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314 CHAPTER 7society. Whether the ‘white’ and ‘black’ (or ‘red’ or ‘green’) racial types can beseen as ethnic subgroups is arguable.There seems to be a tendency among the former Tamasheq slaves to seethemselves as a distinctive group within Tamasheq society. In Mali, this found afirst expression in the creation of the Mouvement pour l’Eveil du Monde Bellahin 1994. The organisation remained dormant for a long time, but in August2006, former initiators of the movement founded the Association Temedt, anNGO which has as its main stated goal the promotion of human rights, butwhich is mainly directed at defending the rights of former slaves. 3 Temedt ispartly inspired by a similar organisation in Niger: Timidria. 4 The distinctionsthese organisations of former slaves made have some racial overtones next tothe main social reasons for their existence: a feeling of being discriminatedagainst as former slaves. However, it seems this process of ethnic differentiationis hardly on its way, but it cannot be excluded that, say, ten years fromnow, one speaks of the bellah as a different ethnic group or nation.A last questionThroughout this book I have stressed the importance of a particular Tamasheqconcept in explaining the outbreak of rebellion: Egha, a mixture of hate;powerlessness; and longing for revenge; or a contracted honour debt. Egha asrevenge and the paying of one’s honour debt formed the start of Alfellaga. Eghawas the one feeling that bound all ishumar of every political persuasion in theTanekra movement. Egha is created when one is powerless in the face of anattack on one’s honour, and on one’s existence. Egha created the link betweenthe first and the second rebellion. Given the fact that the atrocities committedduring the first rebellion were repeated in the second rebellion, given that yetanother generation of young Kel Tamasheq was confronted with war andmisery, it is pertinent to ask whether egha links these two rebellions with themost recent upsurge of the ADC in Kidal. The answer is negative on the wholebut not entirely. The main leaders of the ADC were the same men who had ledthe rebellion of the 1990s, the generation of the ‘orphans of the Adagh’, whohad taken egha during Alfellaga, but who had repaid their honour debt at thebattle of Toximine. As far as egha did play a part in the past few years, it was34Statuts du LPDH TEMEDT, drafted and signed 02/09/2006. Personal archive. Theassociation was created after the Essakane Conference, held in August 2006 inEssakane by a number of community leaders of iklan origins. The sole reference toslavery in the statutes of the Association Temedt is written in its Preamble: “constatantla persistance des pratiques humiliantes et esclavagistes dans certaines zonesdu Mali”.Lecocq, B. 2005.