During the First World War, the Sykes-Picot agreement shaped territorial patterns for drawing French-British boundaries in the Middle East. One century later, the Islamic State (ISIS) posted a video on Youtube (deleted since then), showing earth- moving machines destroying the remnants of the Iraqi-Syrian border. ISIS’s propagandists used the Internet to claim their territorial sovereignty over the Middle East. ISIS used one of the most popular video platforms to spread its claim to replace state borders with an allegedly ‘pre-colonial’ structure: the “Caliphate”. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based Islamist terror group, pledged allegiance to ISIS on March 9, 2015. Similarly to ISIS’s symbolic use of the Sykes-Picot imaginary, Boko Haram’s leaders pretend that they follow the line of the Sokoto caliphate, which ruled over in the same area until the arrival of British and French colonial troops. The The Sokoto Caliphate was an independent Islamic Caliphate, in West Africa. Founded during the jihad of the Fulani War in 1809 by Usman dan Fodio, it was abolished when the British defeated the caliph in 1903 and put the area under the Northern Nigeria Protectorate. In the wake of terrorist attacks, the Sokoto caliphate has heightened interest not only in the media sphere but also among academics. Notwithstanding the validity of their claim – and the continuity of Islamic resistance to Western domination in Africa – it is worth noting that Boko Haram referred constantly to pre-colonial patterns to justify its hostile and ultra-violent takeover of large territories in Niger, Chad, Cameroun and Nigeria. The most striking one is probably its resorting constantly to pre-colonial African languages. , English and French are predominant in classical world medias (notably Al Jazeera BBC and France 24). On the contrary, African mother tongues are rarely used on such channels. Yet, these languages are daily used over territories that crossed state borders and official languages. For instance, in October 2014, the landlocked African nation of saw the end of its president's 27-year-long reign. A popular revolution terminated Blaise Compaoré's term after he tried to change the constitution so that he could run for a fifth consecutive term. During the revolution, many posts used the hashtag #Iwili to comment the daily events. In one of Le Monde’s blogs, a journalist noticed how popular #Iwili was in Burkina Faso during these days, because of its closed connection with patriotic hashtags. Until today, #Iwili has been used many times in matters of election, transparency, corruption, and so on. But what does it mean exactly? There are many interpretations. In the Mossi language, one of the official regional languages of Burkina Faso (with Bambara and Mandika), Iwili means “bird” and would be a wink to Twitter’s logo.

ya mam la woto ! @ful226 #LWILI n'est pas le hastag de la révolte mais juste un tag du Burkina. LWILI signifie Oiseaux en langue moré. twitter=oiseau #LWILI 14:00 - 31 Oct 2014 2626 Retweets 22 j'aime

This Tweet says that “#Iwili has nothing to do with revolution or popular revolt. Lwili means Beard in the Mossi language”. Jeune Afrique, an influent newspaper, endorsed that rather conservative interpretation of #Iwili without questioning its other meanings. Earlier in the afternoon, an other influent Twitter’s had yet twitted:

netchys@ ن Netchys Le Hashtag #Iwili signifie "Lève Toi" en langue Haoussa. #BurkinaFaso • RETWEETS2

• 13:23 - 31 oct. 2014

Netchys said that #Iwili “means “Rise Up” in the Houassa language”. Various other posts insisted on that other signification to criticize the dominant view that #Iwili was only a local term for “Twitter”. In fact, most regional languages possess the term ”iwili” which also means “rise up” or “stand up” in other regional languages such as Bambara or Mandinka. At Internet Without Borders, we’re not so much interested in the debate on how to understand #Iwili in the context of the Burkina’s revolution. What draws our attention was not so much the political struggle to use strategically one the most popular hashtag in Burkina Faso – even president Blaise Compaoré used it at some point. We’re much more interested in the web of users that refer to #Iwili not only in Burkina Faso, but also in neighboring countries. The Mande and Moore language groups cross the National borders of West Africa (Burkina Faso, , , Guinea,…).

Source: http://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Nigermap.html

Therefore, #Iwili has not only reached Burkina Faso in 2014, but also various populations leaving in neighbouring countries and speaking vehicle languages belonging to the Mande or Moore groups. A recent survey shows the percentage of #Iwili users in Sub-Saharan Africa and reveal a significant amount of users in Ivory Coast (Moore linguistic group) and Senegal (Mande linguistic group).

Source: Tweetsmaps and Internet Without Borders (May 27, 2016)

Bibliography

Paul E. Lovejoy, « Les empires djihadistes de l’Ouest africain aux xviiie-xixe siècles », Cahiers d’histoire. Revue d’histoire critique, 128 | 2015, 87-103