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66 CHAPTER 1village as the primary social and economic unit. 117 The plan’s programme foragricultural and rural modernisation, the Action Rurale, consisted of two mainelements: the organisation of farmers into socialist cooperatives, and the rationalisationof agricultural production through the introduction of credit, modernequipment (ploughs, artificial fertilizer, improved seeds) and, most of all,education. Material means for this project were desperately lacking. 118 With thehelp of foreign development aid and loans from various countries, a wide rangeof state enterprises, industries and para-statal organisations were created. Industrialplants for the processing of agricultural products such as refineries forpeanut oil; a soap factory; fruit canning industries; and large refrigerated abattoirswere planned and indeed partly constructed. The national air company AirMali was invested with a fleet of six Iljouchins, two Antonovs and three DC-3smaintaining regular national and international flights. 119 All this at least gave amodern industrial and socialist look to the new country.Despite the lack of material and personnel, the Malian political leaders wereoptimistic about Mali’s bright future. Like most African leaders after independence,they had aspirations and ambitions, which James Scott has labelled‘High Modernist’. Scott defines High Modernism asa strong (…) version of the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress,the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the masteryof nature (including human nature), and, above all, the rational design of socialorder commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws. 120Scott’s description entirely fits the Malian case, as it fitted most Africanpostcolonies. Although in scale Modibo Keita’s Mali cannot be compared toNyerere’s Ujamaa, the most notorious example of social engineering in Africa,it could certainly be compared in intention. When in 1967 the regime’s economicpolicy proved a failure, Keita proclaimed a Permanent Revolution inChinese Cultural Revolution style, to save his policies from what he basicallysaw as a lack of commitment from the rank and file, not a failure in social andeconomic engineering itself. Scott observes that when high modernist plansremain unsuccessful, its directors tend to turn to ‘easily controlled micro-orderin model cities, model villages, and model farms’. 121 In Mali a number of suchmodel villages were created, or existing villages were appointed to serve assuch, such as Sanankoroba, Samayana, Kimparé and M’pésoba. Foreign re-117 Based on Ernst, K. 1969.118 Based on Jones, W. 1972; Snyder, F. 1967; Société Nationale d’Etudes pour leDéveloppement (S.N.E.D.), 1980.119 Cissé, M.N. 1964.120 Scott, J. 1998: 4.121 Ibid.