July 26, 2024
Source: Africa is a Country
Mdou Moctar on tour in Europe | Image credit Rene Passet via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Dear African leaders, hear my burning question / Why does your ear only heed France and America?” begins the opening title track of Mdou Moctar’s new, internationally acclaimed album, Funeral for Justice. “They misled you into giving up your lands / They delightfully watch you in your fraternal feud / They possess the power to help out but choose not to,” continues the song, translated from the original Tamasheq, the common language of the Tuareg. And then the refrain, “Why is that? When your rights are trodden upon…” Even if the clues are self-evident, what exactly is Mdou Moctar’s agenda with this song?
In 1957, three years prior to Niger’s independence, uranium was discovered in the area of Azelik, approximately 750 kilometers from the capital, Niamey. Despite the relative remoteness of the mineral’s location in the Sahel, commercial extraction began in earnest by 1971. Today, Niger is responsible for roughly 5 percent of the world’s annual uranium output and provides Europe with nearly 24 percent of its annual uranium. Only Kazakhstan supplies more. It is said that one in three lightbulbs in France is powered by Nigerien uranium.
Unsurprisingly, European and especially French companies have long had a majority stake in Niger’s uranium industry. Political independence may exist, but Niger’s economy remains in the grip of foreign control. The open-pit mining operation near Arlit has been managed by the Société des Mines de l’Aïr (SOMAÏR) of which 63.4 percent is under French ownership through the company Orano. The remaining share is state-owned by the Société du Patrimoine des Mines du Niger (SOPAMIN). More recently, China has established a stake in Niger’s mineral wealth through the Société des Mines d’Azelik SA (SOMINA), founded in 2007, of which 62 percent is owned by Chinese business interests. Additional foreign shareholders with projects at different stages include Canadian and Korean investors. The government of Niger remains the minority stakeholder in these ventures.
Last year’s military coup complicated matters. On July 26, President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected in 2021, was arrested, with General Abdourahmane Tchiani declaring himself president two days later on July 28. Uncertainty has since prevailed. The Niger government expelled the French expeditionary force—a process completed at the end of 2023—that had been undertaking counterterrorism operations across the Sahel since 2012, when northern Mali was taken over by Ansar Dine, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The French effort was ultimately ineffectual, with two additional military coups occurring in Mali in 2020 and 2021, following the first in 2012, which was prompted by the surprise takeover of northern Mali. Furthermore, the establishment in 2017 of the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), a coalition of militant Islamicist groups across the Sahel region, has continued to foster insecurity.
This past year, the US military contingent in Niger, which has been assisting the French since 2013 as part of Operation Barkhane, has also been ordered to leave by mid-September. The escalation of anti-French and anti-American sentiments has accompanied growing ties to Russia through the Wagner Group, a situation of influence that first developed in Mali and has led to anti-Tuareg political violence there, including a high civilian death toll. Russia has also been perceived as a new player in Niger’s lucrative mining industry.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has also been skeptical of Niger’s new government. Bazoum had been president of ECOWAS, and member states quickly sought to isolate and put pressure on the new regime through sanctions so that democracy could return to Niger, to little avail. After the withdrawals of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from the community, ECOWAS backtracked in February to try and restabilize the region.
Against this economic and political backdrop, what can a rock band do? Arguably not much, though Mdou Moctar, the Tuareg assouf outfit, has made their new album, Funeral for Justice, about these recent developments in Niger and the Sahel, including resistance to radical Islam and the foreign plunder of mineral wealth. Named after their lead guitarist and vocalist, whose birth name is Mahamadou Souleymane, Mdou Moctar has gained international attention the past several years through festivals, touring, and a recording contract with Matador Records, the prominent American independent label. But their politics have also distinguished them. Their last album, Afrique Victime (2021), firmly established a position against the neocolonial policy of Françafrique while also condemning the militant Islam that initiated a new period of violence across the Sahel. Funeral for Justice expands on these themes.
It is important to emphasize that the genre of assouf has always had a political orientation. In contrast to many assumptions, assouf is not traditional music that goes back for many generations in Tuareg culture. It is a recent style that is only fifty or so years old—roughly two generations—originating in the 1960s. At that time, the Tuareg hope of self-determination had been left aside by the Year of Africa in 1960, resulting in the First Tuareg Rebellion (1962–64), also referred to as the Alfellaga (“the Rebellion”). The suppression of this liberation struggle in Mali and Algeria left the Tuareg politically marginalized, a condition compounded by a regional economic downturn following severe droughts throughout the Sahel during the 1970s. Still, the Tuareg dream of an independent state endured.
Enter General Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. As part of his pan-Arabism and broader pan-African agenda south of the Sahara, Gaddafi began to provide military training for Tuareg men in 1982, with the ambition of creating an Islamic Legion of the Sahara. Gaddafi had founded the Islamic Legion in 1972, three years after his rise to power through the Libyan Revolution, though its activities had largely been limited to Sudan and Chad, where its focus remained until its dissolution in 1987. Gaddafi’s plan for a broader Legion of the Sahara fell short. However, the legacies of the Legion have continued in different ways, including the racialized violence in Darfur and the recent wave of Islamic militancy across the Sahel. It also sustained Tuareg aspirations for self-determination, fostering rebellions in Mali and Niger during the early 1990s.
Fortuitously, the future members of the Grammy-winning band Tinariwen, whose name is an abbreviation of Taghreft Tinariwen (“the development of deserts”), and Takrist Nakal, whose name is an abridgement of Tageuyt Takrist Nakal (“the rebuilding of the country”), met at a Legion camp outside Tripoli. They received military training during the day while organizing impromptu guitar jams at night. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, a founder of Tinariwen, was among those present. As a child, he had witnessed the execution of his father, a Tuareg rebel, by the Malian government in 1963, and he lived in refugee camps in the years that followed. Also present was Abdallah ag Oumbadougou, the founder of Takrist Nakal. Following the Tchin Tabaraden Massacre in 1990, during which Nigerien soldiers killed hundreds of Tuareg, Abdallah became “the voice of the rebellion” in support of the Tuareg cause. He established music schools in the belief that cultural identity was integral to the Tuareg liberation struggle.
The idea of assouf, which has frequently been translated as “blues,” is therefore better understood as “longing,” reflecting a nostalgia for home from the vantage point of Libya but, more importantly, extending to a broader political longing for a future Tuareg homeland. Though Mdou Moctar did not originate in the military camps of Gaddafi’s Libya, it has continued this tradition of aspiration, while offering a new generational perspective. Funeral for Justice genuflects toward the motivations of his assouf forebears, while revitalizing the genre by addressing more immediate topics. Not least, Mdou Moctar’s brash guitarwork favors a louder slash-and-burn approach that is readily apparent on the opening title track. Like Mali’s Vieux Farka Touré, son of the legendary Ali Farka Touré, there is a sense of homage and revision at once, with adjustments often through amplification and volume.
This intergenerational difference and solidarity are also apparent in the lyrics. The song “Funeral for Justice” is a critical intervention against both foreign neoimperialism and the African elites who assist external business interests to the detriment of local communities. Health issues and birth defects have dramatically increased due to the minimally regulated nature of uranium-mining operations, the lack of protection for workers, and public exposure to radioactive waste. The remainder of the album goes on to engage with this elitist indifference that has adversely affected the Tuareg. Similar to the work of Tinariwen and Takrist Nakal, the music on Funeral for Justice serves as both a vessel for Tuareg history and culture as well as a manifesto for political change.
The second track, “Imouhar” (“Comrade”), for example, affirms the historical existence and unity of the Tuareg (“Imouhar, you know this, indeed we have a written history / Written in books, and the whole world knows it”). The song “Sousoume Tamacheq” is another paean to the Tuareg and their regional sense of statelessness (“Cease weeping Tamasheq / A helpless orphan amid three countries / Mali-Niger, Niger-Mali, and Algeria as the third”). Meanwhile, the track “Oh France” is another critique of Françafrique (“France’s actions are frequently veiled in cruelty / We are better off without its turbulent relation”), whereas “Djallo #1” is an appeal for racial reconciliation through Islam (“Skin colors are from God / We can’t afford to be divided / We have no time for hate / The best among you are the ones who fear God the most”). The plaintive “Modern Slaves” closes out the LP, returning to its main themes with lines declaring, “It’s a lie, we were never free,” and “My people are crying while you laugh / All you do is watch.”
Taken together, Funeral for Justice is bracing recording that blends the critical sensibility of Frantz Fanon with the melodies and guitarwork of a genre born from an ongoing liberation struggle. At a time when the politics of the Sahel remains underreported, Mdou Moctar have provided a vital commentary and intervention against elite interests in the region—a point often lost on Western audiences. In this way, the anti-extractivist politics of Mdou Moctar should be understood not only as literal, in relation to uranium mining, but also as metaphorical, in terms of how international record labels and listeners have approached bands and artists based in Africa. This outside attention has tended to favor the music (and its profitability) over politics. Like their predecessors, Mdou Moctar is resistant to this selective practice. They are more than ready for international attention, but on their own political terms.
Christopher J. Lee is a historian, has published six books, including works on Frantz Fanon, Alex La Guma, and Kwame Anthony Appiah. He is a Contributor Editor at AIAC and an Editor of the journal Safundi.
Source: Africa is a Country
Mdou Moctar on tour in Europe | Image credit Rene Passet via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Dear African leaders, hear my burning question / Why does your ear only heed France and America?” begins the opening title track of Mdou Moctar’s new, internationally acclaimed album, Funeral for Justice. “They misled you into giving up your lands / They delightfully watch you in your fraternal feud / They possess the power to help out but choose not to,” continues the song, translated from the original Tamasheq, the common language of the Tuareg. And then the refrain, “Why is that? When your rights are trodden upon…” Even if the clues are self-evident, what exactly is Mdou Moctar’s agenda with this song?
In 1957, three years prior to Niger’s independence, uranium was discovered in the area of Azelik, approximately 750 kilometers from the capital, Niamey. Despite the relative remoteness of the mineral’s location in the Sahel, commercial extraction began in earnest by 1971. Today, Niger is responsible for roughly 5 percent of the world’s annual uranium output and provides Europe with nearly 24 percent of its annual uranium. Only Kazakhstan supplies more. It is said that one in three lightbulbs in France is powered by Nigerien uranium.
Unsurprisingly, European and especially French companies have long had a majority stake in Niger’s uranium industry. Political independence may exist, but Niger’s economy remains in the grip of foreign control. The open-pit mining operation near Arlit has been managed by the Société des Mines de l’Aïr (SOMAÏR) of which 63.4 percent is under French ownership through the company Orano. The remaining share is state-owned by the Société du Patrimoine des Mines du Niger (SOPAMIN). More recently, China has established a stake in Niger’s mineral wealth through the Société des Mines d’Azelik SA (SOMINA), founded in 2007, of which 62 percent is owned by Chinese business interests. Additional foreign shareholders with projects at different stages include Canadian and Korean investors. The government of Niger remains the minority stakeholder in these ventures.
Last year’s military coup complicated matters. On July 26, President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected in 2021, was arrested, with General Abdourahmane Tchiani declaring himself president two days later on July 28. Uncertainty has since prevailed. The Niger government expelled the French expeditionary force—a process completed at the end of 2023—that had been undertaking counterterrorism operations across the Sahel since 2012, when northern Mali was taken over by Ansar Dine, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The French effort was ultimately ineffectual, with two additional military coups occurring in Mali in 2020 and 2021, following the first in 2012, which was prompted by the surprise takeover of northern Mali. Furthermore, the establishment in 2017 of the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), a coalition of militant Islamicist groups across the Sahel region, has continued to foster insecurity.
This past year, the US military contingent in Niger, which has been assisting the French since 2013 as part of Operation Barkhane, has also been ordered to leave by mid-September. The escalation of anti-French and anti-American sentiments has accompanied growing ties to Russia through the Wagner Group, a situation of influence that first developed in Mali and has led to anti-Tuareg political violence there, including a high civilian death toll. Russia has also been perceived as a new player in Niger’s lucrative mining industry.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has also been skeptical of Niger’s new government. Bazoum had been president of ECOWAS, and member states quickly sought to isolate and put pressure on the new regime through sanctions so that democracy could return to Niger, to little avail. After the withdrawals of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from the community, ECOWAS backtracked in February to try and restabilize the region.
Against this economic and political backdrop, what can a rock band do? Arguably not much, though Mdou Moctar, the Tuareg assouf outfit, has made their new album, Funeral for Justice, about these recent developments in Niger and the Sahel, including resistance to radical Islam and the foreign plunder of mineral wealth. Named after their lead guitarist and vocalist, whose birth name is Mahamadou Souleymane, Mdou Moctar has gained international attention the past several years through festivals, touring, and a recording contract with Matador Records, the prominent American independent label. But their politics have also distinguished them. Their last album, Afrique Victime (2021), firmly established a position against the neocolonial policy of Françafrique while also condemning the militant Islam that initiated a new period of violence across the Sahel. Funeral for Justice expands on these themes.
It is important to emphasize that the genre of assouf has always had a political orientation. In contrast to many assumptions, assouf is not traditional music that goes back for many generations in Tuareg culture. It is a recent style that is only fifty or so years old—roughly two generations—originating in the 1960s. At that time, the Tuareg hope of self-determination had been left aside by the Year of Africa in 1960, resulting in the First Tuareg Rebellion (1962–64), also referred to as the Alfellaga (“the Rebellion”). The suppression of this liberation struggle in Mali and Algeria left the Tuareg politically marginalized, a condition compounded by a regional economic downturn following severe droughts throughout the Sahel during the 1970s. Still, the Tuareg dream of an independent state endured.
Enter General Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. As part of his pan-Arabism and broader pan-African agenda south of the Sahara, Gaddafi began to provide military training for Tuareg men in 1982, with the ambition of creating an Islamic Legion of the Sahara. Gaddafi had founded the Islamic Legion in 1972, three years after his rise to power through the Libyan Revolution, though its activities had largely been limited to Sudan and Chad, where its focus remained until its dissolution in 1987. Gaddafi’s plan for a broader Legion of the Sahara fell short. However, the legacies of the Legion have continued in different ways, including the racialized violence in Darfur and the recent wave of Islamic militancy across the Sahel. It also sustained Tuareg aspirations for self-determination, fostering rebellions in Mali and Niger during the early 1990s.
Fortuitously, the future members of the Grammy-winning band Tinariwen, whose name is an abbreviation of Taghreft Tinariwen (“the development of deserts”), and Takrist Nakal, whose name is an abridgement of Tageuyt Takrist Nakal (“the rebuilding of the country”), met at a Legion camp outside Tripoli. They received military training during the day while organizing impromptu guitar jams at night. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, a founder of Tinariwen, was among those present. As a child, he had witnessed the execution of his father, a Tuareg rebel, by the Malian government in 1963, and he lived in refugee camps in the years that followed. Also present was Abdallah ag Oumbadougou, the founder of Takrist Nakal. Following the Tchin Tabaraden Massacre in 1990, during which Nigerien soldiers killed hundreds of Tuareg, Abdallah became “the voice of the rebellion” in support of the Tuareg cause. He established music schools in the belief that cultural identity was integral to the Tuareg liberation struggle.
The idea of assouf, which has frequently been translated as “blues,” is therefore better understood as “longing,” reflecting a nostalgia for home from the vantage point of Libya but, more importantly, extending to a broader political longing for a future Tuareg homeland. Though Mdou Moctar did not originate in the military camps of Gaddafi’s Libya, it has continued this tradition of aspiration, while offering a new generational perspective. Funeral for Justice genuflects toward the motivations of his assouf forebears, while revitalizing the genre by addressing more immediate topics. Not least, Mdou Moctar’s brash guitarwork favors a louder slash-and-burn approach that is readily apparent on the opening title track. Like Mali’s Vieux Farka Touré, son of the legendary Ali Farka Touré, there is a sense of homage and revision at once, with adjustments often through amplification and volume.
This intergenerational difference and solidarity are also apparent in the lyrics. The song “Funeral for Justice” is a critical intervention against both foreign neoimperialism and the African elites who assist external business interests to the detriment of local communities. Health issues and birth defects have dramatically increased due to the minimally regulated nature of uranium-mining operations, the lack of protection for workers, and public exposure to radioactive waste. The remainder of the album goes on to engage with this elitist indifference that has adversely affected the Tuareg. Similar to the work of Tinariwen and Takrist Nakal, the music on Funeral for Justice serves as both a vessel for Tuareg history and culture as well as a manifesto for political change.
The second track, “Imouhar” (“Comrade”), for example, affirms the historical existence and unity of the Tuareg (“Imouhar, you know this, indeed we have a written history / Written in books, and the whole world knows it”). The song “Sousoume Tamacheq” is another paean to the Tuareg and their regional sense of statelessness (“Cease weeping Tamasheq / A helpless orphan amid three countries / Mali-Niger, Niger-Mali, and Algeria as the third”). Meanwhile, the track “Oh France” is another critique of Françafrique (“France’s actions are frequently veiled in cruelty / We are better off without its turbulent relation”), whereas “Djallo #1” is an appeal for racial reconciliation through Islam (“Skin colors are from God / We can’t afford to be divided / We have no time for hate / The best among you are the ones who fear God the most”). The plaintive “Modern Slaves” closes out the LP, returning to its main themes with lines declaring, “It’s a lie, we were never free,” and “My people are crying while you laugh / All you do is watch.”
Taken together, Funeral for Justice is bracing recording that blends the critical sensibility of Frantz Fanon with the melodies and guitarwork of a genre born from an ongoing liberation struggle. At a time when the politics of the Sahel remains underreported, Mdou Moctar have provided a vital commentary and intervention against elite interests in the region—a point often lost on Western audiences. In this way, the anti-extractivist politics of Mdou Moctar should be understood not only as literal, in relation to uranium mining, but also as metaphorical, in terms of how international record labels and listeners have approached bands and artists based in Africa. This outside attention has tended to favor the music (and its profitability) over politics. Like their predecessors, Mdou Moctar is resistant to this selective practice. They are more than ready for international attention, but on their own political terms.
Christopher J. Lee is a historian, has published six books, including works on Frantz Fanon, Alex La Guma, and Kwame Anthony Appiah. He is a Contributor Editor at AIAC and an Editor of the journal Safundi.
