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RACE, STEREOTYPES AND POLITICS 103Sudan. I was free! I sold my clothes to pay for my journey to Khartoum. Uponarrival I had no clothes and no money left. I left naked and on foot for my village inSenegal. I made the journey sometimes by train, mostly on foot, stopping and workingto pay for my travels. 81The case of Awad el Djouh and his accusations of being sold by MohamedAli are less straightforward then they seemed in the press. Mohamed Ali vehementlydenied the accusations in letters he wrote to his relatives and friends inthe Goundam area. 82 According to Mohamed Ali, he had known Awad, orAwaten as he had been called in Gourma Rharous, since his childhood, as hehad been brought up among the Kel Intessar, but he had not employed him. Hehad met him again in Bamako in 1948, where Awaten had worked, but wherehe now lived in destitution. Awad had asked Mohamed Ali to take him backhome to Gourma Rharous, which Mohamed Ali did. From there he had followedhim to Mecca on Mohamed Ali’s expenses, after which he worked forthe Saudi Minister of Defence (Prince Faysal) to pay back his travel debts toMohamed Ali. The last bit seems to concord with Awad’s own explanation, butwith the difference that this was not to pay his return journey, but to repay hisjourney coming. Also, Awad stressed in the interview that he had been treatedwell; he had even eaten from the same plate as Mohamed Ali during thejourney, which indicates a relation of equality rather than one of subservience.Normally a master would not eat from the same dish as a slave. According toMohamed Ali, Awad’s former patron from Gourma Rharous, Akounkoun, hadvisited him in Mecca, had been lodged by Awad and had given Awad somemoney in return. Everyone from Goundam and Gourma Rharous, in short, knewabout Awad’s whereabouts. According to Mohamed Ali, Awad had to flee fromMecca because he had started an affair with one of Faysal’s concubines.How could I have forced Awaten to leave Bamako or Goundam without him filing acomplaint? How can one think that I could have sold him here a long time ago8182“Voici le dossier de l’esclavage en Afrique”, Paris Presse 31/05/1955. It is suggestedin this article that the quote is taken from Afrique Nouvelle, 18/09/1954.There is no Afrique nouvelle isued at that date and none of the articles on thissubject found in Afrique nouvelle give exactly these words. Thus, it seems a ratherloose interpretation of Awad’s initial interviews.A series of letters written in Arabic in Mecca by Mohamed Ali to his relatives inGoundam, and which he had given to a pilgrim from Goundam on his way backhome, were confiscated by Marcel Cardaire who functioned as French hajj agentduring the 1956 pilgrimage, who had them translated and sent to Bamako andGoundam. ACG.