ASC-075287668-2887-01

216 CHAPTER 5lim world and the new directions of Muslim thought in the 19 th and 20 th centuries,which were known in colonial times as Wahhabism, a term which hasrecently resurfaced to denote ‘fundamentalist Islam’. This particular currentwithin reformist Islam gained tremendous popularity in Northern Mali after thedroughts. 56 Not only Western NGOs became active in the region. MuslimNGOs such as Secours Islamique became just as active. Although locally theywere sometimes mockingly referred to as ONG-Mosqué, the impact of theseNGOs remains largely underestimated. The majority of ishumar was confrontedwith developments in the Muslim world as well in their Maghreb diaspora.Although it should be said that the Teshumara has a profoundly worldlycharacter, some ishumar were nevertheless influenced by Muslim ways ofthinking. The Kel Adagh, who until the 1980s formed the majority of ishumar,had always been renowned in the Tamasheq world as pious and learnedMuslims. Their piousness and Muslim learning had originally given them theirstatus and place in the overall hierarchy of the Tamasheq community. Even atpresent, piety and punctuality in ritual performance form an important part oftheir identity. It is no wonder that some of the most influential members of theTanekra nationalist movement stressed the importance for Muslim ideas onsocial organisation and the restructuring and rebuilding of Tamasheq society.A more important alternative to the Teshumara was the path of formal education.In colonial times, completion of primary education was the end of one’seducation, as the French did not allow the Kel Tamasheq to study further,because they thought this would alienate the Kel Tamasheq from their naturalenvironment and life as pastoralists. This changed in independent Mali. Insideand outside the Adagh and Azawad, the number of Tamasheq Lycéens rose overthe years. A number of these Lycéens managed to enter higher education inMali at Bamako’s Ecole Nationale Supérieure or the Ecole Nationale del’Administration. Only the Ecole Nationale Inter-Armes – the Malian militaryacademy – remained closed to them, as the regime still feared the possibleeffects of well-trained Kel Tamasheq soldiers on the security of the state. Alarge number of Kel Tamasheq pursued higher education outside Mali, mostlyin Algeria, but sometimes as far away as Khartoum, Nouakchott, France, Westand East Germany, or the USSR. The educated could join the civil service orthey could offer their services to Western or Muslim NGOs, which abounded inNorthern Mali after the droughts. These Kel Tamasheq also lived in cities, wereexposed to new cultures and ways of thinking, new consumer goods, and formsof organisation. But the outcome would be totally different from the Teshumaraexperience. Whereas the ishumar would develop a more and more radical politicaloutlook, calling for revolution and independence, the educated Kel Tama-56Triaud, J-L. 1986.