Page 145 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

when they sought to participate as religious parties in the ¤rst democratic elec-
tions ever held in Mali. Although they were denied of¤cial recognition at that
time, they continue to make a public appearance whenever they feel that the
5
principles of Islam are threatened. The intégristes base their political aspira-
tions on a model of citizenship that stipulates individual Islamic ethics as bind-
ing for the realization of the common good. Arguing that all Malians are Mus-
6
lim, they con®ate Muslim with a national Malian identity. In their model, the
regulation of social interaction is indiscriminately relegated to the political au-
thority, and the divide between private faith and public interest is blurred. State
authority should exert its power of arbitration on the basis of Islamic principles,
or, as the intégristes call it, the shari"a.
In spite of their occasionally vociferous public appearances, the intégristes
play a comparatively minor role, both numerically and in their actual capacity
to mobilize a following. In spite of their claim to challenge the normative foun-
dations of the secular state, they operate signi¤cantly within the institutional
and discursive parameters of civil society.
To focus on these representatives of political Islam risks excluding social net-
works that cannot easily be located within the realm of civil society. One ex-
ample for the latter type of activism is the movement Ansar Dine (a Bamanized 7
version of the Arabic Ansar al-Din, “the supporters of the religion”) which, in
contrast to the intégristes, has won wide popular support. The magnetic leader
of this movement, Sharif Ousmane Haidara, has managed, since his ¤rst public
appearance in the mid-1980s, to disseminate his audio- and video-taped ser-
mons to a rapidly growing constituency of “rightful believers” (silame dina
kanubagaw; literally, “those who love/support the Islamic religion”). His follow-
ers from the urban and semi-urban lower middle classes hail him as their spiri-
8
tual guide who “puts an end to politicking.” Many Western-oriented govern-
ment of¤cials and representatives of in®uential Muslim lineages, on the other
9
hand, denounce him as a fundamentalist threat to the secular state. In this
chapter I argue that these critics are mistaken in interpreting Haidara’s move-
ment as an instance of political Islam. However, their perception that he has
enormous in®uence is accurate. One way of understanding Haidara’s success is
to interpret his call for a moral renewal as an attempt not only to appeal to a
different moral order but to evoke a community that appears as a compelling
alternative to the political community of the nation. Haidara’s movement mo-
bilizes followers outside the political arena in which the government interacts
with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) funded by Western donor organi-
zations and with in®uential Muslim ¤gures who bene¤t from their af¤liation
with the government. Sharif Haidara’s remarkable success sheds light on recent
social transformations and on a political situation characterized by the failure
of the state to capture the allegiance of its citizens to the nation. The uneasiness
with which members of the current political elite comment on Haidara’s popu-
larity re®ects their awareness that their governance rests on shaky foundations.
It is this political context that made Haidara so popular among the urban and
semi-urban lower classes.

134 Dorothea E. Schulz