Wedding hat update

Back in England and straight into deepest Oxfordshire and the ravishing little village of Blewbury for the  very jolly wedding of darling Giulietta and Rory. Didn't take many pictures, was too busy having fun and catching up with many people I hadn't seen for twenty years!

Travelled there by train with Jeremiah- here at Paddington (I chose hat no 9, as suggested by Robyn - Gardenia, and her countrywoman Marianne- in post comment on 'Indulge me please' on June 20th and wore Malimali Giraffe Dress)

The lovely bride wore a beautiful lace creation:

 outside St. Michael's Church with David:

                                                    Delicious food and wine in marquee

                                                            then the dancing was opened ...

Leaving Mali

The Mali trip is nearly done. As ever, fraught with difficulty but at the same time spilling over with precious memories and cram packed with life...

 I spent four days in Djenne, this time with my friend and collegue Maria Luisa Russo, who is also working with the manuscripts through the University of Hamburg. Although I may be inhabiting a fool’s paradise, I never feel worried for my safety in Djenne: all is so familiar- my big lovely bed is the best ever- and when I tuck myself in at night making sure the mosquito net is fitting snugly- keeping mosquitoes and creepy crawly undesirables out-  I feel as if nothing can touch me. I guess it wouldn’t provide much protection against a Jihadist with an AK47 though... but somehow I just feel safe and happy in Djenne. I made a visit to dear Imam Yelfa of course (above). 

 Of all my old staff Papa is doing best: he has opened a restaurant at the place in Djenne which used to be called Chez Baba. I feared it would not work, since there are no tourists in Djenne. But there are enough Malians still around who are not from Djenne and who ‘eat out’, like the bank manager M. Maiga whose family is in Bamako. Papa (standing up above) provides him and others with food every night.  Maria Luisa and I took the staff from the library for dinner on our last night. Those who have been at Hotel Djenne Djenno may recognize the chairs and the tablemats! 

But all is not safe and happy in and around Djenne- far from it. The situation in the surrounding villages has deteriorated since my last visit in April. The sudden rise in unaccustomed tribal fighting has multiplied and hearts and attitudes are hardening. The ‘Jihadists’or ‘bandits’ as the Djenne population prefer to call them, are carrying out attacks on the village population and are preventing them from cultivating. People have been killed while they are peacefully out sowing their fields. Therefore the villagers are scared to go into their fields:  ergo, famine will inevitably follow next year. Meanwhile the Dozo are getting better organized and armed- some say the Malian State are providing funds.  But the population itself is raising funds for the militia- if the state protection disappears, they will necessarily find other means to protect themselves.

Poor Maman, my erstwhile waiter and barman and now my guardian and bogolan worker at my house and studio, has been obliged to get into serious debt. His mother, a possibly well-meaning but overbearing person that forced him to get married when he was not ready, has now insisted that he provide 200 000 FCFA so his last remaining brother in the village can buy a gun for the family home in the village of Tabato- and support the Dozo militia. This he has done, because he feels he has no choice. People are wanting to leave Djenne- there is a deep, almost tangible  apathy and fear in the air;   into which IBK’s electioneering visit last week seems to have made no great dent. 

 Timbuktu was calm when I visited- although I had to sort out plenty of internal project difficulties- however, today I got the following message from Halimatou, our local boss:

‘Dear Sophie, since yesterday three vehicles have been burned by gangs of youths in Timbuktu.This morning about 9 am there was sustained rifle  fire in the market and it is still going on (written 13.30 pm)The team had started working but we decided that everyone should leave for home because of the insecurity.  We must all pray for the city of Timbuktu.’

This fighting was also, according to Youssouf Traore, one of our workers, a question of race: the white youths against the blacks- which means the Arabs, and  possibly the Tuaregs against the Songhai and other dark skinned people, I assume- this is a new development too and not normal in the town of Timbuktu itself, certainly! 

And meanwhile In Bamako the 24 presidential candidates are falling over themselves  creating ever greater election promises... here are some of them, a few viewed from the comfort of the Swedish Ambassadorial car:

 

 and finally, for the very last time, I spent a few lovely days with Eva in the Swedish residence. I cannot think what it will be like to come here when she is gone... but she is now leaving after the elections having spent five years here as ambassador. I could never express how much it has meant to me to count her as my friend  and to have spent so many happy times with her - now and when Keita was with us and used to sit in the garden under the mango tree and drink Malian tea with the security staff. He called her 'ma troisieme femme..' God Speed to Eva in her new life in Sweden.

 

                                                                               

                                                                             

Timbuktu done..

 And back in Bamako briefly before setting off shortly for other northward climes... the above is an admirable attempt by someone at the UN to beautify, with a little fountain in a plastic wash basin, the new 'airport' in Timbuktu, which is now situated in a large prefab after the destruction of the airport building a couple of months ago during a Jihadist attack.  I nearly did not get on the flight- it is getting virtually impossible now and I had to plead with my friend the Governor of Timbuktu (see the very first entry to this  journal...) to arrange a place for me to return to Bamako. He did. Al hamdullillah, and here I  find myself, after a challenging visit to the team in Timbuktu as always... More later. The nature is so different: here the plane leaves Timbuktu where not a drop of rain has fallen, and it arrives in a verdant rainy season  Bamako...

More soon...

Uncertainties

An early morning view of the River Niger from the balcony of the Swedish Residence.
I am so lucky to stay here now, although Eva is on holiday- I will see her for the  last week of my stay in Mali at the end of the month  and that will be the very last time in this place which has occupied such an important position  in my universe during  the last 5 years: Eva is now retiring.

I wish I could write freely about my plans and and movements, but alas it would be foolish...I spent last night at the American Club in Bamako where they were having a belated Independence Day celebration. There I conferred with Paul Chandler, a interesting American who knows a lot about Mali and how to get from A to B using unorthodox methods because he organizes music festivals all over the country, mostly in inaccessible places. He put me in touch with various people who will hopefully be able to get me to Timbuktu and back by traditional means, since the UN flights are becoming virtually impossible to board. I spent most of Friday at the airport trying to get on a flight to Timbuktu, but was told to come back and try again after the weekend. So that is what I will do tomorrow morning of course. But failing that, I will get there by other means of which i cannot speak until I am happily back again..and I may not say much while I am there either, since I do not want to draw attention to myself. So please bear with me in what may be a week or so of radio silence. I am in touch with Cat, the new ambassador  at the British Embassy.

The Pulse of Bamako

Although there are no posters up yet of the candidates for the first round of the Presidential elections, people talk of very little else here.
 I have to travel around  in the yellow Bamako taxis for a large part of the day as I am shuttling around the capital trying to arrange everything- between UNESCO's head office;  the Post office to send off MaliMali stuff; the electronic hard wear shops of  'le Grand Marche' to buy computers and printers etc to move into the new studio in the Al Aquib library in Timbuktu; the 'Maison Africaine de la Photographie' to arrange for the exhibition which we will have to celebrate the end of the Djenne Projects in December; the American Club to watch some world cup matches, and, just to put the icing on the cake, the swish office of Madame Diallo, the Minister of Culture centre below, in the company of Cat, the new British Ambassador:

 And every time I ask the driver who he will vote for. My fellow passengers in the taxis are also up for a political discussion.What seems to be an interesting choice is Cheik Modibo Diarra, top above, the ex Prime Minister under Diankounda Traore, the interim President after the coup who eventually sacked him: not because he had done anything wrong, on the contrary, he was working quite hard trying to prevent wrong-doing, but that  can be very inconvenient of course...
Diarra is a Malian hero- an astrophysicist who worked at Nasa. He has now teamed up with the only other credible politician in Mali as far as my fellow Taxi passengers are concerned (and I totally agree with them): Moussa Mara, below,  another ex Prime Minister who has a flawed record, but not because of corruption, nepotism or any of the usual ministerial vices.

 But  he sanctioned the reckless attack to reclaim  Kidal by the Malian Army which ended in disaster in May 2014. Some would say he was absolutely justified in this attempt, others would call it a display of shocking lack of judgement. In either case, it could perhaps be called an act of misplaced patriotism- and it must be said that he had the majority of Malians behind him in his decision...

Diarra is an independent, and Moussa Mara has his party called 'Yelema'. Now it appears that Diarra has teamed up with Mara who is backing his candidature, under the banner of Yelema. Many, including me, feel quite excited about this team...and some say that failing that, they would support IBK for a second term... better the devil you know, perhaps? I have not spoken to anyone yet who is backing Soumi- Soumaila Cisse, the main opposition to IBK- but of course they are many. But my fellow passengers are voicing the opinion 'Ala k'an Kissi!' (May God protect us...) Indeed.

A letter from the Minister of Culture

And a very gratifying one too...
It was addressed to the Village Chief of Djenne and leaked to me from a source inside the Ministry who wants to remain anonymous. This should finally put an end to the continuous rumblings of discontent which have plagued the Djenne Manuscript Projects from the very beginning of the digitization work in 2008 when I was first asked by the Djenne population to get involved and try and find them some funding.   A faction in town, led by the semi illiterate Village Chief, hostile to the Djenne Manuscript Library, have done all in their power to try and put a stop to the projects, spreading rumours that the British Library are stealing manuscripts and making vast fortunes on the back of the Djenne population's  manuscripts without paying anything back. (See Blog entry 'Let me have a good Gripe' on  August 31).

It appears that during a ministerial visit to Djenne in March, the village chief thrust a letter into the hand of the Minister of Culture- a very pleasant lady who has been educated in Canada and speaks perfect English- which once more demanded the immediate closure of the Library and the return of all the hard drives containing the digitization material claiming that it was illegal. The letter above is her reply, finally sent in late  May, which was just leaked to me:

this is my translation:

Subject: Your letter of the 14^th of March 2018

To the Village Chief of Djenne:

Sir,

I acknowledge receipt of your letter, referenced  above, concerning the hard drives from the Djenne Manuscript Library.

I inform you that the said hard drives have been handed over to the National Archives of Mali, during a solemn ceremony in the presence of the manuscript owners of Djenne; representatives of the Imam of Djenne; of the previous Village Chief and of many other notables amongst whom were the Deputy Secretary of the Malian Presidency; the ambassadors of Great Britain, of Sweden and of Germany. The hard drives are preserved at the National Archives of Mali and put at the disposal of students and researchers to be exploited in their study.

The digitisation of manuscripts, which is a legal act, is an efficient means of safeguarding and preserving ancient document collections.

I assure you of the accessibility of these hard drives at the National Institution and I invite you to trust in my continued collaboration.

The Minister of Culture

 

 So let's hope that this puts an end to it...

The Dozo and the Fulani

                                                                             
On Saturday 23rd of June 32 Fulani herdsmen were assassinated in the village of Koumaga in the Circle of Djenne according to Reuters. The Malian government gives the figure as 16. 'Murdered in cold blood' writes Malijet. It appears they were attacked by the Dozo, the traditional hunters.

This is an escalation of a new situation that I reported in this  blog on March 29th - Stuck in Sevare.
This serious  incident is reported as tribal feuding because of ancient gripes concerning rights of grazing and cultivation. This is not entirely the truth of the matter: It goes deeper than that.
The Malian state presence is virtually nil in Central Mali which has led to a  break down in law and order. The Dozo have taken up their antiquated weapons in an attempt to protect their village populations from the attacks by those Fulani that adhere to the Macina group- which now goes under the name of  JNIM since March 2017 it when it  merged with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine and al-Mourabitoun . The Malian government is now accused of encouraging the Dozo,  and indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians are taking place- on both side of the conflict.
The BBC described Saturday's attack as follows:  'The hunters, known locally as "Dozo", surrounded the village in the Mopti region and separated members of the Fula ethnic group from the other villagers before killing them.'
These Dozo hunters have normally served more of a ceremonial purpose in the villages during peaceful times, but in the current climate of increasing insecurity they have taken it upon themselves to act as a vigilante militia.

There is no doubt that this crisis is escalating in central Mali. But it may be worth looking at  northern Nigeria, : An article from July 16th 2016 throws light on a similar  feud  multiplying in a frightening manner at  the approximate time of the rise of the 'Front de Liberation de Macina.' in Central Mali:
http://venturesafrica.com/understanding-the-fulani-herdsmen-crisis-in-nigeria-what-you-need-to-know/

 'Before now, the herdsmen have been known to wreak havoc in certain communities in Nigeria, but now, the rate at which they commit these crimes has increased exponentially. According to statistics provided by the Institute for Economics and Peace, 1,229 people were killed in 2014, up from 63 in 2013 and Benue State seems to be the hardest hit in recent times.'
The article goes on to ask:
'Are Boko Haram members mistaken for the Fulani herdsmen?'
 Interestingly, the Macina Group have been called 'Mali's Boko Haram'. The Nigerian article goes on to report that

 'in the heat of the herdsmen crisis, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, advised Nigerians to stop attributing ethnicity and religion to the Fulani Herdsmen crisis, citing that such actions are not peculiar to the Fulanis.'

It is a little disingenuous of the  Sultan of Sokoto to is pretend  that these clashes have nothing to do with ethnicity. In doing so he is disregarding  a crucial ingredient in this scenario, specific to West Africa:
The Sultan of Sokoto  is traditionally a Fulani, and the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria was founded at the jihad of the Fulani War in 1809 by Usman dan Fodio. This was one of the first in the wave of  jihads that swept across west Africa in the nineteenth century with the dual purpose of purifying Islam and gaining political power.  The most important manifestation of this surge of Fulani power and influence in Mali was  Sekou Amadou's Fulani Empire of Macina: from its conquest of Djenne in 1819  to its demise by Scheik Oumar Tall, the crusading founder of another theocratic empire in 1862.
The rise of the Macina Liberation Front in Central Mali was directly inspired by the nineteenth century Fulani empires.  Whether the terrifying escalation of the Fulani attacks in northern Nigeria has anything to do with a harking back to the glory days of the Sokoto Caliphate is not proved but worth more than a fleeting thought. 
Maybe the time has come to stop  describing these phenomenons just as  as inter tribal clashes for grazing lands? Do we need to look at how the past influences the present in this particular instance?