At the Origins of Azawad Nationalism

Even before the independence of Mali from French colonialism in 1960, the idea of a distinct Azawadian identity shaped the political character of local elites and big men (Bøås Reference Bøås and Utas2012).

Since 1951, French colonial advisers put forward the project of creating a Common Organization of Saharan Regions (Organisation Commune des Régions Sahariennes, OCRS) under French control, in order to preserve a political foothold in the Sahara. The idea gained political momentum when significant hydrocarbon deposits were discovered in the Algerian Sahara in 1956. Beyond the direct administration of the Sahara’s subsoil resources, the plan would offer France an opportunity to limit the growth and expansion of an emerging Algerian National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale, FLN). More than simply an act of divide-et-impera, the strategic position of a French-controlled OCRS would allow for the containment of a number of pan-Islamic Wahabi movements, whose threats against French influence in West Africa were notably feared by French secret services (Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010).Footnote ³

Almost every genealogical reconstruction of the long-standing disputes for sovereignty in north Mali earmarks the OCRS project as a virtual origin (Bourgeot Reference Bourgeot1995; Boilley Reference Boilley1999; Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010). Prior to then, in fact, struggles for self-determination had been largely framed in terms of ethnic and personal status, not of territoriality (McDougall Reference McDougall, McDougall and Scheele2012). In late 1957, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Cheick, a prominent Arab leader from Timbuktu, traveled throughout northern Mali to rally local support in favor of the creation of the OCRS as a separate entity from then Soudan Français (today’s Mali). Having secured the signature of local notables, merchants, and traditional leaders, Ould Cheick addressed four different petitions to General Charles de Gaulle, drawing his attention to the unsettled Saharan problem. Stating a fierce opposition to the integration within a Malian state, the first letter is generally considered as a sort of manifesto of Azawad people’s historical claims. A particularly meaningful excerpt from the letter states:

In many ways, the OCRS episode deserves the status of an “imagined” foundation of the Azawad community and its claims for statehood (Anderson Reference Anderson1983). Indeed, the OCRS project never actually took root. However, it has contributed to building up a cultural repertoire that articulates on a territorial basis the “ancient hatreds” of northern Mali’s tribes, thereby shaping and constructing the geopolitical imaginary of local political claims (Dalby Reference Dalby and Burgess2010). Interestingly enough, the OCRS project problematizes the rigid categorizations put forward in the literature on self-determination as much as it blurs the lines among the different—and sometimes competing—blueprints through which identity claims are usually articulated. While the prospect of independent statehood was only vaguely surfaced in Ould Cheick’s call, his campaign stressed the alleged “cultural difference” distinguishing the Afrique noire (black Africa) identity of the black majority inhabiting Soudan Français from the perceived “whiteness” of Northern Malians. The construction of this dichotomy coalesced racial, ethnic, and religious arguments, with territoriality in the background. It emphasized the idea of a racially-based (or racially-biased) split of Africa, based on the perception of a natural boundary existing between a Northern—white—Africa, and a black, or “proper” Africa situated south of the Sahara; a stereotypification that draws on Medieval Islamic sources, and carries moral and political connotations (Hall Reference Hall2011). Colonial “divide and rule” policies further entrenched this cleavage by fostering a politique des races that reconstructed and emphasized socio-cultural divides, including in the religious sphere: “The belief in the existence of a distinctively ‘black’ tolerant syncretic Sufi Islam [as opposed to the Arab Islam portrayed as dogmatic and intolerant] remained a colonial political and scholarly doctrine until well in the 1960s” (Lecocq Reference Lecocq2015, 31).

One of the main reasons behind the failure of the OCRS project was the impossibility to trace, agree upon, and implement viable borders circumscribing a bounded space. French planners quickly came to realize that linear boundaries and exclusive territoriality would hardly fit the socio-economic specificities prevailing in the Sahara Desert. As historians of the Sahara observed, in fact, “Sahara was always a borderland, in the sense of a zone constituted by its multiple interactions with neighboring worlds, without which it would be unable to survive” (McDougall and Scheele Reference McDougall and Scheele2012, 84, emphasis added). Building on these observations, it is illuminating to try and reconstruct the genealogy through which the claim of identity differentials—delineated according to the symbolism of blood, religion, and language—has come to encompass an explicit secessionist project struggling for independent statehood. In a quintessentially porous space like the Sahara Desert, the struggle for the identification, recognition, and imposition of borderlines as a cornerstone of statehood highlights the mutual imbrication of social practices and space, in line with the recent findings of human geography literature (Paasi Reference Paasi1996; Hudson Reference Hudson2014). This is a major shift worth analyzing if one wants to make sense of the specificities defining Azawad as a parastate, where ethnic and religious drivers overlap and intertwine.

The Place of Azawad in the State-Building Process of Independent Mali

According to Jeffrey Herbst, the creation and the consolidation of statehood in modern Africa has been affected by three main elements, namely the nature of the international state system, the nature of boundaries, and the costs deriving from the extension of power over distance (Herbst Reference Herbst2000). With regard to the latter, the colonial legacy strongly influenced cost-calculation by African state-makers, creating a structural divide between urban centers inhabited by citizens, and rural peripheries populated by “subjects” (Mamdani Reference Mamdani1996).

These lenses are useful to interpret the different stages of the Malian state-building process. On the one hand, since independence central authorities in Bamako tended to reify the French distinction between a Mali utile and a Mali inutile (a useful Mali and a useless Mali), reiterating a logic of extractive economy and low institutional engagement vis-à-vis northern regions (Raineri and Strazzari Reference Raineri and Strazzari2015). On the other hand, the need to maintain within Malian boundaries a (self-)proclaimed distinct polity which was resisting integration, represented both a decisive challenge and a vital task: imposing statehood and a centralized authority over the north became key to the newly born Malian state. This oppositional relation contributed to forging and substantiating autonomous, self-conscious, and long-lasting political identities on both sides (Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010).

We distinguish three different phases within the process of state formation in Mali before the 2012 crisis: (1) independence and modernization (1960–1968); (2) authoritarian upgrading (1968–1992); and (3) the neoliberal state (1992–2012).Footnote ⁵ Every step had a direct consequence on the developing idea of an independent Azawad, as they re-shaped self-perceptions, political allegiances, and living conditions of northern populations. Therefore, to every phase of state formation a coinciding stage of the Azawad project can be identified: the first revolt (1962–1964); the Teshumara and Tenekra (around 1970–1991); uprising and secessionism (1991–2012).

The independent Republic of Mali was officially proclaimed on September 22, 1960, with Modibo Keita elected first president. Drawing on his socialist and pan-Africanist background, Keita started a process of state-building based on two main pillars, centralization and modernization. The administrative structure he aimed to establish from the ashes of colonial bureaucracy was meant to bypass traditional and customary leaders by imposing the authority of a “modern” state (Harmon Reference Harmon2014). On the other hand, Keita tried to build a modernizing social coalition open to the participation of those urban elites who shared a common intellectual and ideological background with him (Halpern Reference Halpern1963; Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010). Aiming to integrate northern populations by changing their livelihood and living conditions, central authorities promoted the elimination of slavery—still practiced by Tuareg over the black Bellah—and a policy of “Mandefication” (the adoption of Mande languages as teaching languages in schools), forced civil labor, and sedentarization, perceived as a direct attack against the Tuareg identity and way of life (Harmon Reference Harmon2014; Lecocq Reference Lecocq2005).

Tension between the newly-born Malian state and nomad populations exploded in open conflict in 1962. Between 1962 and 1964 the Tuareg Ifoghas—a ruling clan inhabiting the Adagh region—took up arms against the central government, launching the first Tuareg rebellion. Malian armed forces repressed the rebellion with extreme brutality, forcing thousands of Tuareg to flee Mali (Raffray Reference Raffray2013). However, one should stress that this rebellion was limited to the Adagh region, while the insurgents never made an explicit reference to the Azawad. The idea of an independent state was not formed yet, and the rebellion was more against Mali, than in support of an alternative political project.

In 1968, a military coup d’état overthrew Modibo Keita and inaugurated the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré (1968-1991). Even beyond political oppression, the events that definitely changed the relation between the Tuaregs and the Malian state are connected to the two consecutive droughts of the 1970s and the 1980s, which destroyed the pastoral economy of northern Mali, and caused the death of thousands of Tuareg. Humanitarian and relief aid proved to be inadequate, mainly because of the dysfunctional and corrupted management of external resources by central authorities. Tuareg openly accused the Malian regime of trying to realize an indirect “genocide” (Hall Reference Hall2011; Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010).

These events led to a veritable exodus of the Tuaregs, who fled Mali and created exiled communities in Burkina Faso, Algeria, and Libya. The massive migratory movement known as Teshumara must be seen as a real turning point for the Azawad for two main reasons.Footnote ⁶ Firstly, it is during this forced exile that the Tuareg managed to create links with their host regimes obtaining informal support for their political agenda. In particular, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi built a considerable force of mostly Malian Tuareg called the Islamic Legion (ICG 2012). Secondly, going “global” encouraged various Teshumara leaders to theorize that the Tuareg should change their condition of a multinational ethnic minority, through the creation of a territorially-based, secularist, and socialist state in northern Mali (Harmon Reference Harmon2014; Lecocq Reference Lecocq2004).The Tenekra “nationalist” movement for the irredentism of Azawad was born. At the beginnings of the 1990s, the seeds for a new uprising had already been planted.

The “neo-liberal phase” of the Malian state-building process coincided with the arrival of the so-called “third wave of democratization” in Sub-Saharan Africa (Huntington Reference Huntington1993). Since the late 1980s Traoré’s regime was weakened by poor economic performances—linked to the demands for austerity dictated by the IMF’s reform program (Herbst 1990)—and challenged by new social actors asking for political liberalization and the establishment of a multi-party democracy (Siméant Reference Siméant2014). Tensions lasted until 1991: in March the regime violently repressed a protest march in Bamako, causing the reaction of the militaries, who deposed Moussa Traoré. In less than one year a new Constitution was approved and new elections organized, leading to the appointment of Alpha Oumar Konaré as the third Malian president.

At the same time, a new Tuareg insurgency started in the north. This new revolt, mainly organized by Tuareg communities and fighters displaced in Libya and Algeria, lasted from June 1990 to March 1996, following different “waves” of violence and demobilization, that fragmented the rebel front and threatened to cause an ethnic-based conflict in the area (Straus Reference Straus2015). It is still debated whether the second Tuareg uprising should be considered as a war of liberation or rather as a pro-autonomy and pro-human rights insurgency (Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010). In this sense, divisions among the insurgent coalition were probably the expression of these different agendas and goals. It is during this uprising that for the first time the term Azawad was explicitly invoked by all the rebel groups. The nomadic state “officially” became a territorial and political landmark within the Malian political system.

The adoption of democratic institutions, the second Tuareg uprising, and the solutions elaborated to manage conflict in the north transformed both the international image and the nature of the regime in Mali. From 1992 until 2012, Mali became a “donor darling” (Bergamaschi Reference Bergamaschi2014), widely perceived as a consolidated democracy and a good pupil of the international community’s liberal recipes (Whitehouse Reference Whitehouse2012). The peaceful transition of power from President Konaré to Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) after the 2002 elections apparently confirmed this impression.

Central authorities showed their strong commitment in adopting a reformist agenda inspired by the recommendations of the international donors. For the sake of “good governance” Mali fostered a process of administrative decentralization that redefined the distribution of power and created hundreds of new communes (municipalities). This strategy was incidentally considered also as a viable solution for conflict management in the north (Seeley Reference Seely2001). As a matter of fact, Malian democracy proved to be a “hollow showcase” (Harmon Reference Harmon2014, 76). While neoliberal policies eroded Mali’s capacity to project its sovereign prerogatives over the totality of the territory, decentralization was turned into a strategy for co-opting customary leaders and big men—especially in the north—in order to include them within the patronage system that ruled Mali beyond and despite formal democratic institutions. The trading of political and economic privileges of clientelist politics contributed to ensuring the political acquiescence of unruly tribal leaders and former rebels.Footnote ⁷ The stick of the authoritarian regime was thus replaced by the carrot of the collusive suasion behind a smokescreen of good governance rhetoric. Corruption became rampant as the dominant coalition shaped and refined a predatory spoiling mechanism, which captured most of the external aid and national wealth (Chauzal and Van Damme Reference Chauzal and Van Damme2015). Effects were particularly evident in the north, where despite strong investments and the creation of new development-focused agencies, both the extreme poverty rates and the quality of public services worsened in relative terms (Bergamaschi Reference Bergamaschi2014). From this perspective, one could argue that, in a context of extreme state weakness, the mismanagement of development aid contributed to the establishment of a specific mode of governmental rationality which scholars qualified as “non-governamentality” (Mann Reference Mann2014). In it, beyond the façade of humanitarian concerns and human rights rhetoric, a laissez-faire approach in politics and economics de facto translated into a fundamentally lax indirect rule, including through clientelism and widespread fraud, which further weakened Bamako’s control over its northern territories. This ended up reinforcing grievances and distrust vis-à-vis the central state and local authorities, keeping the will for insurgency and secession alive within the Tuareg society. This context paved the way for the subsequent attempts to build alternative legitimacies and break with Bamako’s rule.

2012: Azawad as a Secessionist State

Echoing the ignition of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East in late 2010, the widespread frustrations experienced by the Tuareg youth coalesced into the foundation of the National Movement of the Azawad (Mouvement National de l’Azawad, MNA). The framing of Azawad in terms of a nation reportedly raised enthusiasm among the Tuareg diaspora. A few months later, the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya represented a crucial turning point of this process (Morgan Reference Morgan2012). Several hundred Malian Tuareg diaspora members fled Libya’s civil war and came back to Mali during the summer 2011. Some of them carried both light and heavy weaponry they used to fight beside the disgraced colonel, which Malian authorities proved incapable or unwilling to seize (ICG 2012).

The massive inflow of “Libyan” fighters seemed to provide an excellent opportunity to refurbish a Tuareg-led secessionist project. Thus, in mid-October 2011 a major conference was organized in the mountains of Kel Adagh, with a noticeable effort to stretch the meeting’s constituency beyond the core identification with the ethnic Tuareg cause. Participants reportedly agreed that it was high time for northerners to secede from Bamako, and create an independent state of Azawad, leading to the foundation of the National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA, Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad). By taking explicit inspiration from MNA’s experience, the MNLA blamed Bamako’s government for deliberately obstructing Azawad through the promotion of bad governance, informality, and nepotism. More importantly, the MNLA further stressed the secessionist tendency significantly adding the “liberation” endeavor. It immediately adopted classic “liberation-front” rhetoric, and announced “its intention to use ‘all necessary means’ to end Mali’s ‘illegal occupation’ of ‘Azawad’” (McGregor Reference McGregor2011, 10). In December 2011, the MNLA published a long announcement that many regarded as its political manifesto: “Azawad, c’est maintenant ou jamais!” (Azawad, it is now or never).Footnote ⁸ The call significantly called into question the African Union principle of the inviolability of borders inherited by colonial legacies, and made reference to the struggles for self-determination in Namibia, South Sudan, and Eritrea aiming to stress the view that an independent Azawad had become a realistically achievable goal. Interestingly, however, Iyad Ag Ghali, a prominent Tuareg leader from the ruling clan of the Ifoghas, immediately stood up against the creation and ambitions of the MNLA. Ag Ghali had been the charismatic head of the Tenekra insurgency, who eventually negotiated his surrender in exchange for a dominant position for himself and his clan in the decentralization process sponsored by Bamako (Lecocq Reference Lecocq2010). As a result, the youth leadership of the MNLA considered Ag Ghali untrustworthy and pliable to Bamako’s agenda. In spite of his prestige, the youth saw him less as the hero of north Mali’s full independence and statehood, than as an informal agent of the hybrid governance of north Mali’s parastatehood (Klute and Von Trotha Reference Klute, Von Trotha, Foblets and Von Trotha2004). In turn Ag Ghali, who in the meantime had converted to Islamic Salafism, criticized the MNLA’s secular posturing, and claimed that a realist understanding of the power-relationship on the ground demonstrated the need to forge alliances more with the jihadist groups rooted in the north of Mali than with distant and unreliable Western partners.Footnote ⁹ As a result, Ag Ghali decided to boycott the MNLA and founded his own religiously inspired movement, Ansar-Dine (Morgan Reference Morgan2012).

Actions soon followed. In January 2012, the MNLA attacked and conquered the northeastern towns of Ménaka and Tessalit (see Figure 1). Without meeting much resistance from Malian forces, military installations and public buildings symbolizing the state were pillaged. In Anguel’hok, however, the Malian army resisted for about a week, then the town was eventually conquered with the crucial support of Ansar-Dine (and according to some reports of AQMI, Al-Qa’ida in Islamic Maghreb).Footnote ¹⁰ In subsequent months, military defeats prompted protests and demonstrations across the country against the perceived lack of accountability, responsibility, and resolve of the regime in Bamako, which eventually led to the toppling of Mali’s then-President Amadou Toumani Touré on March 22, 2012. With the subversion of the military hierarchy and amid political turmoil, the remnants of the Malian army capitulated in less than one week. On March 30 the MNLA conquered Kidal, the Tuareg historic stronghold. On March 31 it was Gao, north Mali’s largest city, which suffered a combined attack from the MNLA and Ansar-Dine. Timbuktu fell on April 1. With the conquest of the three regional capitals of Mali’s north, and that of the district of Douentza in the region of Mopti on April 4, the territorial ambitions of the MNLA were fulfilled, while all expressions of Mali’s state apparatus—including security forces, administrators, teachers—withdrew to the south.

Figure 1.

Map of Mali with main cities and administrative regions. Source: Map 4231 Rev. 3, Department of Field Support, Cartographic Section, United Nations, March 2013.

On April 6, 2012, the MNLA solemnly proclaimed the formal secession of Azawad from Mali, by stressing peoples’ right to self-determination sanctioned in the United Nations (UN) charter and building on the precedent of the OCRS project.Footnote ¹¹ The whole mise en scène of the unilateral declaration of independence of Azawad, that was performed live that day in Azawad’s alleged capital city of Gao, epitomized all the clichés of post-colonial rhetoric. Quite ironically, then, the MNLA secessionists emphasized their nationalist endeavor by re-enacting a frame of reference that echoed and mimicked the symbolic repertoire resorted to by Malian nationalists in the era of “Mandeification”—a trend frequently noticed by scholars in the transition from state governance to rebel governance (Mampilly Reference Mampilly2011). The MNLA Secretary General, dressed up in Tuareg traditional suit, greeted the audience with the wishful image of the rising sun illuminating the new bright days that the historical event was announcing: “Good morning Azawad!” He spoke Tamasheq, a language that only a small minority of Gao residents could actually understand, so that the idea of liberation from a foreign occupation initially appeared quite unconvincing to the audience. The frequent calls to peace that followed, and the repeated attempts to explicitly dispel any fears over a possible re-introduction of discriminatory practices along ethnic lines, did not reportedly contribute to reassuring the population about the intentions of the city’s new masters.Footnote ¹²

Although the Tuareg represent a minority of the overall population of Azawad, in fact, their dominance within the MNLA and the newly created state became immediately apparent. In spite of MNLA’s stigmatization of Bamako’s bad governance, the new authorities of the independent Azawad did very little to implement the social model they advocated for, apart from replacing the symbols of Mali’s state and institutions in the north. And while the gulf between MNLA’s rhetoric and practice became increasingly apparent, the flight of virtually all Malian authorities from the territory claimed by the MNLA did not leave the latter as the undisputed ruler. On the ground, in fact, MNLA’s sovereignty was limited by the competition of powerful non-state armed actors deeply embedded into the local social structure, such as communal militias and jihadist groups. The fragility of this balance of power suggests that the MNLA’s sovereignty of Azawad was far from functional, and most likely fictional. The lack of monopoly over the means of coercion seriously handicapped the MNLA’s claim of independence, suggesting that, if secessionist Azawad was to be interpreted as a parastate, it most likely was a weak one. Within this context, the MNLA demonstrated a lack of capacity, if not willingness, to foster the protection of its own citizens and their economic activities. Instead, local observers reported that MNLA’s militants were responsible for an uncountable amount of abuses, razzias and thefts, and that Tuareg leaders largely turned a blind-eye on such misbehaviors, stirring the impression that MNLA new masters had only replaced Bamako’s authorities, but not the extractive and abusive nature of local governance.

Amidst rising chaos and indiscriminate violence, economic activities were particularly affected. While the MNLA proved completely incapable of protecting local business and promoting social life, the frequent overlap between professional, social, and ethnic groups exacerbated communal cleavages,Footnote ¹³ leading the MNLA’s grip on power to falter across most of Azawad. To protect their own business interests, Arab communities in the region of Timbuktu formed the MAA (Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad, Arab Movement of Azawad). In Gao, the popular dissatisfaction with MNLA’s mismanagement favored the build-up of the MUJAO (Mouvement pour l’Unicité du Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest, Movement for the Oneness of the Jihad in West Africa). Preaching the intransigent application of shari’a and boasting no interest in the creation of a new state, the MUJAO soon managed to attract several disenfranchised social groups, including Fulani pastoralists (ICG 2016), Bellah farmers (Lebovich Reference Lebovich2013), and Arab traders and smugglers (Lacher Reference Lacher2012; Raineri and Strazzari Reference Raineri and Strazzari2015). By the end of June 2012, a popular uprising ridden by the MUJAO ousted the MNLA from Gao, and soon thereafter the MNLA was eventually evicted from all of north Mali’s major towns.Footnote ¹⁴ In November 2012, the MNLA lost Ménaka, the last town still under its control, at the hands of the MUJAO and AQMI (AFP 2012). The window of opportunity for the establishment of the secessionist state of Azawad then seemed to be over.

To sum up, even if the MNLA’s takeover resulted in only a short-lived experience of territorial control, we claim that the Tuareg-led Azawad hinted at all of the defining features of secessionist parastates: a (relatively) compact ethnic group who has officially issued a claim for its right to self-determination and independent sovereignty, and whose leaders have started to exert ruling power—albeit informal and unrecognized—over the territory that they had conquered to the host state. Nevertheless, poor governmental capacities and fragile legitimization among local populations have undermined the Tuareg attempt to create an independent Azawad since the outset, making the latter a case of a weak parastate. At the same time, the failure of Azawad as a secessionist state should also be linked to the presence of a competing and partly overlapping project, able to defeat its competitor by military and political means. In the following pages, the Azawad as a “terrorist” parastate is thus presented and discussed.

2012 Part Two: Azawad as a Terrorist State?

The rebellion that effectively achieved a provisional semblance of independence was essentially the result of contingent events and catalyst factors. The Libyan crisis, along with the weaknesses of the Malian regime and the presence of well-established transnational actors, created an unexpectedly favorable context for the MNLA, who nevertheless showed their lack of preparation, when it had to deal with tasks such as ruling the conquered territories or building viable institutions (Lecocq et al. Reference Lecocq, Mann, Whitehouse, Badi, Pelckmans, Belalimat, Hall and Lacher2013). Moreover, and unlike previous Tuareg rebellions, various and extremely different actors joined the 2012 uprising, and eventually hijacked it from its original goals. As underlined by the recent literature on the fragmentation of non-state actors in conflict, the case of Azawad confirms the idea that insurgent fronts should not be treated as unitary and monolithic actors, but rather as composite coalitions where different and potentially contrasting interests and allegiances can affect rebel unity and influence the development of the conflict (Pearlman and Gallagher Cunningham Reference Pearlman and Cunningham2012). In north Mali, the ephemeral alliance between groups pursuing very different agendas, such as the MNLA, Ansar-Dine, the MUJAO, and AQMI was kept together by the shared interest of defeating the Malian regime. When the aim was reached, the very reasons at the basis of the rebel coalition disappeared, leading to the reversal of the situation that took place in June 2012.

Following the ouster of the Tuareg secessionists, the whole territory claimed under the name of Azawad remained de facto under the authority of a diverse coalition of jihadist armed groups. Although the mujahidin coalition should not be considered as a unitary actor, goals, priorities, and constituencies of AQMI, MUJAO, and Ansar-Dine partly overlapped and followed a similar path.Footnote ¹⁵And while it appears hazardous to affirm that all the representatives of the jihadist galaxy in Mali in 2012 were pursuing a common project inspired by a previously designed plan, the documents found by the AP in Timbuktu in January 2013 seem to suggest that AQMI played a fundamental—even if hidden—role in supporting and influencing the choices made by Ansar-Dine in Timbuktu and MUJAO in Gao (Combelles Siegel Reference Combelles Siegel2013; Guidère Reference Guidère2014). Footnote ¹⁶

From June 2012 to January 2013 northern Mali presented most of the characteristics that define parastates, conjugated according to the needs of a “jihado-trafficker” agenda. Brynjar Lia and Or Honig and Ido Yahel suggest that the main elements defining “Jihadi proto-states” and “terrorist semi-states” include (1) the occupation of a portion of the territory of a weak state; (2) the commitment to effective governance and holding a credible monopoly over the means of violence; (3) the lack of international recognition; and (4) the advancement of strongly ideologically-driven and “anti-systemic” political projects (Lia Reference Lia2015; Honig and Yahel Reference Honig and Yahel2017). Albeit short-lived, the experience of the Islamic Republic of Azawad encapsulated all these elements. This was proclaimed on May 26, 2012 by Ansar-Dine, based on a curious accord with the MNLA.Footnote ¹⁷ In spite of the alliance breaking, jihadist formations kept occupying and ruling northern Mali for at least another six months, benefiting from a complex political environment that paralyzed international intervention until early 2013.

Jihadist formations did not try to affirm their legitimacy vis-à-vis local populations by reproducing the same nationalist discourse proposed by the MNLA. Nevertheless, MUJAO, Ansar-Dine, and AQMI were able to affirm their authority over the territory under their rule, taking unchallenged decisions and imposing collectively binding rules. They implemented their own interpretations of order, justice, and rules, re-defining norms and governing principles in the area. Differently from the MNLA, they became able to exert a de facto sovereignty through the coordination of their actions, even if every group maintained a certain level of autonomy (Harmon Reference Harmon2014).

Accordingly, this phase of governance and order in the Azawad was built on three main pillars. Firstly, jihadist groups had to impose their monopoly over the means of violence, by expulsing challengers and controlling and/or co-opting all other groups owning coercive and security capacities. The partnership with trafficking cartels, who hold significant coercion capabilities and material interests in the north of Mali, is a case in point (Raineri and Strazzari Reference Raineri and Strazzari2015). Secondly, they established a new judicial system based on shari’a. This allowed the mujahidins to redefine social norms and build new codes of behavior, both perceived as fundamental tools for fighting against corruption and impunity—the two defining and despised characteristics of the Malian regime. Thirdly, jihadists and smugglers also attempted to redefine boundaries and the socio-economic space of the Azawad, implicitly trying to go beyond the classical idea of territoriality, while proposing a more malleable notion of state space attuned to local customs and social practices. The shift from predation and coercion, which were the rule under the MNLA, to pragmatism and relative predictability, accompanied the rise of Azawad as a “terrorist” parastate. Albeit counterintuitive, this remark corroborates recent scholarly observations about the different types of governance under secessionist or revolutionary rebellions (Suykens Reference Suykens, Arjona, Kasfir and Mampilly2015).

With regards to the governance of security during the uprising, MNLA’s rule had been characterized by a series of dysfunctional actions which fostered grievances and the demand for the re-establishment of some sort of order among local populations. While urban populations were subjected to crimes and abuses perpetrated by the “invaders,” a recrudescence of armed violence started to affect the countryside. The three jihadist formations exploited this discontent: by posturing as the guarantors of order and security, they defeated the MNLA and took the control of all the major cities in the north, gaining certain popular support, at least during the first months (Harmon Reference Harmon2014). Both in Timbuktu and Gao, Salafists created Islamic polices and security guards, employing local unemployed people and youngsters, who proved particularly attracted by the wages and the possibility to boost their social status (Lecocq et al. Reference Lecocq, Mann, Whitehouse, Badi, Pelckmans, Belalimat, Hall and Lacher2013). Footnote ¹⁸ In some cases, they preferred to reach an agreement with local secular militias: in Douentza for example, the MUJAO initially opted for an informal co-optation of the Songhay militia Ganda Iso, which was ousted from the city only on September 1, 2012 (AP and Callimachi Reference Callimachi2012). On the whole AQMI, MUJAO, and Ansar-Dine proved able to eliminate or to co-opt the main challengers in the security domain, while they tried to find their place in the patronage networks ruling territories outside the cities.

At the same time, the jihadists fostered the application of shari’a in the territory under their control.Footnote ¹⁹ The authority of this new polity should have been built on new pillars, inspired by Islam. From August 2012, Islamic law replaced the French-inspired civil and criminal law: while women were forced to veil and “Western pleasures” were banned, Islamic courts were created, and “criminals” started to be punished through amputation, lapidation, or other forms of sanctions in accordance with the Salafist interpretation of shari’a (Combelle Siegel Reference Combelles Siegel2013; Harmon Reference Harmon2014). The main strategic aim of this controversial choice was to replace the previous order with a new one, free from the impious influences of both foreign traditions and pre-Islamic local customs. To this end, the jihadists “dismantled the state bureaucracy and destroyed the archives of the civil administration,” and “targeted symbols of secular francophone administration” (Lecocq et al. Reference Lecocq, Mann, Whitehouse, Badi, Pelckmans, Belalimat, Hall and Lacher2013, 10). These actions were allegedly aimed at getting rid of all the legacies of Western colonialism that were portrayed as responsible for Mali’s corruption and bad governance during the previous decades. Even the destruction and/or the desecration of Sufi monuments in Timbuktu followed the same reasoning, as they represented a corrupted and deviated form of Islam, prone to cooption within Bamako’s nepotistic governance.

The creation of a new judicial system, the establishment of new administrative corps and the destruction of the former bureaucratic system showed the will of the rulers to impose a new form of political order.Footnote ²⁰ In this sense, even another fundamental dimension of statehood, namely territoriality (Kratochwil Reference Kratochwil1986; Paasi Reference Paasi2009), was contested and shaped by Salafists.

In a certain sense, the structure of space and borders pursued by jihadist rulers represented an attempt to create a viable synthesis between two hardly compatible projects of social and territorial organization. On the one hand, concepts such as nomadism, connectivity, statelessness, and borderless spaces capture the socio-economic arrangements that historically defined power and livelihood in northern Mali (Raineri and Strazzari Reference Raineri and Strazzari2015). Cross-border exchanges and transactions have been at the basis of the cultural identities and economic interests across Saharan borderlands, where categories such as private property of the land would have hardly planted their seeds. On the other hand, the creation of territorial states strongly affected the organization of local societies, reshaping intercommunity allegiances and economic functions (McDougall and Scheele Reference McDougall and Scheele2012). Within this complex framework, jihadist rulers tried to propose their own vision of a nomadic state. Implementing a move that was both ideological and strategic, they eliminated custom fees and informal trespassing taxations—in particular on pasturelands—while they started to create an embryonic form of a welfare state. These initiatives were justified as actions taken in accordance with Islamic law, but they appeared also as a way to gain support among economically dynamic but hierarchically subordinate communities, in particular traders, traffickers, smugglers, and pastoralists (Raineri and Strazzari Reference Raineri and Strazzari2015). Hence, while explicitly rejecting the system codified by the Western state, jihadist rulers contributed to redefining the relationship between authority and space, and to forging a new social pact based on the re-elaboration of traditional practices, Islamic-inspired norms and modern tools of government. By explicitly diverging from the Westphalian template, the peculiarities of the jihadist parastate of Azawad highlight the inadequacy of concepts that insist on functional equivalence and institutional normativism to describe alternative forms of statehood, and justify instead the attempts to provide a fine-grained description grasping of local rationalities and practices of governance.

The experience of the Islamic Republic of Azawad did not last much longer than its secessionist predecessor. In both cases, a military intervention put an end to their rule—one of the solutions to the parastate stalemate indicated by Rossi and Castan Pinos in their article. Noteworthy, the ambiguous attitude vis-à-vis territoriality eventually proved fatal. At the beginning of January 2013, the jihadist coalition attempted to stretch its territorial grip further south toward Konna, Mopti, and Sevaré, considered as the last bastions before Bamako. Even if the effective reasons behind this choice are still debated (Marchal Reference Marchal2013), and it remains unclear whether the jihadists actually aimed to capture Bamako, this move triggered the immediate response of the international community. On January 11, 2013France launched its operation Serval, a military mission requested by the Malian interim government and approved by the UN Security Council. In a few months the French army and its African allies re-conquered northern Mali’s main towns, apparently putting an end to independent Azawad. Nevertheless, the current situation seems to suggest that the Azawadian parastate has not disappeared, but it has been fully transformed into a stalled conflict.