Page 158 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

speci¤es the political agenda of a group of Muslim activists. Still, it is impossible to
clearly set the intégristes apart from other arabisants, and they are often con®ated in
popular discourse (Brenner 1993b).
5. One incident of public confrontation occurred in 1994, when the government of
Alpha Konaré signaled its dedication to the implementation of the platform of Bejing. A
more recent incident was the debate of the reform of family law (Schulz 2003b).
6. Only about 2 percent of the Malian population are Christians. Authors disagree
over the exact percentage of Muslim believers. Some statistics speak of 95 percent (e.g.,
Encyclopedia of Subsaharan Africa 1997, 100), while Brenner (1993b, 71) estimates that
only 70 percent of the population espouse the Islamic faith. This discrepancy exists be-
cause, given the various combinations of animistic and Islamic practices, it is dif¤cult to
draw a clear distinction between “real” Muslims and nonbelievers. In rural areas of the
south (where most people converted to Islam only during the colonial era), many inter-
locutors described their religious practice as “walking on two feet,” that is, as strategically
“supplementing” their Islamic faith with non-Islamic rituals.
7. Unless indicated otherwise, all foreign terms are rendered in Bamanakan, the lin-
gua franca of southern Mali.
8. Haidara’s movement thrives most in towns in which historically the political in-
®uence of traditional religious leaders has been limited.
9. People’s distinction between traditional forms of power (fanga) and modern
politics (politiki) dates back to the late colonial period. The notion of “politicking” (that
is, the excesses of politiki) acquired a new salience after 1992, when particularly older
people interpreted multiparty competition as an indicator of the weakness of the central
state (Schulz 2001, chapter 3).
10. Brenner (1993b, 60–62; 2000, chapter 5) notes that the popular practice of label-
ing this internally diverse group of merchants and students “Wahhabi” is misleading
(they refer to themselves as “Sunnis” or “ahl-Sunna,” that is, those who follow the ex-
ample of the Prophet [Sunna]). In spite of their heterogeneous composition, they share
an inspiration from the Saoudi Wahhabi movement toward ritual and doctrinal purity,
and an opposition to established scholars, clerics, and merchants whose in®uence often
dates back to the colonial period.
11. Parti Socialiste du Progrès.
12. Union Soudanaise-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain.
13. This containment of Islamic in®uence was most prominently played out in the
¤eld of education. Traditional and reformed institutions of Islamic learning were not
granted the same status as French-language schools. Some of the reformed schools were
integrated into the national educational system (cf. Brenner 2000, 169–173).
14. This representation glossed over considerable differences in political traditions
and historical experiences of different peoples contained in the new nation-state. Also, it
did not account for the fact that Islam had historically been more ¤rmly entrenched in
the northern societies of Mali.
15. One reason for the limited role of Islam in the nationalist ideology was that Mus-
lim interest groups were given only a marginal place in the party structures when the
Marxist-oriented branch took control (cf. Brenner 2000, 171–172).
16. An alliance between established families of religious specialists and some repre-
sentatives of a new generation of “Wahhabi” businessmen formed the social basis of the
growing resistance to Modibo Keita’s socialist policies which signi¤cantly contributed to
the destabilization of Modibo Keita’s regime and led to the coup d’état (Amselle 1985).

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