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86 CHAPTER 2were the French colonial ‘darlings’. In terms more appropriate to the US-RDA;they were the ‘vanguard of French neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism’.To the postcolonial Malian Government, the Kel Tamasheq were just as‘white’ as they had been to the colonial administration. However, where thelatter appreciated their ‘whiteness’ positively, the Malian Government saw it asa sign of ‘otherness’ and as a threat. In postcolonial Mali discourse on race wasfurther complicated by a collapsing or superimposing of the ideas of ‘nomad’and ‘sedentary’ as identity markers on the previously described discursive registersof race. This becomes evident in the indiscriminate use of the terms‘nomads’ and ‘whites’ by the Government and by the population when talkingabout the Kel Tamasheq. Tamasheq and Arab ‘whiteness’ is now partly definedby their nomadic way of life. ‘Nomad’ and ‘white’ are interchangeable in formingone identity as ‘other’. In contrast, the terms ‘farmers’ and ‘blacks’ remainused separately by both those who are indicated by these terms, i.e. Maliansedentary societies, and by the Kel Tamasheq themselves. On the other hand,‘black’ and ‘slave’ seem interchangeable derogatory terms used by the KelTamasheq from the upper strata of society to denote all who are not ‘their kindof people’. In other words, the lower caste members of Tamasheq society itself,but also members of other societies in Mali. In the 1950s and in the first yearsafter independence, Malian political leaders made it quite clear that theyperceived the Kel Tamasheq, their ‘whiteness’ and their way of life as aproblem. This was because in the mind of the ruling US-RDA elite, the KelTamasheq had been colonial favourites because of their ‘whiteness’, which hadgiven them a misplaced superiority complex.Let us now look at the impact of racial discourse on the perception the KelTamasheq, especially the Kel Adagh, had of the newly independent MalianGovernment. This discourse has been shaped mainly in the early post-colonialperiod. By contrasting the independent Malian regime to the colonial regime Iargue that contrary to most people in West Africa, or Africa in general, or evencontrary to the experience of other Tamasheq tribes and federations, the KelAdagh appreciation of the colonial period is rather positive. Understanding thisinverse of the general logic and history of contemporary Africa is crucial inunderstanding the events under discussion. The racist dimension is in a wayonly secondary in importance to this main inversion of historical perception.The following is still hard to believe for those who are brought up with anAfrican historiography in the service of the construction of national identities, ahistoriography prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, and one that still affects muchpresent-day scholarship. This historiography depicts colonial times as the epitomeof an African nightmare. At present, the Kel Adagh see colonial times asbetter days, as a golden age.