ASC-075287668-2887-01

RACE, STEREOTYPES AND POLITICS 113in numbers and their tenure is as symbolic as their ‘estates’ are enormous. 107This is not at all to say that nomads do not have any form of spatial organisationor land tenure. On the contrary, land tenure systems are specific and elaborated.But land tenure is only significant in economic organisation, not in social organisationor identity. Tamasheq groups might have the right to use certainareas first, or they might ‘own’ a well they have dug, but they cannot simplyforbid others to cross this area or to use this well. Trespassing does not existbecause of the absence of land that has been divided up and legally distributed.One’s position in space and landownership are crucial to the sedentary mind,but insignificant to the nomad with respect to belonging and social organisation(but very significant in land use itself). ‘Who you are’ is defined through‘whom you are related to’. This fundamental difference in spatiality might wellexplain why sedentary governments (and there are no others) are inclined to seenomads as anarchist. They do not stick to one place, they own no land, thus theyhave no space and they are therefore unorganised and asocial.EpilogueThe social-political relations between the Kel Tamasheq and the Governmentand broader populace of Mali became governed by a set of preconceived stereotypednegative images of the other which were created in the colonial period,but which were largely based in ideas and images with much longer historicalstanding. Essentially, the Malian Government came to see Tamasheq society asinherently racist with a divide between unscrupulous white masters able to selltheir black slaves into servitude in the Middle East, inherently anarchist perforcetheir nomad way of life, and prone to violence and military rebellionagainst the authorities. That the Kel Tamasheq were also seen as lazy andirrational in their economic endeavours will be dealt with at great length in thenext chapter. In turn, the Kel Tamasheq, certainly the Kel Adagh, saw theMalian Government if not directly as black slaves, then at least as the untrustworthydeceiving descendants of slaves who had not kept their promises regardinghome rule and local autonomy for the Kel Tamasheq, and who unjustlyand unrightfully sought to rule where they had no right to do so. These visionswould form a major handicap in the effective political relations between the KelTamasheq and the Malian Government that will be the focus of the nextchapter.107 I here follow the interpretation of the etymology of the term amenokal given byDida, B. 2010.