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The Force of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali Bruce Whitehouse

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The Force of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali Bruce Whitehouse ● ● ● ● Africa Spectrum 2-3/2012: 93-110 The Force of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali Bruce Whitehouse Abstract: The coup d’état that occurred in Bamako in March 2012 brought a previously unknown army captain named Amadou Sanogo to power. This paper analyses Malian media reports to explore how Sanogo and his associ- ates sought to legitimize their takeover with reference to local conceptions of heroism, power and destiny, and how Sanogo’s public image resonated with time-honoured narratives about heroic figures in Malian culture. This case demonstrates that understanding religious worldviews is essential for understanding the workings of political power. Manuscript received 2 October 2012; accepted 7 October 2012 Keywords: Mali, coup d’état/military insurrection, political culture Bruce Whitehouse is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he also teaches courses in global studies and Africana studies. From August 2011 until May 2012 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Bamako, Mali, where he lectured at the Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako. 94 Bruce Whitehouse When a coup d’état toppled Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Touré two months before the end of his second and final term of office, the man who led the putsch became the object of intense scrutiny by Malians and outside observers alike. This young army officer achieved overnight celebrity status in Bamako in the early morning of 22 March, when in his initial appearance on Mali’s ORTM state television, wearing camouflage fatigues and a cap pulled low over his forehead, he hoarsely read a terse appeal for calm. A caption identified him as Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, “President of the Comité National pour le Redressement de la Démocratie et la Restauration de l’Etat” (National Committee for Recovering Democracy and Restoring the State, or CNRDRE). This was the man now holding the reins of power in Mali. Amadou Haya Sanogo was just 39 years old, but had already spent most of his life in the army. After attending a military-run primary school in Kati, a town 14 kilometres northwest of Bamako, he started his career in the en- listed ranks. Between 1998 and 2010 he attended at least five Pentagon- sponsored training courses in the United States, and gained promotions to lieutenant and then captain. He worked more recently as an English in- structor for the army, a capacity in which he became well known to, and liked by, rank-and-file troops. When on 21 March 2012 a mutiny flared up at the Kati garrison, with young soldiers revolting in equal measure against their civilian leaders and the military high command, Captain Sanogo was the highest-ranking officer associated with the mutineers, who designated him to lead the 50-odd members of the new junta, the CNRDRE (Groga- Bada 2012a, SAPA 2012). “Les jeunes [the youths] associated with me, they accepted me, and they trusted me,” he told an interviewer on Africable Tel- evision the next day, referring to his fellow mutineers. Many have speculated about the coup leader’s motives. One military of- ficer close to the deposed president interpreted the coup as a bid by Sanogo to settle professional scores with a power hierarchy that had stymied his advancement (Le Parisien 2012). Some in Mali saw him as a patriot, others as a menace. In his first televised interview on 22 March, Sanogo’s own justifi- cations for the coup were myriad and extremely varied. He spoke briefly about the Malian state’s failing campaign against northern separatist rebels, which had caused troops to lose confidence in their leadership. But he de- voted more time to listing other problems confronting the nation: a dys- functional public education system, irregularities in civil service recruitment, high costs of living, and joblessness. He spoke of the mutineers’ demands for better housing, benefits and professional training (“That is our first mis- sion,” he declared to enthusiastic applause from the troops standing behind him), and of their desire for reform – “not of the army, of the state”. He The Force of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali 95 vowed that officials in President Touré’s administration who had broken the law or abused their authority would be prosecuted (Africable 2012a). While universally condemned abroad, the forced removal of President Touré proved generally popular in Bamako, where an opinion poll con- ducted in late April by an independent Malian statistician found that 64 per cent of residents approved of the Touré regime’s early demise, and 65 per cent had a favourable opinion of Captain Sanogo, making him one of the most respected figures in national politics at that time (Guindo 2012). Mali’s political transition had gone badly awry under Touré, amid rampant corrup- tion and the breakdown of the rule of law (see Whitehouse 2012); it was not surprising, then, that many Malians were relieved to see Touré gone, even if many were also wary of the junta and particularly of the man who had driven Touré from office. Although the CNRDRE officially surrendered power to a civilian care- taker government only three weeks after the coup, it continued to exert influence over Mali’s political process, and Captain Sanogo remained a highly visible public figure. Nearly six months after the coup, the French magazine Jeune Afrique described him as ruling in a “triumvirate”, albeit un- easily, alongside President Dioncounda Traoré and Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra (Groga-Bada 2012b). While the true extent of his power remains murky, it is clear that after mounting his coup, Sanogo had no in- tention of quietly retiring from the political scene. Comparing Mali’s demo- cratic edifice under Touré’s presidency to a sagging wall, the captain prom- ised to watch over the country’s process of political reform. “We did not knock down this wall to turn our backs on it,” he declared to the nation shortly after signing the agreement to transfer power to a civilian govern- ment (ORTM 2012a). Radical political leaders, discontented with the com- position of the new civilian government, even tried to appoint Sanogo as the country’s interim president in late May (Diallo 2012). Despite his lack of national political experience, Sanogo proved to be a master communicator who knew how to frame his actions so as to maxim- ize public support, especially in and around Bamako. By addressing ques- tions of corruption, misrule, and general lawlessness, he spoke to ordinary Malians’ quite valid concerns about the state’s failures to serve their needs; he also spoke to widespread disappointment with Touré and his allegedly anti-democratic behaviour. Again and again in the weeks and months fol- lowing the coup, Sanogo represented his actions not as a blow against Mali’s young democratic system, but as the only way to save democracy in the country from the depredations of a venal elite determined to entrench itself 96 Bruce Whitehouse in power.1 Whether in French, Mali’s official language, or in his native Bamanan, Mali’s most widely spoken national language, the captain was a gifted speaker; his narrative of acting to rescue Malian democracy from irresponsible politicians was compelling for a large number of Malians both at home and abroad, even as some remained sceptical of his true intentions. Sanogo appealed to a large cross-section of the Malian public in part because after taking power he skilfully exploited local imaginaries pertaining to politics and leadership. His popular legitimacy derived not from formal legal texts but from widely shared discourses pertaining to the role of leaders in Malian society. Once in power, amid pervasive disenchantment with the political process under President Touré, Sanogo crafted his own public per- sona in stark contrast to those of the politicians who had run the country for the previous two decades. Specifically, at times the captain was cast in the role of a mythic hero, someone who comes to the aid of his people in times of desperation. It is certainly true that the CNRDRE junta justified its ac- tions in universal terms of safeguarding democracy and fighting corruption, and this was an important source of its support. But a significant aspect of its appeal was more culturally specific, revolving around the person of Cap- tain Sanogo and how he was represented to, and received by, a Malian audi- ence. In this paper, based on my insights from my presence in Bamako at the time of the coup and on media reports from Mali, I analyse how dis- courses grounded in local conceptions of heroism, power and destiny helped Sanogo find a popular mandate after driving an elected president from of- fice. I argue that political power in Mali is inextricably intertwined with reli- gion, which we can understand as “a belief in the existence of an invisible world, distinct but not separate from the visible one, that is home to spir- itual beings with effective powers over the material world” (Ellis and ter Haar 2004: 14). Spiritual power in this region figures centrally in construc- tions of personal, political and military power. Mythic Heroes and Mystical Forces In Mali, politics and daily life are always inscribed within the context of the region’s oral histories. These legends carry especially great cultural signifi- cance for peoples of Mande origin (understood here to be members of the Bamanan and Maninka groups, who constitute a large portion of the popu- lations of central, western and southern Mali, and whose languages are dominant in those areas). The figure of the hero – or, ngana, in the Bamanan 1 See, e.g., Sanogo’s 6 May interview broadcast on Africable Television (2012b).
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