Rahmane Idrissa

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Mali was the poster child of democratisation in Africa. It is now seen as the West’s biggest disappointment on the continent. It has experienced three coups in a decade and was more or less ungovernable in the intervening years. Today, it is ruled by a military junta that persecutes political opponents, derides the West and has Vladimir Putin as a patron. But just as the West’s lionisation of Malian democracy was excessive, its current disenchantment might be too.

The struggle for sovereignty against shape-shifting imperialisms naturally takes many forms. What Malians want is ‘libération’ – a popular word among supporters of Assimi Goïta’s junta – not just from jihadists but from Western high-handedness. What Burkinabes want is completion of the reforms that began eight years ago. This contrast in attitude is due in large part to France.

Where money didn’t exist, it had to be created, and this was done by credit banks with the help of government muscle: the state imposed the legal tender issued by the banks. Of course, money already existed in the region as a standardised form of trade currency. Across a great tract of West Africa, from the Middle Niger to Hausaland, this meant cowries. 

Djenné was exactly as I’d expected. For somebody like me, who grew up in the Sahel, it isn’t exotic. The mudbrick houses, the people on the streets, the heat (dry, despite the surrounding waters), the neem trees: all of this was familiar from my childhood, but the familiarity made the experience paradoxically intense.