ASC-075287668-2887-01

MALI’S MISSION CIVILISATRICE 135The chief of the fraction Imrad wan Adjous is honoured to inform you that certainindividuals, (...) on their turn to work on the human investments have said to othersof the same fraction that they do not work for captives. 49The scale of human investment in the Adagh can still be seen. Reports fromtowns such as Telabit and Aguelhoc also frequently mention the creation ofschools and other buildings by ‘human investment’ and these buildings are stillstanding. The sports stadium in central Kidal – a large, walled, levelled terrainwith a terrace, a basketball field and soccer posts – was constructed in this wayas well. Ironically and perhaps to erase the bad memory, construction of thismuch used public space is now attributed by most Kel Adagh to their favouritecolonial administrator, Jean Clauzel.Educated, sedentarised, and hard working, the Kel Tamasheq would be ableto raise their living standards by supplementing their improved pastoral techniqueswith horticulture and agriculture. In September 1958 a Sudanese delegationheaded by Modibo Keita paid a ten-day visit to Israel on the invitation ofthen Minister of Foreign Affairs Golda Meir. 50 The delegation visited the Kibitzesin the Negev, which would make a lasting impression. The missionreported to the US-RDA territorial conference of October 1958, where Keitasummed up the reasons for Israeli success in desert farming as follows:This economic take off is most of all the result of belief. Belief in the ideal of theresurrection of a country, of the rehabilitation of a persecuted and shattered peoplewilling to regain its unity, which it has already gained by rallying around that whatbinds: The soil. (...) Fatherland, to them, is first and foremost land, and this notion,considered sentimental by some, makes Israel today the only socially equal and trulyindependent country in the Middle East. 51The impressions of the US-RDA mission to Israel would form the basis ofthe Malian agricultural policy, finding direct expression in the ‘Retour à laTerre’ and ‘Action Rurale’ policies proclaimed directly after the 1958 territorialconference, and strongly influencing the first five-year plan. But it would beespecially influential on the Malian ideal of desert agriculture expressed in theMalian North in the years to come. In those days the miracle of the Israelisocialist democracy and its accomplishments in desert farming served as anexample to many arid countries. It showed that fertilizing the desert, growingcitrus fruits and cereals, even in sufficient quantities for export, was possibleafter all. The Malian visitors were equally impressed. However, they forgot one495051Message RAC 11/01/1962. ACK.Affaires politiques, Soudan, Administration générale: Evolution politique (rapports,télégrammes officielles, presse) 1958-1959. ANSOM – 1affpol/2188/3.Action Rurale, Conférence Territoriale de l’Union Soudanaise 17-18-19 Octobre1958, Compte Rendu du Voyage en Israël. Imprimerie du Gouvernement, Koulouba(Soudan). ANM – RS 233.