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MALI’S MISSION CIVILISATRICE 131The ‘nomad problem’ that the Keita Regime perceived to have, mainlyconsisted of inherited colonial perceptions of the nomadic populations and of anegative appreciation of nomad social economy as counter to modernity. It canbe summarised as follows: The nomad practices an irrational pastoral mode ofproduction, the results of which are illegally exported; there are deficits incereals due to the non-existence of agricultural practice; there are further deficitsin basic needs as the nomad population is basically unproductive; theyhave a lack of formal education; they are still ruled by traditional chiefs, insteadof organised US-RDA party structures; and, last but not least, nomadic existenceitself makes effective administration and development of these backwardpopulations impossible. In James Scott’s terms: Their mobility made them illegibleto the administration. 40The new Malian administration was determined to solve ‘the nomad problem’.Believing in modern technique, rational production, socialism, and, aboveall, the malleability of the human condition, the new regime was determined toput the Sahara to use and civilise its population. The regime was convinced thatagriculture was possible in the Sahara; that the Kel Tamasheq could and shouldbe sedentarised and educated; and that they should take up farming and ranching,instead of wandering around and counting their heads of cattle.In order to rationalise the pastoral economy and to socialise the nomads theKeita Regime made the sedentarisation of nomadic populations one of its maingoals in Northern Mali. Material found in the Kidal Cercle archives indicatesthat sedentarisation projects were indeed high on the local agenda during theKeita Regime. In reports to their superiors, local administrators on Arrondissementand Cercle level paid much attention to the topic. But in assessing theoutcome of the effort, it is hard to discern between discourse and practice.Reading administrative reports from the Keita period is similar to reading acommunist manifesto. Much paper is used in phraseology; far less is used togive concrete results. No figures are given on sedentarised nomads. Nevertheless,existing material draws at least a rough outline. Sedentarisation policieswere non-existent prior to the 1963 revolt, despite the regime’s rhetoric. Thesedentarisation process gained impetus after the revolt was over in 1964, andgained more speed at the end of the Keita Regime in 1967. It can only beguessed whether the growing numbers of sedentarised nomads were due to theregime’s efforts, or to the then already rising deficit in rainfall, culminating inthe drought of 1973. The regime’s success in settling the nomads in the Kidalarea seems to have been restricted to the central Arrondissement of Kidal itself,and the Arrondissement of Boughessa, where the Wadi Telabit and the proximityof the Tigharghar Mountains, with their more permanent water sources,40Scott, J. 1998: 2-3.