Guerilla warfare at Bamako Conference

                                                                           

From my vantage point at the Starbucks Café at Mohammed V airport of Casablanca I am looking out over the morning activity on the runways that extend before me in the hazy sun of the chill North African morning. A couple of planes are taxing slowly getting into position for take off and others are being loaded from the provision transports with lunches for passengers who will be flying off in all directions of the world shortly- one of them me, on my way to London.

                                                                               

My visit to Mali took me to Bamako only this time, for a conference on the manuscripts of the Sahel organized by UNESCO. My participation was only decided a day before it started and I jumped on a plane under a cloud of confusion on whether I was invited at all, and the event took on a dimension of guerrilla warfare… I had at first received an email asking me if I could attend the conference, I replied in the affirmative. I heard nothing back. So after a week I inquired what was going on. They now pretended as if they had not received my acceptance email.  Then there appeared to be problems finding me a room. I said never mind, I can find my own accommodation. Now they developed problems finding me a flight, and it all smelled as if if behind the scenes I had been ‘disinvited’. By this stage I had got the bit between my teeth and what had been a fairly luke warm proposition- a four day conference in Bamako- took on new dimensions of importance. Father Columba agreed, I should go, they would pay even if UNESCO didn’t. My Italian colleague Maria Luisa Russo was going to be there, and also Dmitry Bondarev, the Arabic Scholar who has been my friend and associate from the very first day of my involvement with the Malian manuscripts, when my British Library contacts sent me over to SOAS to meet him in 2008. 

Maria Luisa offered to give me half of her 15 minutes lecture time so I would also have a chance to speak. This was done, and when I stood up to give my address it was totally unexpected- I spoke about the work of the British Library in Djenne and also of course about our work in Timbuktu. At the same time I announced the new project which will start in March in Djenné.

Readers of this as well as my earlier journal djennedjenno.blogspot.com may recall that throughout my eleven years of involvement with the Malian manuscripts, first and foremost the Djenné ones and later the ones in Timbuktu, there have been various factions that have been less than friendly towards the work we have carried out. These negative forces have included the attack of the Djenné Village Chief on the projects- see blog entry 'A Day in Two Halves' from Dec 8, 2018, and all sorts of other shenanigans in Djenné and beyond, one involving the intervention of the former British ambassador Jo Adamson, and I permit myself to quote from a previous blog post from the DjenneDjenno blog, exactly five years ago: 

Back in Bamako more great events unfolded: an International Conference of Malian manucripts had been organized by UNESCO at the end of January. At the beginning of the month Lassana Cissé, the ‘Directeur National du Patrimoine’ had written me an email alerting me to the fact that the list of participants was being drawn up but that Djenné Manuscript Library was only represented by one person. The other people from Djenné were the Imam and the Maire and one person who owns a small private  library set up by Abdel Kader Haidara, the eminence grise and king of the Malian manuscript world,  who has  also put the Imam’s library in place. Abdel Kader was also in charge of the invitations to the conference. Since we are representing over one hundred Djenné families by now, it was quite ridiculous that we should only have one representative.  I phoned up UNESCO in Bamako and complained. They begrudgingly asked me to send the names of the people I wanted to invite, but said these would not be receiving any money for travel costs or lodging, since they had not been invited by the conference but by me.

I now got on to the British Ambassador Jo Adamson who had kindly promised me to give an evening for the Djenne Manuscript Library. Would it not be possible to do this evening in connection with this conference? I asked. She agreed and the date was set for the 29^th,  the last day of the conference. Overjoyed, I called Lassana Cissé again and told him the news: he confered with UNESCO and it was decided that the evening for the Djenné Manuscript Library at the luxurious  Hotel Salam would be a finale to the whole conference! 

I now received phonecalls first of all from Abdel Kader and then from UNESCO: “of course! there had never been any doubt about our being part of the conference! And of course all four delegates from the Djenné Manuscript Library would receive their travel and lodging expenses! There had never been any question about that- it had been a misunderstanding”...

Well, plus ça change…

 We were back in the same hotel Salam again. Jo Adamson was there again, no longer as the British ambassador but in her new role as deputy to the Mali UN chef and attending a conference in the hall next door.  Once more, there was only one representative from the Djenné Manuscript Library invited- Babou Touré. The library now represents 150 Djenné families and their collections. There are more than 10000 manuscripts in the Djenné library which is an important resource now, but still as neglected as ever.  

But nevermind! Onwards! I am back in Djenné in March to set up the new project. Will also be present for the opening ceremony at the Djenné hospital for the 7^th yearly edition of the free Cataract operations in memory of my Keita, still paid for by my dear cousin Pelle and his wife Nanni, and will even be able to do some Bogolan with Dembele who is still working in our old bogolan studio in Djenne, since the new owner of my land has not moved in yet, and is letting the studio to Dembele.

After the conference I stayed three days with Karen and we managed a great hike again every morning in the lovely hills around Bamako.

                                                                             

and finally, this is rather a hilarious illustration from an American magazine article about Father Columba's (and Walid's and mine) trial during the attack of the MINUSMA Headquarters West in Timbuktu- see August 2017.

and couldn't resist putting in this great shot of Columba and me in that same city last December...

This is what Joy feels like.

I am not sure why I should be feeling so absolutely Happy.
 I mean, I should concentrate on being a London Artist, or on trying to write My Book. But I continue being tied so closely to  Mali, and life somehow is still circling around Mali...
I spoke to Father Columba a couple of days ago. And last night during a late night  telephone conversation on the no 7 bus after a splendid concert at the Wigmore Hall  I asked him whether we couldn't go back and do some more work in Djenné instead of trying to expand our work in the increasingly impossible Timbuktu, he said YES! let's do it!  I had shown them some beautiful manuscript which have accumulated in Djenné in the last year and a half after the British Library projects finally came to an end. They have been brought in by local families and are by far superior to the scrappy bits of manuscritps which were presented to us in Timbuktu. So he agreed, and I will b going back to my beloved Mali to set up yet another project in Djenné maybe even in a couple of weeks! There is much more to say about this, but prefer not to for reasons of diplomacy and security...