INTRODUCTION
In the last decade, the Independence Day's military parade in Mali on 22 September has become an important fixture of military and civilian relations. Performed as an impressive military spectacle, which contrasts greatly with the humble reality of the military experience, the parade is an event on which the Malian government relies to respond to political and military crises, and to address some of the country's contentious social issues. Over the last few years, recurrent patterns and features, such as the changes of sites to host the annual parade according to political exigencies or the distribution of units participating in the procession, underline adjustments and reconfigurations to the role played by the parade in the relations between state and society.Footnote 1 The last few years saw an increase in the participation of female battalions and cadets, projecting images and ideas of what the modern Malian military experience should be and emphasising the contribution of the military to the making of an inclusive post-military Malian society.
Drawing on my field observations of the parade of the 50th anniversary of independence in Bamako, a thorough review of its coverage in the Malian media and the scholarly literature on political transitions, this essay argues that the Independence Day's military parade in Mali has become, on the one hand, a strategic site to negotiate fragile military and civil relations and, on the other, a repository to promote social change through the military experience. A key insight is that such features and configurations derive from the model elaborated and adopted in 2010 for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the country's independence. On this occasion, the Malian and military authorities inaugurated a comprehensive parade that broke with old commemorative habits to respond to the challenges of the democratic transition of 1991–92 and the post-military experience. Focusing specifically on the 2010 procession, the article provides insights into the significance ascribed to the military parade to address and correct defective military and civilian relations following the democratic transition. The essay considers the significance of the military parade for Mali's political processes by looking at the way in which the 2010 military procession has provided the national army with tactics and mechanisms to engage with past human rights violations and authoritarian practices, as well as to secure rehabilitation following the collapse of the military regime and transition to democracy.
Scholarship on political transitions, military reforms and civilian and military relations has shown the ways in which, following transition from military regime to democracy, the armed forces are subject to transformative obligations to accord with the democratic horizons. Sharing the idea that military reforms ‘cannot be isolated from the process of transition’ (Serra Reference Serra2010: 20), studies reveal multi-layered processes implemented by the ‘military elites’ to demonstrate convincingly that the armed forces are ‘committed’ to political change and, notably, to ‘democratization’ (Serra Reference Serra2010: 153). The ‘democratizing’ (Barany Reference Barany2012: 14) of the national army in post-authoritarian regimes instigates a series of reforms and policies to ensure ‘better integration’ (Janowitz Reference Janowitz1971: 190) of the armed forces, including noticeable ‘modifications in military values’ and practices, and the ‘de-politicization of the armed forces’ to transition into an ‘institutionalized force’ committed to new social and political environments (Janowitz Reference Janowitz1971: 190; Serra Reference Serra2010: 80; Barany Reference Barany2012: 342). Military parades are among the means and sites to underline new military convergences with society to ensure renewed military-civil relations (Serra Reference Serra2010: 56; Caforio Reference Caforio2018: 21).
In the transformative context of political transitions and their aftermath, military parades become pivotal as they are granted new meanings. Contrasting with conventional military parades elsewhere, their performance assumes critical functions in the display of the military reforms and policies. Instead of promoting and celebrating what used to be military authority and hegemony (Cohen Reference Cohen1993: 128), parades become repositories of the major shifts and transformations implemented by the armed forces, serving as a crucial medium between the armed forces and the public. Parades are thus often mobilised to convey the army's new repertoire of practices and interventions that might remain elusive for the majority of the population. As performances that are meant to signal commitments to change, parades become instrumental sites to ‘revive’ and ‘nurture’ (Amalvi Reference Amalvi and Nora1984: 421; Porteret Reference Porteret2005: 298) the national communion between the military and the public, eroded and compromised by years of military rule.
To analyse and reveal the meaning of the design, mechanisms and rationale of the military parades in Mali, this essay draws on Walter Benjamin's examination of parades and the ‘aestheticisation of power and politics’ (Lotman & Uspenskij Reference Lotman and Uspenskij1984: 154–5; Benjamin Reference Benjamin2010: 242), Porteret's sociology of the military parade and Amalvi's scholarship on national commemoration. The article takes military parades as an ‘expressive spectacle’, indicative of the Malian military and authorities’ techniques and ideologies to engage with democratisation and to negotiate its crisis. This article is also informed by de Greiff's (Reference De Greiff and Ramirez-Barat2014) propositions on transitional justice, Bakiner's (Reference Bakiner2010) study of armed forces’ strategies during transitional processes and Ramirez-Barat's (Reference Ramirez-Barat2014) modes of ‘engagement in the public sphere’. Thus, the paper argues that military parades should be taken into account in the analysis of transitional processes, as an important but sometimes overlooked component of the ‘well-crafted outreach programs that can contribute to laying some of the conditions necessary to catalyse civic trust between citizens and official institutions’ (Ramirez-Barat Reference Ramirez-Barat2014: 35). I also expand Bakiner's analysis of the ‘behavioural and attitudinal changes’ (Bakiner Reference Bakiner2010: 50) of the national army during political transition by suggesting that military parades in Mali are another important marker of the renewal of the relationship between the armed forces and civilians. Thus, the military parade can be understood as a form and practice consolidating some of the ‘terms of the social contract’ (De Greiff Reference De Greiff and Ramirez-Barat2014: 13) elaborated during the political transitions between the army and the public. In doing so, the article contributes to the scholarship on transition and the study of military parades within the African continent.
CONTEXTUALISING THE MALIAN CASE
To start the inquiry into the military parade, it is important to outline the context in which the 2010 military parade took place, and to describe the prevailing sentiments towards the Malian national forces at the time of the event and afterwards. Decades after the Révolution du 26 mars 1991 and the fall of Moussa Traoré's 23-year authoritarian military regime, the Malian national army has been struggling to engage with the transition, running against difficulties related to the terms of the national reconciliation and the ways to reinvent and stabilise its relationship with the Malian population. Several reasons explain these difficulties, the first being the country's military past and the enduring deficit of trust inherited from the military coup of 1968 and the subsequent 23 years of authoritarian and repressive practices. Second, the internal conflicts between units, the corruption scandals such as the misappropriation of military funds (Beau Reference Beau2018), and military flaws (Lecocq et al. Reference Lecocq, Mann, Whitehouse, Badi, Pelckmans, Belalimat, Hall and Lacher2013) that regularly mar the national forces (Jeune Afrique 2012) have never really persuaded the population that they had reformed into a reliable military institution (Konaté Reference Konaté2006: 27). The proximity of military officers to the political and power circles and the impression that the army retreated from military activities in order to venture into the governmental sphere consolidated the perception of the army as a politicised and opportunist entity, which has failed to fulfil its primary mission of national defence and commitment to political neutrality.
There is no doubt that some of the challenges faced by the army were consequences of a dubious reorganisation within the armed forces generated by ill-advised reforms, implemented during Alpha Omar Konaré's presidency (1992–2002), which saw military budget cuts, deterioration of military equipment and lack of munitions at a time of increased national insecurity (Jeune Afrique 2012; De Jorio Reference De Jorio2016: 31–2; Traoré & Moltes Reference Traoré and Moltes2016; Sissoko Reference Sissoko2019). Suffice to drive by and peek inside the military barracks of Djikoroni or Ntomikorobougou in Bamako to note the obsolete infrastructures of the national army and the soldiers’ dreadful living conditions. Yet, the distrust towards the Malian national forces tainted the crucial ‘social contract’ (De Greiff Reference De Greiff and Ramirez-Barat2014) that should have been established between the forces and the population following the transition (Drabo Reference Drabo2010: 86). Scepticism about the guarantee of ‘non-recurrence’ (De Greiff Reference De Greiff2013: 21–9) was maintained and the reputation of the military as a predatory institution prevailed. This was confirmed during the military coup of 2012 (Lecocq et al. Reference Lecocq, Mann, Whitehouse, Badi, Pelckmans, Belalimat, Hall and Lacher2013) when units fought against each other, and arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, torture and looting took place (The Guardian 2013).
Moreover, following the transition, the military showed reluctance to engage with the past, debate about it and to account for it despite the hopes elicited by the early months of the transition, failing to capitalise on the promising achievements during the interim regime of Amadou Toumani Touré, which augured rehabilitation and reconciliation. Nicknamed the ‘soldier of democracy’ (Bertrand Reference Bertrand1992: 10) or the ‘military hero of the Malian revolution of 1991’ (Villalón et al Reference Villalón, Villalón and Van Doepp2005: 50), Colonel Touré was hailed the renewed face of the military, the reformist able to reconcile the army with the population by his swift politics and noticeable achievements. Touré presided over the Conseil national de réconciliation, a military council aggregated into the democratic alliances to form the Comité de transition pour le salut du peuple, the body that piloted the national reflection on the transition.
During the summer of 1991, Touré organised the ‘conférence nationale’ investigating the regime of the overthrown Traoré, aiming specifically at the reconciliation ‘of the people with its army’ (Boulaga Reference Boulaga2009: 12). Significantly, in 1992, despite tremendous popular support and solicitations from the political sphere, Touré declined the presidential candidacy, instead successfully organising the country's first democratic elections the same year. During this period, Amadou Toumani Touré was aware of the complex modalities of the transition. Cognisant of the demands of the reconciliation process, he urged mediation of the crisis of legitimacy faced by the armed forces. At play was the memory of the military regime. To initiate conversation about it, Touré acknowledged publicly the responsibility of the national army for the repression of 1991 and went on to officially apologise to the nation on behalf of the armed forces for the ‘crimes’ committed by the army under Moussa Traoré. While the apologies were immediately interpreted as the signal for starting a national inquiry into the military past, in reality, nothing of the sort happened.
The introspective impetus was suspended despite the highly mediatised public trial of Moussa Traoré and some of the military dignitaries for crimes de sang (blood crimes) in 1992. Following Traoré's sentenceFootnote 2 and after the 1992 national elections, the Malian authorities decided to keep a lid on the military past, eluding examination mainly due to concerns over the stability and outcome of the democratisation process. In a time of ‘accountability’ (Lessa & Payne Reference Lessa and Payne2012), the decision not to scrutinise the military past allegedly aimed to secure national reconciliation and shield the democratic transition process from the tensions that such examination could produce. Instead, the state made ‘national reconciliation’ (De Jorio Reference De Jorio2006; Arnoldi Reference Arnoldi2007) the central tenet of the transitional policies (Konaté Reference Konaté2006: 76), raising questions about what could be reasonably expected from such state trials in the Malian context (De Jorio Reference De Jorio2016). By 2010, the strategy of exemption that the authorities opted for had shown its limitations.
The prevailing reconciliation narrative has been regularly challenged since the late 1990s by the publication of memoirs written by victims of the Malian military regime, be they leaders of the democratic forces or former military officials. As part of a push towards investigation of the past, the memoirists disclosed the backdrop of the military regime, unveiling the repressive practices that defined the military ‘order of things’ (Foucault Reference Foucault1966) in place for 23 years (Sow Reference Sow2010). At the same time, the cinematographic production of the early 2000s in such works as Ibrahima Touré's Toiles d'Araignées (2011), adapted from Ibrahima Ly's novel, disputed the official stance on the past. These varied cultural productions revived the national debate about the county's problematic relation to its military past in national papers, radio and television.
Significantly, the official assumptions that silence and avoidance about the past would protect the democratic transition were periodically contested by the gradual rehabilitation of former military leader Moussa Traoré. Having benefited from presidential amnesty, Traoré's visibility increased in the political and public sphere as he appeared in court cases brought against his detractors,Footnote 3 at public eventsFootnote 4 and by media solicitations to comment on the multiple crises affecting the country, such as the long interview given to the TV station TV5 Monde on 25 July 2018. The cultural productions and performances that every day recalled the tragic years of the Traoré regime constituted strong rebuttal to the official injunctions regarding the military memory. They set the stage for the context in which the military parade for the 50th anniversary of the country's independence took place, performed in a country unconvinced by the state's engagement with the military past and stimulated by a demand for knowledge and understanding of the past.
SITE AND PARADE: WHERE TO PERFORM THE POST-MILITARY TRANSITION?
The 2010 parade in Bamako had several subtexts, as the parade was meant to simultaneously erase the tensions related to the past and be the testimony of a successful transition, producing a narrative that recalled the productive and legitimate role played by the armed forces in the post-colonial history of the country. It had another imperative: to align with the objectives of the commemorations and celebrations of the 50th anniversary explicitly stated by the then democratically elected president Touré, who viewed the ceremonies as an opportunity to consecrate the renewed sense of national identity stemming from the conquering spirit that led to the weeks of March 1991, repeatedly articulated since his investiture: ‘to reconcile [the] country with its fifty years of tumultuous political history marred by fratricidal wars’ (L'Essor 10.6.2002).
As I noted earlier, the relationship to the Malian past required several accommodations and adjustments. This process was reflected in the new meanings imputed to the parade through alternative dramaturgy. To start with, a new location was required to break with old commemorative habits and practices which were tied to the legendary Boulevard de l'indépendance. For most Bamakois, the Boulevard de l'indépendance remains one of the emblematic arteries of the city where both peaceful and violent contestations of the post-colonial political life of the country have either started or ended. Crossing the ancient and founding neighbourhoods of Bamako Coura, Bolibana and Dravela, the boulevard is a long and heavy trafficked avenue located in the heart of the city, delineated by the Monument de l'indépendance and the Place de l'indépendance.
The Boulevard de l'indépendance has hosted all the public and military parades since the country's independence. It is Bamako's ‘lieu d'histoire’ and ‘lieu de mémoire’ (Nora Reference Nora1984: 19), where decisive events such as the demonstrations of 1962 in support of the Franc Malien, the student march against the military government during the Modibo Keïta funerals on 17 May 1977, and the protests of December 1990 and March 1991 took place. Significantly, the Boulevard is also the rallying space of the Bourse du travail, the council that regulates union activities in the country and has been instrumental in the struggles for the political transition of 1960 and later 1991 (Daniel Reference Daniel2010). Incidentally, the boulevard harbours the monument of the hippopotamus erected after democratisation as a symbol of the country. Despite its historical symbolism the political leadership rejected for the first time since the independence of the country the Boulevard de l'indépendance as the site to hold the military parade. Instead, the boulevard was used by the youth for a series of concerts, featuring Malian and West African pop stars, sponsored by the main cell phone companies of the country, displayed on giant screens and broadcast on national television.
History and memory did not matter in the choice to relocate the military parade. Economy and wealth did. The Avenue du Mali, the new site selected, crossing the emerging business centre of the city, has a symbolic power and meaning different from the Boulevard de l'indépendance. With regards to the ‘tumultuous history’ of the country, the monumental Avenue du Mali was perceived as a neutral site that did not bear the traces of the major political crises that had marked the post-colonial life of the country. Within the larger transitional context of the democratisation of the country, the Avenue du Mali did not speak to the past but rather to the stories of emancipation and success since the liberalisation of the country's economy. Adjacent to the headquarters of several international businesses, travel agencies and companies, embassies, private clinics, upscale hotels and palatial residences, the Avenue du Mali is the ideal artery to showcase Bamako as a successful and attractive modern urban centre. As opposed to the old neighbourhoods of the Boulevard de l'indépendance, the Avenue du Mali projects the ‘visible’ (De Boeck & Plissart Reference De Boeck and Plissart2005) signs of the development of the country. It demonstrates the success of the free market economy, and features the entrepreneurial reforms and opportunities that the successive democratically elected Malian governments had embraced. Located behind the Cité ministérielle, the impressive architectural ensemble entirely funded by Qaddafi and inaugurated on the banks of the Niger River during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary, the Avenue du Mali fosters links, flows between administrative, financial and cultural centres, and remains the exemplary illustration for the narrative of a dynamic and prosperous district.
The relocation of the parade to the Avenue du Mali while defying the established commemorative protocols appeared as the most secure way to link the military parade to the tale of the modernisation and innovation of the city, which the country's leadership was attempting to promote. In the days before and after the parade, the government inaugurated impressive urban and engineering projects such as the third bridge crossing the Niger River, the new national hospital, the Jardin du cinquantenaire and the National Park, a stunning urban park for leisure and recreation built on the vestiges of the former colonial botanical garden.
Obviously, the meaning of the parade did not owe exclusively to its relocation. As a site, the Avenue du Mali provided an opportunity to avoid some the constraints of the past, and bypass the competing and contested memories spontaneously associated with the Boulevard de l'indépendance. Did the new site shield the parade from the pressures of history and memory? And how did the parade negotiate the commemoration and celebration of a collective military memory that was not supposed to reflect the tensions of the post-colonial history of the country?
PARADE AND MILITARY ABSOLUTIONFootnote 5
The 2010 military parade was a unique occasion to materialise what Porteret has called ‘the expression of the union between the nation and its army’ (Porteret Reference Porteret2005: 298), consistently compromised since Independence by the Keita and Traoré governments and the difficulty in gathering rallying figures and symbols. To attempt to express such a union, the military authorities relied on ‘positive commemoration’ (Posel Reference Posel2008: 123), elaborated through a parade that sanitised the crises, disunity and hostilities in the history of the armed forces. Mainly conceived to erase years of ambivalent relations between the population and the national army and to consolidate the rapprochement initiated after the events of March 1991, the parade produced an inclusive history of the national army, adjusting and revising, as Christian Amalvi has suggested in a different context, the armed forces’ relation to Malian ‘national history and myths’ (Amalvi Reference Amalvi and Nora1984: 461).
On 22 September 2010, after eight months of activities of celebration of independence and despite a noticeable commemorative fatigue in Bamako, the attendance at the military parade was high. The procession started on a jubilant and entertaining note triggered by the acrobatics of the gendarmerie and fire brigade. It transitioned rapidly to a polished, didactic and informative parade, which – despite the tanks, armoured vehicles, missiles and a few planes – was less about the weaponry and military capabilities of the Malian army than about the dramatisation of its historical relevance, and the emphasis on the positive role the armed forces had played in post-colonial Malian affairs. Four particular moments combined to abolish the negative image of the army and gradually expunge the memories that compromised its relationship with the public.
The first was dedicated to the display of a renewed military culture that determined the vocation of the armed forces and highlighted the army's new ideological stance since democratisation. Hence, Malian units deployed in Rwanda, Angola and Central Africa brought into focus the active contribution of the Malian forces to UN international peacekeeping missions and forcefully asserted the humanitarian transformations of the national army. Referring to the contributions of the Malian armed forces on the international scene and underlining their commitment to peace and conflict resolution was a strategic way to portray a new mission of the armed forces and its alignment with transnational democratic values. The procession of these units suggested a level of military competency that justified their presence on the international scene. They confirmed the capacity and ambition of the armed forces to adhere to ‘the notion of a global order and the associated project of democratization’ (Posel Reference Posel2008: 125).
Second, the promotion of the new military culture within the armed forces was reinforced later on by the procession of Malian soldiers alongside battalions from the neighbouring states of Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger. The invitation to units from these four countries to participate in the parade spoke pragmatically to the role the Malian army aimed to play in the implementation of military cooperation in the region's defence. These units, in tandem with the Malian forces, testified to the emergence of collaborative military structures to reinforce the ‘common defence security policies’ of the West African region, complementary to the economic and political programmes of the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS 2018). In addition, the presence of the regional units had historical meanings, symbolic of Mali's determination to transcend past regional divisions, seeking to revive defunct pan-Africanist ideologies. Thus, the procession of soldiers from Burkina Faso appeared as the sign of the irrevocable reconciliation between two countries that had fought against each other during the conflicts of 1974 and 1986. The presence of Guinean and Senegalese units recalled the pan-Africanist ideals that marked the campaign for the political emancipation of Senegal, Guinea and Mali, an ideology partially eroded by the practices of the Malian army under Moussa Traoré.
The demonstration of the new military culture resulting from the transformation of the national forces since democratisation included the procession of co-ed units of cadets from the Prytanée of Kati and the Koulikoro Emia (Ecole militaire Interarmes). Introducing the second major moment of the parade, the cadets acknowledged the social ramifications of the armed forces and framed their expanding spheres of influence within Malian society. They showed the innovative developments of the Malian army in terms of education and underscored its modernisation by evoking the salience of the national forces in the country's gender policies. Shedding light on the development of military schools and academies, the mixed cadets corps stressed the alternative educational path the army provides (Coulter Reference Coulter2017) and signified the progress and contributions the forces were making in inclusion of women. As we will see later in the paper, the parade returned frequently to preoccupations about gender but here the co-ed cadets contributed mainly to showcasing the relationship of the armed forces with pressing contemporary issues, asserting the army's relevance in responding to the country's social predicaments regarding youth, education and gender. It was certainly to illustrate further the ways in which the army contributes to the modernisation of the country that the procession of the cadets was immediately followed by the technical units of the armed forces, such as the gendarmerie nationale, the Service Santé des Armées, the engineering corps of the Génie Militaire and the Eaux et forêts, active in domains as varied as agriculture, medicine and telecommunications, delineating once again a vocational and utilitarian military culture.
Halfway through the event, it was evident that the main objective of the parade was to break away from the negative perceptions of the army, to eclipse in a swift pedagogy the predatory reputation inherited from the military practices of the Traoré regime and restore faith in the national forces. As the procession of the technical units demonstrated, the parade underlined the new mandate of the national army and multiplied signals and confirmations that, in addition to defence and security, the national forces were committed to improving the daily life of the Malian people and to ‘development’ (Africa24 2010; Traoré Reference Traoré2011b). Yet, in telling the story of the transformations of the forces, the main preoccupation remained the parade's engagement with the military past. As persuasive as the narratives about the renewal of the armed forces might have been, the parade of the 50th anniversary was meant to be a commemorative event, and as such, a site for engaging with the post-colonial history of the country, including the two decades of authoritarian military rule and authoritarian practices.
The third and fourth portions of the parade intended to mitigate the anxieties related to the violent military past by means of segments and fragments extracted from the history of the army before and during the Traoré regime. In order to ease the crafted redemptive narrative about the Malian military at the service of the Malian people the parade was promoting, two motifs were carefully included and distributed in two sequences: abnegation and social inclusion. Both motifs were intended to revise the history of the national forces with the help of three distinct corps spanning altogether several crucial years of Malian history to assert that, ultimately, the country owed more to the army than usually thought. The three corps included Second World War veterans (anciens combattants), the female contingent and the Amicale des anciens elèves du service national des jeunes (AMASNJ).
In Bamako, the procession of veterans was a familiar scene. Since independence, they had always been included in military parades. After having been celebrated in Paris during the ceremonies of 14 July 2010 on the Champs-Élysées,Footnote 6 the procession of veterans in Bamako was a vibrant tribute to their heroic contribution to the liberation of Europe during the Second World War (Kamian Reference Kamian2001). Inspired by Benjamin's ‘aesthetic politics’, it could be argued that the veterans facilitated the combination of contrasted values about the army at the moment in which the parade took place, to produce a different image of contemporary military in Mali and warrant affinities with the armed forces. Walter Benjamin has noted that the military parade was one of the aesthetic modalities and processes used by the state to stimulate popular imagination and generate political identification (Betts Reference Betts, Bessel and Schumann2003: 302). Applying this notion to Mali's parade of 2010, it could be argued that, for one thing, the recall of the story of the veterans in Europe recaptured and redefined the imaginary of the national army, as their presence allowed transferring to the parade the principles and values derived from their historical actions such as commitment, sacrifice, abnegation and liberty, values that went missing during the post-colonial military regime period. For another, the symbolic paradigm drawn from the valiant past commitment and actions of the veterans was valuable in safeguarding the parade from the distressing memories of the military regime that could have occurred during the military parade. In other words, the veterans constituted a way out of the tensions that are often associated with past military actions. They federated and helped to rescue the memory of the national army by standing as a reminder of what the national army should be or could become.
Turning to the veterans at a time of national contention and political uncertainty is a frequent gesture in Malian politics (Mann Reference Mann2006: 92, 138), as they have remained at the centre of Malian domestic affairs and international politics. In the first decade of the millennium, the veterans were asked to discuss France's problematic relationship with its colonial history and its reluctance to engage with colonial ‘repentance’ (Bayart Reference Bayart2007). Veterans have often been mobilised to rebuke aggressive political discourses on Malian mobility and migration in France (Mann Reference Mann2007). More recently, in 2012, during the occupation of Timbuktu and Gao, multiple references were made to the actions of the veterans in Europe to call for French military intervention in northern Mali.Footnote 7
In the particular case of the parade of the 50th anniversary, relying on the memory of the veterans’ heroic experiences in Europe allowed the country's leadership to evoke the introductory chapters of the creation of the Malian national army and to link the ideals of the beginnings to the post-colonial and contemporary time. Ultimately, a tenuous sense of ‘national continuity’ (Amalvi Reference Amalvi and Nora1984: 421) was established out of the juxtaposition of the story of the veterans and the contemporary units that had been parading since the beginning of the event. In other words, the veterans provided the best way to think differently about the values of the military and constituted the antidote to the contested image of the army that dominated Malian collective memory. They constituted the much-needed military historical capital to alleviate tensions related to the military past. As such, the presence of the veterans was instrumental to the drive for reconciliation.
The last segment of the parade combined the former members of the Service national des jeunes (SNJ) and the female army units. As opposed to the female army units, the participation of the former members of the SNJ in the parade seemed odd and anachronistic. Yet, being the only non-controversial records and features of the Malian Army extracted from the archives of the Moussa Traoré regime, the two units were critical to successfully navigating the military past and enhancing the redemptive narrative of the national army that the parade implemented. Initiated by Moussa Traoré in 1983, then suspended in 1991 and reinstated in June 2015, the SNJ was a military service aiming at constituting a group of reservists who received basic military training in tandem with a strong civic education in order to communicate ideas about national commitment, patriotism and citizenship (Office de Radio et Télévision du Mali 2010; Kaba Reference Kaba2015).
The origins of the SNJ are to be found in the aftermath of the worst political crisis faced by the Moussa Traoré regime in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The establishment of the SNJ, certainly inspired by the ‘Mouvement des Pionniers’ of the 1960sFootnote 8 was specifically driven by the confrontational relationship with the youth, which occurred when high school and university students, regrouped under the Union nationale des étudiants et élèves du Mali (National Union of Pupils and Students of Mali, UNEEM), challenged the military authorities through regular protests and called for the political liberalisation of the country. These demonstrations ended with the arrest and death on 17 March 1980 of Abdoul Karim Camara, the leader of the student organisations, who became the martyr of the student movement.
Perhaps due to its revocation and reinstatement in moments of crisis (Doumbia Reference Doumbia2015) and despite occasional remarks on its achievement (Kaba Reference Kaba2015), the exact impact of the SNJ on Malian society is difficult to gauge. Even if, in the history of the Malian army, its success has been limited, the inclusion of the SNJ during the 2010 parade responds to the Traoré regime's attempt to address the dissatisfaction of the youth and improve the relationship between the population and the military. The SNJ granted the army the role of ‘a social institution’ that promoted greater civic engagement and could contribute to social ‘integration’ (Bessin Reference Bessin1991). It is this role that the parade resuscitated and commemorated. Further evidence of this particular function of the national forces was produced by the procession of the female army units implemented in 1985 by Moussa Traoré (Traoré Reference Traoré2011a). Pedagogically, the inclusion of the SNJ and the female units was the most valuable action to signal the progressive and innovative nature of the national army under Moussa Traoré. Both units underlined the engagement of the armed forces with social reforms to contribute to the transformations of Malian society, with a particular investment in youth paired with issues of equity and women empowerment, the two most pressing issues of post-colonial Malian society (L'Essor, Bamako, 19.1.2011).
In using the parade to align past military activities with much-needed contemporary development practices and emancipatory reforms and policies, the political leadership hoped to stimulate closer affinities between the army and the population. In the context of the democratisation of the country, the remedial narration of the history of the army offered by the parade was audacious and speculative. Ultimately, the parade projected a counter-image of the Malian armed forces, suddenly transformed into reliable and valuable institutional forces, whose structures and practices contributed to progressive reforms related to social emancipation and integration, gender roles and empowerment. The dramaturgy of the parade sought to amend the memory of the repressive soldier, with the procession of a ‘soldat bâtisseur’ (Samaké Reference Samaké1998: 9), a ‘soldier citizen’ fully equipped to engage and participate actively in national construction.
Did the parade succeed in its effort to equate past and contemporary military activities to the celebrated role the army has played in the history of the country during the democratisation process (Villalón Reference Villalón, Villalón and Van Doepp2005: 50)? While it is difficult to categorically answer this question, because the public reception to the parade was hard to measure, it can be said that the government never doubted the parade's capacity to inaugurate new relations with the Malian population, to stabilise the image of the army and to accelerate the rehabilitation of the national forces. A final sequence of events demonstrates that the government might have overestimated the pragmatics of the parade in the mediation of the country's history. In his push to promote reconciliation, Amadou Toumani Touré invited Alpha Omar Konaré, who had been democratically elected president in 1992, and Moussa Traoré to appear at the parade alongside Mariam Keïta Travelé, the widow of Modibo Keïta. While Mariam Keïta immediately declined the invitation, former President Konaré expressed his indignation by avoiding the parade and by officially reasserting his commitment to the ideals of the day of independence and the day of the country's democratisation: ‘my commitment as a Malian, as a militant faithful to the ideals of 22 September 1960 and 26 March 1991’.Footnote 9 Following public outrage (Thiam Reference Thiam2010), Moussa Traoré did not attend and the idea of having together three irreconcilable actors of post-colonial Mali was abandoned and regarded as a political blunder.
CONCLUSION: WHICH PARADE FOR WHICH POLITICAL MOMENT?
As shown in this article, the 2010 parade sought a reconciliatory objective through the elaboration of a performance that encompassed a broad historical framework, invoked several ideologies, and accommodated versions of the past meant to dilute two decades of authoritarian rule. Furthermore, the ambition of the parade was to restore the national armed forces’ relevance in Mali's post-colonial history by linking the procession to topics and ideas central to the democratisation process and to the modernisation of the country.
The analysis of the parade reveals alternative mechanisms of reconciliation elaborated through the format, dramaturgy and language of the procession. This model aimed to address the population's concerns about the political transition and make amends for the frustrating outcomes of the processes adopted to transition to democracy, such as the conférence nationale (Villalón Reference Villalón, Villalón and Van Doepp2005: 50), the prosecution of former President Moussa Traoré, as well as small-scale local initiatives of mediation and transparency, targeting past bad governance (Tag Reference Tag1994: 101).
The staging and the theatricality of the military parade during national commemorations by the military remain key to rethinking the relation between civilians and military. In 2010, the Independence Day parade relied on a comprehensive narrative, which emphasised military contribution, institutional reforms and cultural transformations. This device allowed the armed forces to revisit and reinterpret their responsibility in the authoritarian regime, address the question of accountability, and overcome the distrust born out of the repressive military past.
Because in Mali the state had been reluctant to engage upfront with the military past, leading to unexpected and premature rehabilitation of military officers who had committed crimes, the premise of the military parade was to address the insufficiencies of the transitional approaches adopted. As such, the military parade provided alternative mechanisms and protocols as part of what the 2004 UN report defines as the ‘processes and mechanisms associated with a society's attempts to come to terms with the legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation’ (UN 2004). The performance of the parade by the Malian army aimed at disseminating a moderate discourse on the military past. The transitional modalities demonstrate how the parade was used as a critical tool to replace past military dynamics and actions with grand narratives of development and democratic consolidation, generating new roles and meanings to the armed forces of the country.
The narrative of the military as a central and mediating institution in democratic Mali has been sustained since 2010. With few adjustments and variations to the 2010 model, every year the parade remains the main device to demonstrate the army's tangible contribution to the consolidation of the democratic processes. Segments of the parade such as the veterans and the Amicale du service national des jeunes are still integral parts of the yearly parade. The mixed gender cadets of the military schools, along with the mixed gender units of the Eaux et forêts (water conservation and climate), the Protection civile, the Ingénierie and the Police Nationale continue to reinforce the idea of a utilitarian and altruistic army that not only defends the territory and protects the environment, but also contributes to social emancipation. Even the most recent FORSAT (the Forces Spéciales Anti Terroristes) has consistently displayed mixed units, indicating how the national army is an institution that challenges gender inequality, contributes to gender inclusivity and encourages new vocations.
A major addition to the dominant narrative of the army as a mediating institution has been the topic of war and terrorism. Since the occupation of the North and the 2012 coup, new units have been included in the parade, each of them relaying the armed forces’ transformations and aspirations to protect the country. Hence, the Forsat, the Bataillons cynophiles, the Groupe pour la neutralisation des mines constitute the army's response to terrorism and insecurity. The French Barkhane force, the régiments interarmés from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, the Minusma or the Force conjointe du G5 Sahel are units that add up to the army's new alliances and emphasise the country's commitment to regional and international collaboration. The innovative battalion of the Mécanisme Opérationnel de Coordination, composed of soldiers of the national army and former rebels of the North based in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, confirms investment in national reconciliation.
Mali has long used military parades to commemorate and celebrate the nation’s past, memory and sovereignty. Until the political transition of 1991, and perhaps with the exception of the 1986 military parade,Footnote 10 most military parades were concerned with the national army's capacities to foster patriotic sentiments, influence the image of the army and generate public support. The fall of the military regime in 1991 and the subsequent political transition forced the military authorities to adjust the parades to new demands and exigencies of democracy. The political and military crisis of 2012, which saw the occupation of the northern territories by secessionists and jihadists, further induced the army to renew the features and dramaturgy of the parades to revitalise military–civil relations.
This strategy may succeed temporarily, as demonstrated by the emotions and excitement of the crowd watching the conclusion of the September 2018 parade, which was marked by the parachute landing of a soldier bearing the colours of the Malian flag. Yet, the parade remains a brief pause in a rather tumultuous and deeply concerning political context. The patriotic sentiments during the parade cannot hide the fact that the government mediation efforts are not sufficient to compensate for the anxieties related to the national army, which is still confronted by challenges and never-ending management controversies. Immediately after the 2018 parade, new questions about the role of the army in maintaining the stability of the country were raised following attacks in the North and the deterioration of peace in the centre of the country, while controversies about funds and management re-emerged (Roger Reference Roger2019). Concerns and doubts about the army remain in the Malian national imaginary (L'Indépendant 2010) as well as vexing questions about the Mali military's present and future.
