Mali

So it’s 22 September at the landlocked nation of Mali is celebrating its national day—and, yes, it is the anniversary of their 1960 independence from France. Don’t get it mixed up with Malawi—they’re in very different regions. Mali is in Western Africa, and the country goes right into the Sahara—the area that is now Mali was once part of three West African empires in control of trans-Saharan trade—the Ghana Empire, the Songhai Empire and, of course, the Mali Empire. (The trade was in gold, salt and other precious stuff… for anyone who doubts the preciousness of salt, there’s an excellent fairy tale about a daughter giving her father, the king, salt… while he doesn’t appreciate it at first, of course he at last realises the true worth of the stuff—and his daughter. It’s a Lear/Cordelia type of story.) After Europeans started establishing sea routes, the trans-Saharan trade routes sort of fell by the wayside.

And then Mali was one of the countries that ended up under French control during the Scramble for Africa—it used to be known as French Sudan. Just prior to independence, Mali and Senegal got together to become the Mali Federation in 1959. The Mali Federation gained independence from France on 20 June in 1960, but then Senegal withdrew—and of course Senegal is now an independent nation—and on 22 September Mali got to celebrate independence all over again, as—well, Mali.

So the first president—Modibo Keïta—was keen on the one-party state, socialist in its leanings. Eight years later, following economic decline (something I imagine no-one wants to think about today…) there was a military coup. Bloodless, though. That’s something. The new regime, with Moussa Traoré in control, tried to turn things around. They were hindered by a long, harsh drought—from 1968 until 1974—student agitation, as well as three attempted coups. But its not like the government—a military regime after all—was dreadfully put upon. Until the late 1980s, dissenters were repressed.

1991 saw another coup, and then in 1992 the first democratic, multi-party elections were held in the country. The two presidents that have served since then—Konaré and Touré have seen the country become one of the more stable countries in Africa.

Today’s Malian poem is by Siriman Cissoko—he actually lived in Senegal, but was born in Mali.


O Earth, from Ressac de nous-mêmes

I have laid them
my dead
in the gentleness of your loved breasts
there where the waterfalls wash the feet
of the cliffs
Keep them
o earth
keep in the folds of your clay
keep the bones of my brothers.

Often in the evening
I shall go and weep for them there
at the hour when the heart
draws arpeggios
across the koras
of dream.

And if one day the wind of liberty
came breathing after me
on your mountains and dunes
your rivers and plains
o earth
let it cradle
and rock
my brothers
heroes whose flesh was torn
and who are dead that liberty might live.

—Siriman Cissoko