The Political Emancipation of the Idaksahak

1. Political emancipation at the beginning of the tribe?

Reflection on the notion of tribe based on the demands of the Idaksahak (Northern Mali)

This text proposes to examine the link between the political emancipation of a social group, nomadic herders from north-eastern Mali who bear the name Idaksahak, and the recognition of this group as a tribe. If, as Yazid Ben Hounet suggests, we retain the existence of an autonomous political order as one of the fundamental criteria of what a tribe would be, a question arises: could a subordinate group that is subject to the authority (or dependent) of another group be recognized as a tribe?

Beyond genealogical references, the question of the name or the notions of alliance and solidarity, already widely treated by anthropological literature, it is the question of political autonomy that will be highlighted here to re-examine the notion of tribe, in a contemporary context and in the southern part of the Sahara, north-eastern Mali.

Social and political configurations in the Sahara have very often been presented, and still are, by the media as well as by academic productions, as aggregations of tribes, linked to each other by complex and highly hierarchical relationships. Behind the adjective 'complex' always hide singular histories, where the hierarchical order within and between social groups is never stable. At best it is stabilized, for a time. The balance of power, which determines the place and role of some in relation to others, is constantly readjusted, sometimes overturned, in favor of new demands against the (pre)established order. The social, economic and political relations that, internally as well as externally, found tribes, make them emerge, endure or disappear, are in permanent recomposition.

The Idaksahak, a group of nomadic herders living in the Ménaka and Gao regions (north-eastern Mali), distinguish themselves from their close neighbors by the singularity of their language, a kind of sabir, borrowing words from Tamasheq, Songhay, some also from French and even English. This linguistic criterion has been widely highlighted for about ten years to mark their specificity and difference from the Tuaregs (Kel Tamasheq, 'those of the Tamasheq language', according to vernacular terminology).

Most of them speak Tamasheq perfectly, but in public meetings, more and more speakers insist on expressing themselves in their language, Tadaksahak. The words are then interpreted into other languages depending on the other participants. In the Ménaka region, the Idaksahak are the most numerous and economically wealthiest, but have never truly occupied the political forefront.

Therefore, the contemporary history of this group offers a great opportunity to re-question the concept of tribe. Indeed, since the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s and even more since 2012 – the resumption of an armed insurrection, this time much more violent, more widespread and longer – the Idaksahak are emerging on the local and sub-regional political scene. They now claim positions of power they have never held. Also because they had never really sought them before. If a tribe is defined by the existence of an autonomous political order within it, by an internal space of sovereignty, the analysis of the emancipation process initiated by the Idaksahak since the 1990s could be rich in lessons.

Several questions will thus be (re)formulated in the light of the singular history of this group, which will be approached through representations produced by the Idaksahak themselves, by their neighbors, as well as by external observers (European explorers, colonial administrators, researchers and media).

2. The Idaksahak as they see themselves

How do the Idaksahak define themselves? What terms do they use, in their own language (Tadaksahak), to say what they are? Do they also use Tamasheq, Arabic or French terms? I had the opportunity to ask them directly. The documents they produce themselves also provide answers.

"We are a tawset². That is our category, that is what we say. In French, we can say the 'Dawsahaq people' as we say the 'Kel Tamasheq people'. We also use the word community. 'The Idaksahak community', that is what we use in our statements."³

On the Facebook page dedicated to the Idaksahak, the following sentence is highlighted: "The Idaksahak community is one of the great tribes of Northern Mali."⁴

People, community, tribe… these terms from the French language are mobilized in turn by the Idaksahak without any real effort at definition and without the use of one seeming to exclude the use of the others. Like academic authors, the people concerned oscillate in finding the right words to say what they are.

Let us instead open the question of the group's status and the existence or not of an autonomous political order within it, to understand what these people who answer to the name Idaksahak are or would like to be.

In the Sahara and the Sahel, as in many other regions of the world, the status and rank that social groups seek to maintain, or to conquer, depend to a large extent on the place they claim in history. It begins with the origins of the group and, therefore, with the stories associated with them, which are constantly readjusted according to the context. For example, during my first research carried out in 1994 in the Ménaka area...

"The name 'IDAKSAHAK'⁶ that the community of the same name gives itself, certainly comes from a contraction of the word IDD-AGG ISHAK. The neighboring communities call them DAW-SAHAK or DAW-ISHAK, depending on the pronunciation of the term ISHAK, a proper name whose connotation is rather Songhay and not Arabic ISHAQ from the Koran or ISAAC from the Bible. It could therefore be a reference to the name of a king, namely ISHAK I, Songhai Emperor of the Middle Ages."⁷

3. What do the Idaksahak say about themselves today?

"Idaksahak, an economically rich and religiously educated community. Idaksahak, a Tuareg community that speaks Tadaksahak different from Tamasheq."⁸

This is the slogan that scrolls in capital letters on the home page of the Idaksahak website. The logo that adorns all the sections of the site, as well as the Facebook page and other communication media, is equally instructive: in the foreground, a seated man reads, certainly Quranic study, a white sword stands out against his dark silhouette. In the background, two adult dromedaries and their young complete the scene. From words to drawing, the self-image that the Idaksahak have chosen to broadcast to the world brings together all the qualities to live well and gain respect in the Sahara and the Sahel: economic wealth, through the practice of camel herding; religious education and the handling of weapons.

One characteristic, and not the least, is missing from the logo: the demographic weight of the Idaksahak⁹. It nevertheless appears in the sentence, already mentioned and highlighted on the Facebook home page: "The Idaksahak community is one of the great tribes of Northern Mali. It is estimated at one hundred thousand."¹⁰

This estimate, unreferenced to a source, is certainly overestimated. Nevertheless, in the Ménaka region, where they live mainly, they are, compared to other social groups, the most numerous, by far¹¹. This detail is of certain importance if related to the fact that since 1992, the election of deputies to the National Assembly and, since 1999, that of mayors, has been by direct universal suffrage.

Economic wealth, through livestock farming in particular, but also trading activities based on a vast exchange network mobilizing a large diaspora in neighboring countries (Algeria, Niger, Libya) and even in Saudi Arabia, is beyond doubt. It is constantly highlighted when the Idaksahak speak about themselves.

The religious education of the entire group is also a fundamental characteristic of self-presentation. It constitutes, together with herding and trade, the second keystone of the group.

"We are the only community, that I know in the north, which follows both its economy and its religion at the same time. We study and we work at the same time! Whereas among others, those who study do not work! And those who work do not study!"¹²

4. The image of a subordinate and peaceful group

The presence of a weapon on the logo intended to define the main features of the Idaksahak identity contrasts with the peaceful dimension they have long highlighted to define themselves vis-à-vis others. Some members of the group still insist on this specificity today. Here is, for example, how a man in his sixties, from the Kel Abakott fraction, answered the question 'what characterizes the Idaksahak?':

"For me, what characterizes us, all the time, is that we are a people of peace, who only take care of religion and livestock. We do not get involved in other things. And that is why people do not talk much about us. We did not participate in wars, nor in raids, nor in banditry. We did not participate in any of that."¹⁵

Ahmed Mohamed Ag Guidi also emphasizes, in his written document, the non-violent nature of the Idaksahak, even in a context of almost permanent danger:

"The IDAKSAHK, a peaceful people, did not respond to aggression, even very intentional, except in cases of deliberate humiliation or obvious provocation. This community had always opted for non-violence aimed essentially at safeguarding their economic base from a permanent risk of destruction in a cultural context of raids and counter-raids."¹⁶

The essentialist dimension obviously hovers over these speeches, as is always the case when trying to define the identity of one's own group. Singularities, rough edges and contradictions are erased in favor of unitary narratives. But self-presentation is also always rich in lessons. 'A people of peace who take care of their religion…', but a group that has never benefited from the status of a 'maraboutic' tribe (zwâya), as is the case for example with the Kel Es-Suq Tuaregs or the Kunta Arabs¹⁷. The Idaksahak, although very educated in Islam – this is moreover the main reason they invoke in their refusal of the White man's school and that of the Malian state – never really obtained this recognition. As far as they are concerned, the peaceful character rhymes above all with a subordinate status.

5. "We traded our goats for Kalashnikovs!"

For most of their neighbors, indeed, the Idaksahak remain a subordinate group, still under the yoke, or at least the influence, of those who were the political and war leaders of the Niger Loop up to and including the Adagh of the Ifoghas, for more than two centuries, the Iwellemmedan¹⁸.

The Idaksahak were far from being the only ones to recognize, willingly or by force, the political authority of the Iwellemmedan. But as far as they are concerned, and unlike other groups, this subordinate status was all the more obvious since the Idaksahak do not seem to have really carried weapons, at least war weapons, such as swords, spears and shields¹⁹. This in fact placed them under the protection and dependence of other warrior groups, in this case the Imajeghen Iwellemmedan, and more specifically the lineage holding the command drum (ettebel), the Kel Talatayt.

The sword that appears today symbolically on their presentation logo therefore refers to a very recent history. The oldest available sources that mention the Idaksahak indeed insist on the peaceful nature of this social group. This is the case, for example, of the Kunta marabout Shaykh Baye who wrote, towards the end of the 19th century, notes on ancient Tuareg tribes:

"The Dû Sahâq are a people of the Tuaregs. It is certain that originally they were Sûdân, because their speech (kalâm) is composed of the words (kalâm) of the Sûdân²⁰ and the Tuaregs. And among them there is a tribe which traces its origins to the East. They are all people of peace and study. Most of them live with the Ilmidan [Iwellemmedan]. It is obvious that they are tribes of Es-Suq. Between them and the Dabâkir there are relations."²¹

6. Weapons for self-defense

Subsequently, to my knowledge, the colonial archives mention no military action on the part of the Idaksahak. It is always the image of a peaceful and cattle-rich group that is reported in the reports of French officers. It was only after Mali's independence, in 1963-1964, that Idaksahak distinguished themselves in a war episode. It concerns the revolt led by a handful of men in the Adagh des Ifoghas, in which two Idaksahak from the Talatayt area, Ilias and Younes, two sons of Ayouba, the head of the Ihanakaten fraction³², took part. Close to the chief of the Ifoghas at that time³³, Zeïd ag Attaher, these two young Idaksahak actively contributed to this revolt, notably through financial support that enabled the purchase of weapons in Algeria³⁴.

Ilias and Zeyd were arrested in Algeria, in Colomb-Béchar, in November 1963. They were handed over to the Malian authorities who exposed them to humiliating situations in front of the populations of the Adagh. As an example! Arrested with them, Younes managed to escape and settled in Algeria. Ayouba, the father, was arrested and murdered, like other chiefs who did not agree to collaborate with the Malian army.

The participation of these two individuals alone is certainly not enough to mark this date and this event as an armed action by the Idaksahak. But the identity of these young men is nevertheless symbolically important. Their commitment alongside the insurgent Kel Adagh, and the repression they suffered, along with their father, mark the first act of a conflictual relationship between the Idaksahak and the Malian central power.

7. The rebellion of the 1990s and its limits

A first awakening, no doubt, that the posture of the peaceful herder, attached to Quranic study, was not an insurmountable horizon. In hindsight, we now know the lineage of armed rebellions, which have erupted and re-erupted regularly since 1963 in northern Mali³⁵. This is particularly true between the 1963 episode and that of 1990. The bitterness of the orphans of 1963 against the Malian central power is one of the well-documented matrices of the 1990s rebellion.

In his work, Baz Lecoq presents Younes ag Ayouba as one of its main leaders, at least in its preparation phase³⁶.

The commitment of several hundred Idaksahak, armed, in the 1990 rebellion marks a first step in the emancipation process of this group. Also and above all because these weapons did not target only the Malian army.

8. The confrontation of 1994

Indeed, a little-known but highly symbolic event should be recalled here. Like many communities in the Niger River valley or in pastoral areas, the Idaksahak suffered theft and looting in the first half of the 1990s. In a context of non-application of peace agreements, proliferation of weapons and lack of justice, acts of banditry multiplied and the Idaksahak's cattle were coveted by many, especially by their close neighbors, including Imajeghen.

In other words, people belonging to the former dominant and warrior class within the Iwellemmedan – whose historical role was the defense of subordinate and peaceful groups, in exchange of course for counterparts (political submission and contributions in cattle) – repeatedly took animals belonging to Idaksahak. Once they even targeted a camp and pillaged a family's household goods³⁹, about ten kilometers from the Idaksahak armed base (Izilili, about forty kilometers north-east of Ménaka).

This act, highly reprehensible from the point of view of societal values, led the same day to an armed pursuit by Idaksahak fighters present in Izilili. A series of armed clashes took place between Imajeghen and Idaksahak fighters in the following weeks, resulting in several wounded and perhaps a few dead⁴⁰. A ceasefire and an agreement were quickly reached between the two parties.

This sequence clearly marks the transition of the Idaksahak into another sociological and political dimension, that of a tribe capable of mounting its own military response when its property is threatened and looted. A transition all the more striking because it took place in direct confrontation with their former suzerains.

"This 1994 episode is historic! It is the first time that we have removed our head from under the foot of the Imajeghen. Before that, our goods were their goods. An Adaksahak was nothing in the eyes of the Imajeghen."⁴¹

9. Political visibility acquired through weapons

As announced in the introduction, it was truly from the 2010s that the Idaksahak expressed their warrior strength and political demands, both regionally, nationally and even internationally, both on the military ground and on the media and social networks. The aim here is no longer to retrace the forms of involvement of the Idaksahak in the war triggered in northern Mali in 2012, but to try to conclude this reflection on the notion of tribe, by integrating a completely contemporary historical sequence, because it is still ongoing at the time of writing these lines (October 2023).

10. Military affirmation against the Imajeghen

The 1990s certainly open a new era in the history of the Idaksahak, with the commitment of perhaps more than 2,000 fighters in a rebellion against the Malian central power and, even more so, the defense of their property by their own weapons, but the political gain of this conversion remained quite low. As the young Adksahak interviewed in 2020 points out, positions of responsibility, 'elected officials, ministers, senior officers' remained assigned to others. The desire to change this situation motivated several young graduates of the community from the resumption of hostilities against the Malian central state in 2012.

11. The Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA)

But it was above all the year 2016 that openly marked this position with the creation of the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA), by one of these young people, Moussa Ag Acharatouman. He is one of the founders of the National Movement of Azawad (MNA), an organization of young graduates from the North which, from 2010, tried to challenge the state and the leaders of the North on the question of Azawad, its autonomy and its governance. With the choice of armed struggle in January 2012, the MNA became the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

12. Young Idaksahak in jihadism

The crisis and armed conflicts triggered from 2012 also reveal much more complex situations than an opposition between independentist movements and the central power of the Malian state. Loyalist militias and armed groups are also among the protagonists of the conflict, as well as several jihadist movements. Now it happens that a part of the Idaksahak youth, certainly a minority but well present, adhered very early to the jihadist offer, through the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and also the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS).

An autonomous political order?

This last observation, of a historical sequence still in progress, reopens the question of the solidarity ties supposed to define, with other elements, the structure and internal functioning of a tribe. The idea that members of a tribe, by virtue of their blood and kinship ties, and by their inscription in a common history, would mobilize as one man in a conflict situation, should be largely weighted.

Work on very contemporary history, or the 'present time', certainly also makes it possible to reconsider truths that are sometimes stated too quickly about the unitary, solidary and coherent character of the tribe. The existence or not of an autonomous political order, with its internal forces of contradiction, therefore seems to me a much more fruitful question if one seeks to re-examine the notion of tribe, here in the southern part of the Sahara at the beginning of the 21st century. The contemporary experience of the Idaksahak undoubtedly opens up new avenues to explore.

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