Paper short abstract:

In this paper I like to suggest we should rethink nationalism in Africa outside the boundaries posed by the postcolonial African state, in order to reach a better understanding of political processes on the continent. I will exemplify the argument with the Malian Sahara from the late 1940s to the late 1960s.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I like to suggest we should rethink nationalism in Africa outside the boundaries posed by the postcolonial African state, in order to reach a better understanding of political processes on the continent. When studying the period around independence, we should not express a distinction between nationalist sentiments expressed in support of political independence for the postcolonial states we now know, and nationalist sentiments expressed for forms of political independence other than the national states as they came to be. Doing so is making a post ante teleological interpretation of the past in the present. This obscures the political realities of both that past and the present. We obscure historical realities by calling separatist tendencies 'ethnic' a priori, especially when we label as such those 'separatist' demands formulated prior to independence and coming to light just after independence. I would like to argue for the existence of competing national identities in many African countries at the eve of national independence. I want to exemplify the argument with the case of present-day northern Mali from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, where two national identities competed over political independence: that of the Malian nation and state, and that of the Tuareg nation in an ill-defined larger Saharan political entity.