13 Boundaries, Communities and 'Re-Membering'
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13 Boundaries, Communities and ‘Re-Membering’ Festivals and the Negotiation of Difference In this final chapter, I round off the extended comparison by returning to the borderlands as spaces where claims to place and expressions of identity played off one another. In particular, I consider how far the dynamics of international boundaries affected the ways in which ‘community’ was imagined and acted upon: in a nutshell, the question is whether borders were internalized in such a manner that they became part of the building blocks of community, or con- versely community was defined in opposition to the existence of the borders. As indicated in Chapter 1, I deploy ‘community’ in a deliberately broad sense, connoting a shared feeling of belonging, but manifested in an organized form and arranged spatially – whether that be membership of a village or a religious grouping. I will also address ethnicity as a mode of ‘we-group’ identification that builds on conceptions of community but operates at a broader and more discursive level. Defining what it means to belong to a community or an ethnic group is typically about the here-and-now, but it inevitably involves a direct engagement with the contours of history. In the cases I am concerned with, what is striking is the frequency with which elements of an apparently long- forgotten past have resurfaced unexpectedly. Clearly much of the history in question does not derive from individual memory because it relates to what happened well before the twentieth century. Although the notion of ‘collective memory’ is counter-intuitive, there are clearly ways in which traces of the past are encoded. Along with Paul Connerton and Maurice Halbwachs, we can agree that while memory resides in individual experience, it only becomes comprehensible once embedded in a set of social relations.1 Memories are often invested in things that are spatially embedded – such as shrines, build- ings, monuments and indeed border pillars – but they are also harboured in oral forms and reproduced through performative acts. In West Africa, alternatives to the dominant narratives often reside deep within lineages and family lines rather than at the level of the community as a whole – which means that they 1 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 36–40. 484 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Edinburgh, on 03 Nov 2019 at 12:23:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139105828.013 Boundaries, Communities and ‘Re-Membering’ 485 can remain obscured from view before their sudden reappearance catches everybody by surprise. Festivals are of particular interest because they involve behaviour that is very conscious – even to the point of being contrived – but they also have a habit of throwing up the unexpected. Because they are an exercise in codifying collective memories, festivals can trigger a plethora of alternative construc- tions of reality.2 Cross-border festivals also tend to draw in the authorities from either side of the line who have to reconcile their own interest in the business of representation with the perspectives of local actors.3 In this chapter, I approach festivals as an exercise in (re)building a sense of community that transcends the international border, and account for some of the reasons why this has turned out to be less straightforward than might have appeared likely. I will begin the analysis in the Senegambia before returning to the trans-Volta. Constructing Community in the Senegambia In the Senegambia, the formal commitment by governments to reduce the practical consequences of borders has continued to be undercut by disputes over their daily management.4 But for all the recriminations, states have not interfered greatly in everyday interactions. Reference has already been made to the rotating markets, or lumos, that provide spaces for cross-border trade, and to the exchange of farm land. But there were also many other bonds linking particular settlements. The Mandinka towns that share histories of migra- tion remain connected through regular life-cycle events such as marriages, naming and initiation ceremonies. The latter consists of two sub-types: the circumcision rites (sunandiro) that are conducted for adolescents at the age of seventeen or eighteen years, and the major initiation (kaseba) for men entering marriage that takes place every twenty to thirty years. It is common practice for related villages and towns to participate in each other’s events. The alkalo of Sifoe explained that rising costs had led to the fading importance of the kaseba and the incorporation of elements thereof into sunandiro. Although 2 On the history of festivals and celebrations in Lomé, see Kodjo Koffi, “Réjouissances privées et cérémonies officielles: une histoire socio-politique de la fête à Lomé”, in Odile Goerg (ed.), Fêtes urbaines en Afrique: espaces, identités et pouvoirs (Paris: Karthala, 1999). 3 For a fascinating parallel example from the US–Mexico border, see Elaine A. Peña. “Paso Libre: border enactment, infrastructure, and crisis resolution at the port of Laredo 1954–1957”, TDR: The Drama Review 61 (2) 2017. 4 In 2016, Senegalese transporters blockaded the border for three months in protest against a massive hike in the Gambia fees paid by trucks crossing to the Casamance, as well as the failure to advance the Gambia bridge project. This was the sixth such closure since 2000. On each occasion, the action by transporters has forced governments to the negotiating table. www.africanews.com/2016/05/16/gambia-senegal-border-remains-closed-as-diplomatic-row- continues/ Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Edinburgh, on 03 Nov 2019 at 12:23:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139105828.013 486 States, Social Contracts and Respacing from Below, c.1970–2010 he felt that this may have reduced some of the interaction, it was still com- monplace for towns and villages to exchange visits during the sunandiro. The second means by which Mandinka communties remain connected has been through religious festivals, which are again sub-divided into two types. The first is the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday – Mawlud – which is known in Mandinka as gammo and is held in December. Although this should logically take place on a single day, in practice it is staggered in order to enable people to attend events in other towns.5 The second, al-Koran Karamo, is a koranic recitation festival organized annually by each settlement. The alkalo of Sifoe observed that when a clash of dates occurred, it was common for towns to delegate a certain number of people to attend the other event.6 The al-Koran Karamo can take place at any time and provides an opportunity for people to renew the bonds between them. In the Casamance borderlands, Daroussalaam occupies a particularly important position in the religious calendar. In April, talibés from the many communities where Cheikh Mahfoudz founded reli- gious schools – including those in Guinea-Bissau, Mali, the Gambia and Mauritania – converge on Daroussalaam to pray at his tomb. Although it is clear that Mahfoudz occupies a very special place in the religious understand- ing of the Jola, his religious network evidently transcends ethnicity. Many goods are transported across the border during these religious events, both as gifts and for entertainment. The relatively relaxed attitude to cross-border relations in the Senegambia was threatened by the outbreak of the Casamance insurgency in the early 1990s. Rebels of the Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC) secreted themselves in the forests and exhibited a penchant for border locations where they could establish safe havens. The Guinea-Bissau border offered the ideal location because of the weak control exercised by the authorities there, but the Gambia border was important in its own right. In Senegal, it was widely believed that the Jammeh regime permitted safe passage to the MFDC subject to the latter agreeing to refrain from attacking villages on the Gambian side of the line. On one occasion when the looting of stores in Senegalese Dimbaya strayed into the section of the divided town that was located in the Gambia, a local informant recalled that the rebel commanders realized their mistake and swiftly returned the goods.7 This was a clear indication that the insurgency had territorial limits. The MFDC rebels seem to have enjoyed some local support to start with, especially in the settlements that had been newly populated by Jola migrants 5 Interview with Alhaji Malanding Demba, Alkalo of Sifoe (Gambia), 6 April 2004. 6 Interview with Alhaji Malanding Demba, 6 April 2004. 7 Interview with Yousupha Colley, Dimbaya (Gambia), 11 February 2004. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Edinburgh, on 03 Nov 2019 at 12:23:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139105828.013 Boundaries, Communities and ‘Re-Membering’ 487 from Buluf. Their material demands were modest, consisting of a cup of rice per compound from time to time. Indeed, by scaring off the forest guards they opened up a source of income for farmers who increasingly needed cash to purchase rice as their own paddies dried up.8 Moreover, the Senegalese authorities ceased collecting the taxes that had previously been levied through the chefs de village.9 But over time rebel demands became more onerous and their behaviour more arbitrary. Mounting insecurity on the roads led to a falling off of attendance at the regular round of religious and social activities. At the height of the insurgency, many people from the Casamance sought refuge across the border.