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CREATING MALI 67searchers studying the policies of the new African states were only allowed todo research in these model villages. Most of these researchers, regardless oftheir political orientation, were unimpressed with the results they saw in thesevillages and were immediately able to pinpoint the weaknesses in the executionof the planned economy. But high modernism is first and foremost an ideology,‘a faith that borrowed the legitimacy of science and technology’ as Scott putit. 122 What the regime envisioned was the realisation of economic growththrough sheer willpower. The modernisation of the economy could only besuccessful if the mentality of the rural population could be transformed from abackward traditional outlook on production and society to a modern rationalone. If this process was successful economic production would rise automatically,or so the regime thought. Snyder teaches us that the Keita regime gavetotal prevalence to politics over economy. Like many other Marxist-inspiredleaders, the regime thought economy was, by definition, political, and thatchanging politics would automatically mean changing the economy. Unfortunately,the regime also thought that politics was rhetorics and that speechesand education were enough to make people behave as desired. What ModiboKeita and his team envisioned was the reshaping of Malian peasant villagesociety on modern scientific socialist principles, combined with the pristinetraditions and the original Mande spirit of industriousness. Keita believed thathumanity was in essence good, rational and malleable. Moreover he firmly believedin the existence of a Mande national character, one of the clearest signsKeita was inspired by nationalism after all. In his view, the Mande were serious,dignified, honourable, hard-working, constant, stubborn, patient, fraternal andloyal. They persisted in the pursuit of their goals, and kept their word. 123 Thesequalities had to form the new Malian national character, which could then bemobilised to harness the new Malian nation, and to inculcate a spirit of selfsacrificeand industriousness in the people. According to the ideology of theUS-RDA, Malian society had been originally communalist or proto-socialist.The communalist spirit of the villager had been corrupted by the introduction ofa monetary economy and feudalist rule in colonial times. 124 These distortions inMalian society had to be uprooted. Negative attitudes, introduced by colonialism,such as greed, individualism, selfishness and feudalism had to be stampedout. The new regime promoted the position of the modern and young, and ofdisadvantaged groups – women, members of the lower castes and former slaves– within the traditional village decision-making structures, which had so far122 Jones, W. 1976.123 Snyder, F. 1967: 86-98. Incidentally, these ascribed national character traits wereexactly those the colonial administration had used to describe Mande character.124 For the regime’s vision of pre-colonial and colonial Malian society, see Kouyaté,S.B. 1965: 23-40.