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CREATING MALI 63national radio. Each night at six, Radio Mali broadcasted a music programmewith folk music. More important in this policy was the broadcasting of the ‘talesof Baba Sissoko’ – the Sunjata epic and other tales of Mande kingdoms, performedby the ‘national griot’ Banzoumana Sissoko. To the Keita regime,national folklore largely meant Mande and Bambara music, song, and dance.The troupe artistique of Kidal was forbidden to sing in Tamasheq, and had tolearn and perform Bambara songs instead. 107 The Kidal artists were not the onlyones to experience this cultural exclusion. Afel Bocoum, an artist from Niafunkéand musical heir to famous guitar player Ali Farka Touré, remembers hisfirst performance at the national biannual festival in 1972:Everybody liked it, but the fact is, I couldn’t have won first prize, because I wasSonrai, not Bambara (...) That’s the way it was in those days in Mali – the Bambararuled. If you weren’t Bambara – forget it. Luckily, that’s all changed now under ournew democracy. But still now, the Sonrai aren’t dominant culturally. Why shouldthis be so? This is something I fight against in my music. 108Where Afel Bocoum fights against ‘Mandefication’ in songs, Tamasheq rebelsfought against it in guerrilla warfare, both in 1963 and in 1990.State buildingIn 1960 there was almost no infrastructure in Mali. Tarmac roads did not exist.From Bamako it took about a week to travel to Kidal over land. Electricity,telephone, transport, all means a modern government relies on to perform itsfunctions, were desperately lacking in all remote parts of Mali. Reading theofficial newspaper L’Essor of those years, one is left with the impression thatMali did not extend beyond the area directly surrounding Bamako and Segu,with outposts at Mopti, Gao, Kayes and Timbuktu. The lack of infrastructure isexpressed in the five-year plan of 1961 which foresaw the construction of arailway connecting Bamako to Conakry; the enlargement of six regional airports;the deepening of the Niger river for river transport between Koulikoroand Mopti; tarmac roads between Bougouni, Sikasso, Koutiala, San and Mopti,and between Koutiala and Segu; strengthened earthen roads between Bamako,Nara, Niono and Kayes; bridges and ferries; and, last but not least, extensivepostal and telecom services. 109 The distance between government and governedthat this lack of means created was closed in strategies adopted from the US-RDA’s experiences of the late colonial period. Most party leaders and highrankinggovernment officials extensively travelled the country. Independent107 ag Litny, I. 1992.108 Inlay booklet in Afel Bocoum, Alkibar. World Circuit Production 1999, CD, WCD053.109 Société Nationale d’Etudes pour le Développement, S.N.E.D. 1980: 44.