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298 CHAPTER 6pite evidence to the contrary; issued abroad, the passports were Malian. 82 Rhetoricon ‘the other’ was balanced by a discourse extolling the virtue of theMalian nation. This nationalist discourse was built on the same elements asthose put forward in the 1950s and 1960s to construct the Malian nation:History; fraternity; honour; dignity; and labour. The sole missing element was abright future. Indeed, in wartime, the future hardly looks idyllic. In the quoteabove, we find all these elements together. The Ganda Koy strongly invoked theglorious Malian past. Unsurprisingly, most attention was paid to the medievalSonghay Empire and its leaders, the Askia dynasty. The emphasis on the historyof the Songhay Empire as an example to the present-day Malian nation shouldalso be seen as countering the emphasis placed on Mande history and historicalimportance in the official Malian historiography. The Ganda Koy stressed that itshould not be forgotten by the Malian South, which remained indifferenttowards the problems of the North; and that the Songhay were Malians andequally important to the creation of the Malian nation as the Mande. To a largeextent, Ganda Koy nationalist discourse countered the ‘Mandefication’ of Mali.But other empires, kingdoms and heroes were invoked too, including Ghana,Mali, cheick Ahmad Lobbo, Elhajj Umar Tall and Samory Touré. Surprisingly,the Kel Tamasheq heroes Cheiboun, amenokal of the Tengueregif and victorover the French conqueror Bonnier; and Firhun ag Elinsar, amenokal of theOuillimiden Kel Ataram, were included too. With regards to the latter, it wasstressed by many bellah that, despite being amenokal, he was black and thereforemust have been of slave origins. As I have discussed earlier, the colourdifferences made within Tamasheq society, which reserved sattefen or bluishblack to the imushagh, had effectively been exchanged for a ‘colour scheme’only including ‘white’ nobles and ‘black’ slaves. The sole picture taken of Firhunshows him to be sattefen, hence ‘black’, hence of slave origins. However,in contrast to the importance of the Songhay Empire and other medievalempires in forming the Malian nation, the Ganda Koy stressed there had neverbeen an ‘Empire of the Azawad’. The Kel Tamasheq had thus not contributed tothe shaping of the Malian historical nation. Despite the virtues of Firhun andCheiboun in resisting French conquest, the Kel Tamasheq remained outsiders.The return of peace: October 1994 to March 1996The attack at Gao and the massacre of the Kel Essuq Kel Takailelt zawiya, andof the ‘white’ population of Gao was the last of its kind. It more or less directlyled the Songhay and Tamasheq civilian population to wonder what was happeningto their communities. The goal of the FIAA attack on Gao had been to force82‘Gao et les échecs’, Le Démocrate, 22/11/1994.