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290 CHAPTER 6by and watched. 67 The FIAA attack and the revenge of the Gao population leftthirty-eight ‘black’ Gaois and a hundred eighty ‘white’ Gaois dead. 68Race and stereotypes resurfaceThe coming of the Ganda Koy led to a renewed discourse on race, racism, andnationalism within Malian society on the whole and particularly in the North.This discourse was fed with arguments taken from the stereotyped images ofTamasheq society I have discussed in previous chapters. But contrary to the1950s and 1960s, the Kel Tamasheq community now had the means to defenditself against these stereotypes held in Mali. Tamasheq évolués not only conductednegotiations with the Malian Government, some of them were also engagedin returning the Ganda Koy polemics against the Kel Tamasheq communityin the Malian press. The stereotyped image of the Tamasheq alwaysserved the same purpose, a purpose it serves all around the globe: Creatingother and self, with strong emphasis on ‘other’. In all periods concerned in thisbook, the Kel Tamasheq served as an ‘uncivilised other’ in Mali, who had theindecency of viewing themselves as superior. With the start of the rebellion,these negative stereotypes resurfaced to be developed by the Ganda Koy from adiscourse on the ‘uncivilised other’ into a discourse on the ‘life-threateningother’ who should be exterminated. Self and other are concepts limited by, andmade operational by, shifting boundaries. The concept of ethnic or groupboundaries is extremely well developed, but I’d like to add a few comments. 69The general idea on ethnic or other boundaries between groups is that they areseen as in flux or permeable. Identity is created in dialogue, and is negotiable.True as this might be, the boundaries of identity, self and other, are created ornegotiated in context, and these contexts can vary within a number of parameters.The first is the scale of the group to be identified. One can safely saythat the larger the category to be ‘othered’, the more general and essential thestereotype applied to it. Nuance is lost as the group to identify becomes largerand stereotypes need to be all-inclusive. The second is the nature of relationsbetween groups, in relation to the size of the groups involved. These can varyfrom friendly jokes swapped at the bar after a successfully concluded deal, tocurses hurled together with hand grenades in wartime. I do not think I surpriseanyone by saying that in a context of war, the boundaries of identity are nolonger permeable. They are raised with barbed wire, with defence lines on bothsides. It is also plainly obvious that the more hostile relations between groups676869‘Bilan de l’attaque de Gao’, Ataram, n.d. November 1994; ‘Gao et les échecs’, LeDémocrate, 22/11/1994; ‘Chronologie Cheick’.‘Nord: l’équipe sanglante de Zahabi’, Le Républicain, 26/10/1994.My observations here are in reaction to: Barth, F., ed., 1969; Chapman, M., M.McDonald & E. Tonkin, eds, 1989; Eriksen, T.H. 1991, 1993; Horowitz, D. 1985.