Global Media and Local Verbal Art Representations of Northern Malian Tuareg

Abstract

Abstract:This article offers a critique of widely disseminated portrayals of northern Malian Tuareg by outside media, which tend to portray all Tuareg as warriors and criminals and to project pseudo-scientific concepts of “race” onto relationships between Tuareg and other Malians, recalling the now discredited colonial “Hamitic Myth” in Rwanda. It also analyzes local oral historical accounts that present themes of Mali as both a protected fortress and welcoming crossroads, a country that both resists and absorbs intruders, and that also express concepts of identity based on language, culture, and flexible social affiliation. The article is based partly on interviews with internationally known local musicians who function as mediating “third voices,” and concludes with a discussion of wider implications of these findings for notions of voice, authority, and the mutual construction of ideas of Africa.

The Sound of Home: Tuareg Women’s Tendé Drumming in France and Belgium

“…Recall as well in an earlier chapter that the Tuareg are frequently typified as being the "white" race in Mali, in opposition to the "black" majority (Rasmussen, 2017).…”

“…In a recent article, Susan Rasmussen explores the racialized narratives of western media reports on the Tuareg, arguing that the media projects "outsiders' concepts of skin tones onto the conflict in Mali, portraying it as one between "white" Tuareg versus "black" southerners (Rasmussen, 2017 p. 79). The Tuareg are portrayed as violent, living in the past, comparing them to ethnic groups in Afghanistan or Arab populations in the Maghreb (Rasmussen, 2017). Essentialist narratives that presume Tuareg isolation in Mali ignore or are ignorant of the long historical relationships the Tuareg have with other groups in the region.…”

“…Tinariwen's music is described by one scholar as a "cult of the rebellion of all youth in exile" (Belalimat, 2010). Tuareg musicians were "fighting for peace" and this designation helped sell albums to folks in the West who wanted to show solidarity through their purchasing power (Rasmussen, 2017;White, 2012).…”

“…With the creation of the Festival of the Desert outside Timbuktu in 2001, Tinariwen soon gained an international following, their music marketed as "rebel" music and proponents of the "original" blues, a problematic moniker created arguably to make the group seem more relatable to Western audiences. Tinariwen were ishumar guitar players, former rebels in the fight for independence from Mali (Rasmussen, 2017;Belalimat, 2010;Boas & Torheim, 2013). Tinariwen means "deserts" and the desert has played an important role in their song lyrics and in their overall marketing strategy.…”

“…No doubt this has much to do with French ire at how difficult it was to "claim" the Sahara during the scramble for Africa. Since the Iraq war, there has been increasing speculation and representations of the Sahara/Sahel as a hotbed for terrorists, as many Saharans are indeed Muslim, and this impression has only deepened after the Malian coup in 2012, resulting in a resurgence of violence in northern Mali (Lecocq, 2013;Rasmussen, 2017). 13 Tuareg nobles did own slaves, however, as Susan Rasmussen explains, "slaves were absorbed into precolonial Tuareg society" (Rasmussem 2017 p. 83).…”