Islam in Mali in the neoliberal era

If before 11 September 2001, many praised Mali as a model ofdemocracy, secularism and toleration, many have now begun toexpress concern about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism inMali. I consider a number of recent public debates in Mali overmorality, so-called women’s issues, and the proposed changesin the Family Code and show how the perspectives of many Malianson these issues are not new but rather relate to longstandingand ongoing debates about Islam, secularism, politics, moralityand law. What is new is the way in which some Muslim religiousleaders have been articulating their complaints and criticisms.Since the guarantee of the freedom of expression and associationin the early 1990s, there has been a proliferation of independentnewspapers and private radio stations and new Islamic associationswith a coterie of increasingly media-savvy activists. I explorehow some Muslim activists have used such outlets to articulatethe concerns of some ordinary Malians, who face the contradictionsof living as modern Muslim citizens in a modernizing and secularizingstate where, in this age of neoliberal governmentality, theallegedly un-Islamic seems to be always just around the corner. Portions of the paper have been presented at the workshop, ‘Islam,Society and State in West Africa’, Rutgers University,New Brunswick, 29 March 2003; at the symposium, ‘Constructionand Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge in Africa’, IndianaUniversity, Bloomington, 19 April 2003; and at the conference,‘Governance and Insecurity in West Africa’, NorthwesternUniversity, 13–15 November 2003; and at UniversitätBayreuth. ^1. United States Agency for International Development, ‘Assistanceenvironment’, in USAID MALI: Country Strategic Plan 2003–2012(USAID, Bamako, Mali, 2002), p. 11. ^2. Economist Intelligence Unit, ‘The political scene’,in EIU Country Report: Mali (EIU, London, March 2002), p. 47. ^3. See Joshua Muravchik, ‘Freedom and the Arab world’,The Weekly Standard, 31 December 2001. ^4. ‘Overview’. USAID MALI: Country Strategic Plan 2003–2012(USAID, Bamako, Mali, 2002), p. 18. Such sentiments were alsoexpressed in journalistic accounts published shortly after 11September 2001. See, for example, Douglas Farah, ‘Mali’sMuslim clerics send troubling message: fragile democracy seenas vulnerable to extremism’, Washington Post, 30 September2001, p. A24; Kader Konaté, ‘Mali. Le danger islamiste’,Le Continent, 14 September 2001, p. 1. ^5. See Joan Baxter, ‘Challenging tradition’, BBC Focuson Africa Magazine, January-March 2002, pp. 48–50. Otherexamples include Nicolas Colombant, ‘Mali’s Muslimssteer back to spiritual roots’, Christian Science Monitor,26 February 2002, p. 8. ^6. These included various Western media outlets and several Maliannewspapers. ^7. James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta, ‘Spatializing states:toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality’,American Ethnologist 29, 4 (2002), pp. 981–1002. ^8. For critical perspectives on the fashionable civil society approachto ‘good governance’ in Africa, see John L. Comaroffand Jean Comaroff (eds), Civil Society and the Political Imaginationin Africa (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999);Béatrice Hibou and Richard Banégas, ‘Civilsociety and the public space in Africa’, CODESRIA Bulletin1 (2000), pp. 39–47. ^9. For example, Sunjata, the mythical founder of the medieval Malianempire, Mansa Musa, the Muslim rulers of Macina (r. nineteenthcentury), al-Hajj Umar Tall (d. nineteenth century), the Kuntashaykhs of the Timbuktu region, and Shaykh Hamallah (d. twentiethcentury), to name only some of the most prominent. ^10. For an example of how such ‘orthodoxy’ changes overtime and space in Mali, see Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Muslimproselytization as purification: religious pluralism and conflictin contemporary Mali’ in Abdallah A. An-Na’im (ed.),Proselytization and Communal Self-Determination in Africa (Orbis,Maryknoll, NY, 1999), pp. 228–45. ^11. Two studies that have received quite a bit of attention areAnna L. Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginalityin an out-of-the-way place (Princeton University Press, Princeton,NJ, 1993); Charles Piot, Remotely Global: Village modernityin West Africa (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999). ^12. See Gregory Starrett, ‘The political economy of religiouscommodities in Cairo’, American Anthropologist 97, 1 (1995),pp. 51–68. ^13. On these developments, see Robert Launay and Benjamin F. Soares,‘The formation of an "Islamic sphere" in French colonialWest Africa’, Economy and Society, 28, 4 (1999), pp. 497–519;Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Islam and public piety in Mali’,in Armando Salvatore and Dale F. Eickelman (eds), Public Islamand the Common Good (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2004);Benjamin F. Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy: History andauthority in a Malian town (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburghand the University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005). ^14. Malians with access to satellite television have a wider arrayof choices, which are hard to quantify. ^15. Some of the themes in this section are treated at greater lengthin my book, Islam and the Prayer Economy. ^16. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton, NJ, 1993). ^17. See Seydina Oumar Diarra, ‘Haut Conseil Islamique du Mali’,Info-Matin, 18 January 2002, p. 5. ^18. Benjamin F. Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy, p. 212. Seealso David Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim societiesand French colonial authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–1920(Ohio University Press, Athens, OA, 2000); David Robinson andJean-Louis Triaud (eds), Le temps des marabouts: Itinéraireset stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale françaisev.1880–1960 (Karthala, Paris, 1997). ^19. Many Malians also regularly apply diverse principles from ‘custom’,which is often referred to as laada (from the Arabic) in theregion’s vernaculars. ^20. For one example, see Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Notes on theanthropological study of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa’,Culture and Religion, 1, 2 (2000), pp. 277–85. ^21. Ahmad Uthman Bah, Diya’ al-ghasaq manzuma nasihat al-shabab(Matba’at al-najah al-jadida, Casablanca, Morocco, 1992). ^22. See, for example, Amadou Tall, Dimensions de l’Islam (DarEl Fikr, Beirut, Lebanon, 1995–1996). ^23. On Haïdara and his career, see Soares, ‘Islam andpublic piety’ and Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy.Cf. Dorothea Schulz, ‘"Charisma and Brotherhood" revisited’,Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 (2003), pp. 146–71. ^24. See Louis Brenner, Controlling Knowledge: Religion, power andschooling in a West African Muslim society (Indiana UniversityPress, Bloomington, IL, 2001). ^25. Cf. Olivier Roy (trans. C. Volk), The Failure of Political Islam(Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1994); Olivier Roy, GlobalizedIslam (Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2004). ^26. Cf. Armando Salvatore, ‘Social differentiation, moralauthority and public Islam in Egypt: the case of Mustafa Mahmud’,Anthropology Today, 6, 2 (2000), pp. 12–15. ^27. For a discussion of Haïdara and his association’srelation to Sufism and Sufi orders, see Soares, Islam and thePrayer Economy. ^28. This was also a topic of discussion in some print media. See,for example, Cheick Sidya Diombana, ‘La jeunesse et lafoi en l’Islam’, La Roue, 25 October–3 November1993, p. 5. ^29. I am grateful to Roman Loimeier for making his copy of thissign available to me. ^30. See, for example, ‘Déclaration finale des associationsislamiques du Mali concernant les valeurs islamiques et àpropos du programme d’action de Beijing rélatifaux droits des femmes’, La Roue, 22–31 January 1996,pp. 3–5. ^31. For a discussion of some of the controversy around excision,see Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund (eds), Female ‘Circumcision’in Africa: Culture, controversy, and change (Lynne Rienner,Boulder, Colorado, 2000). For campaigns against excision inMali, see Claudie Gosselin, ‘Handing over the knife: Numuwomen and the campaign against excision in Mali’, in BettinaShell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund (eds), Female ‘Circumcision’in Africa, pp. 193–214; Jean Sanou, ‘Lutte contreles mutilations génitales feminines’, Le Soudanais,22 November 2000, p. 3; Yousouf Camara, ‘Réligionet excision’, Le Tambour, 22 June 2001, p. 3; MamadouBlodin Sissok, ‘Religion et excision. Quand les chrétienss’engagent contre les mutilations génitales féminines’,Info-Matin, 29 June 2001, p. 8. ^32. See, for example, Mady M. Dembélé, ‘L’excisionest un poids des traditions, elle n’a rien de religieux’,Les Echos, 18 July 2001, p. 5. ^33. See C.H. Sylla, ‘Interview exclusive. Le Présidentdu Collectif des islamistes parle’, Le Républicain,16 May 2001, pp. 1, 4–5; Mohamed Kimbiri, ‘L’excisionau Mali. La position des musulmans’, Nouvel Horizon, 30January 2001, p. 5; Mohamed Kimbiri, ‘Interdire l’excisionest une atteinte grave’, Le Républicain, 31 January2001, p. 5. ^34. ‘Brèves’, Le Politicien Musulman, 18 March–18April 2002, p. 8. ^35. Leaflets produced and distributed by AISLAM (Association islamiquedu salut) in the author’s possession. ^36. See Mamadou Keïta, ‘Les imams à l’affûtdes jouisseurs’, Nouvel Horizon, 23 November 1998, p.4. ^37. Mohamed Kimbiri, ‘Boycottons "Miss Cedeao" ’, NouvelHorizon, 16 October 1998. See also Mamadou Keïta, ‘MissCedeao’, Nouvel Horizon, 2 November 1998, p. 5. ^38. Yoro Sow, ‘Incertitudes pour la tenue du Congrèsdes homosexuels’, Sud Info, 8 December 1999, p. 4. ^39. However, some prominent Muslim religious leaders, most notablyChérif Haïdara, would eventually take positionsin support of condom use. See Benjamin Soares, ‘Mali:Im Visier der Islamismus-Fahnder’, INAMO 41 (2005), pp.16–18. ^40. Talal Asad, ‘Religion, nation-state, secularism’,in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds), Nation andReligion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton, NJ, 1999), p. 191. ^41. Djibril Traoré, ‘El Hadji Mahmoud Dicko,’Le National, 2 October 2000, p. 5. ^42. El Hadj Mahmoud Dicko, ‘Declaration du Collectif des associationsislamiques du Mali’, Info-Matin, 7 May 2001, p. 7. Seealso El Hadj Mahmoud Dicko, ‘Déclaration’,Le Républicain, 4 May 2001, p. 7; Amara Diapy Diawara,‘Meeting du Collectif des associations musulmanes du Mali’,Info-Matin, 13 February 2001, pp. 4–5. ^43. See, for example, Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (Routledge,New York, NY, 1993); Homi Bhabha, ‘Of mimicry and man’,in The Location of Culture (Routledge, New York, NY, 1994),pp. 85–92. ^44. On this heightened sense, see Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori,Muslim Politics (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,1996). For Malian press coverage of the OCI meeting, see, forexample, ‘Organisation de la Conférence islamique.Le monde musulman’, Liberté, 3 July 2001, p. 4. ^45. See the extensive coverage of the meeting in a special editionof Le Continent, 2 February 2001. ^46. For a discussion of some of the proposed reforms and specificcontroversies, cf. Benjamin F. Soares, ‘The attempt toreform family law in Mali’, in Margot Badran (ed.), Genderand Islam in Africa (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, forthcoming);Dorothea E. Schulz, ‘Political factions, ideological fictions:the controversy over family law reform in democratic Mali’,Islamic Law and Society, 10, 1 (2003), pp. 132–64. ^47. Birama Fall, ‘Islam et politique. La colère desislamistes contre le pouvoir’, Le Républicain,23 April 2001, p. 1; Belco Tamboura, ‘Le front religieux,un front de plus pour Konaré’, L’Observateur,14 June 2001, p. 6. ^48. C. H. Sylla, ‘Code de la famille et excision. La dernièrevictoire des islamistes sur Alpha’, Le Républicain,10 June 2002, p. 5. ^49. See Christian Coulon, Le marabout et le prince: Islam et pouvoirau Sénégal (Pédone, Paris, France, 1981). ^50. Boukary Daou, ‘Code de la famille et excision. Les musulmansdisent non à Alpha’, Le Républicain, 5 June2002, p. 1. ^51. Cf. Michael Bratton, Massa Coulibaly, and Fabiana Machado, ‘Popularviews of the legitimacy of the state in Mali’, CanadianJournal of African Studies 36, 2 (2002), pp. 197–238;Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion,Democracy and Market Reform in Africa (Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 2005).