchies. The Tuareg have been a central factor in the current collapse of order in the northern Sahel, particularly northern Mali, but they have also consistently resisted centralized authority since the French arrived to create colonial French West Africa. In the twenty-​first century, the pastoral community in the Sahel is fractured in ways that seem to have no precedent. If there is a precedent, scholars must look for it beyond the post-​colonial and colonial phases to the historic relationships that existed between Sahelian polities on the southern fringes of the Sahara and the Arab/​Berber states to the north of the Sahara. It may be productive to reconsider emphasis on regional instead of national government land use. With little formal education and very little cash or political influence, herders must fall back on the repertoires that they are familiar with. In some cases, individuals from herding communities still use historical referents from the precolonial period, and their discourse takes an essentialist turn that in reality reaches toward a past that cannot be reconstructed. That such a past cannot be reconstructed does not keep would-​be community leaders from exploiting these oral traditions for a vocabulary that expresses their very contemporary and modern desires for power. Since the turn of the twenty-​ first century, the region has seen the emergence of several radical Islamist organizations that have displaced the earlier movement for Tuareg autonomy. A tension thus exists between the use of traditional imaginaries as models for solutions to the current economic and social crisis, and the use of these imaginaries to construct postcolonial ideoscapes

680   Wendy Wilson-Fall that draw on the poetics of romance and chivalry as various movements volley for power in the face of the ineffective governance of weak states. In 2012, in northern Mali many Islamic jihadists turned on their neighbors, in-​laws, and representatives of the modern state. Neighbors became the other in this new discourse of nostalgia, violence, and power. We are reminded of Abdourhamane Idrissa’s (2012) model of Sahel, savanna, and forest as topographical embodiments of older political and cultural histories. Fulbe pastoralists, who inhabit areas directly to the south of the Tuareg, have for the time being served as a buffer to this explosive situation. Yet the Fulbe, too, share the same imperial and expansive histories. Efforts to control the violence of the Tuareg will inevitably have an impact on Fulbe in Mali and elsewhere. Some Fulbe youth have joined the ranks of the religious extremists, others have joined the ranks of refugees. As in other places in the world, communities of this region face the consequences of rapid globalization of capital and deterritorialization in their own homelands. In general, rural Sahelian communities are in acute crisis at the beginning of the twenty-​first century, as a confluence of historical trends has ripped away most of the constants with which their lives have been constructed. This extends from spiritual life to the physical: their lands, wells, livestock, and households (Keenan 2006b). One scholar of youth in West Africa argues that, “[p]‌eople in general, but especially aggrieved or unemployed youths, are becoming increasingly fervent (and fundamentalist) in their religious views” (Ifeka 2006, 171). In this context, we can also see social upheavals in relation to youth disenchantment throughout Africa, where improved educational facilities, greater internet access, and urbanization have had a substantial impact on the way in which youth in Africa, including the Sahel, see the world and their place in the global economy (Keenan 2006a). Lack of opportunity for better educational conditions, and lack of jobs, has created a large pool of young people who are caught waiting for a better future. These socioeconomic conditions account for the growth of militant youth organizations at points of greatest strain between centrifugal (decentering primordial kin-​based) forces and centripetal (centering for capitalist accumulation) pulls, both affecting ethnic and religious identities. There are three major stakeholders—​kin-​based communities, capitalist economic interests (landowners, oil companies), and political elites (the state)—​who seek to define their boundaries and defend their interests (Ifeka 2006, 171). In the case of the Sahel, the economic interests would include oil, uranium, and agribusiness. At the base of twenty-​first-​century conflicts are issues of land use and land tenure, and the unequal distribution of state income from extractive industries. Further, lack of a clear natural resource policy has contributed greatly to problems of civil unrest, leaving pastoralism to an uncertain future.

Notes 1. See e.g., Derrick J. Stenning, Marguérite Dupire, Phillip Salzman, Z.A. Konczacki, and Victor Azarya, who wrote extensively on various Fulbe communities in the years 1958–​1985.

Pastoralist Societies in the Sahel    681

REFERENCES Adriansen, Hanne K., and Thomas T. Nielsen. 2002. “Going Where the Grass is Greener: On the Study of Pastoral Mobility in Ferlo, Senegal.” Human Ecology 30 (2): 215–​226. Barth, Frederick. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Reprint: Long Grove: Waveland Press, 1998. Boesen, Elizabeth. 2007. “Pastoral Nomadism and Urban Migration: Mobility among the Fulbe-​Wodaabe from Central Niger,” in Hans Peter Hahn and Georg Klute, eds., Cultures of Migration: African Perspectives. Muenster: LIT Verlag, 32–​60. Boesen, Elizabeth, Laurence Marfaing, and Mirjam de Bruijn. 2014. “Nomadism and Mobility in the Sahara-​Sahel: Introduction.” Canadian Journal of African Studies/​Revue canadienne des études africaines 48(1):1–​12. Camara, Bakary. 2013. “The Dynamics of Land Tenure Systems in the Niger Basin, Mali.” Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute 83(1): 78–​99. Davis, Elizabeth A. 1999. “Metamorphosis in the Culture Market of Niger.” American Anthropologist New Series 101(3): 485–​501. De Bruijn, Mirjam. 1997. “The Hearthhold in Pastoral Fulbe Society, Central Mali: Social Relations, Milk and Drought.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 67(4): 625–​651. Dupire, Marguerite. 1962. Peuls Nomades. Paris: Institute of Ethnology. Dyson-​Hudson, Rada, and Neville Dyson-​Hudson. 1980. “Nomadic Pastoralism.” Annual Review of Anthropology (9): 15–​61. Ellis, Stephen. 2009. “West Africa’s International Drug Trade.” African Affairs 108(431): 171–​196. Evans-​Pritchard, Edward E. 1940. The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gomez, Michael A. 2018. African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hall, Bruce. 2011. A History of Race in Muslim West Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Herskovits, Melville J. 1926. “The Cattle Complex in East Africa.” American Anthropologist New Series 28 (1): 230–​272. Horowitz, Michael M. 1979. “The Sociology of Pastoralism on African Livestock Projects.” USAID Discussion Paper 6. Idrissa, Abdourahmane. 2012. “Democrats, Ethnocrats, Theocrats.” Boston: West African Research Association Fall Newsletter 1: 25–​27. Ifeka, Caroline. 2006. “Youth Cultures & the Fetishization of Violence in Nigeria.” Review of African Political Economy 33(110): 721–​736. Keenan, Jeremy. 2000. “The Father’s Friend: Returning to the Tuareg as an ‘Elder’.” Anthropology Today 16(4): 7–​11. Keenan, Jeremy. 2006a. “Tuareg Take up Arms.” Review of African Political Economy 33 (108): 367–​368. Keenan, Jeremy. 2006b. “Conspiracy Theories and ‘Terrorists’: How the ‘War on Terror’ Is Placing New Responsibilities on Anthropology.” Anthropology Today 22(6): 4–​9. Klein, Martin. 1998. Slavery and Colonial Rule in West Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pedersen, Jon, and Tor A. Benjaminsen. 2008. “One Leg or Two? Food Security and Pastoralism in the Northern Sahel.” Human Ecology 36(1): 43–​57

682   Wendy Wilson-Fall Rasmussen, Susan. 2007. “Re-​Formations of the Sacred, the Secular, and Modernity: Nuances of Religious Experience among the Tuareg (Kel Tamajaq).” Ethnology 46(3): 185–​203. Rossi, Benedetta. 2015. From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labor and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800–​2000. New York: Cambridge University Press. Saley, Maman. 1996. “Le cas du Niger: les Touareg du passé au future.” Civilisations 43(2): 65–​82. Scoones, Ian, ed. 1994. Living with Uncertainty: New Directions in Pastoral Development in Africa. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Swift, Jeremy. 1994. “Dynamic Ecological Systems and the Administration of Pastoral Development,” in Ian Scoones, ed., Living with Uncertainty: New Directions in Pastoral Development in Africa. London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 153–​173. Touré, Oussouby. 2013. Implication des éleveurs et pasteurs dans l’ elaboration des législations pastorales: enseignements tirés de la capitalisation du processus de préparation de la législation pastorale au Niger. Dakar: IIE. Wilson, Wendy. 1984. “Resource Management in a Stratified Fulbe Community.” Doctoral diss. Howard University, unpublished. Wilson-​Fall, Wendy. 2003. Report on Household Poverty Profiles. HPPC Program, Senegal. Dakar: World Bank. Wilson-​ Fall, Wendy. 2015. “Local Texts, Rumor and Ethnic Ideologies: The Amazigh Community and Its Border Identities,” in Proceedings of the 2014 Saharan Crossroads Conference. Oran: Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines en Algérie.

chapter 36

EDUCATION, CI T I Z E NSH I P, AND NATIONAL I DE NT I T Y IN THE SA H E L Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian

Schooling and education are essential tools for shaping national identities, and hence central sites of contestation between competing visions of the nation. At independence, states across Africa faced the monumental task of “nation-​building”—​of constructing new national identities from their varied social mosaics. In the Sahel, the uncertainties about the geographic boundaries that would come to define individual states up until the moment of independence (or indeed even afterwards—​as in the case of the short-​ lived Mali Federation) presented a particularly challenging point of departure for this effort. The task was further complicated by the dominance of an interconnected regional elite with a francophone African identity forged in the educational systems of colonial French West Africa (AOF). This elite had been intentionally formed across territorial boundaries, and on educational systems designed to instill a francophone and secular identity, first as “subjects” and eventually as citizens of the French empire. With some variation, the formal educational systems inherited by independent states were solidly rooted in a colonial adaptation of the French model: secular schools (écoles laïques) were to be the instruments for creating a citizenry imbued with “republican” values and designed to produce the human resources for staffing a centralized state (Manière 2010). From the beginning, there were strong signs that this educational system was a bad fit with the overwhelmingly Muslim African societies of the region, and there was a constant struggle to enforce popular participation in formal education. The system was nevertheless maintained for the first few decades of independence, sustained by the political dominance of the francophone elite, and by interest in the real—​if limited—​possibilities for advancement through the state bureaucracy for those who completed at least a secondary education.

684    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian At the popular level, however, and outside of major urban areas, formal public educational systems found little popular appeal, and indeed often faced clear resistance. By contrast, and with variations across the region, a separate religiously based system of education based on traditional Quranic schools thrived, expanded, and evolved. By the 1980s, newer and more institutionalized models of “Franco-​Arabic” or “Arabo-​Islamic” schooling began to spread, providing a parallel alternative educational system that found growing appeal among local populations. These schools remained mostly unrecognized by states, however, or relegated to the oversight of units such as divisions of religious affairs in ministries of the interior, rather than under the tutelage of ministries of national education. The confluence of a number of factors, however, began to call into question the viability of this bifurcated educational system by the 1990s. Not least of these were the obvious failures of the formal francophone educational system to produce appropriate national workforces or engaged citizenries. Further pressures came from rising religiosity and the crisis of secular identities, the reduced capacity of states to absorb school graduates in the era of structural adjustment, and the rise of an Islamic public sphere in the age of democratization. As a result, in a parallel set of policy initiatives, in the early 2000s, countries in the region embarked on efforts to reform education so as to capture or incorporate the vast informal religious educational systems into the formal national ones. These initiatives have been further reinforced in the age of violence and terror, even if they have also been the subject of some controversy. This chapter surveys the trajectory of educational systems in the Muslim societies of the Sahel, and analyzes the forces shaping the new hybrid models that are emerging. We examine how reformed educational systems are evolving in ways that diverge significantly from the historical secular model, with the potential for producing new models of citizenship deeply imbued with religious identities, before discussing the longer-​ term implications of these changes for national identity and citizenship in a changing Sahel. We explore both how changes in notions of citizenship and national identity are reshaping schools and how new forms of schooling are likely to shape citizenship.

ORIGINS: L’ECOLE LAÏQUE AND REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP The francophone system of education inherited from the colonial period had both ideological and pragmatic underpinnings. The system was rooted in the concept of laïcité, the distinctive French version of secularism that shaped major political battles in the French Third Republic at the beginning of the twentieth century, precisely as colonial systems were being established (see Thurston Chapter 32 in this volume). Jules Ferry, Minister of Education in the early twentieth century, was to institutionalize the enduring French notion that secular schools were key to the development of

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    685 a “republican citizenry” (Maury 1996; Ozouf 1982). These metropolitan debates were carried into discussions on colonial educational policy (Bouche 1975) and while various alternatives were at times explored, especially in the Muslim societies of the Sahel, in the end the ideology of laïcité was to remain central to educational policies; colonial schools were designed with the goal of creating a citizenry imbued in a French “republican” and secular culture (Harrison 1988, 57–​67). At the same time, colonial logic also faced the pragmatic necessity of creating a francophone workforce to help staff the emerging state apparatus. Before the 1850s, the education of colonial subjects had been left to Catholic missions. Given the growing needs of the colonial bureaucracy in West Africa, however, the influential Governor Louis Faidherbe assumed responsibility for education in 1854 and began the attempt to define a colonial policy. Faidherbe’s reforms aimed at promoting French language instruction, with the objective of training indigenous clerks and interpreters, minor bureaucrats, nurses, veterinary aides, teachers, and others, while also opening the door to the ascension of carefully chosen elites. These efforts to build more efficient auxiliaries of the French bureaucracy were gradually to result in the emergence of a small French-​ educated elite, tellingly known as évolués (Thompson and Adloff 1957, 24; Bouche 1975). The state’s needs, however, were limited, and only an infinitesimally small percentage of the population ever completed colonial secondary education, a fact that was to change little after independence. Still, education and schooling played a particularly important role as pathways through which a “subject of the French Empire” could become a “citizen of the French Republic” with full political and voting rights. A fundamental criterion for citizenship was the acquisition of the French language. This was central to French “assimilation” policy of the nineteenth century, reiterated in the egalitarian principles of the 1848 Revolution in France and maintained throughout the colonial period. While they were in fact never broadly applied (Lewis 1962), policies designed to transform Africans into Frenchmen through formal education were eventually to serve as a path for upward social mobility for small but important elite groups in colonial and postcolonial Africa. Their sense of belonging to something larger than their territorial boundaries or social identity groups was further enhanced by regional colonial schools and shared educational experiences in France.1 The identification with French language and culture acquired through the process of assimilation deeply marked a generation of francophone elites who were to emerge as leaders of the post-​independence era. In the process, they were imbued with a secular and republican conception of national identity and of citizenship, and these concepts were enshrined in the first post-​independence constitutions. The grand narratives of citizenship and the nation-​state, however, were clearly aspirational, and only embraced by small minorities. From the beginning, a key challenge for the nation-​building project of francophone elites across the region was how to bring the vast majority of non-​francophone new citizens—​and notably those for whom Arabic was the language of education, and religion the central feature of identity—​to identify with the secular framework of the new republics. That project, forged in French colonial educational systems, has never been fully achieved, and the contradictions and

686    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian inconsistencies that have characterized its implementation are central to contemporary dynamics in the region. A persistent challenge has been the difficulty of making formal and secular schools appealing to students and parents, while managing parallel education systems.

FAILURES: LE REFUS DE L’ECOLE AND THE EMERGENCE OF ALTERNATIVES By independence in 1960, two parallel and largely unconnected educational systems could already be found across the Sahel. The official secular and French-​based systems found little appeal at the popular level—​and in fact often faced resistance. By contrast, a traditional educational system based on Quranic schools persisted and expanded, variously tolerated or ignored by state officials (Launay 2016). Post-​independence formal educational systems across West Africa were marked by striking continuities with colonial logic (Manière 2010). Schools were expected to serve as the basis for nation-​building and as agents of modernization and social transformation by inculcating the values of republican citizenship. Unsurprising in retrospect, they faced strong social resistance from the start, a phenomenon that was to persist. A 1912 colonial report discussing the failures of an educational project in Chad bemoaned the fact that “our teaching has always been belittled from the very beginning by the Muslim faction”2 (cited in Lanne 1992, 110). Over sixty years later, the same sentiment was evocatively reflected in the title of Issa H. Khayar’s 1976 book Le refus de l’école (The Refusal of School), which examined why secular education had made so few inroads among the Muslims of northeastern Chad. In country after country across the region the resistance by Muslim parents to sending their children to secular colonial schools and a preference for religious alternatives continued into the postcolonial era. A strong majority of parents across the Sahel have seen the official state schools as at best unattractive options, and indeed have often actively resisted efforts to enroll their children. The evidence for this is overwhelming, and the fact of formal schooling as something that populations have continually resisted is echoed in study after study. Surveying Mali’s educational policy in the first three decades of independence, Brenner (1991, 84) described the underlying theme of the story as “a profound conflict between government policy and an opposition to it expressed by means of Islamic education”. Writing of Niger, Meunier (2009, 32) describes the “hostility of parents to the [French] form of schooling,” and notes that even the attraction that the prospect of employment in the state bureaucracy might have held disappeared by the 1980s as the possibilities for recruitment into the state evaporated in the context of deep fiscal crises. Breedvid (2006) notes a similar “rejection of formal education” in Mali, for reasons echoed in the description of education as “estrangement” in Hagberg’s (2006) account of another Malian locale.

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    687 Central to the resistance to Western-​style education was its incongruence with Muslim social norms and values, and a rejection of the notions of secular modern citizenry and national identity that it promised. With variations, continued skepticism of formal education systems and the perception that they pose a threat to Islamic culture and values is found across the Sahel. To varying degrees this trend has gradually nurtured the development of religiously inspired conceptions of citizenship and national identity, as these have been promoted by a “counter-​elite” trained in alternative institutions founded on Islamic principles and Arabic language instruction (see Kane 2003; Brossier 2019). And as the allure of secular citizenship has faded with the gradual development and expansion of an Islamic public sphere (Madore 2016), there has been a consequent strengthening and expansion of interest in alternative Arabic-​based and religious educational options (see Gérard 1993). The institutions have ranged from very informal local Quranic schools to highly formalized and sophisticated “Franco-​Arabic” schools, with a broad range of Arabo-​Islamic schools of varying degrees of formalization in the middle (Gandolfi 2003; Dia, Hugon, and d’Aiglepierre 2016). Quranic schools, known by different local names across the region, have for centuries been the core institutions for the education of young Muslim children in West Africa (Gandolfi 2003; d’Aiglepierre and Bauer 2018). Their core objective is to teach children to be good Muslims via the memorization of the Quran, along with the transmission of Islamic morality and religious practice through the master–​disciple relationship (Ware 2014). Through lessons traditionally written on wooden tablets, the learning of the Arabic language and Islamic sciences is gradually introduced as the student or taalibe advances in memorizing the Quran (Fortier 2003; Dramé 2014). Quranic schools depend on non-​professional teachers, with unstable and often low incomes, themselves the products of such schools. Across the region, Quranic schools preceded the establishment of formal schooling, and have persisted and evolved on the fringes of that system. Usually considered religious institutions or denominational schools, they tended to operate outside state regulation until recent years, when there have been attempts to regulate and to integrate them into the national education system. Over the course of the colonial period, as a continuation of Quranic school education and an alternative to the growing secular school system, a wide diversity of independent schools developed across the region. These religious schools—​known at times as Islamiyya schools—​are based primarily on Arabic-​language instruction and offer advanced religious studies in such areas as sharia law. More structured than Quranic schools, and frequently urban, they at times include European languages and other secular subjects, although their curriculum is generally not standardized and varies from one region to another. Often founded and administered by private benefactors or religious organizations with reformist (often Salafi) ideologies, such schools survive principally from donations, the support of Islamic charity organizations, and irregular tuition fees. Historically, their fluidity has made their articulation with the public education system difficult, and has consequently also limited their contributions to government goals of universal access to education.

688    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian In addition, the limitation of a primarily religious education for viable career opportunities has fed a demand for more formal Muslim educational options, producing a wide variety of what are often called “Franco-​Arabic” institutions, sometimes known as madrassas (or medersas). The establishment of the first private Franco-​ Arabic schools dates from the early twentieth century, in part an effort by local Muslim promoters to adopt and modify a model of Franco-​Arabic madrassas with which colonial administrations had experimented (Kavas 2003; Brenner 2001). Most often, such schools were founded by entrepreneurs attempting to offer hybrid educational options with more promising prospects for students, while also promoting reformist religious ideologies (see Loimeier, 2016) challenging the social dominance of Sufi orders and their control over Quranic schools. In contrast to both public schools (which tend to offer instruction primarily in French), and the Arabic language dominance of Arabo-​Islamic schools, madrassas attempt to balance the two languages of instruction, teaching religious subjects (Quran, sharia, fiqh) in Arabic and secular subjects (science, math, and social studies) in French. The hybrid nature of such schools, incorporating both religious and secular elements, has made them increasingly attractive alternatives for many parents. It has also facilitated articulation with the formal school system, and increasingly such schools have come to incorporate some or all of official government curricula, and even to deliver formal diplomas (Boyle 2014). While these widely varied forms of parallel non-​state schooling for Muslim children have developed across the region, their significance and implications have been shaped by the parameters of national demographic and political realities. At one end of the spectrum—​and distinctive in many ways—​is the officially Islamic Republic of Mauritania. With a 100 percent Muslim population, but divided by a deep ethno–​racial cleavage, the debate over French versus Arabic as the official language and as the language of education has controversially been entangled with the ethno–​racial politics of defining the nation (Candalot 2006). Black African secular intellectuals, trained in the public schools founded by the French colonial administration in the Senegal River Valley, dominated the state bureaucracy at independence. In the country’s conflictual and complicated post-​independence politics, however, power quickly shifted to the Arabic-​speaking Moorish population, which had remained largely on the fringes of colonial educational systems. The new regimes sought to implement Arabization policies, effectively promoting Moorish dominance over Black African populations (see N’diaye Chapter 6 in this volume; Ould Mohamed Baba Moustapha 2020). The result has been a series of inclusive reforms and an inconsistent national language policy in education. This dynamic has in turn been entangled with postcolonial attempts to build a sense of nationhood around a shared Islamic identity (Ould Ahmed Salem 2013). In Chad and Burkina Faso, Muslim majority countries with significant minorities of Christians and followers of indigenous religions, national coexistence has been premised on a secular framework, but complicated by gaps in participation in formal schooling. As elsewhere in Africa (see Dilger and Schultz 2013), Christians have been much more likely to receive formal education than their Muslim co-​citizens. And in

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    689 these divided demographic contexts, Islamic educational options cannot provide shared alternative models of national identity. As elsewhere, the pursuit of an inclusive secular model of nation identity is thus contingent on making public education appealing to Muslim majorities. In vastly different ways, each of these two countries has been driven to experiment with reforms that make room for Arabic and Islamic education within the project of a secular modernity. With overwhelming Muslim majorities of over 90 percent in each, Senegal, Mali, and Niger nevertheless maintained formally secular states and French as the official language and the dominant language of education. Most strikingly in these countries, given widely shared Muslim values and cultural norms, and reinforced by lingua francas, there emerged a deep chasm between popular sentiments of what constitutes national identity and the model proposed by formal educational systems (see e.g., Mc Laughlin 2008). Most strikingly in these three countries, the key societal response to the bad fit between public education and social expectations was the expansion of a vast parallel system of religious-​based schools created largely in explicit response to the limited appeal of the state education system. Over the first three decades or so of independence, then, there was a proliferation of and increased variation in educational options, with little unifying coherence between those founded on secular principles and French language and the religiously inspired and Arabic-​based alternatives. This fact opened an increasingly wide social gap between two elites with very different ideological orientations and linguistic competences, and diverging political orientations (Brossier 2019). In this context, the political and social changes that exploded in the early 1990s were to precipitate a need to rethink this status quo.

SHIFTS: SCHOOLING IN CRISIS AND CITIZENSHIP IN QUESTION One of the major goals of the first post-​independence governments was to break with the colonial model of education. Many of the initial proposals for educational reform were framed in terms of nationalizing the content of schooling and introducing local languages in the spirit of forming new national identities.3 In 1961, the First Conference of African Ministers of Education in Addis Ababa opened a discussion on transforming the content, orientation, and structure of African school systems, and of guaranteeing equal access to education for all (UNESCO 1961). These efforts were to prove short-​ lived, however. The political difficulties of the immediate post-​independence period and increasingly difficult economic situations in the 1970s undermined efforts to build state-​sponsored socially embedded education systems. During the 1970s and into the 1980s, education systems were thus marked primarily by continuities in form and content, and the focus of education policies in the

690    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian Sahel was directed at expanding primary school enrollment rates rather than on substantive changes. Growing numbers without commensurate funding increases, however, meant that the formal school system was increasingly plagued by overcrowded classes, undertrained teachers, and poor learning outcomes, all contributing to high dropout rates. In particular the impact of the Structural Adjustment Programs of the 1980s further reduced the appeal of state education (given the end of state employment opportunities for graduates) as well as the quality of the system (given cutbacks on public expenditures). In the Sahel, the 1994 devaluation of the CFA franc in the context of years of austerity measures sparked new waves of social dissatisfaction with state services, and demands for higher wages and benefits among public sector employees, including teachers. Cyclical strikes and contestations only further undermined educational systems. Incrementally, these factors cumulatively fed a public perception of failed public schooling, in terms of both a lack of articulation with sociocultural realities and a failure to prepare graduates for the labor market. As it became clear that expanding access to school was necessary but not sufficient for development, calls for states to improve the quality of education were reflected in the conclusions of the 1990 World Conference on Education for All held in Jomptien, Thailand, and the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000 (see Charton, 2015). In the face of the shortcomings of formal systems in simultaneously meeting the challenges of widespread school enrollment and enhanced quality, private educational alternatives become increasingly appealing. A favorable international climate associated with the 1973–​1974 oil boom triggered a flow of loans from Arab countries, as well as various forms of support from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Arab Bank for Economic Development for Africa, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). All these institutions aimed directly or indirectly at promoting the Arabic language and Islamic culture through education (Otayek 1986, 79–​80; Brenner 2001, 198; Kaag 2007; Roy 2012). These developments intersected with increasing efforts by Muslim intellectuals and returned graduates of universities in the Arab world to turn religious education into an instrument for Islamization of society (Cissé 1990; Dia 2015). Growing interest in Islamic education and in Arabic language instruction in turn evoked questions of what it means to be a Muslim citizen of a francophone secular state, thus bringing education into the arena of debates about citizenship. The advent of democracy in the early 1990s further blurred the border between the religious and the secular. The explosion of associational life that accompanied liberalization in much of the Sahel had a deep impact in the religious domain, sparking the emergence of an “Islamic public sphere” and the rise of what we might call an “Islamic civil society” (Holder 2009; Bodian and Camara 2015; Madore 2016). New guarantees of freedoms of association and expression in the democratic contexts opened new channels of expression (through preaching, conferences, radio, and television). With the critique that the principle of laïcité had served as justification for the marginalization from the public sphere of religious actors and of those with an Arabo-​Islamic education, the concept itself

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    691 came under fire, and with it the related notions of republican citizenship and of the role of education (Villalón 2010; Cissé 2014, 349). Combined with the crisis of public-​school systems, and pressures from the international environment to achieve education for all, this context pushed states to recognize and begin to take into account the reality of the vast parallel Arabo-​Islamic system in the reframing of national educational policies.

REFORM: HYBRID MODELS AND CONTRADICTORY GOALS Because they were seen as competing with the official educational systems they struggled to expand, throughout the first three decades of independence states generally attempted to suppress, control, or ignore Arabo-​Islamic alternative schools. But doing so came with real costs; since they remained outside the official state channels, these schools were not counted in official school enrollment rates, and they varied widely in their ability to train a labor force to contribute to development. There were thus periodic if weak attempts at new policies to address these shortcomings. There were some initial discussions about formalizing Arabo-​Islamic schools immediately following independence, although in most cases this was limited by the strong commitment to the secular nature of education. Mauritania alone moved significantly to implement Arabo-​Islamic education, enabled by having assumed the label of “Islamic Republic” at independence, but motivated largely by political reasons. Though the education curriculum in the country remained largely secular, the rise to dominance of a Moorish elite was followed by incremental adoption of Arabic as the national language and the gradual displacement of French in education, to the detriment of the Black African population (Candalot 2006; N’diaye Chapter 6 in this volume). Some weak efforts at reform also took place in other countries. In Mali the first post-​independence government implemented policies favorable to the expansion of madrassas, and in 1979, the state even created a madrassa section within the Ministry of National Education, but little came of the initiative and the sector was subsequently largely ignored. Unlike most of the other countries of the former French West Africa, the school system in Niger operated under a legal framework inherited from the colonial period that did not contain any provision that clearly stated that the school system was secular. In 1957, the colonial government in Niger created a madrassa in the town of Say, placed under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. This provided the basis for the subsequent development of a public madrassa sector, and in the early years of independence a number of “Franco-​Arabic” schools were founded and integrated into the national education system. Given this fact, along with the rather fragmented nature of the religious sphere in Niger, however, a parallel alternative system of schooling grew more slowly there than elsewhere.

692    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian Starting in the 1970s, a limited second set of educational reform efforts were attempted in response to growing frustrations as the proportion of children outside the formal school system increased, the perception of quality decreased, and the promise of employment and upward mobility faded. Yet given the weakening financial capacity of Sahelian states and the international context, reform efforts met with very little success. In the face of these failures, religious alternatives flourished, and across the region they competed directly with the state system. Some states, to be sure, were more responsive in reacting to the dynamism of the Arabo-​Islamic education sector than others. In Niger, when the first private madrassas began to emerge in the 1970s, they were strongly influenced by the existing (if limited) public Franco-​Arabic model, and were immediately placed under the tutelage and supervision of the Ministry of National Education (Idrissa 2017). The dynamism of the Arabo-​Islamic sector in Niger was further boosted in 1974 when the OIC announced the creation of the Islamic University of Say, which was to open finally in 1986. Unlike Niger, where relatively stronger state control over religion during the 1970s facilitated the integration of new private madrassas into the formal education system, Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso largely failed to capture the religious education sector. Rather, officials tended to ignore the proliferation of Arabo-​Islamic schools promoted by private actors with weak or conflictual ties to the state. In Senegal, the reformist Al-​ Fallah and the Jamaa’tou Ibadour Rahmane movements were the main promoters of private Franco-​Arabic schools. In a short-​lived effort from 1973 to 1974, Burkina Faso recognized madrasas as educational institutions and undertook a campaign to promote them through the Ministry of Basic Education, but the project never materialized. Rather, as elsewhere, private schools beyond state control blossomed, with early institutions established in Bobo-​Dioulasso, Nouna, Tougan, and Ouahigouya, towns that benefited from proximity with Mali and the presence of religious scholars (Traoré 2005; Ouédraogo 2008). This situation began to shift significantly following the democratic openings of the 1990s. The liberalization of social and political life across the region brought into sharp contrast the conflicting worldviews of “francophone” state elites and Muslim societies, and it opened the door to an increasingly visible presence of religion in the public sphere. In the process, some previously unthinkable and unanticipated policy issues were put on the agenda, including family law reform, the nature of laïcité, and the future of educational systems (Villalón 2010). Combined with an international climate pressuring newly elected governments to demonstrate progress in addressing long-​standing state failures—​such as in education—​the period provided an unprecedented opening for new policies. In this context states across the region embarked on a series of parallel reform efforts, leading to what are in effect “hybrid” systems. The reform projects were inspired and justified by the democratic logic of “giving parents the educational options they want for their children.” Across the region interviews with parents indicated that overwhelmingly they did indeed want schools that incorporate religious values, while also insisting on schools that provide some hope of access to employment and practical life skills.4 Attempting to balance these

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    693 dual demands, the reform projects variously sought either to recognize the parallel educational systems while trying to impose some degree of formalization on them, or to reform the official systems by borrowing elements—​such as religious instruction—​ from the informal. In addition, the reforms called for the formalization of traditional Quranic schools. The exact content of reforms has varied from one country to another, depending in part on power relations between the state and the promoters of Arabo-​ Islamic schools. While Sahelian states have sought to assert their legitimacy and maintain control of reform processes, the need for outside financial resources have obliged them to negotiate support from multiple donors—​including the World Bank, UNICEF, USAID, and especially the IDB as well as various Islamic charities and organizations—​opening them to pressures based on the divergent ideological frameworks of such donors. While the partners have shared the international discourses of “education for all” and an environment that promotes education to improve the living conditions of children (see Dia et al. 2016), the multiplicity of actors and the occasional resistance from local sponsors of Islamic education have at times made it challenging to unite around a clear reform agenda. The reform process in each has also been shaped by their specific national contexts. Given the historical marginalization of the existing state-​recognized madrassas or Franco-​Arabic system, Niger had a flourishing independent and rival system of private “Arabo-​Islamic” schools. The underlying logic of the reform in Niger was thus to revitalize and expand the existing model. With the framework of a ten-​year educational development program funded by the European Union in 2001, the cornerstone of the reform project in Niger consisted of two successive “Projects for the Development of Franco-​Arab Education” (PRODEFA I and II), carried out with the financial support of the IDB. Launched in 2007, the reform involved three efforts. First, it aimed at strengthening the existing public Franco-​Arab schools by having them include courses relating to Islam in addition to the subjects of the francophone curriculum. Second, the reform was designed to transform religious Islamiyya schools into private Franco-​Arabic schools, applying standards of formal education, and adopting the curriculum preparing for the diplomas issued by the state. Third, the reform aimed at reorganizing and transforming Quranic schools into preschools, linked to the madrassa sector. In Senegal the impetus for unprecedented reforms was a series of changes declared by President Abdoulaye Wade shortly after his historic 2000 election ending forty years of Socialist Party rule. The logic of the reform in Senegal was an ambitious effort to compete with the informal educational system directly. Officially announced in 2002, it involved three components. The first was the introduction of religious instruction in all state schools—​a startling break with the tradition of secular education in the country. This was followed by the creation of a network of public Franco-​Arabic schools designed to compete with the private schools. The third component sought the modernization of the traditional Quranic schools known as daaras in Senegal (Charlier 2002; Bodian and Villalón 2015).

694    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian Similar reforms were launched in Mali and Burkina Faso, each shaped by the local context. Unlike Niger and Senegal, the state in those cases has been less active in promoting a new institutional and legal framework. Mali, which had maintained a historical commitment to an official system of secular francophone education, had also been marked by a particularly striking degradation of the quality of that system (Bleck 2013). The major thrust of the reform there has been to attempt to capture the consequently flourishing but previously unrecognized “madrassa” system by creating incentives for them to adopt the official state curriculum without relinquishing their religious mission. This has required negotiation and compromise with a wide array of actors with stakes in the system.5 Similarly, in Burkina Faso the reform logic has been negotiated incrementally. A national forum on the Arabo-​Islamic education sector (L’assis nationale sur l’encadrement des Ecoles Franco-​Arabes), held in 1999, set the groundwork for collaboration between the state and promoters of the Franco-​Arabic schools. Since 2008, state officials have standardized the Franco-​Arabic primary school exam, and state officials and a group representing those schools (Fédération des associations des établissements franco-​arabes du Burkina Faso) signed a partnership agreement to better integrate the systems. As elsewhere, these efforts have been undertaken with financial support from the IDB, which has helped to shape the content of the reforms. Those reform efforts aimed at the formalization of Quranic schools have tended to present more significant challenges. In Mali, for example, the Ministry of Education has struggled to implement the recommendations of a 2008 national forum on Quranic schools. An inter-​ministerial commission was created to plan the integration of Quranic schools into the national education system in 2010, and the commission’s results were announced in 2014, but no reforms were subsequently undertaken. Similarly, in Senegal the reform of the deeply entrenched daara system and the state’s attempts to modernize them (via the Projet d’appui à la modernisation des daara)—​the flagship project of the Quranic school policy—​generated strong resistance from the sector. With the official objective of putting an end to child begging and accelerating efforts for universal schooling, in 2013 state officials announced a five-​year project financed by the IDB to construct sixty-​four modern public daaras to compete with the traditional ones. Supporters of the daara system, however, organized in a national group (Fédération nationale des associations d’écoles coraniques du Sénégal) continued to present difficulties for the full realization of these reforms (see Hugon, 2015). The reform of inherited colonial education systems is still underway across the region, and their relationship to the alternative Arabo-​Islamic sector remains a subject of debate and contestation. But everywhere the process is now irrevocable, and it has laid the foundation for real and substantive changes with long-​term implications. These hybrid systems are producing new generations of future leaders trained in differing educational systems, and whose relationship relative to each other has yet to be defined. It has above all provided a newly visible social status to increasing numbers of young people trained in a religiously inflected educational system, often more fluent in Arabic than in

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    695 French, and with a stronger conviction of the role of the religious worldview instilled by their education in their public lives as citizens of their respective republics.

TOWARD NEW FORMS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY The specificities of historical and social contexts have resulted in differences in the form and content of reform, and in its implications, in each country. Nevertheless, they share some fundamental similarities; all of these changes grew out of shifts in power relations between the partisans of the francophone secular state and those with a more religious vision. These shifts have been driven by gradual but profound social transformations and changes in state–​society relations that themselves grow out of processes of public debate and negotiation over religion in the public sphere in the context of liberalized political systems. Whatever its limitations, liberalization in the name of “democratization” opened the door to profound changes for the foundations of national identities. While the impetus for democracy was driven by a liberal vision of social and political order, it instigated a broad debate among highly varied social actors about what that appropriate order should be. In the process, new claims to authority have become possible, including in the religious domain, and old orthodoxies are opened to questioning. In the give and take of the negotiations, arguments, and struggles that follow, social transformations gradually occur, and new policy options become feasible. Ongoing changes in education are both reflections of a shifting sense of national identity, and a force shaping and participating in the construction of a new understanding of citizenship—​the broad outlines of which are still not fully clear. In an examination of student movements at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Bodian and Camara (2015, 381) describe these movements as a reflection of “citizenship in transition,” which is characterized by “a duality between a ‘national citizenship,’ with a francophone and secular character, and a ‘cultural citizenship’ inspired by Islam, and initially driven by an Arabo-​Islamic elite as it negotiates its place in the public and administrative spheres that have historically been dominated by francophone elites.” The emerging duality raises questions about the importance of a unified educational system or a common language of instruction for creating a shared sense of nationhood. But the ongoing reforms go beyond the introduction of Arabo-​Islamic education into the formal education system or deciding whether French or Arabic should be the language of education (or even the official language). In many ways they mark a transition to what might well be considered the demise of the colonial notion of the école laïque and the recognition of a new school model with an Islamic component (Galy 2001). The reforms also raise questions about the social and political role of new Muslim elites (Soares 2016), the future of secular institutions, and, in the long term, the reorientation of the axis of cooperation with the Western and the Muslim worlds.

696    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian The innovations in educational systems clearly represent negotiated compromises—​ although at times still hotly debated ones—​in the sense that the educational reform projects may strengthen French-​language and state-​curricular supervision, while also entailing state support for religious instruction. These compromises align with real societal expectations for education. Across the region one can frequently hear educated professionals (cadres) bemoan that they were not given sufficient religious instruction as students. In a context where public policy is increasingly debated in terms of its “compatibility” with religion, many come to feel that they lack the tools to engage these debates fully. These cadres, products of secular francophone education, then, are increasingly likely to support—​and even demand—​that their own children’s education include religious training, further fueling the reform dynamics. The identity of the new Franco-​Arabic schools is everywhere clearly a religious one, but it is a “modern” religiosity. The creation of a class of religiously trained youth that is also able to function effectively in the francophone state system—​in contrast to the historical position of the marginalized arabisants—​is one foreseeable result of this process. And the resulting notions of modern citizenship that result are also sure to entail long-​term evolutionary changes in the nature of political systems and in notions of citizenship and identity in the Sahel.

Notes 1. These included the École William Ponty, a colonial teachers’ college in Senegal that trained the vast majority of the secular elites who were to lead francophone West African countries after independence, as well as the École Nationale de la France d’Outre-​mer (ENFOM), which trained the cadres of the colonial administration. 2. “Notre enseignement a toujours été déprécie dès la première heure par l’élément musulman.” 3. See e.g., the critique of colonial education policy and eloquent plea for a “new conception of education and teaching in Black Africa” by the Nigerien intellectual Abdou Moumouni (1998, first published in 1964). 4. For detailed examinations of the reforms in three cases, see the reports by Villalón and Bodian 2012 and Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012a, 2012b. 5. They include the Union nationale des médersas du Mali (UNMM), the Union des enseignants de la langue arabe au Mali (UELAM), and the Haut conseil islamique. Other actors include the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the World Islamic Call Society (WICS), and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO).

REFERENCES Bleck, Jaimie. 2013. “Islamic Schooling in Malian Democracy: Disaggregating Parents’ Political Behavior.” Journal of Modern African Studies 51(3): 377–​408. Bodian, Mamadou, and El Hadji M. S. Camara. 2015. “Islam et espace public au Sénégal: les acteurs religieux dans l’amélioration du débat public sur la bonne gouvernance,” in

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698    Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian Galy, Kadir Abdel Kader. 2001. “l’Ecole entre l’Islam et la laïcité,” in Olivier Meunier, ed., Educations, diversités culturelles et stratégies politiques en Afrique subsaharienne. Paris: L’Harmattan, 115–​162. Gandolfi, Stefania. 2003. “L’enseignement islamique en Afrique noire.” Cahiers d’études africaines 69–​170: 261–​277. Gérard, Etienne. 1993. “Le développement des medersas au Mali. Le signe d’une réorientation de la demande scolaire,” in Patrick Livenais and Jacques Vaugelade, eds., Education, changements démographiques et développement. Paris: Éditions de l’Orstom, 131–​144. Hagberg, Sten. 2006. “‘Why Do the Bench?’ Education as Modernity and Estrangement.” Mande Studies 8. Special edition: Mande Studies: Education in the Mande World, ed., Dinie Bouwman and Anneke Breedveid. Harrison, Christopher. 1988. France and Islam in West Africa, 1860–​ 1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holder, Gilles, ed. 2009. L’Islam, nouvel espace public en Afrique. Paris: Karthala. Hugon, Clothilde. 2015. “Les sërin daara et la réforme des écoles coraniques au Sénégal. Analyse de la fabrique d’une politique publique.” Politique africaine 39: 83–​99. Idrissa, Rahmane. 2017. The Politics of Islam in the Sahel: Between Persuasion and Violence. London: Routledge. Kaag, Mayke. 2007. “Aid, Umma and Politics. Transnational Islamic NGO’s in Chad,” in Benjamin Soares and René Otayek, eds., Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 85–​102. Kane, Ousmane Oumar. 2003. Non-​Europhone Intellectuals. Dakar: CODESRIA. Kavas, Ahmet. 2003. “L’enseignement islamique en Afrique francophone: les medersas de la république du Mali.” Sources et études sur l’islam en Afrique 2, Istanbul: Centre de recherches sur l’histoire, l’art et la culture islamiques. Khayar, Issa H. 1976. Le refus de l’école: contribution à l’étude des problèmes de l’éducation chez les Musulmans du Ouaddai (Tchad). Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve. Lanne, Bernard. 1992. “La politique française à l’égard de l’islam au Tchad (1900–​1958),” in Jean-​Pierre Magnant, ed., L’islam au Tchad. Bordeaux: Institut d’études politiques, 99–​126. Launay, Robert. 2016. Islamic Education in Africa: Writing Boards and Blackboards. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lewis, Martin D. 1962. “One Hundred Million Frenchmen: The ‘Assimilation’ Theory in French Colonial Policy.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 4(2): 129–​153. Loimeier, Roman. 2016. Islamic Reform in Twentieth-​Century Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Madore, Frédérick. 2016. La Construction d’une sphère publique musulmane en Afrique de l’Ouest. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Manière, Laurent. 2010. “La politique française pour l’adaptation de l’enseignement en Afrique après les indépendances (1958–​1964).” Histoire de l’éducation 128: 163–​190. Maury, Liliane. 1996. Les origines de l’école laïque en France. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France. McLaughlin, Fiona. 2008. “Senegal: the emergence of a national lingua franca,” in Andrew Simpson, ed., Language and National Identity in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 79–​97. Moumouni, Abdou. 1998. L’éducation en Afrique. Paris: Présence Africaine. (Orig. pub. 1964). Meunier, Olivier, ed. 2009. Variations et diversités éducatives au Niger. Paris: L’Harmattan.

Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel    699 Ouédraogo, Adama. 2008. “L’enseignement de la culture arabe et islamique dans le département de Soaw, province de Bulkiemde, Burkina Faso.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 124. Ould Ahmed Salem, Zekeria. 2013. Prêcher dans le désert. Islam politique et changement social en Mauritanie. Paris: Éditions Karthala. Ould Mohamed Baba Moustapha, Elemine. 2020. “Islamisme, tribalisme et ethnocentrisme sur le campus de l’Université de Nouakchott,” in Leonardo A. Villalón and Mamadou Bodian, eds., Entre le Savoir et le Culte: Activisme et mouvements religieux dans les universités du Sahel. Dakar: Amalion. Otayek, René. 1986. La politique africaine de la Libye. Paris: Karthala Ozouf, Mona. 1982. L’Ecole, l’église, et la république: 1871–​1914. Paris: Cana. Roy, Emilie. 2012. Educating Pious Citizens: Local Politics, International Funding, and Democracy in Bamako’s Islamic Schools. PhD diss., unpublished, McMaster University. Soares, Benjamin. 2016. “New Muslim Public Figures in Africa,” in Robert Launay, ed., Islamic Education in Africa: Writing Boards and Blackboards. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 268–​284. Thompson, Virginia, and Richard Adloff. 1957. French West Africa. New York, Greenwood Press. Traoré, Bakary. 2005. “Islam et politique à Bobo-​Dioulasso de 1940 à 2002,” in Muriel Gomez-​ Perez, ed., L’islam politique au sud du Sahara. Identité, discours et enjeux. Paris: Karthala, 417–​447. UNESCO. 1961. Rapport final de la Conférence sur le développement de l’éducation en Afrique (Addis Abeba, 15 au 21 mai 1961). Paris: UNESCO. Villalón, Leonardo A. 2010. “From Argument to Negotiation: Constructing Democracies in Muslim West Africa.” Comparative Politics 42(4): 375–​393. Villalón, Leonardo A., and Bodian, Mamadou. 2012. “Religion, demande sociale, et réformes éducatifs au Sénégal: Quand l’Etat introduit l’éducation arabo-​islamique dans l’enseignement publique pour concurrencer l’école franco-​arabe et capturer les daara.” Research report #5. London: ODI, African Politics and Power Programme. Villalón, Leonardo A., Abdourahmane Idrissa, and Mamadou Bodian. 2012a. “Religion, demande sociale, et réformes éducatifs au Mali: Quand les acteurs sociaux poussent l’État à encadrer la transition des médersas arabo-​islamiques au system franco-​arabe.” Research report #6. London: ODI, African Politics and Power Programme. Villalón, Leonardo A., Abdourahmane Idrissa, and Mamadou Bodian. 2012b. “Religion, demande sociale, et réformes éducatifs au Niger: Quand l’Etat redynamise l’école franco-​ arabe, reorganize les écoles ‘Islamiyya’, et essaie de capturer les écoles coraniques.” Research report #7. London: ODI, African Politics and Power Programme. Ware, Rudolph. 2014. The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge and History in West Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Section IX

ON T H E M OV E : U R BA N I Z AT ION , M IG R AT ION , T R A N SNAT IONA L I SM Section editor: Abdoulaye Kane

INTRODU C T I ON Abdoulaye Kane

Historically, urbanization and migration in the Sahel were integrated and complementary phenomena based on trade routes across the Sahara. In the precolonial era the urban centers of the Sahel were predominantly located along the trans-​Saharan trade routes or along the Senegal and Niger Rivers. French colonial development Introduction and migration toward the coast and to programs, however, reoriented urbanization sites of cash crop production in Cote d’Ivoire or Senegal. The considerable investments by postcolonial states in building capital cities as regional and international trade hubs further changed the map of urban centers in the Sahel. The rapid growth of urban populations in capital cities, combined with the downturn in the world economy in the mid-​1980s, reshaped Sahelian migration flows, routes, and destinations within Africa as well as to Europe and the United States. A number of factors are affecting contemporary patterns of Sahelian urbanization and migration, and are shaping their relations to demographic trends, environmental changes, and international migratory policies. At the same time, Sahelian diasporas are playing increasingly central roles in providing the resources that make life in many Sahelian communities possible, even while they also make them more dependent on outside money flows. From a historical perspective, Sahelian patterns of urbanization have shifted from the precolonial development of cities at the junction of the Sahel and the Sahara, or along the Niger and Senegal Rivers, to the birth and rapid expansion of colonial cities along the West African coast or at the junction of colonial transportation networks that were established for purposes of governing labor and extracting resources. Likewise, the movement of people—​mostly traders, labor migrants, scholars, students, and slaves—​ as well as commodities, shifted from the trans-​Saharan trade routes toward railroads, maritime routes, and coastal cities. It is not surprising in this context that Dakar emerged as the largest metropolitan city in the Sahel, given its coastal setting and its political status as the capital of French West Africa (AOF). Bamako and Ouagadougou, the second and third largest cities in the Sahel, have been at the center of national and regional networks of transport, services, and trade. The remaining Sahelian capital cities—​Niamey, Ndjamena, and Nouakchott—​all gained momentum in population

704   Abdoulaye Kane growth only in the postcolonial era, following the French legacy of building centralized capitals. Processes of urbanization and migration across the Sahel are clearly interconnected, and are closely tied to demographic trends, economic disparities, and urban policies—​ or lack thereof. The Sahelian countries have some of the highest fecundity rates in Sub-​Saharan Africa, and indeed in the world. Rapid population growth without a real demographic transition or viable economic development, combined with growing disparities between capital cities and the countryside, have resulted in a constant movement of rural populations to urban areas and of youth to international destinations. Like elsewhere in Africa, the outflow of people from rural areas is a major factor in the rapid growth of urban populations in the Sahel. Despite the growing international preoccupation with international migration from the Sahel to North Africa, Europe, and the United States, processes of internal migration within the region continue to be the most important pattern of Sahelian migrations. The postcolonial states of the Sahel promoted capital cities and urban life as showcases of their aspirations for modernity and development. They thus invested considerably in the building of attractive capital cities, in which they concentrated infrastructure, hospitals, schools, manufacturing industries, and financial services. This development in turn attracted people from the countryside and small towns to the capitals in search of a better quality of life. The so-​called “rural exodus” of the 1960s and 1970s was the result of concerted efforts to build world-​class capital cities. Bamako and Ouagadougou, Niamey, Ndjamena, and Nouakchott all benefited and grew rapidly due to the funding priorities accorded to newly established capital cities at independence. Yet by the 1990s, this trend was to change. Increased unemployment rates and a rapidly growing urban youth population combined to produce an urban crisis, sparking record numbers of young people to attempt to exit the Sahel for better futures elsewhere. While internal migration contributed enormously to the growth of Sahelian cities, the eventual resulting urban crisis redirected migration patterns to international destinations, within Africa and beyond. Considered in the wider West African context, the urbanization process in the Sahel is quite unique, as Boyer and Lessault show in Chapter 37. While other West African countries have experienced the development of a record number of secondary cities of more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, in the Sahel only Niger and Burkina Faso each count one city of that dimension. The religious city of Touba in Senegal, whose population is variously estimated to range from eight hundred thousand to three million inhabitants, presents the exception, but it must be seen as a case apart given the wide seasonal fluctuations of its residential population. While the burden of urbanization in the Sahel is largely on the back of capital cities, there are nevertheless important disparities among them. The case of Dakar is unique in the sense of having more or less experienced a form of urban and demographic transition. Situated on the coast and with strong transportation networks linking it to major secondary cities, Dakar is the one Sahelian city that has experienced an urbanization dynamic similar to other West African coastal cities like Accra, Lagos, or Abidjan. Nevertheless, the pace of growth

introduction to Section IX    705 of other capitals such as Bamako and Ouagadougou, whose populations have doubled between the 1990s and 2015, suggests that processes of metropolitization are also expanding elsewhere in the region. The racial exclusion so familiar in colonial cities across Africa, and often reflected in their urban planning, has been replaced in postcolonial capital cities by new forms of social exclusion, requiring poor urbanites to invent their own relations to the city from the peripheries. What all Sahelian cities have in common are the informalities that define the occupation of the urban space and people’s movement within it. They also share the same challenges of planning and managing for rapidly growing youth populations that require considerable investments in urban infrastructure, schools, health facilities, and employment with limited resources. The provision of social and environmental services requires a constant investment in transport systems, hospitals, schools, garbage collection, access to water and sanitation, and installation of adequate sewage systems. The failure to create jobs for rapidly growing youth populations has resulted in a record rate of outmigration. Recent discussion of African migration has been dominated by media coverage of Africans attempting to reach the European Union’s southern borders, with dramatic reports of thousands being drowned or rescued in the Atlantic or the Mediterranean Seas. The progressive tightening of the control of European southern borders starting in the 1990s had the effect of pushing the efforts to patrol these borders down into the Sahelian countries of transit, such as Niger, Mali, and Mauritania. This led to the effective outsourcing of European border control to Sahelian countries, starting in 2005 with Mauritania and Senegal and followed later by Niger. As Mounkaila explores in Chapter 39, the criminalization of trans-​Saharan migration overlooked the long tradition of migration across the Sahara to North Africa, not just as a transit space but as a destination in its own right. A focus on the crossing of European borders is thus misleading when analyzing historical patterns and dynamics of African migration. And despite politicized hyperbole about “invasions,” the actual flow of migrants to Europe is only a small drop in the ocean compared with internal migration and migration from the Sahel to other African countries. The historical evolution of internal migration within the Sahel, and from the Sahel to neighboring countries in Africa, is the subject of Chapter 38 by Bredeloup. The colonial focus on cash crop expansion and mineral extraction displaced patterns of trans-​ Saharan mobility with movement from rural and landlocked areas toward coastal cities. The corridor of labor migration from Burkina Faso and Mali to cacao plantations in Cote d’Ivoire is an important example of this phenomenon. Other Sahelian migrants to coastal cities helped establish Hausa trade networks across the Gulf of Guinea, as well as communities of Soninke and Haalpulaar traders from the Senegal River Valley settled in Central Africa. Some Sahelian migrants sought their fortunes in the diamond mining towns of Sierra Leone, or in Cote d’Ivoire, Congo-​Kinshasa, and Angola. Others preferred North African countries, with Libya serving until recently as a real magnet for Nigerian, Chadian, Malian, and Senegalese labor migrants. More recently there is a growing trend of Sahelian migration to South Africa

706   Abdoulaye Kane In the second decade of the twenty-​first century, the dynamics of trans-​Saharan migration have again been shifted in relation to the migratory policies being implemented in the region. The overlapping roles of North African countries as both destination and transit countries have been important factors in shaping the new patterns. As Mounkaila discusses in detail, the old patterns of Sahelian migration to Libya are being altered by the current governance of African migration flows by the European Union. The new European migratory policies have been particularly concerned with Sahelian countries as both sending and transit countries. This has led to tactics of “re-​bordering Europe” within the Sahel, such as the deployment of Italian soldiers in Niger to help Nigerien soldiers patrol and prevent potential migrants from crossing into Libya. Despite these concerted efforts to prevent Sahelian migrants from crossing European borders, Sahelian diasporas are already well established in many Western countries. The transnational connections of these diasporas with their home communities in the Sahel are vital to the survival of a growing number of families that have become dependent on their remittances. The international migration of Sahelians—​mostly from the Senegal River Valley—​to Europe between the 1960s and the 1990s resulted in the formation of important Sahelian diasporic communities in France, Spain, and Italy. In Paris and its suburbs alone more than four hundred Sahelian “hometown associations” serve as effective development actors by channeling remittances from the diaspora to home communities. As the scrutiny of Africans trying to cross European borders grew in the 1990s, many Sahelian youth turned to the United States as a privileged destination, establishing new and vibrant diasporas. There are thus important and visible Sahelian cultural enclaves in Harlem and Brooklyn in New York, Columbus and Cincinnati in Ohio, Greensboro in North Carolina, and in numerous other American cities such as Memphis, Atlanta, Chicago, and Boulder. The diasporic presence in these places has become vital to the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of families across the Sahel, who are now dependent on individual and collective remittances as well as on the return of retired migrants whose buying power continues to benefit local and regional economies. The important remittances by individual migrants to their families, and by hometown associations to their communities, has produced a growing dependency of Sahelian families and communities on migrants and their hometown associations scattered around the globe. Based on data collected by the central banks of Sahelian countries and aggregated by the World Bank, in Chapter 40 Kane shows the considerable amount of money sent by Sahelian migrants abroad, representing more than 10 percent of their GDP in some Sahelian countries. In fact, these numbers do not reflect the full amounts transferred because they do not account for the remittances channeled through money carriers and informal money transfer agencies that are often the preferred channels for Sahelian migrants. Indeed, some estimates place the remittances passing through the informal circuits of money transfer as up to five time the amount that goes through the formal channels. The collective forms of remittances transferred by hometown associations, or federations of hometown associations, and other migrants’ transnational networks are

introduction to Section IX    707 usually completely omitted from the discussion of the impact of Sahelian diasporas on sending communities. As Kane’s Chapter 40 shows, however, these forms of remittances are extremely important as sources of funding for community development projects, and in providing valuable social services in areas often neglected by national governments. Sahelian migrants, whose success is often measured in their families and communities by the number of houses they were able to buy or build, are also important actors in the expansion of cities and towns through their investment in urban housing. In addition, the return of retired migrants with their acquired skills and professional experience is in effect a form of capital transfer to local governments, in which they increasingly assume leadership roles. A concrete manifestation of this is in the growing numbers of mayors of small cities in the Senegal River Valley who are returned migrants from African destinations or from France and the United States. Both urbanization and migration will continue to be important issues in the Sahel for the foreseeable future. The chapters in this section offered nuanced analyses of these phenomena, examining their historical trajectories, their contemporary dynamics, and their uncertain outcomes. Lost in the current alarmist discussions of urbanization and migration are the complex and multiple ways in which the two phenomena contribute to Sahelian peoples’ resilience and adaptation to extremely challenging ecological and economic conditions.

chapter 37

URBANIZ ATION A ND T H E DYNAMICS OF C HA NG E I N THE SAH E L Florence Boyer and David Lessault

Most urban areas in the Sahel are on the margins of major international metropolitan networks, and indeed even African ones. Aside from Dakar, which benefits from its coastal location and from a high level of facilities and amenities, Bamako, Niamey, Nouakchott, Ouagadougou, and N’Djamena must all be considered “secondary” African cities, their economic and cultural influence limited to their respective national territories. All of these cities, like those in countries along the Gulf of Guinea, have undergone intense demographic growth during recent decades, as the population has doubled every ten years. This growth is now slackening in some of these cities, a trend attributed to fewer internal migrants and what is known as the “demographic transition,” the point at which population growth stabilizes. Despite different dynamics, these cities are in general distinguished by their rapid population growth. Their young populations demand education, training, jobs, and facilities (health services and leisure activities in particular), and in the process participate in the construction of an urban lifestyle. During the colonial era, towns in the Sahel were built in line with the segregationist practices of the times. In this respect, they were similar to other West African towns. “The more the idea of a city was denied to the continent, the more the status of city-​ dweller was denied to its inhabitants. Pushed out of urban space, denied the status of urbanite, the colonized had no other solution than to invent their own relation to the city, to construct their own city” (Goerg 2006, 16). This rejection of (some) inhabitants became part and parcel of the city’s morphology, shaped by differentiated access to land and housing. Intense urban growth after independence, in particular during the 1970s and 1980s, gradually blurred the segregationist model of the colonial city. Unable to cope with the incoming population, many cities saw so-​called “spontaneous neighborhoods” spring up, leading to new forms of differentiation. Nevertheless, as in the colonial

710    Florence Boyer and David Lessault period, certain inhabitants were still kept from access to the city and its facilities and could not claim the status of city-​dweller. We shall analyze the drivers and the consequences of the growth of Sahelian cities along two axes. First of all, capital cities are apparently swept up in a trend pushing them toward becoming “metropolitan areas.” These cities are obliged to cope with continued growth even though not all of them have entered the demographic transition. In other words, the question they must address is how to enter into the global process of “metropolitanization” when so many inhabitants lack decent housing, schooling, health services or jobs. Studies focused on the capital cities keep us from noticing the specific functions of small and medium-​sized cities, as marketplaces or border towns, for example, as poles of growth at the national scale. Owing to the push for decentralization pursued by West African states since the 1990s, smaller cities might come to carry more weight in the nation’s equilibrium at the territorial level. Second, we will explore the diversity of Sahelian cities as metropolitan areas and as places where urban lifestyles emerge. This diversity, which can be seen in the processes of differentiation at work in urban areas, depends on the stage of population growth in each city. The ways people dwell, move about, and construct an original form of city life are not the same in Dakar, Bamako, Niamey, or N’Djamena.

SAHELIAN CITIES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN URBAN NETWORK? Until the late 1990s, the Sahel had only one city with a population above the threshold of one million inhabitants: Dakar, on the coast, had two million. During the first fifteen years of the new century, other capitals in the Sahel reached this threshold owing to strong population growth sustained by a regular inflow of migrants and a robust natural increase. By 2015 Bamako and Ouagadougou had more than two million inhabitants, having gained more than a million in a decade; Niamey and N’Djamena each had some 1.5 million; and Nouakchott nearly one million. Nonetheless, the progress of these big cities toward the “urban transition” varies depending on national models of growth. Whereas Burkina Faso and Senegal seem to have entered a demographic transition, the question remains open for Niger and Mali. Although their geographical expansion is much the same, characterized by urban sprawl and spontaneous neighborhoods, the interplay between factors of urban growth differs from city to city. Given the strong growth of capital cities, and the national and regional roles that some of them have held for a long time (Dakar) or recently come to hold (Ouagadougou), we can investigate the transformation of Sahelian cities into metropolitan areas, a process previously limited to cities on the Gulf of Guinea (Abidjan, Accra, Lagos). A focus on big cities, however, should not overlook the growth of “secondary cities,” and the formation of national urban networks. Demographic growth and

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    711 internal migration are major factors not just in Sahelian capitals but also in the formation of networks of small and medium-​sized cities.

Urban Areas Separated from Poles of Growth? Sahelian urban areas, except for Dakar, are located at a distance from major West African poles of development, namely cities along the Gulf of Guinea. On the crossroads between the Sahara and the coast, several Sahelian towns were trading posts in precolonial times (Coquery-​Vidrovitch 1991, 1993). Places such as Timbuktu, Gao, or Ouagadougou were positioned as centers of learning or power. Despite some continuities with the precolonial period, in particular the continuing role of cities such as Agadez or Goa as crossroads, colonization marked a major break with the past, reshaping urban areas and networks. As elsewhere on the continent, “the contemporary process initiated during the colonial era is the passage in Africa from a generally rural toward an urban civilization” (Coquery-​Vidrovitch 1988). Although this statement needs to be qualified in the Sahel, given that the percentage of the population in urban areas is still small in the region, Sahelian cities have nevertheless managed to become poles of attraction, where ways of life and forms of culture are forged. Urbanization in West Africa intensified during the colonial era as colonies were established, and cities named as capitals. But what specifically characterizes these Sahelian cities? Given the rationale of economic development under colonial rule, the Sahel was, broadly speaking, a reservoir of labor for coastal areas. In 1932 for instance, colonial authorities joined the colony of Upper Volta with the Ivory Coast. Ouagadougou thus lost its status as a capital until 1947 (Fourchard 2002). Beyond this special case, economic development policies and a strong demand for labor diverted internal migration toward other colonies in West Africa, and the rerouting of migrant laborers undoubtedly limited the growth of Sahelian towns. The exception was Dakar. As French West Africa’s capital and a port with industries, from the start of the colonial period it exerted an attraction beyond the borders of Senegal. The other capitals grew more slowly, their development linked to transportation systems for connections with the poles of development on the coast, as in the construction of railway lines from Bamako and Ouagadougou. Poorly linked to other cities, Niamey, Nouakchott, and N’Djamena were for several decades left behind, distant from poles of economic and demographic growth. Following independence, the pattern changed in minor ways. Migrants from the countryside still preferred coastal destinations to cities in their homeland. During the 1970s and 1980s cities and big towns (not just the capitals) became places of refuge for people who had lost crops and herds from drought (Bernus 1995). Cities, both primary and secondary, were places for distributing aid and food, hence their attractiveness. Not all migrants stayed on in the city once the drought had passed, but these migrations stimulated urban growth across two decades, especially in Nouakchott (Choplin 2009), Niamey, and Bamako. Previously sidelined, Sahelian capitals, and especially the smaller

712    Florence Boyer and David Lessault ones, started to become important centers, places of power, trade, and services, the nexus of intraregional transportation systems. Table 37.1 shows population growth in eight Sahelian cities after 1950. By 2015, the population in each of the six capitals was over one million; Nouakchott was just reaching this threshold. By 2014, and leaving aside the special case of Touba in Senegal (discussed later) only Niger and Burkina Faso had at least one city outside the capital with a population of more than three hundred thousand inhabitants. These cities can be divided into three categories. The first is Dakar, which given its demographic weight and coastal location, increasingly attracts populations from beyond the borders of Senegal. Second, Ouagadougou and Bamako form an intermediate group, each with over two million inhabitants in 2015. Both are part of a West African transportation network (Bredeloup and Zongo 2016; Bredeloup 2006), and both attract considerable investments from citizens who have migrated outside the country (Keita 2012). The third group includes Niamey, Nouakchott, and N’Djamena. Unlike cities in the second group, these three capitals of Sahelian/​Saharan countries do not lie on major axes of transportation, and they are not yet very attractive, even for internal migrants. The ranking of capital cities by population has evolved over the decades. Dakar has always been the biggest city, followed by Bamako; but N’Djamena passed up Ouagadougou from the 1960s to the 1980s. Several factors accounted for this. First of all, until 1970–​1980, while Ouagadougou was the political capital of Burkina Faso, Bobo-​ Dioulasso, the economic capital, was situated closer to and had strong ties with Côte d’Ivoire, and also had a small industrial base (sugar cane, cotton). Second, as the population growth rates show, Ouagadougou was less affected than N’Djamena or Niamey by the two decades of droughts that drove people to those cities starting in the 1970s.

Table 37.1 Population growth since 1950 of the Main Cities in the Sahel (in Thousands) 1950 1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2015

2020

2030

703

1,038

1,260

1,535

2,347

N’Djamena

25

71

155

324

477

Ouagadougou

33

59

115

265

537

921

1,914

2,741

3,695

5,854

Bobo-D ​ ioulasso

36

54

88

157

259

365

577

721

890

1,381

Bamako

89

130

222

489

746

1,142

1,933

2,515

3,270

5,231

Niamey

24

58

129

275

438

696

943

1,090

1,324

2,363

Zinder

12

19

36

66

127

167

281

370

489

887

Dakar

214

359

610

957

1,405

2,029

2,929

3,520

4,246

6,046

3

5

38

192

419

553

810

968

1,091

1,432

Nouakchott

*Cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants in 2014. Source: compiled by authors from United Nations data available at: https://​population.un.org/​wup/​ DataQuery/​

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    713 The impact of the droughts during the 1970s on the demographic profile of Sahelian capitals, in particular Bamako, Niamey, N’Djamena, and Nouakchott, is evident in Table 37.2. Nouakchott’s population growth rate rose from 6.7 percent during the 1950s, to approximately 20 percent during the 1960s and early 1970s, before falling to about 10 percent and tending toward 3 percent in the twenty-​first century. This rapid influx of people in destitute conditions, of course, had an impact on the development of these cities and their way of life. Neighborhoods spontaneously sprung up in places like Ouagadougou and Niamey, which proved unable to cope with the demand for facilities and urban development. The differences in population growth among these cities are also related to the general demographic profile of the country. For instance, the continued growth of Niamey or Zinder is directly linked to Niger’s high population growth rate (3.85 percent for 2010–​ 2015). An exception is Burkina Faso, where the annual population growth rate was 2.84 percent from 2010 to 2015, the lowest of the six countries, but where Ouagadougou’s growth rate remained high, even higher than Niamey’s. Since the start of the century, Ouagadougou has had to take in citizens returning from Côte d’Ivoire, where, in 2009, six percent of the city’s population had been born (Boyer and Delaunay 2017a, 2017b). In addition, it still exerts a strong pull on internal migrants. In other words, population trends in these cities have as much to do with the country’s broader position in the demographic transition as with the urban transition itself. Overall, capital cities are still experiencing strong population growth, and they will consequently have to cope with rising demands for housing, jobs, and facilities. A capital like Dakar has gradually acquired the status of regional metropolitan area, since it has top-​level services and accommodations, such as the headquarters of many international institutions and corporations for West Africa. Niamey, Nouakchott, or Bamako, however, are located on the sidelines of major circuits within and beyond Africa in countries where political stability is a potential issue. The intermediate position of Ouagadougou, where private and public African institutions have offices, and which benefits from being close to Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, is also uncertain. Like Dakar, it has a young population that could turn out to be an advantage if the city manages to offer basic educational and health services and, of course, jobs.

Outside the Capitals: Small and Medium-​Sized Cities Urban growth in the Sahel is not confined to capital cities. Although the data in the preceding tables reflect weakly structured urban networks, urban population growth in the Sahel is continuing, not all of it absorbed by the capitals, with significant differences, among countries. Between 2010 and 2015, urban population growth amounted to 3 percent in Burkina Faso but only 0.4 percent in Chad, possibly due to different forms of rural exodus. In some cases, this exodus is toward urban areas in the nation while in other cases it fuels international migration. In cases where it is negligible, urban population growth is driven by natural increases.

6.5

4.2

4.5

8.6

2.3

1.9

6.7

Ouagadougou

Bobo-​Dioulasso

Bamako

Niamey

Zinder

Dakar

Nouakchott

6.7

8.5

6.6

8.6

8.2

4.9

5.1

10.6

1955–​ 1960

19.4

5.5

6.6

7.9

3.9

4.0

6.5

8.5

1960–​ 1965

20.0

5.1

5.6

8.3

6.8

4.9

6.9

7.1

1965–​ 1970

Source: compiled by authors from United Nations data.

*Cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants in 2014.

10.0

N’Djamena

1950–​ 1955

20.0

5.0

5.6

8.6

9.9

4.9

7.4

8.0

1970–​ 1975

12.5

4.1

6.6

6.5

6.0

6.7

9.2

6.7

1975–​ 1980

9.3

3.9

7.6

4.7

4.4

6.9

9.4

3.9

1980–​ 1985

6.4

3.8

5.5

4.7

4.1

3.1

4.8

3.9

1985–​ 1990

2.8

3.7

2.7

4.6

4.0

2.8

4.3

3.9

1990–​ 1995

2.8

3.7

2.7

4.6

4.5

4.1

6.5

3.9

1995–​ 2000

Table 37.2 Population growth since 1950 of the Main Cities* in the Sahel (in Percentages)

3.8

3.7

5.0

3.2

5.3

4.6

7.3

3.9

2000-​ 2005

3.9

3.7

5.5

2.9

5.3

4.6

7.3

3.9

2005-​ 2010

3.6

3.7

5.5

2.9

5.3

4.5

7.2

3.9

2010-​ 2015

2.4

3.8

5.6

3.9

5.3

4.2

6.0

4.0

2015-​ 2020

2.8

2.7

3.4

6.1

5.9 3.7

6.1

5.5

4.5

4.3

4.5 4.9

4.3

4.3

2025-​ 2030

5.0

4.2

2020-​ 2025

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    715 Table 37.3 shows the proportion of each nation’s urban population that dwells in small and medium-​sized cities. In Burkina Faso, as in Senegal, more than half the urbanized population resides in the capital. This concentration suggests a limited network of small and medium-​sized cities that exerts little attraction, for economic reasons or in terms of services. In Niger and Mauritania, the capital’s share of the urban population increased into the 1990s but has gradually fallen since then, and continues to fall in the projections up to 2030. The share of the urban population of these two capitals (Table 37.3) can be correlated with the city’s lower population growth rate (Table 37.2), in comparison with other countries. Niger and Mauritania have a denser network of small and medium-​ sized cities, which are experiencing more population growth than the capital. Some 60–​ 70 percent of the urban population in these two countries does not reside in the capital. Small and medium-​sized cities in the Sahel have seldom been studied. Although scholars in the 1990s called for urban studies to shift their focus away from big cities (Herry 1991; Bertrand 1993), not much research has yet been devoted to urban networks in the Sahel or to small and medium-​sized cities. Studies carried out during the 1990s were interested in politics, in particular in the municipalities established as part of a policy of decentralization (Bertrand and Dubresson 1997). This interest in politics motivated research on land management and real estate in the capital cities during this period (Bertrand 1994). Another theme was conflict, in particular between local traditional powerholders and elected officials or representatives of the state (Giraut 1996). In addition to these studies, carried out primarily by geographers, development anthropologists also addressed the issue of decentralization and access to basic services. This approach was promoted by the Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherche sur les Dynamiques Sociales et le Développement Local (LASDEL) via programs in Niger and Benin. In a closely related approach, an analysis of local interactions and practices can

Table 37.3 Percentage of the Country’s Urban Population Residing in each of the Main Sahelian Cities* since 1950 1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2015

2020

2030

N’Djamena

21.8

35.5

36.9

38.2

38.5

39.2

40.3

41.2

41.7

42.3

Ouagadougou

20.1

26.0

35.7

44.1

44.2

44.5

48.0

51.2

53.0

53.7

Bobo-​Dioulasso 22.0

23.9

27.3

26.2

21.3

17.6

14.5

13.5

12.8

12.7

Bamako

22.6

23.0

27.1

39.3

40.2

39.2

38.4

38.8

39.3

40.0

Niamey

19.6

29.8

33.3

35.0

36.8

39.1

33.8

30.2

27.9

27.9

Zinder

10.0

10.1

9.2

8.4

10.7

9.4

10.1

10.3

10.3

10.5

Dakar

50.0

49.1

48.2

48.1

48.1

51.0

53.6

53.8

54.4

55.0

Nouakchott

13.2

8.9

22.5

45.6

50.0

41.5

39.6

39.6

38.1

37.9

*Cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants in 2014. Source: compiled by authors from United Nations data.

716    Florence Boyer and David Lessault be found in a case study of Koudougou, Burkina Faso, which sheds light on negotiations and conflicts between municipal, customary, and state authorities and citizens (Hilgers 2009). Studies on decentralization in relation to international migrations were also carried out in Mali (Lima 2003). During the 1980s and 1990s, the oasis as a specific urban form was the focus of research in the Saharan areas of Mali, Niger, Chad, or Mauritania, incorporating the study of nomadism and processes of sedentarization, and of movement and city life (Villasante-​de-​Beauvais 1996; Koita 1996; Retaillé 1986). The point of reference for these studies was the Arab rather than the African world. Based on the study of oases, Retaillé (1989, 1997) proposed the idea of a “nomad city” as a strategic urban form shaped by production activities and “movement,” mainly the circulation of trade. This line of research was extended to studies of secondary cities in the Sahel or the Sahara, and specifically on their mercantile functions (Bennafla 1998) or their role as a crossroads in West African migratory systems (Mounkaila 2014), echoing the classical view of the Sahel and Sahara as a crossroads between the Arab world and Sub-​Saharan Africa. Scholars have long been interested in Dakar’s regional impact (Diouf 1980), and even more so since internal migrations from Dakar toward regional centers have increased. Secondary cities such as Mbour and Thiès, each with a population around two hundred thousand, located on the “emerging urban corridor” between Dakar, the political capital, and Touba, the religious capital (Thiam 2008), have attracted some limited attention. Touba itself, the holy city of the Mouride Sufi order, is presented as an anomaly or a curiosity (Gueye 2002). There is much speculation in estimates of its floating population (ranging from 800,000 to 1.2 million) and no agreement on whether—​despite the size of its population—​it should be considered an urban or rural center.1 Overall, studies on small and medium-​sized cities are piecemeal and peripheral to urban studies in the strict sense. They concentrate on the functions of these cities as a crossroads for migration or a marketplace, rather than on the urbanization process as such. Only those studies oriented toward politics and the decentralization process touch on the question of the construction of an urban world and way of life outside the big cities.2

FROM DAKAR TO N’DJAMENA: INTERPRETING THE DATA Moving from a macroeconomic and historical perspective, we now examine the differences between major urban centers as metropolitan areas and centers of urban life in the Sahel. Variations in the development of these cities and in the processes of differentiation at work there reflect this diversity. For instance, the fact that these cities have not all reached the same stage of the demographic transition has an effect on the forms of city life and the socio-​spatial stratification in each agglomeration.

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    717 A number of studies (in French) have addressed the urban question in the Sahel since the 1980s. Most of these were conducted by researchers from the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD; until 1998 the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-​Mer, ORSTOM). The genealogy of these studies, which were based on transdisciplinary perspectives from demography, socio-​anthropology, and geography, helps us understand how a global approach focusing on forms of spatial mobility in urban areas went beyond existing scientific limitations and came to prevail in studies of big Sahelian cities. Methods of observation and analysis had to adjust to the situation in the Sahel, namely to the extremely rapid changes in urban areas under heavy demographic pressure and to the gaps in statistical and cartographic information. For this reason, we shall describe the general context for producing information and frameworks for interpretation before turning to the major trends in urban settlement patterns and production, visible in terms of residence and socioeconomic status.

Urban Studies in the Sahel: Recent Advances The current state of knowledge about big Sahelian cities stems from the pioneering studies of geographers who concentrated mainly on Senegal, and in particular its coastal capital on the edge of the Sahel. As the capital of French West Africa and the headquarters of the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN), with its Department of Human Sciences and Geography, and then as the principal center for ORSTOM in West Africa, Dakar became a scientific center early on. Starting in the 1960s, Senegalese and French researchers conducted studies on the city, among them Seck 1968; Vernière 1977; Dubresson 1979; M’Bow 1992; and Salem 1998. Through the late 1990s these studies contributed much to our knowledge of urban expansion and shed much light on the socioeconomic and political changes that stemmed from it. These urban studies, however, were done piecemeal, and usually concentrated on peripheral districts. Thus, Pikine, a new urban development resulting from the so-​called “eviction” policies in Senegal’s capital, attracted early attention (Vernière 1977). M’Bow’s (1992) study was the first to cover the whole urban agglomeration, whose population at the time was nearing two million. Building on earlier studies as drawing on the 1988 census on population and housing in the capital, it focused on the growth of Dakar and forms of urban mobility. The analysis of intra-​urban population movements in Dakar was challenging, given the scattering of case studies among neighborhoods, the lack of chronological continuity in the sources, and constraints resulting from the categories used in census data. While intra-​ urban movements were clearly a major factor in urban change, and despite a wealth of empirical and theoretical information, it remained difficult to detect general trends at the scale of the agglomeration—​a difficulty complicated by the rapid pace of change, the surface area over which the city was expanding, and the persistent gaps in intra-​urban statistics. Given the sustained growth of big cities in developing countries, new sociodemographic surveys at the scale of the agglomeration were launched in some Sahelian capitals starting in the late 1980s (Antoine and Bocquier 1989 in Dakar; Ouédraogo and Piché 1995 in

718    Florence Boyer and David Lessault Bamako; Bocquier and Traoré 2000).3 As internal migration came to be seen as a decisive factor in urban growth, attention was mainly turned toward the residential, social, and occupational integration of migrants in the city. What these studies have contributed to our knowledge of big Sahelian cities comes from the collection and analysis of biographical data. Such data can be used to better take account, at a scale representative of the agglomeration, of time-​related factors in the behavior of new Sahelian city-​dwellers (Antoine, Ouédraogo, and Piché 1998). Extending this approach, other studies used changes in urban contexts as a variable interacting with biographical accounts.4 Trends in migration and place of residence could then be correlated with the successive contexts—​family, urban, national, international—​where they were occurring (Dureau et al. 2006). These methodological advances occurred at the junction of two disciplines, population studies and geography, the purpose being to open a dialogue between researchers working on metropolitan areas in the global North and South. The international comparisons made throughout the 1990s by the workshop “Metropolitan areas in movement” (Dureau et al. 2000) fit into this current of research, which now incorporated Ouagadougou (Le Bris 2000) and Bamako (Bertrand 2000), drawing comparisons between nineteen metropolitan areas around the world. This approach was based on a common grid of interpretation used to compare urban trends in metropolitan areas located in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. “Spatial mobility” was deemed to be a key factor for analyzing urban change. This research postulated that, in the urban transition, which was more or less advanced depending on the city, intra-​urban mobility was becoming the overriding factor accounting for recent trends, while internal migration was less decisive than at the start of urban development. This hypothesis, though corroborated in countries in the North, Latin America, and Asia, was weak (or yet to be demonstrated) when applied to these relatively young, big Sahelian cities where urbanization was still under way. The unevenness of available information and of the systems for collecting data on spatial mobility raised questions about the reliability of the explanations made of intra-​urban movements. Studies on Dakar, Bamako, and Ouagadougou (Le Bris et al. 1985; Bertrand 2006, 2011) emphasized the increasing importance of intra-​urban residential mobility, but in combination with the intensity of internal and international migration. They laid the theoretical and methodological grounds for new surveys in several big Sahelian cities. Two surveys (Antoine and Fall 2002; Beauchemin et al. 2008) provided databases for studies on urban change in Dakar (Lessault and Sakho 2008; Lessault, Beauchemin, and Sakho 2011; Leesault and Imbert 2013). In 2009–​2011, Ouagadougou, Niamey, and Bamako were part of a comparative survey producing new data on those cases (Boyer and Delaunay 2017a, 2017b; Bertrand and Boyer 2016). This mass of empirical data from four large Sahelian cities, and using a similar methodological and theoretical approach, shed much light on population and urban renewal trends in the Sahel. Furthermore, work on forms of everyday mobility and the access to urban services in Dakar, Ouagadougou, Niamey, and Bamako proved a useful addition to this comparative approach (Diaz Olvera, Plat, and Pochet 1998, 2000, 2002; Godard 2002). Besides shedding light on forms of transportation and their uses in everyday life in each of these

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    719 cities, these studies also brought to light the inequality (in particular gender inequality) that comes into play at this scale. While studies of urban practices, strictly speaking, are still limited, anthropologists interested in this topic are adding a new dimension to urban studies in the Sahel. Thus, a research program entitled “Urbanization, public spaces and sustainable urban management in West Africa: Processes of social exclusion and integration in Dakar and Nouakchott” proposed an interpretation of urbanization in the Sahel that is: neither seen on the maps nor in the statistics, neither on the blueprints nor on the aerial photographs available for free on the Internet, but that is to be deciphered after much patience (which does not amount to much in our times but is still indispensable) for understanding the role of ‘undistinguished’ people, i.e., ordinary people, taking their place in the complex, everyday workings that go into the making of a territory. (Chenal et al. 2009)

Following this same line of inquiry, studies of “ordinary practices” and of original ways of living in the city have shown how urban spaces enter into the process of making individuals autonomous and into the construction of mentalities (Fouquet 2007, 2011). According to these authors, urbanization in the Sahel is said to result in an economic situation of scarcity instead of growth, and thus to imply a “dualization” of the economic, social, and political spheres and a “fragmentation” of the urban area (Lombard et al. 2004; Lessault and Sakho 2008). This multidimensional polarization in big cities increases socioeconomic inequality and “exclusion,” or segregation. The disenfranchised no longer manage to enter the formal systems that redistribute resources and manage power. They thus pursue other strategies for taking part in the processes that shape and regulate society (Legros 2004), strategies to which several studies have drawn attention (Antoine 1995; Lombard et al. 2004; Lessault 2005). These include individual or group strategies for coping with their precarious, vulnerable living conditions; strategies that are economic, social, political, spatial, and residential (Lessault 2005); strategies for obtaining access to, and managing, economic resources (Antoine 1995; Antoine and Fall 2002), and systems of exchanges and social promotion (Lombard et al. 2004). These strategies take concrete form through negotiations with public authorities or through circumventions of the law (Legros 2004, 2008). When shared by a large number of people, they become “informal institutions” (Chenal et al. 2009).

Capital Cities Compared: Sahelian Trends and National Variation Sahelian cities are often considered to represent a distinctive urban model that is uniquely characteristic of the region. Their characteristic form of urban sprawl over a flat surface, which removes people ever farther from the historic downtown area and

720    Florence Boyer and David Lessault from the city’s principal facilities, reinforced that image. Nonetheless, an analysis of trends in new settlement patterns and changes in the morphology and functions of previously urbanized districts challenges this characterization. For this reason, interpreting socio-​spatial segregation in the terms inherited from the colonial mode of production of cities (roughly based on the center/​periphery paradigm) has become more complex as populations have been redistributed in a sprawling agglomeration. Although urban expansion still mostly takes the form of “spontaneous” construction, new economic and political factors, sometimes “exogenous” or international, are decisively orienting and even transforming these practices (Bredeloup, Bertoncello, and Lombard 2008; Bertrand 2009; Lessault, Beauchemin, and Sakho 2011). As a result, socioeconomic inequality is increasing. This raises questions about the “fragmentation” of urban spaces in the Sahel, that is, of the increasing heterogeneity of socio-​residential spaces and the marginalization of certain groups both in terms of their geographical location and of life in the urban area. The large Sahelian cities are at different stages in the “urban transition,” in particular with regard to forms of mobility (Zelinski 1971). Slower demographic growth is a long-​ term structural trend affecting both urban transition and forms of mobility. It results from the more or less rapid modification of the relations between urban and rural populations, from the shifts in migration between the countryside and city, and from the demographic transition as reflected in the fertility rate. In the long run, the migratory balance will tend to have fewer effects, while the natural increase in population will have more, although its rate will gradually fall as the demographic transition advances. Although studies in Europe, India, and Latin America have concentrated on the urban transition, studies on the Sahel have seldom broached this topic, apart from recent surveys on Dakar (MAFE) or Ouagadougou and Niamey (MOBOUA).5 It is hard to interpret the situations in N’Djamena and Nouakchott since the indicators needed for an analysis are of questionable reliability. For the Sahel as a whole, precise information is lacking about the stage that each of the large cities has reached in the urban transition. For Dakar, some studies have suggested that the capital, with a population now over three million, has reached a new stage in population growth (Lessault and Imbert 2013). This more endogenous stage, characterized by the predominance of processes for redistributing people in the city, marks a break with the previously dominant processes that used to serve as the grounds for an interpretation of the situation in large Sahelian cities in relation to rural–​urban migration and the integration of migrants (Antoine and Diop 1995, 2002; Ouédraogo and Piché 1995; Bocquier and Traoré 2000). This shift from a period of urbanization characterized by internal and international migration to a period during which intra-​and inter-​urban mobility is intensifying, places Dakar at a more advanced stage than other big Sahelian cities in the urban transition. While internal migration still contributes a third of the recent growth of the capital’s population, two-​thirds of changes of residence occur within the metropolitan area. In 2009, Ouagadougou had about two million inhabitants and a population growth rate of 6–​7 percent per year. Unlike Dakar, settlements in that city are still marked by internal migration. At the turn of the century, Ouagadougou also had to cope with the

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    721 consequences of xenophobic policies in Côte d’Ivoire during the 1990s, and with those of the Ivoirian Civil War in 2002, which prompted the return of citizens to Burkina Faso and stimulated the capital’s population growth (Bredeloup and Zongo 2016; Boyer and Néya 2015). In 2009, approximately 6 percent of Ouagadougou’s population had been born in Côte d’Ivoire. Like Dakar, Ouagadougou has entered both the urban and demographic transitions, giving it a distinct profile. It has to deal with the demands of young urbanites for housing, jobs, and education. This demographic bonus will be an asset for development if these young people are able to be residentially and economically autonomous (Delaunay and Boyer 2017). Given the housing shortage, however, poor “spontaneous” neighborhoods are springing up, and it is taking too long for facilities to reach new subdivisions established on the periphery (Boyer 2010). The “eviction” of internal migrants and young urbanites toward underequipped areas on the periphery raises questions about the city’s future since socio-​spatial differentiation takes place as the city grows, and young working people benefit the least from this trend. The profile of Niamey, a smaller capital with approximately 1.5 million inhabitants in 2010, is different. Internal migrations have historically marked settlement patterns there. The diversion of migrants toward other countries limits the city’s development despite its strong natural population increase. Unlike Ouagadougou or Dakar, Niamey (like Niger itself) has barely entered the demographic transition. Paradoxically, however, urban growth seems under control. There are few spontaneous neighborhoods, partly because municipal authorities exercise a strong control over real estate. Processes of socio-​spatial differentiation affect urban-​dwellers’ access to stable housing, whether via rental or ownership. People without residences seek refuge in insecure, precarious housing located in the interstices or on the outskirts of the urban area often forced to move from place to place in the urban area as a function of expulsions and evictions. The major change in population patterns in Sahelian cities comes from the increasing importance of forms of mobility at the two ends of the spatial scale: the polarization of international forms of circulation in the big cities, and the intensification of intra-​urban residential and everyday mobility, which determine how urban space is being reshaped. This trend is especially noticeable in Dakar (Lessault 2014) and Bamako (Bertrand 2006), but less pronounced in the other Sahelian capitals. These general trends in the population and forms of mobility affect real estate and residential practices. Customary landowners have long played a part in this urban sprawl that, on the periphery, has taken the form of so-​called spontaneous, un-​subdivided, or irregular neighborhoods. In the past, and to some extent still today, the state has intervened to orient urban sprawl via eviction policies, and programs for “cleaned lots” and such. These tangled processes now involve new private players and urban modes of production are becoming more complex while adjusting to trends in residential practices. In previously urbanized areas on the periphery, we notice that along with urban sprawl there is a verticalization of housing. New buildings tend to rise higher, a tendency related to the development of rentals outside the city center. The construction of higher and more “solid” buildings are noticeable changes in urban landscapes, especially in the suburbs of Dakar or even Bamako. These trends are evidence of the maturity

722    Florence Boyer and David Lessault of consolidated subdivisions where the stock of housing adjusts to intensified residential mobility (Bertrand 2011). In Dakar, for instance, internal migrants no longer settle in lower-​class neighborhoods next to the downtown area but out in the suburbs or exurbs (Lessault 2005; Lessault and Imbert 2013). The young populations in these Sahelian cities and the high proportion of young couples are a major factor spurring the supply of rentals and the production of housing units for first-​time homebuyers (Diagne and Lessault 2007). In all these cities, the continuation of urban sprawl and the offer of rentals on the periphery are removing ever more city-​dwellers from the principal centers where jobs and basic services are offered. This geographic removal is usually combined with a lack, or lag, in the supply of transportation. Some spontaneous neighborhoods are hemmed in, and people in the so-​called informal sector do not always manage to adapt and are unable to cope with the effects of distance. Access to the city, and to the full-​fledged status of city-​dweller, has become tricky. There is a high risk of socio-​spatial segmentation, and not just in the outlying areas of the urban agglomeration. As in other big cities in developing countries, the complexity of urban segregation increases with the development of metropolitan areas once residential redistribution of the population becomes a dominant factor. Social divisions of urban space are marked by the legacy of the previous situation and by the mode of production of housing, as pointed out earlier. In Dakar, for instance, a major east–​west division has appeared with a gradient of wealth that decreases from the center (west) toward the periphery (east). At a more granular level of analysis, however, this general description is complicated because of the geographical proximity of neighborhoods at opposite ends of the social scale (Lessault and Imbert 2013; Borderon et al. 2014). At the neighborhood or “village” level, the contrasts are marked when pockets of poverty are interspersed among well-​off neighborhoods, as in Dakar’s Point E, or when housing estates with apartment blocks are built as irregular extensions of outlying suburban areas.

CONCLUSION Recent research on Sahelian cities confirms the view of Sahelian urban spaces as subject to intense demographic pressures in a context of economic scarcity and of a shortage of public resources. In addition, it is clear that rapid urbanization in the region has gone hand in hand with a geographical “transfer” of poverty to the urban environment. Further generalizations on medium-​sized or smaller cities, as well as urban areas located at the periphery of the region, in particular N’Djamena and Nouakchott, are more tenuous. Despite advances in our knowledge, and the wealth of information in the studies discussed in this chapter, there is a real need to conduct more scientific surveys in Sahelian cities, and to expand the number of researchers working on this issue. Given the many issues with which these urban areas must cope, there is no dearth of subjects to study.

Urbanization and the Dynamics of Change in the Sahel    723 Perhaps the most salient characteristic of Sahelian cities is the very young age of their populations. What are the prospects for this new generation of urbanites in terms of their ability to adapt in urban areas that usually deprive them of possibilities for obtaining housing and jobs? The often-​posed question about what Sahelian cities are “going to do with their young people” is central and will remain so in the coming years, a fact that should cause concern to urban planners whose recent studies have been relatively circumspect about urban policies in the Sahel. Several open questions remain about the future of Sahelian cities: How do Sahelian urban areas fit into international trends, both geopolitically and economically? How can we assess the impact of globalization on the making of cities in this region? How do international migration and the transfer of “urban models” affect the processes of “metropolitanization”? With increasing importance in recent years, we must ask how urbanization in the Sahel will be further affected by increased violence and conflict in the region. How might the potentially increased numbers of internally displaced people or those forced to move to urban areas from rural zones marked by conflict produce new dynamics shaping the future of Sahelian cities?

Notes 1. Given its unique situation we have not included Touba in the list of Sahelian secondary cities with a population higher than three hundred thousand. Estimates of Touba’s size must be approached with caution given the highly fluctuating population of the holy city. Many Touba “residents” in fact live and spend most of their time in other cities or abroad, only maintaining a residence in Touba for religious purposes and for participation in celebrations such as the Grand Magal of Touba. The population of Touba has been the object of passionate debates in the Senegalese media, following claims by the Mourides that the last Senegalese census undercounts the city’s residents, presumably for the reasons noted above. 2. A useful source of statistics for a regional view of urban networks is the Africapolis database (Denis and Moriconi-​Ebrard 2008). 3. While few urban studies or surveys have been carried out on Nouakchott and even less on N’Djamena, two useful dissertations have examined these cases (Choplin 2006; Hemchi 2015). 4. See in particular the studies conducted by the Groupe de Réflexion sur l’Approche Biographique (GRAB 1999). 5. Respectively, http://​mafeproject.site.ined.fr and https://​iedespubli.hypotheses.org/​category/​monographies-​sud-​nord.

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chapter 38

SAHELIAN MI G RAT I ONS WITHIN A FRI C A Sylvie Bredeloup

Sahelian migrations within Africa have drawn little attention from researchers, policymakers, or governments—​either in the countries of origin or of destination (Bakewell 2009). While in fact such migrations involve massive numbers of people, they are mostly invisible and poorly documented, or sometimes confused with refugee movements. To be sure, the quantitative data available are insufficient for retracing the history of Sahelian migratory trends inside Africa. Current statistical tools and data sources, in particular censuses based on the person’s place of birth, have not been designed so as to help shed light on international flows of migration. At one end, departures often occur individually, discreetly, and are seldom recorded; at the other, arrivals are inadequately tallied in host countries. Even supposing that the data could be assembled and aggregated, it would be hard to compare them since the definitions of “migrant” and “migration” may differ from one country to the next, or from one period to another. And finally, the intensity or scale of the circulation of men and women on the African continent for reasons other than labor is extremely difficult to measure (Sheller and Urry 2006). Yet it is clear that intra-​African mobility—​in large part from the Sahel—​is still very intense, even though destinations have changed over time, as have migrants’ profiles and motivations. In 2005, this mobility involved 1.9 percent of the continent’s total population: 17.1 million international migrants were recorded within the continent (United Nations 2006). West Africa received the largest share of this migration, followed by East Africa: respectively 7.5 and 4.5 million. According to these statistics, and during comparable time spans, more than 70 percent of African migrants stayed within the continent. In 2015, for instance, two-​thirds of the 8.7 million West African migrants circulated inside West Africa, as compared with 6.5 percent who migrated to other regions in Africa, 18.6 percent to Europe, 8.2 percent to North America, and 0.6 percent to Asia (United Nations 2015).

730   Sylvie Bredeloup This chapter describes the historical trajectory of Sahelian migrations in Africa, initially in a context of a “regional complementarity” based on trade routes, before colonial programs for territorial development reoriented them toward the coast. Subsequently, the downturn in the world economy, along with political trends on the continent as of the mid-​1980s, reshaped the map of migratory movements within Africa and forced migrants to renegotiate their place in the increasingly less hospitable societies of destination countries. I will then examine a combination of several factors affecting contemporary Sahelian migrations within Africa: the growing number of armed conflicts, outbursts of xenophobic violence, the dearth of opportunities for the masses of young people in Africa, and the tightening of international migratory policies (with an impact on migrations and migrants’ journeys).1

MIGRATING FOR TRADE, WORK, ADVENTURE: LONGSTANDING MOTIVES TOO OFTEN OVERLOOKED The long history of migrations within Africa did not start with the colonial era. The caravan trade across the Sahara stimulated intense mobility for centuries. It linked the medieval empires of the Sudan, between the Senegal River and Lake Chad (Ghana, Mali, Songhai), to ports on the Mediterranean Sea (Brachet 2004; Lanza 2011). Gold, spices, salt, and slaves were carried upwards from the south, while weapons, horses, textiles, and other manufactured goods arrived from the north. African sovereigns as well as their subjects gradually converted to the religion of the wealthy Arab merchants who transported this merchandise; Islam was decisive for the cohesion of trans-​Saharan merchant groups (Grégoire and Labazée 1993). As a major place of economic contact between North Africa and the Sahel, Upper Senegal was at the center of these trade-​related movements for centuries (Amselle 1976; Manchuelle 1997). Trans-​Saharan trade routes led to the upper Senegal River valley; caravans seldom ventured farther south; and trade routes from Bambok and Guinea converged there too. This historic long-​distance trade gradually slackened owing to Moorish resistance to colonial settlements and with intensified attacks on caravans and rising insecurity. By the end of the nineteenth century, this caravan trade was rerouted as colonial authorities were established and new borders imposed (Kopytoff 1987). Having taken over a large part of North Africa and the Sahel from Senegal to Chad, France used its control over major points in the Sahara to counter the expansion of British trade. By setting up new infrastructure (railways, roads, ports), colonial authorities shifted the centers and routes of trade southwards and toward the coast, and favored the formation of new trade routes and new geographical partitions (Harding and Kipré 1992).

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    731 A new organization of this vast territory followed the logic of colonial policies for extracting natural resources and for sending minerals and agricultural produce to Europe. The hinterland thus became a source of labor, while the major cities on the coast became places where laborers came to find work (Amin and Forde 1974). For French authorities, the territory of Upper Volta, created in 1919, was to be the major labor pool for an underpopulated Ivory Coast.2 The expansion of cash crops (i.e., gum arabic, coffee, and cacao) and construction of the transportation infrastructure, indispensable for moving products to market, called for a more intense movement of labor. This was the role assigned to the population of more than three million dwelling in Upper Volta—​more than a quarter of French West Africa’s population at the time (Coulibaly 1986, 84). To force people to move toward the areas that colonial authorities wanted to improve, coercive measures were adopted: the head tax, statute labor (a fixed number of workdays that each native owed to the administration), and forced labor. Initially, these measures set off a massive flight of Upper Voltans (Burkina Faso) to the Gold Coast (Ghana). In 1925, three out of four migrants from this French territory headed toward the neighboring British colony (Condé 1978, 22). To counter this evasion and in order to recruit the labor necessary for projects in the colonial Ivory Coast, in 1932 the French authorities issued a decree dividing Upper Volta: half of its surface area, with more than two-​thirds of its population, was annexed to the Ivory Coast (Blion 1995), which the French prioritized over Upper Volta for development projects. The recruitment of labor accelerated following this division, and by 1935 migratory flows had been reoriented: two out of three migrants from Upper Volta were now heading toward the Ivory Coast (Condé 1978, 6–​17), and this massive migration from Upper Volta would continue after World War II. The abolition of forced labor in 1946 and the administrative re-​establishment of a distinct Upper Volta in 1947 did not reduce migrations from that territory, nor from Mali (Gary-​Tounkara 2008) or Niger. French authorities also recruited Sahelians to the colonial armed forces. Nearly all the laptots, colonial auxiliaries who served in French trade stations along the coast of Senegal and later in Gabon, came from the Senegal River valley, primarily from ethnic groups that were among the first to have converted to Islam (Manchuelle 1987). The early recruits to the infantry (as riflemen: the tirailleurs sénégalais) came from the “four communes” (Saint-​Louis, Gorée, Rufisque, and Dakar) in Senegal, and these were the first to leave for military service in the Ivory Coast (Bredeloup 1995). Once released from active duty, they became masons, carpenters, or bakers, and lived near their garrisons, as in the case of Grand-​Bassam with its over 300 residents in 1913. Petty merchants eventually (1889–​1939) joined them. Having left Senegal and the stiff competition from French trading houses in Saint-​Louis, Gorée, and Dakar (Zie and Vrih 1992), these traders would, in the Ivory Coast, do business inland, delivering goods there, buying produce, and carrying freight. They also set up cacao plantations. Similar processes were under way in Central Africa. Migrants from the Senegal River valley, mostly Soninke, started coming to the Congo basin in the 1880s. They served on

732   Sylvie Bredeloup the colonial staff or were recruited to build the Matadi-​Kinshasa railroad (Manchuelle 1987; Whitehouse 2012). The first departures of this colonial manpower from Haut Senegal for the marine and public works in Cameroon were reported twenty years later, at the start of World War I. But these extensive migrations, which marked the start of the twentieth century, cannot be reduced only to labor migration, more or less forced in the context of plantations or urban construction projects. This was also the period, from 1904 to 1910, during which we witnessed the departure of some one hundred thousand slaves who left their former owners to return to their land of origin (Peterson 2005) or to find work in Bamako or Saint-​Louis. Women actively participated in these population movements out of Haut Senegal (Rodet 2009), although the colonial administration’s reports paid little attention to them. Families migrated toward Senegambia; the women worked, and some of them, taking advantage of their emancipation, renegotiated marriage alliances that they had not freely chosen. The freeing of captives, and their subsequent layoffs from the major railroad projects where they had been recruited, along with the depletion of soils in Kayor, led many of them to move to the groundnut (peanut) fields of the Senegambia region. The groundnut rush, which started toward the end of the nineteenth century, set off waves of migration during the 1920s, sweeping up thousands of people from Matam, Bakel, Nioro, and, later, from Upper Volta and Guinea, who came during the rainy season to grow groundnuts in the regions of Baol and Saloum (David 1980). By 1848 these farm laborers were referred to as “strange farmers” in the Gambia, before being renamed navétanes because their work was seasonal: “those who come from somewhere else during the wet season” (nawet in Wolof). Described colorfully as the “upside down far West” (David 1980, 39), this seasonal migration would continue to be repeated, year after year, until the late 1950s. This system was made possible by the fact that the colonial authorities sponsored the transportation for these migrants to go back home. Via a similar system, and in the effort to recruit sufficient numbers of Mossi workers from Upper Volta, plantation owners from the Syndicat Agricole Africain in the Ivory Coast financed the transport of migrants and their families, and guaranteed a minimum wage. During the 1950s, depending on migratory policies, Sahelian peasants alternated between the search for diamonds and groundnut cultivation. In 1957, for instance, the exceptional migration of one thousand two hundred Upper Voltans toward groundnut fields in Tambacounda, Senegal, can be explained by the expulsion by British authorities of forty thousand foreigners (“Guineans, Malinke, Soudanese Soninke, and Senegalese”) from the diamond mines in Sierra Leone (David 1980, 397). The search for precious stones and metals fired the imagination of hundreds of thousands of Sahelian and Guinean migrants who came first to Sierra Leone and then, in turn, to Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and the Belgian Congo (Bredeloup 1999). Fulbe (Peuls) from Guinea and the French Soudan and, to a lesser extent from Senegal and Upper Volta, swarmed to

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    733 work as diggers. People from Mali, Senegal, or Gambia, well-​established merchants who moved long distances to trade in groundnuts, kola nuts, or gold, now turned to precious stones. These movements are proof of the adaptation and resilience of migrants, evidence of the diversity of their journeys and of the plurality of identities hidden under the equivocal phrase of “seasonal migrant.” This race across Africa—​twenty years after the discovery of the first diamond fields in 1930—​upended the landscape and economy of the affected regions. For the first time in this history, Africans, many of them from the Sahel, imposed their own law at least for a while, and migrated freely of their own volition to work the mines discovered by Europeans (Bredeloup 2007).3 A similar freedom of movement characterized migrations toward the Gold Coast, where, from 1920 to 1950, Dogon or Songhai from Mali went to work temporarily (Dougnon 2007). At the start of the twentieth century, cities in the Gold Coast had become the biggest markets in West Africa, where textiles and other manufactured products were traded in large quantities. This passage especially via Kumasi was transformed into a sort of initiation for young Malians and Nigeriens, whom the Dogon came to call “Kumasi boys” (Peil 1972). Bringing expensive consumer goods back home was a sure source of prestige and a means of becoming someone (Dougnon 2007). Migrants on the eve of independence in Africa were not all working under coercion for White people. Like the peddlers circulating between the French Soudan (Mali), Niger, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria, these diamond prospectors who followed rumors, crisscrossing Africa from one mine to another, shared the same approach, the same motivation: go toward the unexplored, take risks, push back limits to prove one’s mettle, be freer from the customary system, and grow in stature. These adventurers were migrating at the same time as laborers. The former group was in this sense pulled, as in contemporary population movements, whereas the latter were more often pushed (Bredeloup 2013, 2017). Extending filmmaker Jean Rouch’s characterization of migration as self-​fulfillment, the anthropologist (Stoller 2002) saw Accra and Abidjan as “the most popular jaguar destinations”—​a reference to Jean Rouch’s first feature-​length film Jaguar (1956), which presents the adventures of Nigeriens in the Gold Coast: versatile and adaptable, like the jaguar, in the face of adversity. This metaphor highlights the cultural and existential dimensions of Sahelian migrations, which the narrow focus only on economic motives or political factors has too often led us to overlook. In the Congolese colonies, migrants from the Sahel sold imported textiles and sewing materials during the period between the two World Wars (Martin 1995). The presence of West African entrepreneurs set back the emergence of an indigenous bourgeoisie in Côte d’Ivoire, on both banks of the Congo River, and in Gabon (MacGaffey 1987). On the eve of independence, African cities and their large construction projects attracted a growing number of people from various geographical areas to work as dockers, masons, mechanics, or bakers. They would join those who had come earlier, often under coercion, but were now working on their own as craftsmen or traders.

734   Sylvie Bredeloup

REAPING IN THE LAND OF PLENTY: THE ERA OF FREE MOVEMENT Whereas the colonial period was marked by an authoritarian organization of migratory movements within territories belonging to the same empire, the attainment of national sovereignty led, from the 1960s onwards, to a decade of laissez-​faire policies in matters of labor migration. Although bilateral agreements for better regulating labor migrations were worked out between some of the newly independent West African countries, they did not prove effective. The 1959/​1960 convention by the Conseil de l’Entente (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger, Togo), which would have provided for the possibility of dual nationality, never took effect. As for the treaty signed in 1975, and modified in 1993, that gave birth to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), it foresaw free circulation and residence rights for citizens from member states; but applying it has proven problematic (Kabbandji 2011). Independence did not hamper migratory movement; indeed, quite the contrary. For one thing, the outward-​oriented development policies adopted by Ivorian and Ghanaian authorities required a liberal immigration policy (Brou and Charbit 1994). For another, head taxes remained in effect until the early 1980s, compelling people to emigrate in search of employment and the means to pay them. In fact, payment of this tax ranked second among the reasons that migrants from Burkina Faso mentioned for leaving the country in the early 1970s (Coulibaly, Gregory, and Piché 1980). These voluntary departures thus replaced forced or organized migrations. Although the new borders of independent nation-​states initially interfered with trade, they eventually gave rise to a new group of businessmen who knew how to profit from cross-​border differentials. These players introduced new trade patterns between North Africa, the Sahara, and the Sahel (Grégoire and Labazée 1993; Marfaing 2007). The Sahelo-​Saharan migratory space that thus emerged cannot be explained only by the age-​old trade routes that crossed the Sahara prior to colonization; African migrants today are not just reviving the historic patterns of nomadism. The formation and development of this new migratory space are closely related to recent events: independence, the cycle of droughts in the Sahel (1970s), the conflicts that have flared up, and the differential development between areas to the north and south of the Sahara (Bredeloup and Pliez 2005; Mounkaila Chapter 39 in this volume). The multilateral tools for managing migrations, which were invented in the early 1960s by the newly independent nations but have seldom been applied, also pointed to the political will to introduce free circulation as a means of regional integration. By establishing a transportation infrastructure at the national and then regional levels, states of the region have themselves become the major organizers of Sahelian mobility. Migrants now enjoy improved transit systems on the continental scale (Lombard 2009). In the Ivory Coast, as in Gabon, the Congo, or Cameroon, the established Sahelian migrant communities provided housing and mutual aid services, thus

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    735 facilitating the settlement of new arrivals in the host country, as well as the movement of migrants between the various poles of activity (Diop 1965; Gary-​Tounkara 2008). These family, ethnic, or religious networks provided an effective safety net. Women accompanied their husbands or joined them later, and some of them even became autonomous (Ba and Bredeloup 1997). Among migrants from Burkina Faso, for instance, the number of women doubled between 1960 and 1975, a year when one out of three Burkinabè migrants was a woman, and more than 95 percent of women migrants were married (Upper Volta census 1975). From a pattern of largely individual and male labor migration, Burkinabè migration gradually evolved into a family matter, taking on the character of settlement migration (Blion 1995). These interwoven strands of migratory movements are not all of the same nature, scope or motivation. Whether rural or urban, how are we to understand Sahelian migrations within Africa since independence? For sure, rural areas are still the point of departure for the majority of Sahelian migrants, but they are also the place of arrival. A CERPOD study has identified two types of migrants from the Senegal River valley: on the one hand, farmers who come back to their home village every rainy season in order to work their fields; and on the other hand, migrants who look for work in the city, in sales or services (Findley 1990). The most common migratory profile still corresponds to a farmer who undertakes seasonal migration, usually across a border toward plantations or to mines and, more recently, to oil fields.

Four Major Poles of Sahelian Migration within West Africa Four migratory subsystems within West Africa could be discerned in the early 1970s. The first migratory pole mainly attracted Burkinabè, Malians, and Guineans toward the gold mines and the coffee and cacao plantations of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. But in 1969, in response to a deep recession, the Ghanaian government adopted deportation measures with the “Alien Compliance Order,” thus triggering the departure of nearly a million West Africans, who had mostly come from Nigeria, Togo, Upper Volta, and Niger (Peil 1971; Addo 1974; Yeboah 1986). Meanwhile, the Ivory Coast continued attracting an ever-​larger immigrant population, who took an active part in the economy in both rural and urban areas. A second pole of attraction was along the Gulf of Guinea, in particular Nigeria, the most populous country in the region. Besides movements at the regional level related to the Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba trading networks, there was also a mobility related to the oil boom of the 1970s. Here too, the massive arrival of migrants following the ratification of the ECOWAS protocol in 1975, at a time when oil exports were dropping, led the government in Lagos to issue an ultimatum: the “Quit Order” required that two to three million foreigners without legal authorization either obtain the requisite papers or leave the country. Ghanaians, Nigeriens, and Chadians were the most affected by this order, which in the end resulted in the expulsion of 1.5 million West Africans (Afolayan 1986).

736   Sylvie Bredeloup The third migratory subsystem involves Senegal and Gambia. Senegal’s political stability has attracted people from neighboring countries in political turmoil, most notably from Guinea-​Conakry, Guinea-​Bissau, Cape Verde, and Mauritania (Diop 1994). In addition, as the capital of former French West Africa, Senegal still exerts an attraction on young Beninese, Guineans, Malians, and Togolese who want to continue their studies in Senegal or find better employment there. Senegal also serves as a place of transit for people from Central Africa. Given the boom in the oil industry in Libya and Algeria, the fourth migratory subsystem is oriented toward North Africa (Mounkaila 2015; and see Mounkaila this volume). Following repeated droughts, groups of herders from Darfur, but also from Niger, Chad, and elsewhere, departed in search of temporary employment in oil and gas fields and at hydrocarbon plants (Clanet 1981; Bennafla 2002; Drozdz and Pliez 2005). These labor migrations, combined with movements related to illicit trade (mainly in livestock), reinforced the association of migration with trade. Before Qaddafi’s African policy persuaded migrants from south of the Sahara to turn away from Central Africa and head northwards, nine tenths of migrants in Libya came from Sudan, Chad, and Niger (Pliez 2004). By the start of the 1970s, Malians and Nigeriens, playing on ethnic affiliations, were already established in Tamanrasset and other localities in the far south of Algeria, where migrants from other areas in West Africa would soon join them (Spiga 2005).

MOUNTING TENSIONS ON THE IMMIGRATION FRONT Hospitality in Question In response to the worldwide economic downturn and the ensuing structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, African nations adopted new measures that put pressure on foreigners. In the Côte d’Ivoire, for instance, the reservation of jobs for citizens, the introduction of residence permits, the abolition of the right to vote for foreigners, and the establishment of policies based on new forms of nationalism (notably the much-​ contested notion of ivoirité) gradually made foreign communities more vulnerable. Similar dynamics took place in the oil-​producing areas in Nigeria where political instability increased. The conditions for work and residence were thus gradually tightened at all four migratory poles. The way that African states now construed their “national identity” seriously threatened the peaceful cohabitation of locals and immigrants. During the 1980s, then, the laissez-​faire approach to immigration yielded to stricter controls. On the continent in general, legal provisions which had not been applied for a long time, began to be more rigorously enforced. Regulating immigration, introducing residence permits and limiting the access of foreigners to wage labor (widespread

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    737 policies for filling white-​collar jobs with citizens in Côte d’Ivoire, Zaire/​DRC, and Gabon) triggered a massive departure of Sahelian immigrants from those countries. In total contradiction with the principles of ECOWAS and CEN-​SAD4 calling for more fluid population movements within Africa and for the protection of migrants, the general trend of the 1980s was toward the adoption of expulsion procedures (Bredeloup 1995). Between 1985 and 1987, Nigeria expelled more than seven hundred thousand irregular West African immigrants, mostly Ghanaians and Nigeriens. In 1985, Côte d’Ivoire threw out ten thousand Ghanaians after a football game riot; and in turn a few months later, Ghana forced six thousand West African immigrants out of the country. In 1986, Algeria escorted thousands of Nigeriens and Malians who were fleeing drought back to the border. In 1989 alone, during the Mauritania–​Senegal conflict, two hundred and forty thousand Moorish merchants were expelled from Senegal while eighty thousand Senegalese and forty thousand Black Mauritanians were chased out of Mauritania. This was accompanied by the first wave of expulsions of West Africans by Libyan authorities. During the 1990s, expulsions intensified, starting in countries farther to the south: South Africa, Gabon, and then, once again, South Africa. In the throes of a political crisis, Gabon started conducting operations in 1990 that would eventually expel thousands of migrants who had come from Equatorial Guinea and West Africa (Malians, Senegalese, and Beninese). In 1994, the year when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa (as well as the year of the devaluation of the CFA franc and of the genocide in Rwanda), numerous French-​speaking African migrants arrived in South Africa, thus increasing the concentration of foreigners there—​which had been mainly Mozambicans and Zimbabweans since the end of apartheid (Bouillon 1999). There were thus, for the first time, sixty-​nine Senegalese among the ninety thousand people expelled from South Africa that year. Faced with problems of unemployment, the government in Pretoria, seeing the increasing number of foreigners in the country as a menace, no longer had qualms: thousands of African migrants were expelled year after year, and South Africa became the African leader in forced expulsions of migrants. The management of migratory flows on the continent thus gradually become a political question at the international level.

The Acceleration of Circular Migrations Instead of slowing down circular migrations, this new political and economic context has made the circle turn faster (Diop 2008). A stay, even for a long time, in a host country does not necessarily mean definitive settlement there. For Senegalese and Malian migrants in the 1970s, Côte d’Ivoire was a leg on a journey toward Congo or France (Whitehouse 2012). Fifteen years later, as falling world prices for coffee and cacao were upending the economy, and as people were losing jobs, Abidjan was nothing more than a springboard for traders on their way to make a fortune in Yaoundé, Brazzaville, or Libreville. The percentage of foreigners in the total Ivorian population

738   Sylvie Bredeloup started decreasing (from 28 percent in 1988 to 26 percent ten years later according to census data); and the migratory balance turned negative as departures from the country outnumbered arrivals. For migrant entrepreneurs, Côte d’Ivoire became a base for their international trade networks, a platform of redistribution from which they sold goods purchased in the United States, Italy, Nigeria, Gabon, or Hong Kong. Many Senegalese and Malians are both international migrants and transnational merchants. Other channels, somewhat underground, have opened that enable Sahelians (at first Senegalese and then Burkinabè) to continue their journey from Côte d’Ivoire toward Italy, the new gateway to Europe (Blion 1996). At the same time, other Sahelian migrants have branched out into other areas of the country or other sectors of the Ivorian economy. To cope with the lower prices paid for their produce, Burkinabè planters recruited from within their extended families, thus increasing the number of trips made back and forth between Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, as well as inside Côte d’Ivoire itself. To those who encountered hard times in the city (in particular Abidjan), these planters offered new opportunities in rural areas and towns in the hinterland. This back and forth between places of origin and of destination that used to be limited gradually began to occur on an annual basis. Meanwhile, having multisited residence increased in popularity and gradually became a norm (Zongo 2003 and 2010; Boyer and Neya 2015).

Between More Frequent Returns and Longer Stays Another strategy adopted by migrants is to return to their homeland with the intention of reinvesting there, while also reinforcing their connections with the country of immigration. Between 1969 and 1974, more than twenty-​five thousand Burkinabè returned home from Côte d’Ivoire every year (Coulibaly et al. 1980, 39); ten years later this number had steeply increased to approximately forty thousand per year (Burkina Faso census 1985). These returnees headed in large majority to rural areas, even though the proportion of returnees from urban areas to total returnees doubled between 1975 and 1988 (Côte d’Ivoire census 1975, 1988). Ouagadougou was the principal destination for those returnees who decided to settle in an urban area; more than one out of two returned urban migrants moved to the capital. The acceleration of circular migratory movements has arisen out of a strategy for diversifying risks and looking for economic opportunities by playing on the economic and policy differences (even minimal) between Africans countries. A 1993 survey (conducted by REMUAO5) is the only comparative research that has been conducted in West Africa, covered six countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. Its findings confirmed a very strong intra-​African mobility and the importance of return migrations (Traoré and Bocquier 1998). Contrary to prevailing ideas, return migration is not a myth. Migrants do return to their homeland and are doing so in larger numbers. However, these returns

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    739 are not necessarily definitive, since returnees, even older ones, might migrate again. A return should be seen not as the definitive end of a migrants’ travels, but rather as a moment in the migratory experience, one step among others in a longer itinerary. And the meaning of a return migration varies depending on whether we are considering individuals or families, whether it is a voluntary act or the result of an expulsion. Overall, what we observe is an increasing fluidity and volatility of intraregional migratory movements. Migration by stages has become a frequent pattern as migrants, are rejected by one country and then by another, bearing the full brunt of structural adjustment policies. At each stage of their journey, migrants must consider their next step. Transportation systems have been modernized; but border controls and increasing insecurity are keeping migrants on the road longer: their journeys are no longer measured in weeks, but in years. Many Sahelians have settled down in Morocco, Algeria, or Libya to work in fields, whether in farming, oil or natural gas, or even in commerce. Others, less numerous but highly visible in the media, have made the same journey but are heading northwards to Europe (Bredeloup and Pliez 2005). Towns along the way (Agadez, Nouadhibou, Oujda, Sebha, or Tamanrasset) are becoming “dead ends,” where local administrations no longer differentiate between migrants who have been working in the town for a long time, those who are planning on going to Europe, and those who have been turned back after being intercepted on sea or in the desert (Alioua 2013; Ba and Choplin 2005; Boubakri 2006; Brachet 2009; Bredeloup and Zongo 2005; Minvielle 2006). The usual distinctions have blurred. Most countries alternate between being places of immigration or of emigration, or are both at the same time when they are not also a place of transit, a way station. In fact, the Sahel is itself becoming a region of transit for an increasing number of central Africans. Migrants in the Sahel have thus increasingly assumed varied roles and a fluid sense of identity. Economic downturns or political turmoil lead them to not only modify their plans geographically, but also to reconsider their relations to the other.

New Forms of Solidarity For several decades, migrations from the Sahel were largely structured around group strategies for accumulating wealth; via their mobility, migrants aimed to ensure the social reproduction of their kin group. In recent years however, this forced solidarity has apparently reached its limits. For one thing, family heads who remain home are increasingly reluctant to put up the money for an airplane ticket or a fake visa for a younger family member who wants to emigrate—​especially when they no longer feel certain that they will reap the benefits of this support in their old age. Elders thus urge younger family members to pay for the trip themselves, or to make appeals to migrants who have already settled elsewhere on the continent for support. But these settled migrants, their own situation now vulnerable, are not always capable of financially backing new arrivals. Senegalese traders in Central Africa, for instance, told kinsmen who had asked

740   Sylvie Bredeloup for backing to first go by their own means to Côte d’Ivoire, where a money order would be waiting for them to continue the trip to Douala (Ba 1995). Meanwhile, other migrants in transit in Nouadhibou, Niamey, or Tamanrasset, find themselves waiting for a relative to extract them from their situation via a Western Union money order (Choplin and Lombard 2007; Minvielle 2006). In general, the systems of hospitality that previously shaped migrations are coming undone. In the early days of the colonial period, on the banks of the Congo (and at points farther west), migrants relied on the njaatigue, who both provided lodging and served as a broker, the intermediary in dealings between migrant entrepreneurs and prominent persons in the host country (Agier 1983; Bredeloup 2007). For decades, a similar sort of tutorial system was also a mainstay for Burkinabè and Malians who were settling in the forest regions of Africa. However, these forms of solidarity have waned as migration has waxed and as the situation of foreigners has worsened. Other more collective structures, such as the suudu in Senegal or xompe xoore in Mali, which grouped migrants from the same village, long played a decisive part in integrating people from the Senegal River valley at points of destination (Diop 1965), welcoming migrants and exercising social control. These, too, have waned since the mid-​1980s. The migrants already settled in Central Africa no longer have the means to provide bed and board to newcomers, especially when they are less willing to pay daily or monthly contributions to the group meals. Similarly, Muslim Sufi orders which maintained way stations on migratory routes to provide bed and board to newcomers are now less and less capable of doing so. Such is the case of Tijani structures in Cameroon or of Mourides in Niger (Ba 1995; Bava 2005). As the older forms of solidarity no longer manage to provide a safety net, more open networks based on occupational or geographical affinities have developed. Insecurity is pushing migrants to form temporary or short-​lived “itinerant communities,” for help in crossing a border, defending common interests, or maximizing the chances of resilience farther along the route. Thus, for example, women who find themselves alone with their children on dangerous routes negotiate with male migrants to constitute temporary families in order to make it easier to cross borders (Escoffier 2008). Others, as in Morocco, have formed “transnational groups of resistance” to defend their interests in collaboration with local activists for the right of asylum (Alioua 2013). These attempts to pool efforts are still frail, however. The decline of solidarities based on family and kinship clearly reflects a rising individualization of migrant practices and journeys during an era of increasing vulnerability (Bardem 1993; Timera 2001).

MIGRANT CITIZENSHIP In recent years, African migrants—​whose remittances now amount to more than official development assistance plus foreign direct investments—​have deployed to have their efforts recognized as patriotic and civic-​minded, and to enjoy full-​fledged citizen rights in their homelands. Stephanie Lima (2015) has evoked the concept of “migrant

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    741 citizenship” to refer to this phenomenon. Apart from the question of remittances, members of what is often called the African “diaspora” want to be more involved in politics back home. Some of them have become active to promote the rights of immigrants to vote, and even to stand as candidates, in their home countries. Senegal and Mali were among the first Sub-​Saharan countries to allow absentee ballots for presidential and legislative elections; and Burkinabè resident outside the country will be allowed to cast absentee ballots as of 2020 (Bredeloup and Zongo 2016; Zongo 2003). Tocsin, an association started by children born of migrants, became visible during the Ivorian crisis and made voting rights at home for members of the diaspora one of its major demands. In Mali, the formation of emigrant associations and federations has, during a period of decentralization, raised the political awareness of migrants (Lima 2015) and prepared them to assume other political roles (Fay, Koné, and Quiminal 2006). Similarly, in the context of the decentralization under way in Senegal, migrants are increasingly active in public affairs. Studies carried out toward the end of the 1990s, in particular in Ourossogui, a dynamic village in Matam region and now an official commune, have shown how migrants to diamond-​producing areas played a crucial role in transforming local politics, in the stead of customary leaders. They have even provided this new town with its first mayors (Bredeloup 1997). Following the last municipal elections in Senegal, migrant returnees now head four of the ten communes in Matam. Following municipal (2004) and legislative (2002, 2007) elections in Mali, studies have assessed the impact of return migration and remittances from migrants on voting patterns (in particular, on turnout and party affiliations). In addition, the communes with a higher percentage of returnees apparently had higher turnout rates (Chauvet, Gubert, and Mesplé-​Somps 2013). It is not clear, however, that migrants necessarily significantly influence election results. In Senegal, emigrants make up a tiny proportion of the national population: 3.6 percent of voters (approximately the population of a single department); and in addition, voter turnout is proportionally much lower among migrants than among the country’s population as a whole. Contrary to prevailing ideas, migrants do not systematically tell kinspeople back home how to vote. Even were they to do so, it is not at all clear that their instructions would be heeded. Sending money to the family in the homeland does not give migrants the power to influence the behavior of their relatives; this impact varies according to an economy of affection, relationships, and the frequency of contacts. Even though African countries now increasingly allow absentee voting, “the diaspora does not make the election” (to paraphrase Smith 2015). Their impact is apparently more “symbolic” than real. It would be a mistake to believe that, in Senegal, migrants have replaced religious leaders since the end of the ndigel (the instructions, in particular for voting, that marabouts give to their disciples). In fact, the persons who sway voters come from quite different circles. Finally, migrants are not necessarily “subversives” who could potentially challenge the results of a national election. Emigrants from the middle or upper classes might even play a role in maintaining political stability, as seems to be the case in Ghana (Hamidu 2015).

742   Sylvie Bredeloup

CONCLUSION Europe is further closing its borders and adopting increasingly drastic and restrictive immigration policies, restricting the room for maneuver of African states, and creating new priorities for migration. Populations in Africa have mixed for centuries, and “regional integration” was advocated in the decade following independence. But the continent is now struggling to uphold institutional procedures for intra-​regional migratory flows and to ensure acceptable conditions for intra-​regional migrants, who are ever more numerous and diverse. In other words, a new political agenda for immigration has been introduced on the continent that calls for ever more controls and restrictions. To cope with this tightening of restrictions, West African migrants are making circular migration into a strategy. This migration extends over the life span, marking it with way stations on a journey that might lead migrants to return to the homeland in order to better prepare their next departure. Migrants draw on the fluidity of their identities and the multiplicity of their skills and qualifications (occupational, cultural, religious) to negotiate their place in neighboring societies that are less and less welcoming. For their journey, they are now relying on new forms of solidarity, less forced and more chosen. African migrants have already proven how much they have contributed financially to the development of their homelands; and they are now starting to pay a noticeable role in political decision-​making especially at the municipal level—​thus suggesting a new migrant citizenship. Many aspects of this intra-​African, Sahelian mobility are yet to be studied, in particular the impact of the mobility of some and the sedentariness of others on contemporary family patterns. The relations between migrations inside a country and regional migrations within Africa should also be studied at a time when new mineral deposits are being discovered at various places on the continent—​and will probably further lead men and women to give up plans for traveling over riskier routes to destinations that are farther away.

Notes 1. The ideas advanced in this chapter are based on studies that I conducted personally or as part of collective programs over the past twenty years in Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso; and sporadically in Mali, Guinea, Libya, Cape Verde, Tunisia, and South Africa. Since 2016, this research has been carried out within the framework of “Mobilités, Voyages, Innovations et Dynamiques dans les Afriques Méditerranéenne et Subsaharienne” (MOVIDA), the laboratory that I direct, an initiative of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). 2. The terms “Upper Volta” and “Ivory Coast” are used here to distinguish the colonial territories from the independent countries of Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire.

Sahelian Migrations within Africa    743 3. This did not occur in southern Africa where the big mining companies, especially in South Africa, recruited workers for the Kimberly mines from a massive labor pool of Rhodesians and Mozambicans for decades. 4. CEN-​SAD: The Community of Sahel-​Saharan States, established in 1998. 5. Réseau Migrations et Urbanisation en Afrique de l’Ouest, coordinated by CERPOD (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur la Population pour le Développement). This survey used a nationally representative sample of persons involved in migratory movements during the five previous years, between 1988 and 1992. Migration was defined as residence for a period of more than six months. In all, one hundred and thirty-​five thousand biographical accounts were collected.

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chapter 39

TR ANS-​S AHARAN MI G RAT I ON T HROUGH AND FROM THE SAH E L Harouna Mounkaila

Movements between the Sahel and North Africa have a long history, but channels of labor migrations started forming between the peripheries of these two zones in the 1960s. At the start, these migrations were limited to Sahelian countries; but as of the 1990s, migration flows were also coming from a much larger swath of lands south of the Sahara. As a consequence, Sahelian countries have a twofold function in the circulation of migrants between these two zones. The first (and oldest) is that the Sahel is a zone of emigration toward North Africa. The second, now receiving the most media coverage, is that the Sahel is a zone of transit for migrants who, coming from other Sub-​Saharan countries, want to go over land across the Sahara to Libya, Algeria, and Morocco and might—​or might not—​intend to go on to Europe. Given the focus of the media and of political discussion in Europe as well as Africa on the migrants who, having crossed the Sahara and then the Mediterranean Sea, have entered Europe irregularly, the tendency is to systematically see all trans-​Saharan migrations as movements heading onwards to cross the Mediterranean. This perception, far from the reality of trans-​Saharan migratory trends (Bensaâd 2018), was bolstered during the first decade of the twenty-​first century, following intense media coverage of events in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and then on the Canary Islands. The perception of African migratory pressure on Europe’s southern borders was reinforced after the 2011 war in Libya and the disintegration of the state there, events that produced as a consequence a flow of migrants crossing the central Mediterranean by boat to reach the Italian coast. Given its position on migratory routes from Sub-​Saharan Africa toward North Africa, the Sahel is important to the EU strategy for preventing and fighting against “irregular” or illegal immigration. Niger, Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania have become primary

748   Harouna Mounkaila partners in the European agenda on migrations, and Chad is also increasingly involved in migration management. Since the November 2015 EU–​African Summit on Migration in Valletta, Malta, and the establishment of the Emergency Fund for Africa, interventions by the European Union in the Sahel for the purpose of managing migrations have increased—​in a regional context characterized by growing insecurity (the disintegration of the Libyan state, the crisis in Mali, and Boko Haram in southeastern Niger, southwestern Chad, and northeastern Nigeria). Owing to the European Union’s externalization of its border controls and immigration policies toward the Sahel, the countries in this region have tightened their migratory policies and are adopting a security-​based approach to migration management. This chapter describes the dynamics of trans-​Saharan migrations in relation to the migratory policies being implemented in the Sahel in the second decade of the twenty-​ first century. For this purpose, I shall show that the circulation of migrants between the Sahara’s northern and southern edges is not a new phenomenon even though it has intensified and diversified in recent decades. Attention will then be turned to the migratory policies implemented in Sahelian countries under pressure from the European Union and other partners, with the goal of containing the migration of nationals as well as persons from other countries who are passing through the Sahel. I shall then analyze the repercussions of these policies on the conditions for migration, the longstanding migratory patterns in this zone and the region’s unsteady socioeconomic equilibrium.

THE SAHEL’S DUAL MIGRATORY ROLE: EMIGRATION AND TRANSIT Relations between the Sahel and Sahara developed as of the tenth century as a result of the medieval empires formed in these two zones (Grégoire and Schmitz 2000) and of routes of circulation connecting this region with North Africa and Egypt (Brachet 2004). European colonization marked a turning point, as relations between Sub-​Saharan and North Africa declined, although without fully coming to a halt (Mounkaila 2010). Starting in the 1960s, Saharan areas in Algeria and Libya, which had low populations but were rich in minerals and oil, experienced exceptional growth thanks, in large part, to a Sahelian labor force from Niger, Mali, and Chad (Bensaâd 2018; Brachet 2009; Pliez 2006). These economic migrations drew laborers from the Saharan areas before extending southwards. They relied on transnational networks, namely the “diaspora” communities formed at pivotal points along the edge of the Sahara and Sahel. A factor in this process was the dispersion of nomadic peoples (Tuareg and Toubou) across several countries and urbanization in the central Sahara (Bourgeot 1995). This circulation of migrants grew especially after independence thanks to the development of oil fields in Libya and Algeria. The oil windfall in Libya and Algeria served to fund ambitious

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    749 programs of socioeconomic development in the Saharan areas of the two countries. This drew immigrants mainly from neighboring Arabic lands, such as Tunisia and Egypt, but also from countries farther south, in particular Niger, Mali, and Chad (Brachet 2009; di Bartolomeo, Jaulin, and Perrin 2011). These migrations would swell as a result of various crises along the edges of the Sahara and the Sahel from the 1970s till the 1990s (Pliez 2004). Catastrophes due to the droughts in the 1970s and 1980s had a severe impact on herders, some of whom sought refuge in southern areas of Algeria and Libya (Grégoire 2003). Besides these refugees, economic migrations from Sahelian areas also increased. In the 1990s, refugees arrived from the war between Chad and Libya and from the quelling of Tuareg rebellions in Niger and Mali. These refugees benefited from tribal and kinship solidarity with the Tuareg in Algeria and Libya (Bensaâd 2008; Pliez 2000). Political factors also account for the growth of migrations between the Sahel and Sahara. This included Colonel Qaddafi’s appeal to young Sahelians to come to Libya to join the Islamic legion. During the 1990s, he advocated, under pretense of pan-​ Africanism, a rapprochement (at least in words) with Sub-​Saharan Africa. This effort to put an end to the Libyan regime’s isolation followed on the UN embargo in 1992 in reaction to the Lockerbie bombing of an American Boeing in 1988 and the in-​flight explosion above Ténéré of a DC-​10 belonging to the French company UTA in 1989. In this geopolitical context, the Libyan leader tried to rally peoples around African unity. He was, in 1998, the primary actor promoting the establishment of CEN-​SAD (Community of Sahel-​Saharan States), which was supposed to promote the free circulation of people and goods (Bredeloup and Zongo 2005). Migratory movements were intra-​Saharan during the 1990s. This migratory context—​ intra-​ Saharan and Sahel-​ Saharan—​ would gradually evolve into a migratory system on a continental scale, as migration flows increased and as the geographical origins of migrants diversified (Bensaâd 2003; Brachet 2009; Bredeloup and Pliez 2005; de Haas 2008). These migrations, which had only drawn from the Sahelian side of the Sahara (Niger, Mali, Chad), swelled and reached out to people from all of West Africa and part of Central Africa. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), between 80,000 and 120,000 migrants from fifteen countries in West and Central Africa were passing each year through Niger on their way to North Africa, prior to the adoption in late 2016 of judicial and security measures.1 In Libya, the growth of migration from the south would, in the mid-​1990s, tip immigration from being mostly Arabic (Tunisians and Egyptians) toward more migrants from south of the Sahara (Perrin 2011). At the time, Sub-​Saharan migration in Libya represented 34 percent of the total migrant population compared with 9 percent in 1984 (Haddad 2007). This turning point in Sub-​Saharan migrations toward North Africa can be interpreted as a change in West African migratory systems—​a change related to the socioeconomic and political context in Africa. Economic difficulties had arisen due to the structural adjustment programs applied in most of these countries during the 1980s, the devaluation of the CFA franc in January 1994, and armed conflicts in various areas of West

750   Harouna Mounkaila Africa: Liberia (1999–​2003), Sierra Leone (1991–​2002), and Côte d’Ivoire (2002–​2007) (Bredeloup and Pliez 2005; de Haas 2008). These economic and political factors explain, to a large degree, the decline in the appeal of the historical principal poles of attraction of West African migrants, namely Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal. In fact, rather than destinations for other migrants, these four had themselves become countries of emigration (de Haas 2008). In number, they still polarize migrations in West Africa, even though countries, such as Burkina Faso, have altered this pattern as emigrants return home. Four out of five international migrants residing in West Africa come from West Africa (UNCTAD 2018). In other words, West Africa as a region keeps more migrants than it exports. In the region, Côte d’Ivoire has the largest immigrant population, followed by Nigeria (UN 2018). Although they are still the major poles attracting international migrants in West Africa, these countries have much less appeal than previously. As a consequence, the destinations of West African migrants are now more diverse (de Haas 2008). The Sahelian countries that have long sent migrants to these poles, which have shaped the West African migratory system, continue doing so; and the migrations leaving the Sahel (especially Chad, Niger, Mauritania, and Mali) are still mostly intra-​African. Migratory systems have been overhauled, and migratory routes constantly redrawn, depending on the economic situation and immigration policies in host countries. In Senegal, more emigrants are now heading toward destinations outside West Africa and in fact outside Africa—​in particular to Europe. Apart from Senegal and, to a lesser extent Mali, for most migrants from Sahelian countries Europe is a relatively infrequent destination. Among the migrants residing in Europe, 46 percent come from Senegal, 25 percent from Mauritania, 10 percent from Mali, 3 percent from Niger, and 5 percent from Chad (United Nations 2018). alongside increasingly stricter conditions for welcoming migrants in West African countries, the conditions for entry and residence in the Schengen Area in Europe (Bredeloup and Pliez 2005; Boubakri 2006) have tightened under a strategy for “locking the doors to the Old World” (Bensaâd 2003). When interpreting changes in migrations between the two edges of the Sahara, besides these structural factors we have to consider the individual dimensions of the phenomenon—​the plans that migrants make when they take to the road (Brachet 2009). The lack of prospects and occupational opportunities, low incomes, unemployment, and problems of security are the principal motivations pushing individuals to leave home (Bensaâd 2003). Parallel to the increase in trans-​Saharan migrations observed during the 1990s, a trans-​ Mediterranean migration that initially concerned mostly North Africans has gradually grown and expanded. A factor in this growth has been the tightening of European visa policies and of controls at airports and other points of entry (De Haas 2008). To avoid “official” routes (by air or by sea), Sub-​Saharan migrants who have reached North Africa after crossing the Sahara by land have started crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe illegally—​joining the wave of North African migrants since the introduction of visas for Spain and Italy in the early 1990s (De Haas 2008).

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    751

PRINCIPAL MIGRATORY ROUTES: THE SAHARA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN To reach North Africa and Europe, migrants from south of the Sahara take several routes through the Sahara, and then at times across the Mediterranean (De Haas 2008). Three major routes across the Sahara are available to migrants (Figure 39.1): the central

Figure 39.1  Migratory movements in northwest Africa Source: Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat 2014 (SWAC/​OECD).

752   Harouna Mounkaila one mainly used by people coming from or passing through Niger (and to a lesser extent Mali), the western route via Mauritania, and the eastern route via Chad. In a strategic position between Sub-​Saharan and North Africa, Niger has become a major zone of transit since the 1990s, increasingly so given the closing of the border between Libya and Chad and the worsening dangers on the route via northern Mali (Di Bartolomeo et al. 2011). Tighter controls on the western route (via Senegal and along the coast of Senegal and Mauritania) have also shifted migrants toward Niger. The trans-​Saharan trip usually takes place in several stages, of variable duration, as migrants settle in towns along the way, permanently or temporarily, before heading on.

The Central Saharan Route The central Saharan route is the main corridor for migrants circulating between Sub-​ Saharan and North Africa. It comprises thousands of kilometers of trails and roads that connect cities in the Sahel, in the Sahara, and on the coast of North Africa (Bredeloup and Pliez 2005). The transportation system for traveling across the Sahara stretches north from Agadez (Niger) or Gao (Mali), two cities that are gateways to the desert (Brachet 2009). In Niger, these migratory movements involve, in the north, the towns of Agadez, Dirkou, and Arlit, way stations where travelers toward Libya or Algeria are forced to pass; and in the southwest, the capital city Niamey, at the junction of transportation systems toward the Atlantic (Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire) and the Sahara (Mounkaila 2010). On the leg of the journey through Niger, the major migratory crossroads is Agadez with a population of more than one hundred and twenty-​four thousand. This former caravanserai, which waned as trans-​Saharan trade declined (Brachet 2005; Bensaâd 2003), is the last stage before crossing the desert. Streams of migrants from Sub-​Saharan countries converge there. One of the most important axes connects Agadez with Niamey (1,000 km away); over it pass migrants from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Mali, not to mention western Niger. A second, less important axis connects Agadez with Zinder in central Niger. It drains migrants mostly from Nigeria and, farther away, Cameroon. From Agadez, several itineraries lead to towns in southern Algeria (Tamanrasset and Djanet) and Libya (Sabha and Qatrun). Agadez–​Dirkou–​Sabha is the most important axis of circulation for Sub-​Saharan migrants, accounting for more than 80 percent of migratory flows (Brachet 2005; Mounkaila 2010). The routes through Niger have been diversifying in recent years as controls have tightened on movements in the north of the country. In May 2015, Niger adopted a law against the smuggling of migrants. Since its application, Niger’s defense and security forces are in charge of the major axes connecting Agadez to towns in southern Algeria and Libya. Given the criminalization of transporters and the militarization of the area,

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    753 more and more migrants are taking routes through the vast desert zone in Niger. For instance, the axis (west of Agadez) running through Tahoua, Tchintabaraden, and Tassara on to Assamaka, border crossing with Algeria, is attracting more people. To its advantage, it skirts around Agadez, where migratory flows are now more tightly monitored (Mounkaila 2015). Although migratory movements are concentrated along the corridor through Niger, other routes of lesser importance are also taken, in particular the one through northern Mali. Despite worsening security as a result of actions by armed groups there, migrants (mainly from Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana) are still taking this route. Gao is the more or less obligatory way station for migrants heading toward Algeria or Libya (Lecadet 2017). In 2016, approximately thirty or forty thousand migrants passed through the city on their way to these two North African countries (Molenaar and van Damme 2017).

The Eastern and Western Routes Other routes than those via the central Sahara, though less important, also connect the Sahel with North Africa by passing through the eastern and western Sahara. The route in the far west of the continent runs through Senegal, Mauritania, Western Sahara, and Morocco toward Spanish territories: the Canary Islands, the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, or the Spanish coast. From the coast of Mauritania, migrants from Cape Verde and Senegal attempt to land in the Canary Islands (Choplin 2010). The number of migrants on this route has increased since 2006 as a result of the closer surveillance of the central Saharan route via Agadez, Tamanrasset, and Sabha (Oumar Ba and Choplin 2005), tighter border controls, and the crackdown on Sub-​Saharan migrants in North Africa (De Haas 2008; Robin and Gonin 2009). On these western routes, the Mauritanian cities of Nouakchott and Nouadhibou are becoming way stations. From Nouadhibou, migrants can continue by sea to the Canaries or by land to cross the Western Sahara and Morocco (Oumar Ba and Choplin 2005). In 2006, approximately thirty-​two thousand migrants were recorded entering the Canaries.2 The volume of migration on this route has fallen considerably as border controls have tightened and a system of surveillance along the route was set up under the bilateral agreements that Spain signed with Senegal and Mauritania (Choplin 2010). The route lying in the eastern Sahara is taken by migrants who, mostly coming from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan), cross Sudan and Chad on their way toward Libya. Although there are various routes, Libya is still the major point of attraction for trans-​Saharan migrations. Despite the country’s instability and the risks that migrants take when passing through the country or staying there, it is a major pole of immigration in North Africa. Libya has become the simplest corridor for heading on toward Europe.

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Sea Routes Land routes for going to Europe connect with routes that cross the sea. The central Mediterranean is, by far, the major sea route for migrants in Libya who want to reach the coast of Italy. More and more migrants are doing so. Since 2011 and the Libyan civil wars, armed groups and militias control most of the territory. This unstable political situation is propitious for the many migrants who want to reach Italy while using Libya as a place of transit. In 2016, 181,459 entries into Europe were recorded for this route, principally of migrants from Nigeria, Eritrea, and Guinea. The next most important route toward Europe crosses the western Mediterranean toward Spain. On this route, migrants transit via Morocco, the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, or the Canary Islands. They cross the Strait of Gibraltar and illegally enter Spain. The two enclaves have remained under significant migratory pressure. In 2016, 10,231 entries into Europe via this route were recorded, mostly involving Guineans, Algerians, and Ivoirians.

SOCIOECONOMIC AND SPATIAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF PLACES OF TRANSIT These movements across the Sahara have an impact on localities along the trails and roads that are taken. A series of towns now serve as way stations at the junction of various routes that convey streams of migrants across the Sahara. The presence of migrants has strongly stimulated the growth of towns and cities, in particular Sabha and Qatrun in Libya, Tamanrasset in Algeria, Agadez and Dirkou in Niger, and Nouadhibou in Mauritania. The stream of migrants and merchants has turned Dirkou from a village into a small urban center of economic and political importance in the region (Brachet 2011). Within a few decades, these towns have undergone spectacular population growth and geographical expansion. In the far south of Algeria, Tamanrasset, now with a population of more than one hundred thousand, has seen its urban structure and local economy significantly transformed since the 1990s owing to trans-​Saharan migrations (Minvielle 2011). Migrants are newcomers with an impact on the making of towns and cities—​their presence leaves marks on cityscapes. Parallel to the increase in population and geographical sprawl, some of these towns now have a genuine “transit economy,” as businesses related to migration have visibly grown (Bensaâd 2003; Mounkaila 2010; Brachet 2009). So many economic agents profit directly or indirectly from the presence of migrants that it is very hard to assess the economic impact of migrations on these towns. In Agadez, transportation is a major economic sector that has profited from migrations. Travel agencies, both formal and informal, have sprung up. At the end

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    755 of 2016, more than a dozen agencies at Agadez station were registered with the town hall—​a number that fails to count unofficial agencies. Many of these subsequently found themselves closed following the application of Act No. 2015-​36 on the illegal smuggling of migrants. Migrants are a major source of customers for private transportation companies, in particular Rimbo Transport Voyageurs, SONEF, Air Transport, Nijma, and Azawad Transport, which have daily connections between Agadez and towns in southern Niger (such as Niamey or Zinder), and even beyond to capital cities on the coast (Cotonou, Lomé, Accra, Abidjan, and Dakar). The transportation of migrants and all related activities provide income to many people. Transportation companies and agencies as well as the coxeurs (“barkers,” or agents called yan tchaga in Agadez) receive a substantial income from migrants. This migrant economy also has benefits for the drivers of motorbikes and tricycles, who provide interurban transportation in Agadez, transporting migrants, for example, from the police roadblock at the city’s entrance or transportation agencies to the places that offer accommodations. These businesses provide jobs to youth in the city. In the sector of communications, companies such as Sonitel, Airtel, Sahel.com, and Orange Niger have seen their sales rise thanks to the presence of migrants, who purchase rechargeable calling cards or use the services of public telephone booths or cybercafés. In addition, the migrants in transit are important customers for the banking services that transfer funds, such as Western Union, Money Express, and Wari. Given the risks of carrying cash during the trip, many migrants prefer using such services for safely transferring money from the budget for their trip. Finally, informal businesses related to migrants offer meals and accommodations, or sell water jerry cans, sunglasses, turbans, covers, and the other objects needed to cross the desert. This transit economy has taken root in the life of these towns. In addition to the businesses that directly provide services to migrants, other economic agents also profit from migratory movements. In areas where regulations about transportation and immigration are not applied, defense and security forces (police, gendarmerie, customs) make levies on migrants and transporters (Brachet 2005). In Niger, the municipalities through which migrants pass also manage to get their share. Agadez and Arlit as well as the rural township of Dirkou levy a road tax on each foreign migrant passing through. Such taxes are an important source of income for local authorities. For example, the municipality of Dirkou raises 7,000,000 CFA francs per week from convoys of migrants. Arlit raises nearly 5,000,000 CFA francs per month through taxes on vehicles leaving the town. In effect, many public and private persons have come to profit directly or indirectly from the transit economy. This economy, however, is a precarious one, because it depends on the continued flow of migrations at a time when there are significant efforts to curb that flow. Since the 1990s, and even more after 2000, migratory flows, whether of persons in transit or of immigrants, in the Sahara, Sahel, and the Mediterranean Basin are increasingly subject to controls as immigration policies have tightened.

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CURBING MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS IN THE SAHEL The externalization of European immigration policies is reflected in the tightening of migration policies not only in North Africa but also Sub-​Saharan Africa. The approach adopted calls for tightening border controls, preventing irregular immigration, fighting against human trafficking, and reinforcing the capacity for managing migrations. Between 2003 and 2010, countries in North Africa adopted a series of legislative measures for cracking down on persons in an “irregular situation,” that is without legal status (Perrin 2011). In the years following the Arab Spring events, and as the security situation in the Sahel worsened, Algeria tightened its immigration policy. Controls by police in towns where migrants settle or pass and the interception of smugglers’ vehicles in the desert often go in hand with roundups, raids, and arrests of Sub-​Saharan migrants without documents, who will be detained and expelled (Bensaâd 2008). According to the IOM office in Niger, 16,621 migrants (including 5,033 women) were repatriated from Algeria to Niger between December 2014 and July 2017. Most of these persons were nationals of Niger, mainly from Kantche department in south central Niger. Though officially advocating for a global solution for irregular migration, that would take account of the development of countries south of the Sahara and of the level of poverty there, Algeria in fact often expels migrants from the south. Libya has also adopted a repressive policy toward irregular migrants. During Colonel Qaddafi’s rule, the country’s policy constantly varied depending on the political situation and shifts in diplomacy (Perrin 2011). When it began requiring a visa for all nationalities in 2007, Libya turned thousands of Sub-​Saharan migrants (whose situation had been regularized or was at least tolerated) into irregular migrants—​subject to arrest, detention, and expulsion. A similar trend is playing out in Sahelian countries. Given the current geopolitical situation there, the discourse on migration has shifted. An examination of these shifts highlights the issues related to migration management.

The Shifting Discourse on Migrants: From “Clandestine” to “Victim” The exclusive focalization on the migrants who are heading to Europe has led to four ideas that the media and political circles in both Europe and Africa have taken for granted. The first idea is to see migratory movements from and across the Sahel toward Libya and Algeria as only a leg on the journey toward Europe. In his speech at the Summit

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    757 on Migration on 11 November 2015 in Malta, the then President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger declared, “Every year, more than one hundred thousand Sub-​ Saharan migrants transit via my country, Niger, on the way to Europe, in other words, the major part of the African migratory flow is toward this destination.” As a consequence, the migrants coming from, or passing through, the Sahel toward North Africa—​regardless of who they are and of what motivates them—​are seen as a wave that will cross the Mediterranean. This idea is far from the reality of migratory flows from the Sahel, notably the long history of migration toward Libya and Algeria as destinations. This perception has led to the prevalence of a second idea, echoed in a shift of discourse: anyone who happens to be in the Sahel and intends to go to Libya or Algeria is regarded as a “clandestine” or “irregular” migrant, even though for many their legal presence in the Sahel is not in fact irregular, since they are nationals from countries belonging to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).3 Under this economic community’s legal provisions, the circulation of their nationals in Niger and Mali should not be impeded. This shift in discourse is used by institutions and politics to justify the surveillance and control of borders and the crackdown on migrants. The third idea stems from the link established between migrations toward the Sahara and problems of security—​in the states crossed by migrants, in the states hosting migrants as well as of the security of the migrants themselves given their vulnerability to exploitation. Migration, it is assumed, threatens the fragile security of Sahelian countries and puts more pressure on the region’s already limited resources. It is thus associated with trafficking in drugs, weapons, and human beings. Finally, these discourses that criminalize migrants are now being echoed in the discourses that “victimize” them. The migrants who set out to cross the Sahara are presented as extremely vulnerable persons abused in various ways (exploitation, confiscation of documents and money, mistreatment by smugglers) during their journey through the desert. Their apparent need for protection in thus pointed to as a priority, in places where public authorities are in fact powerless to deal with the urgency of their situation. Irregular immigration toward Europe has become the crux of the discourse about migration management. This discourse associates migration with criminality and insecurity; and this association justifies an approach focused on security in the management of migration.

Migration Management in the Sahel: The Priority of Security In a zone under strong pressure from the European Union to fight against irregular international migrations as a source of insecurity, Sahelian countries have opted for an approach centered on security. For Europe, the Sahel is a strategic region in the fight against insecurity, terrorism, organized crime, and illegal immigration, not to mention

758   Harouna Mounkaila issues related to energy. Under this pressure, Sahelian states have adapted their migration policies to EU requirements for halting, or at least containing, the flow of migrants via the central Mediterranean Basin. Most of these countries have reformed their laws on migration accordingly. In 2009 the government of Niger, the principal corridor of migration toward North Africa, signed and ratified the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air; and, in May 2015, adopted a law against the smuggling of migrants (UNODC 2015). To apply these measures, actions have been undertaken to make the defense and security forces, as well as leaders of public opinion, aware of this issue. The persons responsible from the so-​called “ghettoes” (houses rented by smugglers in Agadez for holding migrants, officially closed since 2013) have been arrested and incarcerated. According to a report from the European Commission (2016, 2), “95 vehicles were seized, and 102 smugglers sent to justice” in Niger. In the opening speech of the “Regional conference on the fight against the smuggling of migrants and human trafficking” on 16 March 2018, the minister of the Interior declared that 268 smugglers had been brought before the courts, 140 vehicles seized, and 6,159 migrants, intercepted in 2017. The mission of the Agence Nationale de Lutte contre la Traite des Personnes (ANLTP, the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons), established in 2012, has been expanded to cover the smuggling of migrants (ANLTP/​TIM). In 2018, Niger adopted a national strategy for fighting against irregular migrations. Cited as a model by others, this strategy has the global objective of reducing the flow of irregular migrants into the country by improving border management, cracking down on smugglers, protecting victims, and supporting programs for the integration of returning migrants. Several structures and arrangements are used to manage migrations. For instance, IOM, with offices in Niger since 2006, has been implicated via EU-​funded programs. With the idea of controlling migration “upstream,” the IOM has set up transit centers in Agadez, Arlit, Dirkou, and Niamey in order not only to aid helpless migrants or those expelled from Libya or Algeria but also to dissuade (through awareness campaigns and aid to voluntary returnees) actual and potential migrants from heading onwards. In 2016, the IOM was financing at least thirty returnee programs in Guinea-​Bissau, Gambia, Mali, and Senegal. Whether or not migrants in fact voluntarily return to the homeland is a matter of debate, since these programs are intended for extremely vulnerable migrants: those who have been expelled from, or refused entry into, Algeria or Libya; or whom army patrols have intercepted and brought back to Agadez. When vehicles transporting migrants are intercepted in the Nigerien desert, they are seized, the owners, imprisoned for smuggling migrants, and the passengers brought to Agadez and registered with the police. Those who want to go back home are helped under the IOM’s returnee program while the others are released. At the Valletta Summit, Niger presented a program for sustainable development for preventing and fighting against irregular migration, with a price tag of 443 billion CFA francs, including 147 billion CFA for security, and 15 billion CFA for the reintegration of its nationals who have been repatriated or have returned. A third of the budget

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    759 presented is to come from the EU Emergency Fund for Africa,4 which finances building new border stations with Algeria and Libya, setting up and reinforcing a “trail brigade” in charge of controlling the desert, eventually creating a “migration police,” and improving the training of police officers and gendarmes as part of the fight against irregular migration and human trafficking. In Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania proposals for stanching migratory flows toward African and European countries have also been presented to the Emergency Fund for Africa. Since 2010, Mauritania’s “National Strategy for Migration Management” centers around several key themes: migration management and assessment; migration and development; the fundamental rights of repatriates, migrants, refugees, and asylum-​ seekers; and the control of migratory flows. The European Union has in addition forced the Sahelian countries belonging to ECOWAS to impede the migration not only of their own nationals but also of the nationals from other member states who do not have the travel documents needed to enter Libya or Algeria. These policies are enforced despite the fact that, since 2008, ECOWAS has adopted a joint approach to migrations that insists on the importance of the free circulation of persons for the goal of regional integration. Administrative authorities in Niger did not consider migrations to be a problem till quite recently (Di Bartolomeo et al. 2011). Once the travel agencies for migrants were officially recognized, their transportation of migrants was not seen as problematic and hence tolerated until 2016. Since the end of 2016, however, Niger has switched its position on migration management from laissez-​faire to interventionist. In matters of migration management, conditions in the Sahel have served as a pretense for bolstering security options. In 2015, EUCap’s5 assignment in Niger and Mali has been broadened from the fight against terrorism to the fight against irregular migration. Niger has thus become a military hub, as several foreign military bases have been set up. France, the former colonial power, has bases in Niamey, Aguelal, and Madama (in the northeast), near the borders with Algeria and Libya, and Diffa (in the southeast) near the border with Nigeria. The United States has two bases, one in Agadez and the other in Niamey, which are used for the MQ-​9 Reaper drones. Finally, Germany has an air base, officially said to be a “port of call” for air traffic as part of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). All these bases are officially established as part of the fight against terrorism, which is threatening Niger and other countries in the Sahel. However, the bases located on migration routes also intervene against drug smugglers and migrants who want to cross the Sahara to reach Europe via Algeria or Libya (Ayouba Tinni 2018). This security-​based approach is associated with preventive measures for developing the areas from which migrants come, or the areas located on migration routes. EU funds are earmarked to address the deep causes of irregular migration. To curb migration, several programs for creating jobs and integrating young people in the world of work have been launched. These programs target both the regions that migrants are leaving and those located on Sub-​Saharan migration routes toward North Africa. In Agadez, there are programs designed for helping the economic actors involved in migration

760   Harouna Mounkaila (smugglers, transporters) to convert to other activities. Out of the six thousand requests for funding, however, only 234 have been selected. Only one program proposed by a Nigerien institution, the Haute Autorité pour la Consolidation de la Paix, has received funding. The others are conducted not by national or local authorities but by European bilateral cooperation agencies (AFD, LUXDEV, GIZ) or international institutions (UNHCR and IOM). What these different programs have in common is the stated goal of creating jobs locally so as to offset the departure of migrants or the income drawn from the transit economy. All these programs, then, seek to curb departures by stabilizing the population’s situation. Sahelian countries are, in effect, being asked to play the role of Europe’s police. The actual intent of the funding provided under the Emergency Fund for Africa is to control the migrants who pass through the Sahel by reinforcing the capability of law enforcement authorities to fight against smugglers, organized crime, and terrorism. This sort of migration management seriously affects local areas along borders in the Sahara. Might tighter migration controls not disrupt longstanding socioeconomic patterns?

THE VISIBLE IMPACT OF MIGRATION POLICIES IN THE SAHEL Owing to the emphasis on a security-​based approach to migration management in Sahelian countries, the number of migrants returning to their homeland is increasing. This return migration has swollen in the past few years as migrants are turned back at borders or expelled, and as the vehicles transporting them across the desert are seized. Migrants are being blocked in northern Niger, and alternative patterns of migration are taking shape. The migrants blocked in Agadez often have no other choice than to ask for help under IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return Program. The number of voluntary repatriations conducted by the IOM rose from 1,721 in 2015 to 7,095 in 2017.6 Between January and April 2018, the IOM helped 8,567 migrants in its transit center return to eleven different countries of origin. Although the security measures and judicial procedures used by Niger in the Agadez region—​under pressure from, and with the backing of, the European Union and other partners—​have reduced the flow of migrants passing through the country toward Algeria or Libya, migrations have not halted. In the migrant “ghettoes,” on the street, and in other public areas in Agadez, migrants are not very visible (nor are the persons who “facilitate” migrations) given the risk of arrest. Nonetheless, this migration is still flowing but in more clandestine ways, since migrants take risks to bypass the fixed or mobile checkpoints set up in the region. There is more and more talk about taking old routes or opening new ones. In Agadez, housing accommodations for migrants are also

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    761 now clandestine, and they shift from place to place within the city. Furthermore, the cost of transportation for North Africa has risen considerably since the end of 2016; the ride from Agadez to Sabha, for example, has doubled from 150,000 to more than 300,000 CFA francs. Locally, the tightening of migration policies has entailed a deterioration of the transit economy and, as a consequence, a loss of income to locals and private businessmen. The Agadez Regional Council has estimated this loss at more than 60 billion CFA francs per year—​an amount not offset by the aforementioned programs. In several areas in the Sahel, remittances from migrants in North Africa provide income to households. Many family farms manage to survive only because they draw income from several sources beyond agriculture, often including migration. Financial transfers by migrants help these households amortize shocks, improve sanitary conditions and pay for education. They also bolster the financial sector and boost both investments and the access to information and communications technology. In a region with recurrent droughts and chronic food security problems, circular migration is a part of rural communities’ strategies of resilience. By playing on the complementarity between places and sources of income, through a synergy between rural and urban activities, these communities adopt pluralistic territorial strategies that enable them to survive under the constraints of their production systems and population growth rates. In this precarious local environment, expulsions and the refusal to let migrants pass the border into Libya or Algeria result in a major loss of income for households that are strapped for cash and waiting for remittances. The implementation of stricter migration policies creates economic problems for individuals, communities, and the local economy in transit zones. In 2017, when the American television channel CNN broadcast scenes of migrants in Libya being sold as slaves, there was a strong reaction in the international community. Given the attention to the plight of these migrants in Libya, Niger reinforced its position as a “subcontractor” of EU immigration policy. By accepting the task of “sorting” asylum-​seekers repatriated from Libya, Niger is attracting asylum-​seekers from Sudan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Eritrea, and Somalia. Tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from Sudan, have rushed to Agadez in the hopes of obtaining asylum in Europe. This movement proved to be very out of proportion with the highly limited number of places currently allotted for asylum-​seekers in Europe—​almost a year after its inception only two hundred people have been granted asylum in Europe. For Nigerien authorities, this rate is not satisfactory. Nonetheless, Niger has insisted on its hospitality as long as asylum-​seekers do not stay too long.7 By implementing legal and security-​based measures since 2016 that have significantly curbed migrations from Niger toward Libya or Algeria, by dismantling smuggling networks, by serving as a country for sorting asylum-​seekers (the goal being to block the arrival of economic migrants upstream in the flow of migration), and by being a subcontractor for Europe’s immigration policies, Niger has become the European Union’s “good pupil.”

762   Harouna Mounkaila

CONCLUSION Migrations from the Sahel toward North Africa are not a new phenomenon. They mainly involve Sahelians who, since the 1960s, have been emigrating to Algeria or Libya. They also sweep up migrants from other countries in Sub-​Saharan Africa for whom the Sahel is a place of transit toward North Africa or even Europe. Not all migrants are borne by a wave of irregular migration that will cross the Mediterranean, as we have been led to believe. For most migrants, North Africa is still a destination, and not a leg on the journey toward Europe. Under pressure from the European Union, migration management in the Sahel is shifting toward tighter controls over human mobility. But this determination to tighten controls at the borders of Sahelian countries is likely to jeopardize the free circulation of persons foreseen by ECOWAS. Since the citizens of this organization’s member states cannot freely circulate in northern Niger, blocking mobility creates tensions between the requirements of ECOWAS and of the European Union. Considered to be “clandestine” in the community to which their nation belongs, and to be irregular migrants who are intent on going to Europe, migrants from ECOWAS member states are being systematically blocked in northern Niger and forced to ask the IOM or other humanitarian organizations for help to return to their homelands. By criminalizing and systematically arresting the persons who transport migrants, the Nigerien state is depriving this legal freedom of circulation of the material means for implementing it: transportation. Caught in the grip of security-​based policies, it is increasingly unclear whether Sahelian countries such as Niger have the willingness, or the capacity, to defend the interests of their populations, to gain respect for their sovereignty, and to uphold the ECOWAS commitment to the free circulation of persons. This migration management seems to pay no attention to reality or to the complexity of migratory phenomena, and to ignore the differences between the de jure and de facto practices of the public and private parties (“facilitators,” protectors, and “managers of mobility”) for whom migrations are a source of income. Besides the businesses that have sprung up in this transit economy, this form of migration management drains funds that mobilize several national and international players, including the Sahelian states that profit from curbing the circulation of persons and from encouraging migrants to return to their homelands. The tighter control over the Sahel and Sahara for the sake of fighting against terrorism, irregular migration, and organized crime has pushed some migrants to become even more clandestine and has, consequently, increased the risks and costs of migration. It has fostered corrupt practices among government employees along migration routes, and has disrupted the intra-​African patterns of migration and trade that have long existed in this zone—​all this to the detriment of local peoples. More border controls and the crackdown on irregular immigration might reduce the number of migrants crossing the Sahara, but they do not reduce the number of departures, nor of deaths.

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    763

Notes 1. OIM (2015). “Migrants from 15 African nations transit Niger en route to North Africa, Europe” at https://​www.iom.int/​news/​migrants-​15-​african-​nations-​transit-​niger-​en-​route-​ north-​africa-​europe. 2. http://​frontex.europa.eu/​trends-​and-​routes/​western-​african-​route/​ 3. ECOWAS member states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-​Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. 4. The full name of this initiative is “The European Union Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa.” See the program website at: https://​ec.europa.eu/​trustfundforafrica/​content/​homepage_​en. 5. The European Union Capacity Building Mission in Niger is part of a policy of joint security and defense. Its objective is to strengthen Niger’s forces of defense and security in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. 6. https:// ​ w ww.mediapart.fr/ ​ j ournal/ ​ i nternational/ ​ 2 50517/ ​ au- ​ n iger- ​ e t- ​ au- ​ m ali- ​ avec-​ les-​migrants-​de-​retour-​de-​libye?onglet=full. 7. Following a meeting with a UN delegation on 7 July 2018, the president of Niger declared, “We are a people open to hospitality, we are a generous people, we welcome people who are in difficulty, in distress, this is our country’s tradition.”

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764   Harouna Mounkaila Bredeloup, Sylvie, and Olivier Pliez. 2005. “Migrations entre les deux rives du Sahara.” Autrepart 36: 3–​20. Bredeloup, Sylvie, and Mahamadou Zongo. 2005. “Quand les frères burkinabè de la petite Jamahiriyya s’arrêtent à Tripoli.” Autrepart 36: 123–​147. Choplin, Armelle. 2010. “Quand la mer se ferme. Du transit au post-​transit migratoire en Mauritanie.” Hommes & migrations 1286(87): 74–​85. De Haas, Heins. (2008). “The Myth of Invasion: The Inconvenient Realities of African Migration to Europe.” Third World Quarterly 29(7): 1305–​1322. Di Bartolomeo, Anne, Thibaut Jaulin, and Dephine Perrin. 2011. CARIM—​Migration Profile: Niger, http://​cadmus.eui.eu/​handle/​1814/​22442. European Commission. 2016. Second Progress Report: First Deliverables on the Partnership Framework with Third Countries under the European Agenda on Migration. Brussels: Secretariat-​General, http://​ec.europa.eu/​transparency/​regdoc/​?fuseaction=list&coteId=1& year=2016&number=960&version=ALL&language=en. Grégoire, Emmanuel, and Jean Schmitz, eds. 2000. Afrique noire et monde arabe. Continuités et ruptures. Special issue of Autrepart 16. Grégoire, Emmanuel. 2003. “Les migrations ouest-​africaines en Libye,” in L. Marfaing and S. Wippel, eds., Les relations transsahariennes à l’époque contemporaine. Un espace en constante mutation. Paris: Karthala, 73–​91. Haddad, Said. 2007. “Anciens et nouveaux parias. Des usages des migrations et du transit dans la politique libyenne.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 119/​120: 23–​38. Lecadet, Clara. 2017. “Deportation Ghettoes in Mali: Expelled Migration between State Exclusion and Self-​ organization,” in Paolo Gaibazzi, Alice Bellagamba, and Stephan Dünnwald, eds., EurAfrican Borders and Migration Management: Political Cultures, Contested Spaces and Ordinary Lives. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Minvielle, Régis. 2011. “Migrants (subsahariens) en transit à Tamanrasset. Du passage à l’impasse?” Mappemonde 103(3), https://​mappemonde-​archive.mgm.fr/​num31/​index.html. Molenaar, Fransje, and Thibault Van Damme. 2017. Irregular Migration and Human Smuggling Networks in Mali. Clingendael: Netherlands Institute of International Relations. Mounkaila, Harouna. 2010. “Niamey, noeud des circulations migratoires entre le nord et le sud du Shara,” in Elisabeth Boesen and Laurence Marfaing, eds., Mobilités dans l’espace ouest-​ africain. Ressources, développement local et intégration régionale. Paris: Karthala, 115–​132. Mounkaila, Harouna 2015. “La gestion des rapatriés de Libye dans la commune de Tchintabaraden (Niger). Les défis de l’urgence et du durable.” Afrique et développement 1(XL): 99–​117. Oumar Ba, Cheik and Armelle Choplin. 2005. “Tenter l’aventure par la Mauritanie. Migrations transsahariennes et recompositions urbaines.” Autrepart 36: 21–​42. Perrin, Delphine. 2011. “Fin de régime et migrations en Libye. Les enseignements juridiques d’un pays en feu.” L’année du Maghreb VII: 285–​301. Pliez, Olivier. 2000. “Le Sahara libyen dans les nouvelles configurations migratoires.” Revue Européenne des migrations internationales 16(3): 165–​181. Pliez, Olivier. 2004. “De l’immigration au transit? La Libye dans l’espace migratoire euro-​ africain,” in Olivier Pliez, ed., La Nouvelle Libye. Sociétés, espaces et géopolitique au lendemain de l’embargo. Paris: Karthala. Pliez, Olivier. 2006. “Nomades d’hier, nomades d’aujourd’hui. Les migrants africains réactivent-​ils les territoires nomades au Sahara?” Annales de géographie 652: 688–​707.

Trans-Saharan Migration through and from the Sahel    765 Robin, Nelly and Patrick Gonin. 2009. “Les routes migratoires par le Sénégal,” in Alone Bensaâd, ed., Le Maghreb à l’épreuve des migrations subsahariennes. Paris: Karthala, 137–​167. United Nations. 2018. Trends in International Migration Stock Destination and Origin. New York: United Nations. UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). 2018. Economic Development in Africa: Report 2018. Migration for Structural Transformation. New York: United Nations, 204. UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime). 2015. Stratégie régionale de lutte contre la traite des personnes et le trafic illicite des migrants, 2015–​2200. Dakar: Bureau Régional pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre, https://​www.unodc.org/​documents/​westandcentralafrica//​ ONUDC_​Strategie_​regionale_​de_​lutte_​contre_​TdP_​et_​TiM_​Afrique_​de_​lOuest_​et_​du_​ Centre_​2015-​2020.pdf.

chapter 40

SAHELIAN TRAN SNAT I ONA L N ET WORKS AND DIASP ORAS Abdoulaye Kane

Sahelian international labor migrants and traders have attracted considerable research interest among scholars of African migration (Manchuelle 1997; Quiminal 1986; Timera 1996; A. Kane 2000; Stoller 2002). One striking particularity of Sahelian migrants abroad is the concerted individual and collective efforts to improve living conditions in their rural home communities of origin. Despite their progressive integration in host countries, Sahelians in Africa, Europe, and the Americas have built dynamic diasporic communities that remain closely anchored to specific hometowns. Beyond remittances and the frenzy of building new concrete houses by individual migrants, hometown associations consistently intervene collectively to build infrastructure and deliver social services back home. Over the past fifty years, many Sahelian communities have developed cultures of migration, thus becoming increasingly dependent on their diasporas in foreign countries. The future of the Sahel is closely tied to its very important diasporic communities. The 1960s saw the progressive arrival of Malian, Senegalese, and Mauritanian migrants to France. Predominantly male in these early years, the migration to France picked up considerably in the 1970s and early 1980s with the arrival of women and the birth of children. The Sahelian communities took root in metropolitan areas around major French cities. These patterns of population movement were extended to new destinations in southern Europe after the adoption of the Schengen agreement and the externalization of European borders. Gradually, the destination countries were extended to North America, the Gulf states, Australia, and China. Sahelian families and communities have become more and more reliant on the remittances of these various diasporas spread around the world to complement their meager resources taken from weakening livelihoods due to drastic environmental changes. This chapter examines the trans-​local and transnational communities that have resulted from Sahelian migration over the past century. Following an examination of the patterns of Sahelian transnational migrations, I explore the practices of remittances that

768   Abdoulaye Kane have become so vital for millions of households across the Sahel. I then turn to a discussion of the social impact of return migration, as retirees return home with their pensions and become patrons of the local economies. I conclude by noting two challenges facing these transnational connections: the tightening of immigration policies in destination countries and the challenge of implicating the second and third generations of Sahelians into the business of taking care of home communities.

SAHELIAN PATTERNS OF TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION The present and the future of the Sahel is closely tied to the presence of its diasporic communities. Over the past fifty years, Sahelian communities have taken root in France, Italy, Spain, the United States, and Canada. The patterns of Sahelian migration have changed over time, depending on policies in destination countries as well as on environmental, economic, and political conditions in both sending and receiving countries within Africa.

Sahelian Migration to Europe: The First Wave The first waves of migrants from the Sahel to France were predominantly from the Senegal River valley, while migrants from Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad were principally engaged in cross-​border migration to neighboring countries (see Bredeloup Chapter 38 and Mounkaila Chapter 39 in this volume). The early migration to France was dominated by men from rural areas, and through the 1970s few pursued the possibility of bringing their families through reunification policies. Yet, by the 1980s, Sahelian communities started to become visible in such suburbs of Paris as Trappes, St-​ Quentin en Yveline, Mantes-​La-​Jolie, Les Mureaux, and La Verrière. Outside of Paris, small communities of Sahelian migrants were also beginning to establish themselves in French manufacturing cities and towns such as in Creil, Compiègne, Roubaix, Le Havre, Nantes, Strasbourg, and Marseille. The end of the 1980s and early 1990s brought important changes in the patterns of Sahelian migration to Europe. As immigration restrictions increased in France, and given the progressive integration of Europe, countries like Spain and Italy became destination countries in their own right. The demographics of Sahelian migrants also changed, ceasing to be predominantly rural as many young urban dwellers also chose to migrate. In addition, more women became interested in migration, independently from men. Very rapidly we noticed the bourgeoning of Sahelian communities in Madrid and Barcelona as well as across Italian cities such as Bergamo, Florence, and Naples (Carter 1997). At the same time, migration to North America accelerated as Sahelian migrants

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    769 began to arrive in large numbers in New York City. Like the migration to southern Europe, this new migration began with the arrival of traders who went on to create complex webs of transnational networks to facilitate the circulation of people, money, and goods between migrants in various destinations and with traders back home (Stoller 2002; Diouf 2000). In the process, the economic activities of Sahelian migrants in Europe and North America became more diverse. In addition to factory workers, Sahelian migrants became street vendors, dish washers in restaurants, housekeepers in hotels, domestic workers (especially among women), janitorial workers in casinos, and business owners in trade and services. The primary reasons for migration among Sahelians, as for other people, is the search for economic opportunities to better their lives and those of their families and communities. Some scholars, however, have highlighted other motivations that are more cultural in nature, such as the need to “travel to the bush” as a rite of passage to manhood (Dougnon 2013), migration as an individual adventure, or the development of a culture of migration as a social norm. In the Sahel mobility and migration have long been a common strategy for survival during challenging times, such as droughts and food shortages. The decision to migrate has always been a combination of individual desires and the strategies of households for managing labor and mitigating risks. But whatever the factors driving the decision to migrate, there is a strong cultural expectation that migrants should remain loyal to their sending communities. From Lake Chad to the shores of the Atlantic, mobility and migration have always been central to Sahelian strategic responses to challenging environmental changes. Irregular rainfall has always pushed Fulani cattle herders to engage in long-​range and trans-​border transhumance toward the central southern zones of the Sahel and to the Savanna areas in search of better pastures. For their part, farmers have long been involved in different forms of migration, to cash-​crops production areas such as the cacao plantations in Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana (for Burkinabè and Malian farmers), or to the peanut basin in central Senegal (for Wolof, Pulaar, and Soninke farmers). In the postcolonial period these seasonal forms of migration based on colonial agricultural policies were progressively replaced by rural–​urban migration patterns (see Boyer and Lessault Chapter 37 in this volume). As seasonal migration toward capital cities became permanent, and as second-​and third-​generation migrants joined them, this has been a major driver of urbanization processes and the development of large urban centers. The same rural–​urban migration also resulted in the rapid growth of secondary cities across the region. Migration to France in the 1960s came principally from the Soninke and Haalpulaar communities of the Senegal River valley, primarily as factory workers in the Ile de France region or in the industrial zones of other major cities. These migrants were predominantly young single men, who lived modestly often in rundown hostels, returning home every two to three years to visit, and to redistribute their savings within their extended families, age-​groups, and neighborhoods (Quiminal 1986). The apparent success of these returnees spurred a new wave of youth migrants to France from the villages of the Senegal River valley. Although French authorities began to institute policies to control

770   Abdoulaye Kane immigration in the 1970s, the severe Sahelian drought of 1972–​1973 produced a new wave of migrants from rural areas to capital cities, and then on to Central Africa and France. After the instituting of a 1974 policy requiring a permit to reside in France, the port of Marseille became a major door of entry for maritime migrants who were able to get permits from patrons willing to sponsor them as needed workers. The make-​up of these migrants remained mostly single men, or married men who left their families in Senegal, Mauritania, or Mali. Only toward the end of the 1970s did a few men begin to bring their families to France, as more restrictive policies raised fears that they would be unable to return home for visits and re-​enter France. Transnational migration from Niger or Burkina Faso was for a long time limited to neighboring countries, with Côte d’Ivoire the most important destination for Sahelian migrants from the 1960s until the mid-​1990s. The Burkinabè presence was the most important of all in Côte d’Ivoire, followed closely by Malian and Nigerien farm workers, traders, and small informal business owners in transportation, restaurants, and cleaning or in professional trades such as tailors, plumbers, electricians, and masons. Most of these jobs were reserved for foreigners given Ivoirian preferences for “office jobs” as civil servants rather than manual labor (Newell 2012). The 1970s were also marked by a steady flow of Sahelians to North African countries. Chadian, Nigerien, Malian, and Senegalese all settled in Libya early in this period, where they worked as security guards, domestics, traders, and workers in factories. Algeria and Morocco served mostly as transit countries for migrants on the road to Europe, but some migrants ended up with long stays in these countries, seeking ways to make money to continue their journey or in some cases returning home. Chad stands alone in many ways when it comes to patterns of transnational migration in the Sahel. Repeated arm conflicts, civil wars, bloody coups, and the war with Libya have produced waves of Chadian refugees to neighboring countries. There have also been constant flows of Chadian economic migrants to Libya, Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic. The more recent relative stability of Chad has encouraged a progressive return of Chadian refugees back home. The conflict in the Central African Republic or massive expulsions from Nigeria have also contributed to the return of thousands of migrants to Chad. The involvement of Chadian migrants in long-​distance transnational migration is still very timid compare to the other Sahelian countries. One pattern Chad shares with the other Sahelian countries, however, is the involvement in networks conveying domestic workers to Gulf countries, including female domestic workers who are often caught up in situations of quasi-​slavery in places like Saudi Arabia.

The New Patterns of Transnational Migration from the Sahel A new Sahelian drought in the mid-​1980s, the adoption of structural adjustment programs in the region, and the tightening of European immigration policies after the

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    771 Schengen agreement were all factors driving a second wave of migration from the Sahel to much more diversified destinations (Tall 2002). A very noticeable change in this new wave was the involvement of many more urban youth. For Senegal, for example, Dakar and secondary cities such as Louga, Diourbel, Thiès, Kaolack, and Saint Louis, rapidly became major sources of youth outmigration to Spain and Italy, via North Africa (Tandia 2014). About the same time the United States emerged as a popular destination for traders from the Mouride Sufi order as well as for Pulaar and Soninke from the Senegal River valley (Diouf 2000; Babou 2008). Nigerien, Burkinabè, and Chadian migrants who used to be involved in “cross-​border migration,” to borrow Clifford’s (1994) terminology, are now exploring new destinations in Europe and North America in greater numbers. The involvement of urban residents in this new long-​distance migration is noticeable across the Sahelian countries. New migrants are confronted with increasing scrutiny at border crossing points, and more and more even within their own countries. In fact, bilateral or multilateral accords and policies of “externalization” of European borders have enlisted Sahelian countries to prevent their own citizens from attempting “illegal” border crossings (Andersson 2014; Mounkaila Chapter 39 in this volume). Despite these restrictions, however, the new migrations have produced rapidly growing Nigerien, Senegalese, Mauritanian, Malian, and Burkinabè communities in southern Europe, North America, North Africa, and the Gulf countries. More recently, South America, and especially Argentina and Brazil, have become Sahelian destinations of choice. Although there is a rapidly growing number of highly educated Sahelians in North America, especially in Canada, the bulk of the second wave of migrants from the Sahel is primarily unskilled and poorly educated. There are now very visible Sahelian street vendors of counterfeit name-​brand products across major European and US cities (Stoller 2002). One can find them under the Eiffel Tower in Paris or on Fifth Avenue or Battery Park in New York City, as well as in major Italian and Spanish cities and towns (Riccio 2011). They represent one of the new faces of Sahelian migrants, quite distinctive from the workers in French factories of previous decades. In the United States, some of the new migrants work as long-​distance traders, community business owners, taxi drivers, and hair braiders (Babou 2008). “Little Senegal” on 113th Street in Harlem, “Little Niger” in Greensboro, North Carolina, “Futa” (rather than Fulton) Street in New York City, or the “Little Futas” in Columbus, Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee, and Silverstein, Colorado have all come to represent small Sahelian islands in urban America. These are mirrored by Sahelian communities in the suburbs of Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, Florence, Bergamo, and Milan (Riccio 2011; Sinatti 2006). The conceptual framework of “transnationalism,” referring to the growing trend for migrants to pursue the path of integration into the host country while simultaneously keeping close ties to the home country, is useful to make sense of these new dynamics of Sahelian migrants in Western destinations (Glick, Shiller, Bash, and Szanton 1992). Transnational migrants are neither classic emigrants who travel to work then return home at some point nor classic immigrants who leave home behind to build a new life in the host country. Although there are of course some individuals that may fit those

772   Abdoulaye Kane patterns, the vast majority of Sahelian migrants are situated with a spectrum of loyalty and engagement with both host and home countries. Although their numbers are smaller than those who have remained in Africa, both as individuals and within collective networks, Sahelian transnational migrants living on other continents have become central to making life possible in their rural communities. More and more “Western Union-​dependent” families rely almost exclusively on the remittances of their members for their survival. Although the proportion of Sahelian migrants now living with their nuclear families in Western metropoles has increased significantly, the large majority of them have nevertheless built houses in their rural places of origin and bring both necessities and a certain comfort of living for parents and extended family members there. The transplantation of the “American dream” to home villages as migrants to France or the United States from the Senegal River valley build huge concrete houses where their parents’ mud houses once stood stands as a visible reminder of this phenomenon across the Sahel. In parallel, the thousands of social networks among Sahelian migrants, from hometown associations to religious, ethnic, or national-​based associations, to trade networks, and professional organizations, have become important development actors in sending communities, rivaling historical donors, NGOs, and international development agencies. Over the past three decades, these networks have multiplied in the various destinations where one finds Sahelian migrants, and they have funded thousands of community projects designed for improving access to clean water, healthcare, education, and information. With the use of new technologies of communication, they have often become structured transnational organizations, capable of effectively assuring coordinated interventions in their home communities (A. Kane 2010). Like big corporations, they have become transnational actors in their own right.

THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES Over the past three decades, the remittances sent by migrants to their home countries have attracted much interest from International Financial Institutions like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and both sending and receiving countries. The realization that the money sent home by unskilled labor migrants, street vendors, traders, domestic workers, and other migrants was greater than official development aid in many developing countries opened a discussion about the potential for remittances to foster economic development. A World Bank report on the issue reported on the findings of a major survey: In 2010, remittances to Africa reached $40 billion or 2.6 percent of Africa’s GDP in 2009. Remittances sent by workers in countries outside Africa are much higher than those sent from within Africa or domestically within countries. However, the surveys show wide variation in the amounts received among the surveyed countries—​from

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    773 about $750 annually per household in Burkina Faso to $3,000 or more in Kenya and Senegal. The survey analysis also points out that more than half the households in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria receiving remittances from outside Africa are in the wealthiest 40 percent of the population. (Plaza, Navarrete, and Ratha 2011)

Unsurprisingly, the importance of remittances in helping states meet their development goals has become part of the political rhetoric in many Sahelian countries. In considering remittances from the north to the south that are sent through formal circuits and money transfer businesses, the numbers for Sahelian countries do not stand out when compared to other African countries. As a whole, four countries of the Sahel (Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger) collectively received US$3.14 billion in 2016, representing overall about 4 percent of their combined GDP. There is, however, a lot of variation among these countries, as Table 40.1 shows. Senegal alone received a little more than half of this total in 2016, with US$1.642 billion, which represented about 11.7 percent of the country’s GDP. (Senegal received about the same amount per capita as Nigeria: US$102–​US$104 respectively.) Senegal is followed by Mali that received US$910 million in remittances representing 6.8 percent of its GDP. Burkina Faso is third with less than half of what Mali received in remittances, and representing 3.6 percent of its GDP. Finally, Niger’s share of US$154 million representing only 2 percent of its GDP. No comparable data is available for Chad and Mauritania, but we know that the high outmigration areas of southern Mauritania receive remittances similar to other areas of the Senegal River valley in Senegal and Mali. In Chad, intra-​ African remittances from surrounding countries such as Libya, Cameroon, Nigeria, and the Central African Republic have been vital for local communities around Lake Chad, but in recent years have been seriously disrupted by conflicts in those countries and by the activities of Boko Haram. Accurate estimates of the real value of remittances, however, are difficult. Most remittances from African destinations go through informal channels, and even in Western countries where the formal circuits of money transfer are readily available to all migrants, research has shown a strong preference to use informal circuits of money Table 40.1 Remittances to Four Sahelian Countries in 2001 and 2016 ($US millions) Country

2001

2016

2016 share of GDP

Burkina Faso

$50m

$398m

3.8%

Mali

$88m

$910m

6.8%

Niger

$22m

$154m

2.0%

Senegal

$305m

$1,642m

Total

465

3,104

11.7% 4.0%

Source: Compiled by author from World Bank data, 2016.

774   Abdoulaye Kane transfer. The World Bank (2016) estimates that the real remittances sent to Africa are likely to be five times the amount that goes through formal channels. The US$3.14 billion estimate for the four Sahelian countries in Table 40.1, then, would amount in fact to US$18.84 billion, or some 20 percent of the GDP of those countries.

Individual Remittances There is a growing consensus among economists about the important role of remittances in poverty reduction. Households that receive remittances on a monthly basis are of course far better off than those that do not; remittances can literally lift a family out of poverty. Remittances, however, can also sharpen social and economic inequalities in the community, between households with migrants and those without migrants. But at least for migrants from the Senegal River valley it appears to be the case that forms of redistribution of remittances tend to result in a spillover from families with migrants to families without migrants, mitigating those inequalities. In addition, returning migrants engage in a wide range of activities that distribute wealth well beyond their nuclear families or household compounds. There was an exponential increase in remittances between 2001 and 2016 in the Sahel, with remittances for the region increasing from less than US$500 million in 2001 to more than US$3 billion in 2016. Remittances to Senegal stand out, with more than a threefold increase between 2001 and 2011, and another smaller increase between 2011 and 2016. Although worldwide remittances stagnated between 2009 and 2015 due to the lingering effect of the global economic and financial crisis of 2007, remittances for the Sahel region in that period actually increased somewhat, from about US$2.75 billion to US$3.10 billion. The excitement about the potential for remittances to fund the development agendas of poor countries is driven by these rapidly increasing numbers, whose growth have surpassed that of official development aid to most developing countries. While the Sahel as a region is far from receiving more remittances than official development aid, in some important large cross-​border regions, such as the Senegal River valley, remittances flows are much more important than state investment or the trickle of development aid. Remittances also tend to have a higher impact in terms of poverty reduction and in raising standards of living than what the state and NGOs spend on targeted programs in infrastructure, income generating activities, or health and education. There is good evidence for the enthusiasm about the potential for remittances in funding development. The caveat for such enthusiasm, however, is that transfers of resources from private migrants to their families are the primary use of individual remittances, they are for consumption. Families that receive remittances use the money for food, clothing, medical bills, and school fees for children. Data from household surveys in several African countries, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, document that the use of remittances is closely related to the basic needs of recipients (Plaza et al. 2011). For both Burkina Faso and Senegal, the use of remittances to buy food is overwhelmingly the most

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    775 common behavior among households receiving money from migrants—​whether from within the country, elsewhere in Africa, or outside Africa. The Senegal numbers are actually very high compare to Burkina Faso or other African countries: 52.6 percent of the remittances received from outside Africa, 72.6 percent of the remittances received from other African countries, and 81.9 percent of remittances received from within the country are used for food by recipient households in Senegal. In the case of Burkina Faso, using remittances to build new homes is quite significant, especially for money received from outside Africa, 25.7 percent of which is used for this purpose. The limited portion of remittances from individual migrants that is invested is spent primarily on housing. Across the capital cities of the Sahel, part of the booming construction of new houses is driven by migrants’ investments. In the villages and towns of the Senegal River valley there is a growing trend of new, concrete houses replacing traditional mud houses. Driven by the investments in housing, small businesses specializing in construction materials are also booming, and the transportation services between capital cities and the rural communities are prospering. The ripple effect of remittances examined in Mexico by Massey and Parrado (1994) is highly visible in the towns of Matam, Diourbel, Touba, Louga, and Gorgol. Each dollar or euro sent by migrants generates revenues and creates employment as small businesses owners capture part of the remittances. Table 40.2 gives an indication of the percentage of remittances received from migrants to the destinations in the global North or South, relative to the size of those migrant populations for three Sahelian countries. Senegal has the largest migration population share in the North at 40 percent, and they account for about 70 percent of all remittances received. The 60 percent of Senegalese migrants in countries of the South account for only 30 percent of remittances. Mali has the smallest number of emigrants in the North (10 percent), but it receives some 33 percent of its remittances from this group, while the 90 percent of Malian migrants to the South send 67 percent of total remittances to the country. Mauritania is in the middle, with 26 percent of its migrants residing in the North sending 57 percent of remittances, while the 74 percent of its migrant population in the South sends 43 percent of its remittances. Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad, all

Table 40.2 Remittances from Migrations to “North” and “South” Compared Country

% migrants to North

% remittances from North

% migrants to South

% remittances from South

Mali

10%

33%

90%

67%

Mauritania

26%

57%

74%

43%

Senegal

40%

70%

60%

30%

Source: compiled by author from World Bank 2016.

776   Abdoulaye Kane with a majority of their migrants in other African countries, would have a distribution similar to that for Mali. In Mali, a report by the Fond de Solidarité Prioritaire (Co-​développement Mali) indicated that in the region of Kayes alone, some 5–​10 billion CFA francs (€7.5–​€15 million) were transferred by Malian migrants to responds to urgent health needs in 2004. Ten billion CFA francs were transferred by Malians in France to fund a housing project (Fond de Solidarité Prioritaire 2004). Five billion CFA francs were transferred to create small family businesses or micro-​professional enterprises. Collectively, Malian hometown associations sent 5 billion CFA francs to build needed infrastructure in their rural communities. If the other countries in the Senegal River valley can be assumed to receive contributions as comparable levels, we need to estimate at least an additional 15 billion CFA in the amount of remittances received by the region per year. Given their importance, states have aggressively pursued policies attempting to harness the potential of remittances for investment. Senegal and Mali have been the two countries in the Sahel with a clear agenda trying to create incentives for migrants to invest in their home countries. The Senegalese government thus often sends bankers and officials from the Ministry of Finance to tour Europe and America, meeting Senegalese migrants to provide information about the process of creating businesses, or of getting access to credit, training programs, and other resources that the state can provide for startups.

Collective Remittances and the Role of Social Networks A striking feature of Sahelian migrants in Western countries is their organization around social networks of various sorts. The most common among these are hometown associations of migrants from the Senegal River valley (Daum 1993, 1997; A. Kane 2010, ethnic associations (Stoller 2002), religious groups (Buggenhagen 2012; Diouf 2000; A. Kane 2008), and national networks among Nigerien, Burkinabè, Malian, and Senegalese (O. Kane 2011). A common feature of these social networks is that they share a strong connection to specific places, regions, or communities in their country of origin in the Sahel, and most of them have come to be important players in the development of their places of origin. Hometown associations are particularly important actors in local development in the villages and towns of the Senegal River valley. In the early 2000s, Daum (2001) identified more than four hundred hometown associations of Malian immigrants in France alone. Most of these associations were created by Soninke and Haalpulaar migrants from the Kayes region. A similar trend was noticeable on both the Senegalese and Mauritanian sides of the Senegal River valley, where all major villages have received collective forms of remittances from their hometown associations in France since the 1970s. Sahelian hometown associations in France clearly number in the thousands, including both registered hometown associations and the many non-​registered associations that nonetheless perform the same role. All towns and villages of the

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    777 Senegal River valley with migrants abroad are likely to have such organizations, created for the purpose of providing funding for community projects at home. Every year these hometown associations mobilize millions of euros through their membership dues, as well as funding from partners including departmental and regional councils in France. Collectively they fund innumerable community projects designed to improve standards of life in sending communities. Most of the infrastructure found today in villages and small towns across the Senegal River valley, especially in Mali and Senegal, has been funded by the hometown associations of Haalpulaar, Soninke, and Wolof migrants in Central Africa, Europe, and America. These associations started in the 1960s as self-​help groups, designed to cope with the adversities facing African immigrants in France. The common benefits to members of these self-​help groups included financial support for funerals, naming ceremonies, or marriages. They also contributed to paying for medical bills, or repatriating members deceased in the host country. After the great Sahel drought of 1973–​1974, most of these associations became involved in providing relief to their rural communities in such forms of cereal banks or in paying shepherds to engaging in long-​ distance transhumance to ensure the survival of the community’s livestock. Major towns with a significant presence in France, such as Ouro Sogui, Thilogne, Agnam, or Kanel, invested in Magasins Temoins, local general stores where populations could buy basic food provisions at reduced prices. In many villages, migrants’ hometown associations were credited with being in the forefront of the relief efforts in mitigating the effects of that severe drought period. Alongside the drought relief effort, the hometown associations invested heavily in building mosques, cemetery walls, and the funding of religious activities such the celebration of Maouloud, the prophet’s birthday. In the 1980s, these self-​ help groups were transformed into recognized legal “associations” by French authorities, allowing them to raise funds from various sources and especially public funding from the city, departmental, and regional government councils. With the implementation of structural adjustment programs by Sahelian states, hometown associations moved quickly to fill the vacuum left by the state in the provision of social services and public goods. This period witnessed a heavy investment in education and health sectors as hometown associations from the Senegal River valley invested in building schools, medical centers, maternity centers, and community pharmacies equipped primarily with material and medicine collected in France (A. Kane 2010). The number of community projects initiated by migrants in France quadrupled in this period, as associations expanded to projects designed to provide access to clean water, electricity, and telephone landlines. In some cases, migrants from villages located far from the main roads paid for electricity and telephone poles so as to bring in utilities seen as a must in local visions of development. Later, in the 1990s, such important infrastructure initiatives were funded by “co-​development” projects from France or the European Fund for Development. In the early 1990s, as more Sahelian migrants arrived in America and southern Europe, the hometown associations began to organize transnationally, with chapters of a given association established in different host countries. In this new model, each

778   Abdoulaye Kane chapter is responsible for mobilizing funds from members and seeking partners, so as to collect the chapter’s contribution to the association’s community development projects at home. The coordination of the hometown associations is carried out by a federative board, that often meets virtually, via Skype or other technology, to decide on priorities and activities. This expansion of hometown associations to several destinations reinforced their capacity for intervention, although it also at times created some tensions due to a lack of trust between chapters abroad or chapters in the capital or the hometown. Other important factors that led to the reinforcement of the capacities of associations in the 1990s include changing patterns of leadership, as well as the increasing collaboration between hometown associations from the same region. The leadership of hometown associations from the Senegal River valley was historically determined by age and social status, in terms of the predominant socio-​professional hierarchical structures of many Sahelian societies (see Jourde Chapter 33 in this volume). The leaders of the hometown associations tended to be elders coming from a high status (“noble”) social background. The priorities for these leaders in their activities in the hometown were predominantly focused on religious activities and social needs and demands. In the middle of the 1980s, students from the hometowns studying in the host countries began to join the boards of hometown associations. While elders continued to be the figureheads of these associations, the young men who tended to be more highly educated and had good language skills assumed the management of the associations, and contributed by doing such things as helping the association acquire formal legal status in the host country. By the 1990s, the young generation of leaders gradually took over from the elders. They rapidly found additional partners and started to intervene in a number of areas, principally in education, health, water access, and training for women. This new leadership also undertook increased collaborations among hometown associations from a given region or country. An example of one such collaboration is Fouta Santé (Health), which is composed of more than one hundred and twenty hometown associations from the Matam region of Senegal. Each year Fouta Santé holds a general assembly to which each hometown association sends two representatives. Board members are then chosen among the representatives to run the federative structure that organizes an annual health caravan to the hospital of Ouro Sogui with the help of French hospitals and health professionals. The initiative provides surgeries for cataract patients and treatments for common ailments that are not usually available at Ouro Sogui hospital (A. Kane 2010). Among Malian hometown associations, La Coordination des Associations de Développement de la Région de Kayes en France (CADERKAF) presents a good example of similar collaboration. CADERKAF brings together all the hometown associations from the region of Kayes in Mali, and as a federation with official recognition was able to attract funding from regional and departmental councils in France. It is also an important player in attracting funding from French NGOs and international cooperation agencies. The group also works with city, departmental, and regional councils to incorporate their activities and projects into preexisting development plans designed by local

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    779 political leaders. An equivalent of CADERKAF among Senegalese migrants in France is FADERMA (Fédération des Associations de Développement de la Région de Matam), which helps hometown associations to get access to funding from French NGOs, departmental and regional councils, and international cooperation agencies. Other forms of social networks one finds among Sahelian migrants vary somewhat from the dynamics of hometown associations from the Senegal River valley, even within the same country. In Senegal, for example, the region of Louga has attracted significant funding from its diaspora in Italy, but these forms of interventions are often the result of efforts by a few local migrants, and tend to be oriented toward religious, cultural, and sportive initiatives (Sinatti 2006). Wolof speaking migrants across Europe and America from the Baol region of Senegal (the “Baol-​Baol”) have been famously involved in bringing significant resources to the holy city of Touba, seat of the Mouride Sufi order, by funding various infrastructures projects such as the hospital of Touba (Riccio 2011). They tend to be organized via religious associations, known as dahiras, which function much like the hometown associations of the Senegal River valley. During the massive annual pilgrimage (Magal) to Touba, they also send money to help feed the millions of disciples descending on the holy city. There are also hometown associations of Burkinabè and Nigeriens living in Europe and America, but their smaller numbers tend to push migrants from these countries to focus their efforts on associations based on ethnic, national, or religious identity (Stoller 2002). Given its relatively small diaspora outside the continent, Chad does not have the kind of local impact from hometown associations that one finds in the other Sahelian countries. The associations organized on a national bases tend to cater to the vision of their home countries about the appropriate role for their diasporas. Their agendas respond to calls from sending countries to increase their investment at home and they often negotiate with the state to get access to sources of funding to help start a business back home. Some have convinced local banks from their home country to establish a presence in the host country, so as to respond to the financial needs of their members. Thus, both Senegalese and Malian banks have bureaus in France and in the United States, so as to facilitate the channeling of migrants’ savings into investment in housing and income-​generating activities back home. Sending countries’ visions for their diasporas is dominated by the goal of helping migrants invest their money in productive sectors, to prepare for their eventual return home.

RETURN MIGRATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN SENDING COMMUNITIES For the mostly male Sahelian migrants in Europe and North America, return home has always been part of the migration plan. Return takes various forms. The first is temporary and triumphal, when the young migrant who made it to Europe or America

780   Abdoulaye Kane returns home with a legal status allowing him to go back to his host country without the fear of not being allowed to re-​enter. This return is often well planned and carefully executed, so as to leave an impression of great success on people left in the home community. The migrant typically returns with numerous gifts and redistributes his savings generously to family members, neighbors, friends, and praise singers. While at home, he might get married or take a second wife. Subsequent returns of young migrants after the first triumphal visit will depend on their work. Traders who are legally in Europe often return every year during the winter months, when street vending is less lucrative. Salaried workers tend to return home once every two to three years, usually accumulating their leave days to be able to spend at least three months with their families. In general, subsequent returns also depend on whether or not the migrant lives with their family in the host country. Those men who live with their wives and children in the host country tend to go home less frequently than those who left their families behind. These patterns of return and redistribution are widely shared among African migrants. Unlike their male counterparts and relatives, many Sahelian women who migrate to France do not contemplate a permanent return to their rural homes as part of their life plans. They do, however, engage in episodic temporary return, often to take part in family ceremonies and celebrations. These events provide occasions to display wealth through clothing, gold jewelry, and lavish gifts of goods and money to praise singers. It is also common for the Haalpulaar and Soninke women in France to return home when their daughters or sons are getting married. They rely often on their credit and saving associations to save money for these occasions. The second type of return is involuntary. It may be the return of migrants who are deported and repatriated, or those who are forced by family members to return home after leaving their wives and children behind for extensive absences—​at times decades. In both cases, there is an element of shame that makes the migrant feel some sense of failure and is shared by family members. Some repatriated returnees can mitigate the stigma if they have made contingency plans, such as investing in housing in capital cities like Dakar, Bamako, Niamey, or Nouakchott, so as to have a source of income in the eventuality of being repatriated empty-​handed. Many Senegalese migrants who are engaged in illegal activities in the host country (such as producing or selling counterfeit products), take the precaution of investing their profits in buying houses back home specifically to prepare for the eventuality of being caught and deported someday. A third modality of return is that of retirees who decide to return home permanently, while collecting pensions from abroad and enjoying the differential in exchange rate that make their small monthly income a fortune in their rural communities. Such return migrants literally go from being at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in the host country to becoming some of the wealthiest men in town in their rural communities. This group of returnees expanded significantly as the first generation of migrants who arrived in France in the 1960s and 1970s reached retirement age in the 2000s and 2010s. Across villages and small towns in the Senegal River valley, such retirees have become the patrons whose expenditures sustain local economies. Some have invested in

Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    781 agriculture, cattle rearing, or retail. They create numerous jobs, from daily laborers to farm workers. The fourth mode of return, also positive and quite common, is that of businessmen who have been very successful in Central Africa and who return home and invest so as to capture a share of the steady flow of remittances. Such people are present in the agriculture, retail, transportation, and construction sectors of local economies. Others have invested in hotels and similar services in capital cities or in the villages and towns of their home region. There are numerous well-​known public figures in Senegal who fit this pattern. Thus, Abdoulaye Saly Sall, a migrant from a small town in the Matam region who made his fortune in Gabon, built two hotels in his home region and also founded and owns Hayoo, the dominant internet service provider in the region. Alassane Diaby, a migrant from the village of Hamady Hounare in the Matam region returned from Congo to invest in farming and over the past twenty years has become one of the most important rice, millet, sorghum, and corn producers in the Matam region. A well-​ known case is Harouna Dia who made a fortune in Burkina Faso as a hydraulic engineer and then converted himself into a businessman and invested in the City Dia chain of small shops located in gas stations. Returnees have also become involved in local and national politics. In recent presidential, parliament, and local elections across the three countries that share the Senegal River valley, many returnees have been elected or were nominated to serve in local, regional, and national governments. Several mayors in the small towns of the Matam Region were migrants at some point in their lives, and some of them have only recently returned from Burkina Faso, Gabon, Congo-​Brazzaville, Germany, or France. Return migration is often viewed as positively impacting sending communities. The assumption is that migrants return home with skills, professional experience, and new ideas that can be put to work to advance development goals in their home country. For the Sahelian migrants from the Senegal River valley, the last two decades have witnessed a steady flow of returnees who were among the pioneers of African migration to France. These migrants who chose to leave families in Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania now return home in retirement, often to live a comfortable life in their communities, enjoying respect and consideration. Their small retirement pensions go a long way in local economies and thus retirees from France are often among the wealthiest individuals in their communities. They are actually viewed by day laborers and small businesses as patrons who can employ or buy, contributing to the dynamism of the local economy.

THE FUTURE IN QUESTION The important resources flowing home to the Sahel from diasporas in Africa, Europe, and North America have become vital for many communities in the region. As livelihoods relying on farming, fishing, or cattle herding have been seriously undermined by climate change, remittances by family members abroad have become

782   Abdoulaye Kane the predominant revenues many households rely on for survival, especially in the most affected regions of outmigration. Collective remittances from associations, and the pensions of retirees returning home, are also extremely important drivers of local economies in those regions. With growing restrictions on immigration from Africa in Europe and elsewhere, however, the sustainability of households and communities relying on remittances is increasingly called seriously into question. Moreover, it is not clear that the small numbers of young migrants from the Sahel now trickling into Europe or North America will be sufficient to replenish and revitalize the important Sahelian diasporas in those destinations. Equally unclear is whether the second generation of young people born in France, Italy, Spain, or the United States will continue to maintain connections and send remittances back to the home country as the first generations did. Will hometown associations be able to recruit new members in a context where the arrival of first-​generation migrants has been rendered difficult by extremely restrictive immigration policies? To what extent is the natural aging of members in host countries becoming a liability for hometown associations as they are faced with providing increasing repatriation benefits for members deceased in the diaspora to their rural homes? The answers to these questions are central to any assessment of the future role of the extensive Sahelian diaspora communities who have been so central to rural livelihoods across much of the region.

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Sahelian Transnational Networks and Diasporas    783 Fond de Solidarité Prioritaire. 2004. Les Migrants au coeur de la cooperation. Pamphlet, Paris: FSP Co-​développement Mali. Glick Shiller, Nina, Linda Bash, and Christina Szanton. 1992. “Transnationalism: A New Analytical Framework for Understanding Migration.” Annals of the New York Academy of Science 645(1): 1–​24. Kane, Abdoulaye, 2010. “Charity and Self-​Help: Migrants’ Social Networks and Health Care in the Homeland.” Anthropology Today 26(4): 8–​12. Kane, Abdoulaye. 2008. “Les pèlerins sénégalais au Maroc: la sociabilité autour de la Tijaniyya,” in Laurence Marfaing Elisabeth Boessen, eds., Les nouveaux urbains dans l’espace Sahara-​ Sahel: Un cosmopolitisme par le bas. , Berlin/​Paris: ZMO/​Karthala, 187–​208. Kane, Abdoulaye. 2000. “Diasporas villageoise et développement local en Afrique: le cas de Thilogne Association Développement.” Hommes et Migrations 1229: 96–​107. Kane, Ousmane. 2011. The Homeland is the Arena: Religion, Transnationalism, and the Integration of Senegalese Immigrants in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Manchuelle, François. 1997. Willing Migrants: Soninke Labor Diasporas, 1848–​1960. Ohio: Ohio University Press. Massey, Douglas S., and Emilio Parrado. 1994. “Migradollars: The Remittances and Savings of Mexican Migrants to the USA.” Population Research and Policy Review 13(1): 3–​30. Newell, Sasha. 2012. Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte d’Ivoire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Plaza, Sonia, Mario Navarrete, and Dilip Ratha. 2011. “Migration and Remittances Household Surveys in Sub-​Saharan Africa: Methodological Aspects and Main Findings.” World Bank Background paper DEC-​PREM, Migration and Remittances Unit. Washington, DC. Quiminal, Cathérine. 1986. Gens d’ici, gens d’ailleurs. Paris: Christian Bourgeois. Riccio, Bruno. 2011. “Rehearsing Transnational Citizenship: Senegalese Associations, Co-​ development and Simultaneous Inclusion.” African Diaspora: Transnational Journal of Culture, Economy & Society 4(1): 97–​113, 17. Sinatti, Giulia. 2006. “Diasporic Cosmopolitanism and Conservative Translocalism: Narratives of Nation Among Senegalese Migrants in Italy.” Studies in Ethnicity & Nationalism 6(3): 30–​50, 21. Stoller, Paul. 2002. Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tall, Serigne Mansour. 2002. “L’émigration international sénégalaise d’hier à demain” in Diop, Momar-​Coumba, ed., La société sénégalaise entre le local et le global. Paris: Karthala, 549–​578. Tandia, Aly. 2014. “From Temporary Work in Agriculture to Irregular Status in Domestic Service: The Transition and Experiences of Senegalese Migrant Women in Spain,” in Thanh-​ Dam Truong, Des Gasper, Jeff Handmaker, and Sylvia I. Bergh, eds., Migration, Gender & Social Justice: Perspectives on Human Insecurity. New York: Springer, 47–​67. Timera Mahamet. 1996. Les Soninké en France. D’une histoire à une autre. Paris: Karthala. World Bank, 2016. Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016. Available at: http://​www. worldbank.org/​en/​research/​brief/​migration-​and-​remittances.

Index

Tables and figures are indicated by T and F following the page number.

A

accountability change from new social movements  179–​80 corruption  305–​6, 308 CSO organizations  75 effect of interventionism  370–​7 1 fundamental citizen rights  70 livestock economic contribution  340 Mali 139 political parties  406, 412 political problems  43 security forces  450 states with extractive institutions  139 trajectories of the Sahel  385–​86 underlying struggles  383–​84 agriculture see also livestock average harvested area 2010-​2013  210t commodity case studies cotton in Burkina Faso and Mali  334–​36 livestock in Niger and Senegal  339–​41 rice in Mali and Senegal  336–​39 expansion between 1975 and 2013  212f farmer-​herder conflicts in the Sahel  276–​77 farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) agricultural intensification and demographic growth  225–​26 economic benefits  223–​25 emergence around 1985  216–​17 impact on crop yields and food security  220–​23 local institutions and conflict management 226 scale and dynamics  217–​20 future of rainfed agriculture  226–​27

humanitarian crises in early 1970s  3–​4 key factor involving the environment  206 overview of sectors  330–​31 patterns of mobility during precolonial empires  18–​19 percentage agriculture in GDP, by country 2005-​2014  211f policies and development commodity case studies  334–​41 future challenges  341–​43 importance 329 politics of interventions  331–​34 precondition for overall economic development 329 political interventions emerging support for agriculture  333–​34 policy processes  331 taxation  331–​33 transformation of agriculture 1975-​2015  210–​13 water-​harvesting techniques  213–​15 aid see development aid

B

bureaucracy aid regime  355–​57 Burkina Faso  354 Chad 614 commandement and kinetocracy  46 corruption and bureaucratic governance  369–​70 current challenges discrepancy between procedures  60–​62 heterogeneous modes of governance  62 inadequate delivery of services  59–​60 delivery of public goods and services  59–​62

786   Index bureaucracy (cont.) effect of increased economic development  69–​70 impact of presidential personality  459–​60 inability to react to economic crises  385 inherited colonial army  460 key concept of political order  69 lingering effects of French colonialism  35, 364–​65 Mauritania  618–​19 Niger  42–​43 possibilities for advancement  683 rise of praetorian armies  435 Senegal 688 use of French language  651–​52, 685 Burkina Faso absence of significant political change  406 analysis of legislative elections  413–​14 arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries  530 challenges to authoritarian regimes  78 control of national territory  451–​52 CSO involvement in politics  80–​81 degree of central authority  384 democratization gender quotas and representation  399 legislative institutions  397, 398–​99 presidential elections  388 presidential term limits  395 from dissent to insurrection  153–​55 education efforts at reform  692, 694 policy post-​independence  688–​89 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 freedom of the press  76–​77 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f governance and democracy indices for Sahel 452t history and development CNR  150–​51 contact with European powers  148 impact of French colonialism  148–​49 Lamizana regime  150 overview  147–​48 sovereignty for Upper Volta  149 Yaméogo regime  149–​50 hometown associations  779 importance of cotton  334–​36

inherited institutional architecture following French colonialism  42–​43 law enforcement and security  81–​83 legitimacy and reform  155–​56 management of social tensions demographic pressures  161 ethnic responses  160 land disputes  161 mediation and dialogue  161–​62 religious tensions  160–​61 social and cultural differences  160 military coups and military rule 1960-​90  426t military relations and power relations post-​1990  431t Muslim predominance  529–​30 Muslim women’s social movements  594 national identity  150–​51 percentage of French speakers  654t–​74 political transitions and multiparty elections 410 reconciling economic growth rate with equality  162–​63 religious minorities in the Sahel  531 remittances to four countries compared 773t restraints on political pluralism  76 search for justice  156–​57 secularism history of laïcité  613–​14 impact of jihadism on secularism  616 security economic issues  159 growth of armed banditry  159 need for reform of armed forces  158–​59 terrorism  157–​58 security capacity  447t ‘stability’ under Compaoré’  151–​53 transnational networks and diasporas first wave of migration to Europe  768, 770 new patterns of migration  771 types of political parties  412

C

caste see class cattle herders see pastoralism

Index   787 Chad analysis of legislative elections  413–​14 appointment of Déby relatives in state positions  192–​93 arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries  530 citizenship 199 co-​option strategies and protest  190–​92 control of national territory  451 democratization gender quotas and representation  399 legislative institutions  397 presidential elections  388 presidential term limits  395 educational policy post-​independence  688–​89 emergence of jihadist movements  573 factors affecting the future of Déby and the country  198–​99 failed democratization  188–​90 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 first wave of migration to Europe  769, 770 foreign support for Déby’s regime Déby’s outreach to Africa and Middle East  197–​98 France  194–​96 Qaddafi 194 United States  196–​97 French as official language  651–​52 frequency of coups d’état  45 Fulbe cattle herders  671 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f governance and democracy indices for Sahel 452t history of laïcité 614 hometown associations  779 military coups and military rule 1960-​90  426t military relations and power relations post-​1990  431t Muslim predominance  529–​30 overview 185 percentage of French speakers  652t political dominance and authoritarian resilience 406 political transitions and multiparty elections 410 reaction to French intervention in Mali  470–​71

restraints on political pluralism  76 role of militaries and warfare  43–​44 security capacity  447t serial coups and Déby’s rise to power  185–​87 state as exclusionary entity  384–​85 trans-​Saharan migration  748–​49 transnational networks and diasporas first wave of migration to Europe  768 new patterns of migration  771 types of political parties  412 Christianity arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries  530 defenders of laïcité 609 impact of two major global forces  7 intégrisme 606 citizenship Chad 199 concept of ‘migrant citizenship’  740–​41 continuing social categories  632, 641–​42 development of religiously inspired conceptions 687 fundamental citizen rights  70 impact of French colonialism  41 importance of schooling and education  683 inherited institutional architecture following French colonialism  39–​40 Mauritania  121, 640 Niger  169–​70 origins in francophone system of education  684–​86 Sahelians 494 Senegal  36–​37, 39–​40, 91 civil society challenges to authoritarian regimes  77–​80 evolution of civil-​military relations causes and outcomes of military coups  424–​25 complex set of civil–​military constellations in Sahel  434–​35 effect of third wave of democratization  429–​34 overview  423–​24 rise of praetorian armies  425–​29 failure to promote civil society  64–​65 impact of liberalization and democratization  83–​84

788   Index civil society (cont.) involvement in politics  80–​81 law enforcement and security  81–​83 new social movements in Niger  179–​80 overview  69–​72 pillars and drivers of aid regime  357 pluralism and autonomy  73–​75 restraints on political pluralism  75–​77 social contract in Senegal  97–​98 class challenge of definitions  632 intersection between Islam and status stratification constitution of statutory hierarchies  633–​34 contesting religious foundations of status hierarchies  634–​36 electoral politics and status hierarchies  636–​40 low-​status individuals and the use of violence 642 reform of precolonial “customary” and Islamic rules  640–​42 underlying ambiguity  633 Mauritanian haratine 631 outstanding avenues of research  643 two key dimensions  631–​32 climate change challenges for Sahel  4 defining features of the human Sahel  6–​7 effects on nutrition  236–​38 impact on livestock  294–​95 key security challenge  442 Niger  176–​77 threats to food security  207, 231 underlyling cause of human conflict doubts about dominant narrative  279–​80 farmer-​herder conflicts in the Sahel  276–​77 overview  269–​7 1 terrorist forces in Mali  277–​79 version of Malthusian concept of scarcity of resources  274–​76 variability in Sahel climate  250 colonialism see French colonialism

commandement and ‘kinetocracy’ durability of authoritarian political culture  46–​47 Mali 130 overview  35–​36 rule by remote control  43 conflict see human conflict corruption Burkina Faso  156–​57, 162 Chad 191 colonial legacy  364–​65 consequences of bureaucratic governance factionalism 370 waves of accountability  370–​7 1 wide-​spread dysfunction of public services  369–​70 difficulty of observing and quantifying  363 end of ‘permissive’ social contract  376 everyday practices and processes  367–​68 fight against corruption ambiguous role of aid donors  373–​74 ambivalence between toleration and stigmatization  371–​72 social demands for more integrity  375–​76 state initiatives  372–​73 Françafrique impact in Sahel  37 key factor affecting economic policies 308 Mali 139 Mauritania 118 political factors ‘good governance’ measures  366–​67 single-​party systems and militarism  365–​66 rise of praetorian armies  435 counterterrorism see terrorism COVID-​19  4–​5 cultural landscape see intellectual and cultural landscape

D

democratization Burkina Faso legitimacy and reform  155–​56 stability under Compaoré’  151–​53

Index   789 central challenges to building a democratic state 390 Chad co-​option strategies and protest  190–​92 failure under Déby  188–​90 challenges for Sahel  5–​6 constitutional foundations addressing the aspirations of local populations 390 French model  389–​90 meaning of laïcité  390–​91 political decentralization  390 effect of third wave on militarism  429–​34 failure of electoral democracy  57–​58 global “Third Wave” of democratization 385 governance and democracy indices for Sahel 452t impact on education  690–​91, 692–​93 Mali  138–​39 new political order  83–​84 Niger contemporary challenges  173–​75 implementation of economic liberalization  170–​73 politics of institutionalization design of electoral rules  391–​95 gender quotas and representation  399–​400 legislative institutions  397–​99 presidential term limits  395–​97 promotion of Arabic language and mass Islamic education  589 Senegal absence of coups and national conferences  89–​90 under Diouf and Wade  93–​95 struggle for democratic substance  401–​2 struggles in Sahel domestic and international pressures 387 political transition  388 presidential elections 1991-​1996  388 range of responses  387–​88 demographics Burkina Faso  161 causes of conflict and terrorism  259–​60

changes in patterns of transhumant pastoralism 8 economies of the Sahel  316 European and North American agendas  65 fertility rates  249 food insecurity  257–​59 forms of mobility  720 generational divide in Chad  191–​92 impact of FMNR  225–​26 impact of urbanization  722 informal economies  317–​18 majority-​Muslim societies  605 OASIS Initiative  262–​63 pastoral societies  670–​7 1 policy implications of family planning  260–​62 population growth in main cities since 1950 712t population growth in main cities since 1950 (percentages) 714t population percentage residing in main cities 715t population pyramids for Niger  251f pregnancy and maternal health  256–​57 replacement-​level fertility in Niger  254f transition theory  253–​54 unprecedented population growth  251–​53 women’s empowerment and health  254–​56 young age of urban populations.  723 development see economies of the Sahel development aid aid dependency  56–​57 ambiguous role of donors towards corruption  373–​74 Burkina Faso  162 Chad France  194–​96 Qaddafi 194 United States  196–​97 key factor affecting economic policies  307–​8 Mali 139 Niger 167 political economy of aid aid dependence and public policies  348–​52 overview  347–​48

790   Index development aid (cont.) pillars and drivers of aid regime  355–​59 strategies of recipient as ‘appropriation’  352–​54 Senegal 99 diasporas see transnational networks and diasporas droughts in the Sahel building resilience to drought  227–​28 dominating policy narrative  273–​74 historical changes  271–​72 impact of catastrophic droughts  30 impact on demographic profile of Sahelian capitals 713 second wave of migration from the Sahel  770–​7 1

E

economies of the Sahel agricultural policies and development commodity case studies  334–​41 future challenges  341–​43 importance 329 politics of interventions  331–​34 precondition for overall economic development 329 Burkina Faso economic issues  159 reconciling economic growth rate with equality  162–​63 challenges for Sahel  5 development trajectories  305 impact of FMNR  223–​25 importance of demographic structure  316 informal economies access to employment  317 determinants of informality  318–​20 distinctive socio-​demographic characteristics  317–​18 expansion of sector  311 implications for business and growth  320–​21 magnitudes of informality  316–​17 nexus between fragility, violence, and the informal sector  321–​24 pattern of limited specialization  312–​13 patterns of transition  318

percentage workers who are women  318t positive growth performances  312 share of informal sector in GDP and total employment 317f significant and increasing share of national production and employment 324 strong female presence  317 key anomalies economic growth without development  305–​7 uniqueness of transformations  305 key factor affecting economic policies  308–​9 key factor involving the environment  205–​6 key factors affecting economic policies corruption 308 development aid  307–​8 food security  307 governance  308–​9 Niger 175 politics of aid aid dependence and public policies  348–​52 overview  347–​48 pillars and drivers of aid regime  355–​59 strategies of recipient as ‘appropriation’  352–​54 quality of domestic economic institutions African Financial Community (CFA)  313–​14 criticisms of CFA  314 impact of French colonialism  314–​15 importance 313 policies for political motives  315 regional organizations  314 Senegal failure of alternatives  99 foreign aid  99 importance of migration  99–​100 potential for socioeconomic development 100 reliance on agriculture  98 stagnation 100 trade history of ideas  483–​84

Index   791 lived multilingualism  656–​57 migration within Africa  730 pre-​colonial empires  16–​18 social interactions between the Sudanic grasslands 669 unemployment statistics  316 education constitution of statutory hierarchies  634 continuities in form and content post-​independence  689–​90 efforts at reform continuing subject of debate and contestation  694–​95 impact of democratization  692–​93 Mali and Burkina Faso  694 Mali and Niger  691 need for outside financial resources  693 negotiated compromises  696 Niger 693 Quranic school tradition  694 response to growing frustrations in 1970s 692 Senegal 693 struggles post-​independence  691 emergence of new social relationships  51–​52 essential tool for shaping national identities 683 impact of democratization  690–​91 impact of French colonialism colonial adaptation of the French model 683 failures of the formal francophone educational system  684 French as official language  652 importance of colonial schools  683 origins of secularism and citizenship  684–​86 importance of associations of teachers or students 76 importance of colonial schools  512–​13 importance of state schools  627–​28 Muslim women’s social movements  594 need for a common language of instruction 695 OASIS Initiative  262–​63 ongoing changes and national identity  695

promotion of Arabic language and mass Islamic education  589 Quranic school tradition emergence post-​independence  686 reform efforts  694 regimes of language  653–​54 regional systems  684 schooling in crisis  690 women’s shared interests  587 electoral rules  391–​95 elites see post-​independence elites environmental issues causes of conflict and terrorism  259–​60 challenges to pastoralism historical settlement pattern  675 land use  676–​77 water resources  675–​76 climate change as underlying factor in human conflict doubts about dominant narrative  279–​80 farmer-​herder conflicts in the Sahel  276–​77 overview  269–​7 1 terrorist forces in Mali  277–​79 version of Malthusian concept of scarcity of resources  274–​76 demography and health care food insecurity  257–​59 HIV/​AIDS  263 OASIS Initiative  262–​63 policy implications of family planning  260–​62 pregnancy and maternal health  256–​57 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 254 transition theory  253–​54 unprecedented population growth  251–​53 women’s empowerment and health  254–​56 drivers of growth and decline in livestock sectors climate change  294–​95 expansion of croplands and livestock ownership  293–​94 increasing demand for products  292–​93 rich tradition of livestock husbandry  285–​86

792   Index environmental issues (cont.) droughts in the Sahel dominating policy narrative  273–​74 historical changes  271–​72 second wave of migration from the Sahel  770–​7 1 farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) agricultural intensification and demographic growth  225–​26 economic benefits  223–​25 emergence around 1985  216–​17 impact on crop yields and food security  220–​23 local institutions and conflict management 226 scale and dynamics  217–​20 food security consequences of climate change  231 effects of climate change on nutrition  236–​38 historic food patterns and current consumption trends  234–​36 importance of livestock  243–​45 importance of pastoralism and animal source food  238–​43 meaning and scope  232–​33 regional dynamics  233–​34 key factors agriculture 206 climate change  207 economic development  205–​6 livestock 206 Sahel’s distinctive features  205 stark and challenging future  207–​8 urbanization  207–​8 variable weather patterns  205 land use building resilience to drought  227–​28 future of rainfed agriculture  226–​27 overview  209–​10 transformation of agriculture 1975-​2015  210–​13 water-​harvesting techniques  213–​15 weather annual precipitation in West Africa  22f chronic rainfall deficit in Mauritania  115

double geographical identity of Sahel  30 future of rainfed agriculture  226–​27 key factor affecting the environment  205

F

farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) agricultural intensification and demographic growth  225–​26 agricultural parklands of the Seno Plains, Mali 222f change in on-​farm tree cover density 2005 to 2014  220f economic benefits  223–​25 emergence around 1985  216–​17 of Faidherbia albida in Niger  216f impact on crop yields and food security  220–​23 local institutions and conflict management 226 scale and dynamics  217–​20 tree cover densities  218f tree cover density in south-​central Niger 219f typical increase in density of on-​farm tree cover 221f food security consequences of climate change  207, 231 effects of climate change on nutrition  236–​38 humanitarian crises in early 1970s  3–​4 impact of FMNR  220–​23 impact on demography and health care  257–​59 importance of livestock  243–​45 importance of pastoralism and animal source food  238–​43 key factor affecting economic policies  307 key security challenge  442 meaning and scope  232–​33 regional dynamics  233–​34 Françafrique French military intervention in Mali  463–​64 impact in Sahel  37 French colonialism see also French interventionism

Index   793 Burkina Faso  148–​49 cause of conflict  384 changing regional mobility patterns during colonial period delimitation of a frontier between sedentary and nomadic populations  21–​22 routes and boundaries of the Sahara  19–​20 durability of authoritarian political culture  46–​47 emergence of a new intelligentsia  500–​1 Françafrique French military intervention in Mali  463–​64 impact in Sahel  37 impact on configuration of Sahel  2 impact on economies of the Sahel  314–​15 impact on education colonial adaptation of the French model 683 failures of the formal francophone educational system  684 French as official language  652 importance of colonial schools  683 origins of secularism and citizenship  684–​86 impact on language francophone Sahel  650–​51 French as official language  651–​52 impact on literacy  658–​59 importance of colonial schools  512–​13 inherited institutional architecture discussion about regional assemblies  41–​42 growth of anti-​colonial movements  43 holding of multiple elected offices  42 inability to administer  42–​43 personal dependency in the geographic center of the Sahel  39–​40 rule by “remote control”  43 significance of French domestic politics  40–​41 Islamization of many colonial subjects  530 key economic characteristics  38–​39 legacy of corruption  364–​65 less traction than in other parts of Africa  36–​37

literature on history of ideas  485 making of the modern Sahel overview  35–​36 plurality of competing factors  35 three competing phenomena  48 Mali anti-​imperialist analyses  134–​36 impact of French colonialism  128–​30 Mauritania  111–​12 migration within Africa freeing of slaves  732 recruitment of armed forces  731 sale of textiles and sewing materials  733 search for diamonds and groundnut cultivation  732–​33 for work  731–​32 Niger  168–​70 relatively short duration  36 role of AOF  37–​38 role of militaries and warfare Chad’s role in French Africa  43–​44 frequency of coups d’état  45 role of national armies  44–​45 secularism 605 Senegal fundamental racial inequality  91 geographical importance  91 importance of alliance between marabouts and the colonial state  90–​91 involvement in parliamentary politics  91 societal impact  55–​56 ‘traditional’ heritage influence of the colonial heritage  55–​56 relevance as a paradigm  53–​55 urbanization  709–​10 French interventionism see also French colonialism absence of any justifications  467 budgetary constraints  468 changes post-​2000  467 continuing military crises  467 Defense White Paper 2013  467 distinctive culture of French army  460 failure to manage post-​crisis periods  468 importance of personalities  459–​60 military intervention in Mali

794   Index French interventionism (cont.) changing aims of the war  464 commencement 461 concerns over creation of the G5 Sahel 465 encouragement from Niger  463 hostility toward religious radicalism  464 key question as to purpose  464–​65 military and security apparatus concerns  465–​66 raising of stakes  465 re-​assertion of Françafrique  463–​64 shift to full-​scale operation  461–​63 need for allies  467–​68 post-​1962 operations  466 post-​1989 operations  466 post-​Gaullist diplomacy  460 regional reaction to Sahel intervention diplomatic relations with EU and US  468–​70 roles of Libya, Morocco, Algeria, and Chad  470–​7 1 resulting political and social dynamics  471–​73

G

geography of the Sahel changing regional mobility patterns during colonial period delimitation of a frontier between sedentary and nomadic populations  21–​22 routes and boundaries of the Sahara  19–​20 separation of Sahel from Sahara  23–​24 contradictions and territorial development during postcolonial period end of nomadic world during the 1960s  24–​25 rediscovery of original forms of mobility  25–​26 double geographical identity  30 impact of catastrophic droughts  30 impact of deteriorating security situation initiation of ‘Sahel strategies’  28–​30 regional dimension of the terrorism threat  26–​28

Sahel strategies  29f US and French military initiatives and violent political events, 1997–​2015  27 impact of terrorism and trafficking  30 near impossibility of defining Sahel  31 overview  15–​16 precolonial network of markets and cities development of patterns of mobility  18–​19 Ghana Empire  16 impact on political power  18 Kanem-​Bornu Empire  17–​18 Mali Empire  16–​17 overview 16 precolonial routes, cities, and empires  17f Ghana Empire 16 governance see politics in the Sahel griots traditions  495–​97 ways of speaking  660–​61

H

healthcare Burkina Faso  159–​60 food insecurity  257–​59 HIV/​AIDS  263 infant and child mortality  249 pregnancy and maternal health  256–​57 women’s empowerment and health  254–​56 herders see pastoralism hometown associations collective remittances and role of social networks  776–​79 future prospects  781–​82 growing financial dependency of families  706–​7 policy impacts of migration control  761 remittances to four countries compared 773t remittances to home countries importance  772–​74 individual remittances  774–​76 social status categories  632 human conflict challenges for Sahel  4 climate change as underlying factor doubts about dominant narrative  279–​80

Index   795 farmer-​herder conflicts in the Sahel  276–​77 overview  269–​7 1 terrorist forces in Mali  277–​79 version of Malthusian concept of scarcity of resources  274–​76 impact on pastoralism  670–​7 1, 678–​80 key security challenge  442 low-​status individuals and the use of violence 642 nexus between fragility, violence, and the informal sector Mali  322–​23 Niger  323–​24 overview  321–​22 underlying causes  259–​60, 384 Human Development Index (HDI)  2, 89–​90, 100–​1, 167, 206, 312

I

identity see national identity informal economies access to employment  317 determinants of informality culture  318–​19 distortionary tax policies  319 public service access  320 state failures  319 stringent labor regulations  319 expansion of sector  311 implications for business and growth  320–​21 magnitudes of informality  316–​17 nexus between fragility, violence, and the informal sector Mali  322–​23 Niger  323–​24 overview  321–​22 pattern of limited specialization  312–​13 patterns of transition  318 percentage workers who are women  312t share of informal sector in GDP and total employment 317f significant and increasing share of national production and employment  324 strong female presence  317 intellectual and cultural landscape see also religious landscape

Burkina Faso  160 continued esprit critique  478–​79 decisive intellectual debates on moral, social, and religious issues t  479 determinants of informal economies  318–​19 expanded knowledge through research studies 478 Fulbe cattle herders  671–​72 historical factors and circumstances  477–​78 history of ideas colonial literature  485 crucible and home for several civilizations 490 between the eighth and fifteenth centuries 486 geographical factors  482–​83 importance of Arabic  488 importance of tarikhs  486–​87 Islam a recurrent theme  487–​88 medieval period  485–​86 modernity and the transition to independence  489–​90 new ‘horizons of expectation’  487 overview  481–​82 penetration of Islam  484–​85 problems of classification  488 role of written word and ‘oral reason’  488–​89 search for unifying trends  488 trade  483–​84 way of decoding reality  490–​91 impact of two major global forces  7–​8 Islamic intellectual traditions contestations and revolts  534 divisions and overlaps  541–​43 fluidity of geographical limits  533–​34 Islamist paradigm  543–​44 Mali as beacon of Islamic learning  533 reformist paradigm  538–​41 relational character of the interplay between the three distinguishing currents  545–​46 traditionalist paradigm  535–​38 literary history of the Sahel configurations and ideologies of theater production  516–​17

796   Index intellectual and cultural landscape (cont.) cultural production in French and in local languages  517–​18 destabilization by military coups and regimes 512 impact of Sahelian leaders  518 implementation of cultural policies and reforms  515–​16 importance of colonial schools  512–​13 key relationships  519, 523 multiple networks of literary figures and political actors  513 policies of the Front Populaire  518–​19 professional development and patterns of mobility of actors  513–​15 prominence given to festivals and theater 517 relation between narration and the sociopolitical 511 remarkable literary momentum  523 roots in cultural configurations  512 Sahelian novels  519–​23 singular relationship between literature and politics  511 vulnerabilities  523–​24 Mauritania  110–​11 pastoral societies  667 Sahelian intellectual consciousness clerical Islamic traditions  497–​500 as current of thought  507–​8 emergence of a new intelligentsia  500–​1 ‘griot traditions’  495–​97 overview  493–​95 sources of expression arts of the spoken word  505–​7 cinema  503–​5 writers  501–​3 ‘traditionalism’ see ‘traditionalism’ vibrancy 477 women’s activism through media, art and performance  598–​99 Islam see also Christianity; jihadist movements; religious landscape clerical Islamic traditions  497–​500 external ‘Islamic’ actors in Sahel  556t history of ideas

penetration of culture and ideas  484–​85 recurrent theme  487–​88 impact of French colonialism  47 impact of two major global forces  7–​8 impact on literacy  658–​59 intersection between Islam and status stratification constitution of statutory hierarchies  633–​34 contesting religious foundations of status hierarchies  634–​36 electoral politics and status hierarchies  636–​40 low-​status individuals and the use of violence 642 outstanding avenues of research  643 reform of precolonial “customary” and Islamic rules  640–​42 underlying ambiguity  633 Islamic intellectual traditions contestations and revolts  534 divisions and overlaps  541–​43 fluidity of geographical limits  533–​34 Islamist paradigm  543–​44 Mali as beacon of Islamic learning  533 reformist paradigm  538–​41 relational character of the interplay between the three distinguishing currents  545–​46 traditionalist paradigm  535–​38 jihadist movements aggregation of divides  64 analysis of individual motivations  581–​82 Burkina Faso  157–​58 climate change as underlying factor  277–​79 collaboration with independence movements 63 common characteristics  574–​75 contemporary preoccupation with Salafis, Salafism and jihadism  563–​65 context of political opportunity  579–​80 core ideological beliefs  577–​79 deteriorating security situation  439 emergence and evolution  570–​74 ethnic and ideological differences  575–​76

Index   797 European and North American agendas 65 French military intervention in Mali  462 historical presence  574 impact on secularism  615–​17 key security challenge  442–​43 link with traditionalism  54 Mauritania  122–​23 overview  569–​70, 582 support from local communities  576–​77 landscape in the contemporary Sahel challenges to conventional wisdom  552–​56 cultural and historical importance of Islam  556–​59 importance of media revolution  560–​63 important intra-​Muslim debates  559–​60 overview 551 preoccupation with Salafis, Salafism and jihadism  563–​65 shifting and fluid landscape  565–​66 long presence of Muslims and Islam in the region 529 Mauritania  116, 122–​23, 531, 617–​18 Muslim attitudes towards secularism  605–​6 Muslim women’s social movements activism and family law  594–​98 activism through media, art and performance  598–​99 leadership and activism  592–​94 new diversity  587, 599–​600 political mobilization  590–​92 post-​1990s activism  588–​89 shared interests  587 outcome of French colonial rule  530 pluralism and autonomy within civil society  73–​74 predominance of Sunni Muslims  531 Quranic school tradition emergence post-​independence  686 regimes of language  653–​54 regional systems  684 Senegal diversity and pluralism  95–​97 various forms of activism by Muslims  531–​32

J

jihadist movements aggregation of divides  64 analysis of individual motivations  581–​82 Burkina Faso  157–​58 climate change as underlying factor  277–​79 collaboration with independence movements 63 common characteristics brutality against infidels  576 diversity and inclusiveness  575 overthrow of political authorities  574–​75 contemporary preoccupation with Salafis, Salafism and jihadism  563–​65 context of political opportunity  579–​80 core ideological beliefs  577–​79 deteriorating security situation  439 emergence and evolution AQIM  572–​73 Boko Haram  572 Chad 573 impact of 9/​11  570–​7 1 Nigerian Taliban  571–​72 period defined by counterterrorism  573–​74 war on the Malian state  573 ethnic and ideological differences  575–​76 European and North American agendas  65 French military intervention in Mali  462 historical presence  574 impact on secularism  615–​17 key security challenge  442–​43 link with traditionalism  54 Mauritania  122–​23 overview  569–​70, 582 support from local communities  576–​77

K

Kanem-​Bornu Empire  17–​18 kinetocracy see commandement and ‘kinetocracy’

L

laïcité see secularism land use agricultural expansion between 1975 and 2013 212f

798   Index land use (cont.) average harvested area 2010-​2013  210t building resilience to drought  227–​28 Burkina Faso  161 challenges to pastoralism  676–​77 farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) agricultural intensification and demographic growth  225–​26 economic benefits  223–​25 emergence around 1985  216–​17 impact on crop yields and food security  220–​23 local institutions and conflict management 226 scale and dynamics  217–​20 future of rainfed agriculture  226–​27 lack of clear policy development  677–​78 overview  209–​10 patterns of mobility during precolonial empires  18–​19 percentage agriculture in GDP, by country 2005-​2014  211f transformation of agriculture 1975-​2015  210–​13 water-​harvesting techniques  213–​15 language cultural production in French and in local languages  517–​18 francophone Sahel  650–​51 impact of two major global forces  7–​8 lingua francas of Sahel  657t linguistic diversity of Sahel  649 literacy byproducts of Islamization and colonization  658–​59 diverse writing systems  658 ‘exographia’ 658 social and political meaning  660 use of Roman script  659–​60 lived multilingualism absence of bounded, discrete language  655–​56 distribution and importance to trade  656–​57 grammatical borrowing  656 importance for migration  657

lingua franca  656 problems of characterization  654–​55 multilingualism generalizations of interaction  657–​58 oral traditions based on language  627 percentage of French speakers in Sahel  652t promotion of Arabic language and mass Islamic education  589 regimes of language Arabic  653–​54 designated official languages  652–​53 French as official language  651–​52 normative set of language practices  651 rich and complex landscape  661–​62 ways of speaking  660–​61 liberalism Burkina Faso  152 electoral politics and status hierarchies  637–​38 global “Third Wave” of democratization 385 impact of two major global forces  7–​8 new political order  83–​84 Senegal  89–​90, 93, 409 literacy byproducts of Islamization and colonization  658–​59 diverse writing systems  658 ‘exographia’ 658 literary history of the Sahel configurations and ideologies of theater production  516–​17 cultural production in French and in local languages  517–​18 destabilization by military coups and regimes 512 impact of Sahelian leaders  518 implementation of cultural policies and reforms  515–​16 importance of colonial schools  512–​13 key relationships  523 multiple networks of literary figures and political actors  513 professional development and patterns of mobility of actors  513–​15 prominence given to festivals and theater 517

Index   799 relation between narration and the sociopolitical 511 remarkable literary momentum  523 roots in cultural configurations  512 Sahelian novels  519–​23 singular relationship between literature and politics 511 vulnerabilities  523–​24 women’s activism through media, art and performance  598–​99 livestock see also agriculture; pastoralism drivers of growth and decline climate change  294–​95 expansion of croplands and livestock ownership  293–​94 increasing demand for products  292–​93 rich tradition of livestock husbandry  285–​86 factors affecting adaptation of sector high transaction costs  297–​98 market signals for producers  296–​97 production factors  298–​99 range of possible scenarios  295–​96 farmer-​herder conflicts in the Sahel  276–​77 importance  243–​45, 286–​87 importance to Niger  339–​41 key factor involving the environment  206 marketing  289–​91 numbers 287 pastoralism and animal source food  238–​43 populations in the Sahel  288t production systems  287–​89 signs of emerging adaptations to changing circumstances  299–​300

M

Mali analysis of legislative elections  413–​14 as beacon of Islamic learning  533 climate change as underlying factor in human conflict  277–​79 commodity case studies cotton  334–​36 rice  336–​39 configurations and ideologies of theater production  516–​17

control of national territory  451 democratization addressing the aspirations of local populations 390 gender quotas and representation  399 legislative institutions  397–​98 presidential elections  388 presidential term limits  395 education efforts at reform  691–​92, 694 policy post-​independence  686, 689 electoral politics and status hierarchies  638 emergence of jihadist movements  573 evolving forces of destabilization  140–​41 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 French military intervention changing aims of the war  464 commencement 461 concerns over creation of the G5 Sahel 465 encouragement from Niger  463 hostility toward religious radicalism  464 key question as to purpose  464–​65 military and security apparatus concerns  465–​66 raising of stakes  465 re-​assertion of Françafrique  463–​64 shift to full-​scale operation  461–​63 frequency of coups d’état  45 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f governance and democracy indices for Sahel 452t history of laïcité field of experimentation  611–​12 liberalization  609–​10 hometown associations  778–​79 impact of FMNR  222f impact of French colonialism  128–​30 impact of jihadism on secularism  615–​16 inherited institutional architecture following French colonialism discussion about regional assemblies  41–​43 growth of anti-​colonial movements  43 law enforcement and security  81–​82 linguistic diversity  649 long-​term processes underlying instability

800   Index Mali (cont.) anti-​imperialist analyses  134–​36 geopolitics and competition among states  136–​38 institutionalism  138–​40 ‘migrant citizenship’  741 military coups and military rule 1960-​90  426t military relations and power relations post-​1990  431t military rule and multiparty politics  130–​33 multilingualism 650 Muslim predominance  529–​30 national identity  129, 134 nexus between fragility, violence, and the informal sector  322–​23 overview  127–​28 percentage of French speakers  654t–​74 political transitions and multiparty elections 409 remittances from ‘north’ and ‘south’ compared 773t security capacity  447t social divisions  63 speed and the brutality of 2012 Tuareg rebellion 384 trans-​Saharan migration  748–​49 central Saharan migration route  752–​53 structures and arrangements to manage migrants 759 types of political parties  412 women’s activism and family law  614–​15 Mali Empire  16–​17 Mauritania analysis of legislative elections  413–​14 Arabic as official language  651–​52 causes and consequences of vulnerability chronic rainfall deficit  115 decades of military rule  114–​15 dysfunctional security sector  118 ongoing political crises  116–​18 overview 114 politicization of Islam  116 politicization of security  119 regional insecurities  119–​20 terrorism  115–​16 citizenship  121, 640

democratization gender quotas and representation  399, 400 legislative institutions  397 presidential elections  388 presidential term limits  395 distinctiveness 109 educational policy post-​independence  688 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 future challenges extirpation of the military from national politics.  121–​22 identity of the country  120–​21 threat of terrorism  122–​23 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f governance and democracy indices for Sahel 439t historical background establishment of single party regime  113 French colonialism  111–​12 mismanagement of ethnic diversity  113–​14 ruinous war on the side of Morocco  112–​13 run-​up to independence  112 severe ethnic and cultural divisions  112 inherited institutional architecture following French colonialism  42–​43 intersection between Islam and status stratification constitution of statutory hierarchies  633–​34 contesting religious foundations of status hierarchies 635 reform of precolonial “customary” and Islamic rules  640–​41 military coups and military rule 1960-​90  426t military relations and power relations post-​1990  431t Muslim predominance  529–​30 national identity  121, 617 overview  109–​10 percentage of French speakers  652t political transitions and multiparty elections 410 remittances from ‘north’ and ‘south’ compared 775t

Index   801 response to secularism  531, 617–​18 security capacity  441t trans-​Saharan migration central Saharan migration route  753 structures and arrangements to manage migrants 759 types of political parties  412 unique sociopolitical and cultural characteristics  110–​11 migration see also nomads acceleration of geographic mobility  8 within Africa acceleration of circular migrations  737–​38 concept of ‘migrant citizenship’  740–​41 freeing of slaves  732 historical trajectory  729 importance 729 migratory subsystems within West Africa  735–​36 new forms of solidarity  739–​40 new measures in response to economic downturn  736–​37 new priorities for migration  742 overview 705 post-​independence laissez-​faire policies  734–​35 recruitment of armed forces  731 sale of textiles and sewing materials  733 search for diamonds and groundnut cultivation  732–​33 strategies for reinvesting in homeland  738–​39 for trade  730 for work  731–​32 defining features of the human Sahel  6–​7 dominant media coverage  705 emergence of new social relationships  51–​52 historical perspectives  703–​4 importance 707 importance of multilingualism  657 intersection between Islam and status stratification 635 Niger  177–​78

Sahel’s ties to wide-​ranging networks of diasporas 2 Senegal  99–​100 trans-​Saharan migration dual role of emigration and transit  748–​50 formation of important Sahelian diasporic communities  706 growing financial dependency of families  706–​7 impact on localities along the route  754–​55 new European migratory policies  706 overview  747–​48 policy impacts  760–​61 principal migratory routes  751–​54 tightening of migration policies  756–​60, 762 militarism Burkina Faso growth of armed banditry  159 need for reform of armed forces  158–​59 Chad  185–​87, 197–​98 corruption  365–​66 destabilization of culture  512 European and North American agendas  65 evolution of civil-​military relations  426t causes and outcomes of military coups  424–​25 complex set of civil–​military constellations in Sahel  434–​35 effect of third wave of democratization  429–​34 overview  423–​24 rise of praetorian armies  425–​29 growth of militant youth organizations  680 influence of French colonialism Chad’s role in French Africa  43–​44 frequency of coups d’état  45 role of national armies  44–​45 Mali  130–​33 Mauritania availability of small arms and light weapons 119 causes and consequences of vulnerability  114–​15 establishment of single party regime  113

802   Index militarism (cont.) future challenges  121–​22 return of FLAM  117–​18 ruinous war on the side of Morocco  112–​13 underlying risks  440 US and French military initiatives and violent political events, 1997–​2015  27 multilingualism. absence of bounded, discrete language  655–​56 characteristic of Sahel  649–​50 distribution and importance to trade  656–​57 generalizations of interaction  657–​58 grammatical borrowing  656 importance for migration  657 lingua franca  656 problems of characterization  654–​55 multiparty regimes analysis of legislative elections  413–​15 dominance by one party  416 from independence to multiparty regimes effect of independence from France  407–​8 political transitions and multiparty elections  408–​11 overview  405–​7 relationship between political and other institutions 416 similarities across the six Sahelian countries 415 types of political parties  411–​13

N

national identity Burkina Faso  150–​51 central challenges to building a democratic state 390 development of religiously inspired conceptions 687 historical and social differences  695 importance of schooling and education  683 inability of the immediate postcolonial leadership 112 Mali  129, 134

Mauritania  120–​21, 617 need for a common language of instruction 695 Niger  168–​70 ongoing changes in education  695 Niger analysis of legislative elections  413–​14 citizenship  169–​70 contemporary challenges economic grievances  175 fragility of democracy  173–​75 terrorism 175 creating a national identity  168–​70 democratization addressing the aspirations of local populations 390 gender quotas and representation  399, 400 legislative institutions  397 presidential elections  388 presidential term limits  395 education efforts at reform  691, 693 policy post-​independence  686, 689 emergence of FMNR around 1985  216 emerging trends climate change  176–​77 migration  177–​78 new social movements  179–​80 encouragement for French military intervention in Mali  463 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f governance and democracy indices for Sahel 452t history of laïcité  610–​11 hometown associations  779 implementation of economic liberalization  170–​73 importance of livestock  339–​41 inherited institutional architecture following French colonialism growth of anti-​colonial movements  43 inability to administer  42–​43 linguistic diversity  649 military coups and military rule 1960–90 426t

Index   803 military relations and power relations post-​1990  431t Muslim predominance  529–​30 nexus between fragility, violence, and the informal sector  323–​24 overview  167–​68 percentage of French speakers  652t pluralism and autonomy within civil society  73–​74 political transitions and multiparty elections  409–​10 population pyramids for Niger  251f remittances to four countries compared 773t replacement-​level fertility  252f security capacity  447t social divisions  63 Strategy for the Sustainable Development 340 ‘traditionalism’ 53 trans-​Saharan migration  748–​49 attraction to asylum-​seekers  761 central Saharan migration route  752–​53 impact on localities along the route  754–​55 policy impacts  761 structures and arrangements to manage migrants  758–​59 transnational networks and diasporas first wave of migration to Europe  768, 770 new patterns of migration  771 types of political parties  412 unchanged political scene  405–​6 women’s activism and family law  595–​96 nomads see also migration; pastoralism changing regional mobility patterns during colonial period delimitation of a frontier between sedentary and nomadic populations  21–​22 separation of Sahel from Sahara  23–​24 contradictions and territorial development during postcolonial period end of nomadic world during the 1960s  24–​25

rediscovery of original forms of mobility  25–​26 nomadic groups of the Sahelo-​Saharan belt 54 patterns of mobility during precolonial empires  18–​19 ‘traditionalism’ 54 non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) community-​based security  82–​83 development aid pillars and drivers of aid regime  357 turning point for aid  349 failure to promote ‘civil society’  64–​65 impact on literacy  659–​60 nutrition see food security

O

official development assistance (ODA) see development aid organized crime see slavery and trafficking

P

parties see multiparty regimes pastoralism see also livestock arguments for diversification  678 avoidance of large-​scale antagonisms  670 camel herders  672–​73 changing attitudes following creation of RBM 677 consequences of rapid globalization  680 cultural continuities  667 deleterious effects  669–​70 demographic and climate pressures  8 diverse challenges  667 end of nomadic world during the 1960s 24 environmental challenges historical settlement pattern  675 land use  676–​77 water resources  675–​76 ethnic groups  670–​7 1 food and nutrition  257 food security  238–​43 Fulbe cattle herders  671–​72 growth of agriculture  211 growth of militant youth organizations  680

804   Index pastoralism (cont.) historical attempts at state development and hegemony  674–​75 impact of climate change  176 impact of development agreements  670 impact of French colonialism  38–​39 impact of twenty-​first-​century instability  678–​80 key characteristic of Sahelian society  628 lack of clear policy development  677–​78 livestock production system  285, 287–​88 marginalization 277 nomadic groups of the Sahelo-​Saharan belt 54 participation of slave communities  674 patterns of milk consumption  235–​36 problem of Moorish communities  678 public discourse and scientific research  668–​69 resilience of rural livelihoods  205 seasonal exploitation of the rich grazing land  18–​19 Strategy for the Sustainable Development of 340 trade and social interactions between the Sudanic grasslands  669 unique interface of nomadic, semi-​nomadic, and town-​dwelling Fulbe  673–​74 politics in the Sahel agricultural interventions emerging support for agriculture  333–​34 policy processes  331 taxation  331–​33 analysis of legislative elections  413–​15 approach to security provision arms and equipment  448–​49 capacity 447t control of national territory  451–​52 defense budgets and the number of personnel  446–​48 governance of security forces and population support  452–​53 legitimacy and effectiveness  449–​50 neutrality of institutions and loyalty to state  450–​51 sector reform  450 strategic and tactical capacity  448

Burkina Faso CNR  150–​51 from dissent to insurrection  153–​55 Lamizana regime  150 legitimacy and reform  155–​56 sovereignty for Upper Volta  149 ‘stability’ under Compaoré’  151–​53 Yaméogo regime  149–​50 Chad appointment of Déby relatives in state positions  192–​93 co-​option strategies and protest  190–​92 Déby and the years which followed  188–​90 factors affecting the future of Déby and the country  198–​99 serial coups and Déby’s rise to power  185–​87 challenges for Sahel  4 choice of a script  660 corruption factionalism 370 ‘good governance’ measures  366–​67 single-​party systems and militarism  365–​66 waves of accountability  370–​7 1 wide-​spread dysfunction of public services  369–​70 crisis in delivery of state services  52 current bureaucratic challenges discrepancy between procedures  60–​62 heterogeneous modes of governance  62 inadequate delivery of services  59–​60 defenders of laïcité 608 desire of diaspora to be involved in politics  740–​41 development aid aid dependence and public policies  348–​52 overview  347–​48 pillars and drivers of aid regime  355–​59 strategies of recipient as ‘appropriation’  352–​54 distinct political trajectories  3 electoral politics and status hierarchies  636–​40 home returners  781

Index   805 impact of Sahelo-​Saharan empires  18 from independence to multiparty regimes effect of independence from France  407–​8 political transitions and multiparty elections  408–​11 inherited institutional architecture following French colonialism discussion about regional assemblies  41–​42 durability of authoritarian political culture  46–​47 growth of anti-​colonial movements  43 holding of multiple elected offices  42 inability to administer  42–​43 personal dependency in the geographic center of the Sahel  39–​40 rule by remote control  43 significance of French domestic politics  40–​41 institutionalization of democracy design of electoral rules  391–​95 gender quotas and representation  399–​400 legislative institutions  397–​99 presidential term limits  395–​97 jihadist movements context of political opportunity  579–​80 purpose of jihadist movements  574 literary history of the Sahel impact of Sahelian leaders  518 policies of the Front Populaire  518–​19 singular relationship between literature and politics  511 Mali geopolitics and competition among states  136–​38 military rule and multiparty politics  130–​33 Mauritania establishment of single party regime  113 mismanagement of ethnic diversity  113–​14 ongoing political crises  116–​18 overview  109–​10 politicization of Islam  116 politicization of security  118

ruinous war on the side of Morocco  112–​13 run-​up to independence  112 multiparty regimes see multiparty regimes Muslim attitudes towards secularism  606 new political order challenges to authoritarian regimes  77–​80 CSO involvement in politics  80–​81 CSO law enforcement and security  81–​83 impact of liberalization and democratization  83–​84 overview  69–​72 restraints on political pluralism  75–​77 Niger country in need of understanding  167 implementation of economic liberalization  170–​73 parallel political institutions resulting from colonialism  2–​3 Senegal absence of coups and national conferences  89–​90 democratization under Diouf and Wade  93–​95 failures of pluralism  101–​3 fundamental political transformations 89 intertwining of Islam and politics as social contract  97–​98 involvement in French parliamentary politics 91 long history of competitive and representative politics  89 manifestation of ‘political decompression’  103–​4 political stability under Senghor  92–​93 struggle for democratic substance  401–​2 struggles for order and accountability  383–​84 types of political parties  411–​13 post-​independence elites see also politics in the Sahel assumption of power  57 bureaucratic culture and a quasi-​private monopolization 52 cause of conflict  384

806   Index post-​independence elites (cont.) common distinctive feature of Sahelian politics  406–​7 continuing dominance  416 defenders of laïcité  607–​9 Françafrique 37 legacy of a historical process  2–​3, 89 militarism  44–​45 privative and clientelist appropriation of power 56

Q

Quranic school tradition emergence post-​independence  686 reform efforts  694 regimes of language  653–​54 regional systems  684

R

rainfall see weather religious landscape see also intellectual and cultural landscape; Islam; jihadist movements arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries  530 challenges to authoritarian regimes  78 changes over time  529–​30 clerical Islamic traditions  497–​500 external Islamic actors in Sahel  556t growth of religious intolerance  63–​64 history of ideas penetration of culture and ideas  484–​85 recurrent theme  487–​88 impact of French colonialism  47 impact of two major global forces  7–​8 importance of diversity  532 intersection between Islam and status stratification constitution of statutory hierarchies  633–​34 contesting religious foundations of status hierarchies  634–​36 electoral politics and status hierarchies  636–​40 low-​status individuals and the use of violence 642 outstanding avenues of research  643

reform of precolonial “customary” and Islamic rules  640–​42 underlying ambiguity  633 Islam in the contemporary Sahel cultural and historical importance of Islam  556–​59 importance of media revolution  560–​63 important intra-​Muslim debates  559–​60 Mauritania as Islamic Republic  617–​18 preoccupation with Salafis, Salafism and jihadism  563–​65 shifting and fluid landscape  565–​66 Islamic intellectual traditions contestations and revolts  534 divisions and overlaps  541–​43 fluidity of geographical limits  533–​34 Islamist paradigm  543–​44 Mali as beacon of Islamic learning  533 reformist paradigm  538–​41 relational character of the interplay between the three distinguishing currents  545–​46 traditionalist paradigm  535–​38 jihadist movements see jihadist movements landscape in the contemporary Sahel challenges to conventional wisdom  552–​56 overview 551 long presence of Muslims and Islam in the region 529 Mauritania  116, 122–​23 Muslim women’s social movements activism and family law  594–​98 activism through media, art and performance  598–​99 leadership and activism  592–​94 new diversity  587, 599–​600 political mobilization  590–​92 post-​1990s activism  588–​89 shared interests  587 outcome of French colonial rule  530 penetration of culture and ideas by Islam  484–​85 pluralism and autonomy within civil society  73–​74 predominance of Sunni Muslim  531 religious minorities in the Sahel  531

Index   807 secularism all Sahelian countries except Mauritania  531 defenders of laïcité  607–​9 French military intervention in Mali  464 history of laïcité in the Sahel  609–​14 impact of French colonialism  47 impact of jihadism  615–​17 Mauritania as the exception  617–​18 meaning of laïcité  390–​91 Muslim attitudes  605–​6 part of the constitutional order  605, 618–​19 Senegal diversity and pluralism  95–​97 intertwining of Islam and politics as social contract  97–​98 ‘traditionalism’  53–​54 various forms of activism by Muslims  531–​32 Roman Catholicism see Christianity

S

Sahara changing regional mobility patterns during colonial period routes and boundaries of the Sahara  19–​20 separation of Sahel from Sahara  23–​24 delimitation of a frontier between sedentary and nomadic populations  21–​22 trans-​Saharan migration dual role of emigration and transit  748–​50 growing financial dependency of families  706–​7 impact on localities along the route  754–​55 new European migratory policies  706 overview  747–​48 policy impacts  760–​61 principal migratory routes  751–​54, 751f tightening of migration policies  756–​60, 762 Sahel access to the world beyond  38 challenges climate change  4

COVID-​19  4–​5 democratization  5–​6 development and social change  5 governance issues  4 human conflict  4 humanitarian crises in early 1970s  3–​4 militarization of relations with strategic countries 6 rapidly moving realities of the region  6 complex conceptual bundle  36 comprised of six political entities  2 cultural zone of connectivity  1 defining features of the human Sahel  6–​7 distinct political trajectories  3 etymological origin of name  1 geographical limits  1 geography of the Sahel see geography of the Sahel human space  1–​2 impact of two major global forces  7–​8 parallel political institutions  2–​3 result of a specific colonial process  2 societies in the Sahel see societies in the Sahel ties to wide-​ranging networks of diasporas 2 schools see education secularism all Sahelian countries except Mauritania 531 defenders of laïcité  607–​9 French military intervention in Mali  464 history of laïcité in the Sahel authoritarian phase  609 field of experimentation  611–​14 liberalization  609–​11 impact of French colonialism  47 impact of jihadism  615–​17 Mauritania as the exception  617–​18 meaning of laïcité  390–​91 Muslim attitudes  605–​6 part of the constitutional order  605, 618–​19 security see also terrorism approach to security provision arms and equipment  448–​49 capacity 447t

808   Index security (cont.) control of national territory  451–​52 defense budgets and the number of personnel  446–​48 governance of security forces and population support  452–​53 legitimacy and effectiveness  449–​50 neutrality of institutions and loyalty to state  450–​51 sector reform  450 strategic and tactical capacity  448 blurring of rigid boundaries  30–​31 Burkina Faso economic issues  159 growth of armed banditry  159 need for reform of armed forces  158–​59 terrorism  157–​58 challenges for Sahel  4–​5 CSO law enforcement and security  81–​83 debates on terminology  441 direct and indirect state impacts  444–​46 environmental security  275 food security see food security French military intervention in Mali  465–​ 66, 472 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f impact and implications on Sahelian states 445t key challenges  442–​43 Mauritania dysfunctional security sector  118 politicization of security  118 regional insecurities  119–​20 militarization of relations with strategic countries 6 origins in francophone system of education  684–​86 overview  439–​40 regional security initiatives  453–​56 three underlying trends  456–​57 trans-​Saharan migration EU approach to trans-​Saharan migration  757–​60 policy impacts  760–​61 Senegal absence of coups and national conferences  89–​90

analysis of legislative elections  414 arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries  530 challenges to authoritarian regimes  78–​79 citizenship  36–​37, 39–​40, 91 commodity case studies livestock  339–​41 rice  336–​39 democratization gender quotas and representation  400 legislative institutions  397–​98 presidential elections  388 presidential term limits  395 democratization under Diouf and Wade  93–​95 economy failure of alternatives  99 foreign aid  99 importance of migration  99–​100 potential for socioeconomic development 100 reliance on agriculture  98 stagnation 100 education efforts at reform  692, 693 policy post-​independence  689 electoral politics and status hierarchies  638–​39 failures of pluralism management of disgruntled elites  101–​3 social and territorial inequalities  100–​1 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 first wave of migration to Europe  769–​70 French colonialism fundamental racial inequality  91 geographical importance  91 importance of alliance between marabouts and the colonial state  90–​91 involvement in parliamentary politics  91 fundamental political transformations  89 G5 Sahel and its Joint Force  455f governance and democracy indices for Sahel 452t history of laïcité 612 hometown associations  779 interaction with other inhabitants of the Sahel 90

Index   809 long history of competitive and representative politics  89 manifestation of ‘political decompression’  103–​4 ‘migrant citizenship’  741 military coups and military rule 1960-​90  426t military relations and power relations post-​1990  431t Muslim predominance  529–​30 Muslim women’s social movements  588–​89 percentage of French speakers  652t pluralism and autonomy within civil society  73, 74 political stability under Senghor  92–​93 political transitions and multiparty elections 409 reliance on agriculture  98 religious landscape diversity and pluralism  95–​97 intertwining of Islam and politics as social contract  97–​98 remittances from ‘north’ and ‘south’ compared 773t security capacity  447t social divisions  63 trans-​Saharan migration dual role of emigration and transit  750 structures and arrangements to manage migrants 759 types of political parties  412 slavery and trafficking broadcast scenes of migrants in Libya being sold as slaves  761 freeing of slaves and ensuing migration  732 history of ideas  485–​86 key security challenge  442 Mauritania  117, 119 nineteenth century turmoil  51–​52 participation among Fulbe  674 ‘traditionalism’  53, 54 societies in the Sahel absence of emerging political class  64–​65 challenges from development and social change 5 civil society challenges to authoritarian regimes  77–​80

failure to promote ‘civil society’  64–​65 impact of liberalization and democratization  83–​84 involvement in politics  80–​81 law enforcement and security  81–​83 new social movements in Niger  179–​80 overview  69–​72 pluralism and autonomy  73–​75 restraints on political pluralism  75–​77 commonalities with other francophone countries 51 crisis in delivery of state services  52 current challenges bureaucratic culture  59–​62 social divisions  63–​64 current threats  64 development aid aid dependency  56–​57 failure of electoral democracy  57–​58 ‘family resemblances’ among countries  51 intersection between Islam and status stratification constitution of statutory hierarchies  633–​34 contesting religious foundations of status hierarchies  634–​36 electoral politics and status hierarchies  636–​40 low-​status individuals and the use of violence 642 outstanding avenues of research  643 reform of precolonial “customary” and Islamic rules  640–​42 underlying ambiguity  633 key characteristics changing and metamorphosing institutions 625 hierarchical organizations  625–​26 importance of state schools  627–​28 oral traditions based on language  627 pastoralism 628 perpetuation of social categories  626–​27 unique history of the region  625 language 643 cultural production in French and in local languages  517–​18 francophone Sahel  650–​51

810   Index societies in the Sahel (cont.) impact of two major global forces  7–​8 linguistic diversity of Sahel  649 literacy  658–​60 lived multilingualism  654–​58 multilingualism.  649–​50 oral traditions based on language  627 promotion of Arabic language and mass Islamic education  589 regimes of language  651–​54 rich and complex landscape  661–​62 ways of speaking  660–​61 management of social tensions in Burkina Faso demographic pressures  161 ethnic responses  160 land disputes  161 mediation and dialogue  161–​62 religious tensions  160–​61 social and cultural differences  160 Mauritania 112 Muslim women’s social movements activism and family law  594–​98 activism through media, art and performance  598–​99 leadership and activism  592–​94 new diversity  587, 599–​600 political mobilization  590–​92 post-​1990s activism  588–​89 shared interests  587 need for far-​reaching reform of public service 65 nineteenth century turmoil  51–​52 pastoralism see also livestock arguments for diversification  678 avoidance of large-​scale antagonisms 670 camel herders  672–​73 changing attitudes following creation of RBM 677 consequences of rapid globalization  680 cultural continuities  667 deleterious effects  669–​70 demographic and climate pressures  8 diverse challenges  667 end of nomadic world during the 1960s 24

environmental challenges  675–​77 ethnic groups  670–​7 1 food and nutrition  257 food security  238–​43 Fulbe cattle herders  671–​72 growth of agriculture  211 growth of militant youth organizations 680 historical attempts at state development and hegemony  674–​75 impact of climate change  176 impact of development agreements  670 impact of French colonialism  38–​39 impact of twenty-​first-​century instability  678–​80 key characteristic of Sahelian society  628 lack of clear policy development  677–​78 livestock production system  285, 287–​88 marginalization 277 nomadic groups of the Sahelo-​Saharan belt 54 participation of slave communities  674 patterns of milk consumption  235–​36 problem of Moorish communities  678 public discourse and scientific research  668–​69 resilience of rural livelihoods  205 seasonal exploitation of the rich grazing land  18–​19 Strategy for the Sustainable Development of 340 trade and social interactions between the Sudanic grasslands  669 unique interface of nomadic, semi-​ nomadic, and town-​dwelling Fulbe  673–​74 relative standardization  52 Senegal social and territorial inequalities  100–​1 social contract  97–​98 social divisions enrichment of the political and business elites 63 regional divides  63 religious divided  63–​64 social stratification challenge of definitions  632

Index   811 Mauritanian haratine 631 two key dimensions  631–​32 ‘traditionalism’ influence of the colonial heritage  55–​56 relevance as a paradigm  53–​55 weakness of the political elites  57 Songhay Empire 17 spoken word  505–​8, 660–​61 Sufism see Islamism

T

terrorism blurring of rigid boundaries  30–​31 Burkina Faso  157–​58 climate change as underlying factor  277–​79 collaboration with independence movements 63 deteriorating security situation  439 European and North American agendas  65 French military intervention in Mali  464 impact of deteriorating security situation  26–​28 jihadist movements aggregation of divides  64 analysis of individual motivations  581–​82 Burkina Faso  157–​58 climate change as underlying factor  277–​79 collaboration with independence movements 63 common characteristics  574–​75 contemporary preoccupation with Salafis, Salafism and jihadism  563–​65 context of political opportunity  579–​80 core ideological beliefs  577–​79 deteriorating security situation  439 emergence and evolution  570–​74 ethnic and ideological differences  575–​76 European and North American agendas 65 French military intervention in Mali  462 historical presence  574 impact on secularism  615–​17 key security challenge  442–​43 link with traditionalism  54 Mauritania  122–​23

overview  569–​70, 582 support from local communities  576–​77 key security challenge  443 link with traditionalism  54 Mauritania causes and consequences of vulnerability  115–​16 future challenges  122–​23 Niger 175 tightening of migration policies  762 underlying causes  259–​60 trade history of ideas  483–​84 lived multilingualism  656–​57 migration within Africa  730 pre-​colonial empires  16–​18 social interactions between the Sudanic grasslands 669 ‘traditionalism’ influence of the colonial heritage  55–​56 relevance as a paradigm  53–​55 trafficking see slavery and trafficking trans-​Saharan migration dual role of emigration and transit  748–​50 growing financial dependency of families  706–​7 impact on localities along the route  754–​55 new European migratory policies  706 overview  747–​48 policy impacts  760–​61 principal migratory routes central Saharan route  752–​53 eastern and western routes  753 migratory movements in northwest Africa 751f overview  751–​52 sea routes  754 tightening of migration policies  762 overview 756 security centered EU approach  757–​60 shifting discourse from ‘clandestine’ to ‘victim’  756–​57 transnational networks and diasporas arrival of Malian, Senegalese, and Mauritanian migrants to France in 1960s 767 contemporary dynamics  8

812   Index transnational networks and diasporas (cont.) desire to be involved in politics  740–​41 economic migrants  748–​49 efforts to improve living conditions at home 767 the future of the human Sahel  2 growing financial dependency of families  706–​7 Hausa merchant diaspora  18 home returns for business and investment  781 importance of work  780 involuntary returns  780 involvement in politics  781 part of the migration plan  779–​80 positive impacts  781 retirees  780–​81 women 780 increasingly central roles  703 language of the Senegalese  657 lived experience of the Sahel  490 mass affiliation to Sufi orders  553–​54 migration to Europe first wave  768–​70 new patterns of migration  770–​72 Muslim media personalities Mali 562 Niger  561–​62 overview  706–​7 presidential campaigns by Wade and Sall  99–​100 remittances from ‘north’ and ‘south’ compared 775t remittances to home countries collective remittances and role of social networks  776–​79 future prospects  781–​82 importance  772–​74 individual remittances  774–​76 social status categories  632, 639

U

urbanization cities located at the crossroads of caravan routes 19 construction of an urban network

separation from poles of development  711–​13 small and medium sized cities  713–​16 varying progress of ‘urban transition’  710–​11 differences between major urban centers current state of knowledge  717–​19 overview  716–​17 Sahelian trends and national variations  719–​22 drivers and the consequences of growth 710 emergence of new social relationships  51–​52 historical perspectives  703–​4 impact of French colonialism  709–​10 impact of racial exclusion  705 importance 707 intersection between Islam and status stratification 635 key factors involving the environment  207–​8 margins of major international metropolitan networks  709 open questions remaining  723 population growth in main cities since 1950 712t population growth in main cities since 1950 (percentages) 714t population percentage residing in main cities 715t showcase for postcolonial states  704 subject to intense demographic pressures 722 unique West African context  704–​5 young age of their populations.  723

W

water challenges to pastoralism  675–​76 harvesting techniques contour stone bunds  215f Zai 214f lack of clear policy development  677–​78 weather annual precipitation in West Africa  22f chronic rainfall deficit in Mauritania  115 climate change challenges for Sahel  4

Index   813 defining features of the human Sahel  6–​7 Niger  176–​77 double geographical identity of Sahel  30 droughts in the Sahel dominating policy narrative  273–​74 historical changes  271–​72 second wave of migration from the Sahel  770–​7 1 future of rainfed agriculture  226–​27 key factor affecting the environment  205 women in the Sahel empowerment and health  254–​56 home returns following migration  780 informal economies percentage workers who are women 318t

strong female presence  317 Muslim social movements activism and family law  594–​98 activism through media, art and performance  598–​99 leadership and activism  592–​94 new diversity  587, 599–​600 political mobilization  590–​92 post-​1990s activism  588–​89 shared interests  587 OASIS Initiative  262–​63 participation in politics  399–​400 policy implications of family planning  260–​62 pregnancy and maternal health  256–​57 written word see literacy