SUBTLE CULTURAL THEFT OF TUAREG ART WITH ONE HAND WHILE KILLING THEM WITH THE OTHER…
We see it all the time – attempts to appropriate the culture of the Kel Tamasheq, the people of the desert.
It´s not just about admiring another culture, (admiration is not the problem as long as it`s referring to its true origins) it`s when some Malian elements call the Azawadian Tuareg culture their own, that it becomes a problem. Really, that is an attempt to steal it. Erasing the distinct uniqueness and origin by calling it “Malian” and “celebrating diversity”.
But how should they celebrate diversity if the origin of their own culture gets erased? if they are not accepted as being Azawadians? when the Malian junta and their Russian auxiliaries exterminate their people? when the fact that their land was stolen is not recognized? when the root of the problem is not recognized? Beautiful and empty words to hide the real agenda.
Years of marginalization ….
“We have to be clear, the Tuaregs are not Malians” – says a comment on the social media. One of many.
But what really stinks here is that while they appropriate the culture of the Tuaregs with one hand, they marginalize, oppress and kill them with the other. The Malian authorities actually literally EXTERMINATE them, and that with the help of Russian mercenaries and Turkish drones. The word hypocrisy is really given another dimension…
In almost all Maghrebi and Sahelian embassies abroad, Tuareg art is used to characterize a kind of uniqueness and authenticity of the identities of these different countries. While the Tuaregs are everywhere trampled and sidelined. (Ag Akal)
There are many examples of this sneaking cultural genocide.
This picture with the text in arabic was posted on Facebook, and while there is nothing wrong with the picture, there is something fundamentally wrong with the text that was placed with the picture which reads:
“We call them the blue men of the desert.
This is MALI.
But behind the sand and the silence, the Tuareg are proud Malian children, proud of the desert and the nation. Mali is a river of sweets.”
What nonsense! “This is Mali” he wrote, and not a word about Azawad, as if Azawad didn´t exist.
That`s also what many Malians say in the comments on the social media, ignoring the fact that Azawad (and the Azawadian Tamasheq culture) existed long before Mali was even created by the colonial France.
Instead he writes “Mali is a river of sweets”….. Oh is it? we see a land where It seems that its putschist government is heading toward the abyss … and wants to drag the people with it into the abyss.
So obviously, the picture was re-posted by someone who added that text to it. But look… it`s not innocent! behind it is a hidden evil attempt of erasing the Tuareg culture by way of dissolving its Azawadian origin by calling it Malian and calling the Tuaregs “proud Malian children”….
How can they be “proud Malian children” when it`s Mali who is exterminating their people? it`s the same thing that the colonial powers did when they created the “noble happy savage” idea… and it´s totally racist.
Khamidoune Toumast, a Tuareg, has a response to the posting.
His response is the following:
Don’t try to embellish the chains Mali has imposed on us for decades. A slave does not become a son simply because the jailer calls him “my child”.
We are not the children of Mali.
We are the sons of the free desert, the heirs of those who never bowed the knee to an imposed power or recognized a border drawn by the colonizer.
Calling us the blue men of the desert does not authorize you to steal our identity or dissolve it into your failed nationalist project.
We have never been part of Mali; we were annexed by force and violence, and we have resisted from day one.
Mali is neither our river, nor our mountains, nor our savannah!
It is an open-air prison, shrouded in the silence of the world and ruled by the criminals of Bamako.
- If we were, as you claim, proud children of the nation, why are our children being massacred in Timbuktu, in Gao, in Ménaka?
- Why are our young people found dead in wells?
- Why are we treated as traitors in your media and prey in your wars?
Enough lies in the name of unity. True unity is built neither on blood nor submission.
We are neither Tidjane Maïga nor the others. We are the Kel-Tamacheq. The sons of this land, (Azawad) and we will remain a thorn in the throat of those who want to erase or domesticate us.
Long_Live_Azawad_Freedom
There are other examples, like this one:
During his recent visit to Moscow, Malian transitional president Assimi Goïta presented a Tacouba sword to Russian President Vladimir Putin, declaring that this symbolic object would allow him to “neutralize all his enemies.”
Here he has the nerve to give away a Tuareg Tacouba sword as a gift, while he himself is responsible for the genocide of the Tuaregs in Azawad/Mali. And he gives the sword to the person responsible for the Russian mercenaries who are committing horrible atrocities against the Tuareg, among others.
- The Tacouba sword will surely turn against them! (karma)
A few weeks earlier, Niger’s Prime Minister, Lamine Zeine, presented Rwandan President Paul Kagame with a Tuareg artwork, adorned with the Agadez cross, a powerful emblem of the Tuareg people’s identity.
These highly symbolic gestures could be seen as signs of cultural diplomacy. But in the current context, they above all reveal a profound contradiction—even a cynical exploitation of a thousand-year-old cultural heritage—by regimes that, at the same time, harshly repress the communities that are its guardians.
A facade recognition
Tuareg art, rich, refined, and embodying an image of freedom, has become a diplomatic tool for the military regimes in Bamako and Niamey.
Offering a sword or a painting to foreign heads of state is an attempt to embody an Africa proud of its traditions. But this staging masks a brutal reality: these same authorities, who promote Tuareg aesthetics internationally, do not hesitate to marginalize, stigmatize, and even persecute Tuareg populations on their own soil.
An invisible war against the Tuaregs of Azawad
In Mali, Assimi Goïta’s government has been waging a ferocious military campaign in the Azawad region for months. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, entire villages are being bombed by drones, and Tuareg civilians are being targeted in what increasingly resembles a punitive expedition.
Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group—now renamed Africa Corps – or shall we rather say – RUSSIAN CORPS – are accused of participating in these operations, sowing terror and devastation.
This repression primarily targets Tuareg-majority regions such as Kidal, Ménaka, and Tessalit, considered by the regime to be hotbeds of rebellion. But it is civilians, nomads, children, and the elderly who are paying the highest price. And meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, a Tuareg sword is being presented with great pomp to the Kremlin as a symbol of honor and power.
Excerpts from an article called Tuareg art without the Tuaregs by Mohamed Ag Ahmedou.
TUAREG MUSIC GROUPS
It`s also often that we see the world famous Tuareg group Tinariwen being described as a “Malian” group. They are not. That sometimes applies to the group Tamikrest too. But they had in their description on one of their tour announcements in 2024, themselves labeled as a group from Azawad.
And both groups sing about the suffering of the people of Azawad caused by the oppression on them since 1963. Every song talks about the suffering and the nostalgia of the people of the desert, or many deserts, as the name Tinariwen means.
1963…. This is one of the first songs which Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, the founder of Tinariwen, or Abraybon as he is affectionaly called, wrote in the 1980s. The song “Soixante-Trois” (1963) is about the Tuareg rebellion of 1963 which was brutally suppressed by the Malian army, and this suppression lead eventually to the second rebellion of 1990. And since the root problem of the situation has not been adressed and solved (that Azawad was attached to Mali against the will of the people living there) the revolutions have continued.
The first Tuareg rebellion peaked in 1963, shortly after Mali “gained independence” from France, which in reality was that France created this new state and that`s also when they attached Azawad to it, without any regard for the Azawadian people whatsoever, it was pure force.
The former colonization was of course definitely also against the will of the people living there, who had their own lifestyle. The Tuaregs always stood up against the French colonizers. Now they were attached to another colonizer – the Malian state, an extension actually, of the French colonialism.
Many Tuaregs also felt that this “new country” was nothing better than a new colonizer, controlling their desert lives from another distant capital. Tinariwen’s leader, Abraybon, was a young boy at the time; and he had to witness the cruel execution of his father who was executed for helping the rebels. He was maybe around 5 years old. Abraybon sang about that time in one of the first songs he wrote, “Soixante Trois”:
’63 has gone, but will return
Those days have left their traces
They murdered the old folk and a child just born
They swooped down to the pastures and wiped out the cattle…
’63 has gone, but will return
Both groups also has a song called Azawad.
TINARIWEN ⵜⵏⵔⵓⵏ AZAWAD ⴰⵣⵓⴷ
Lyrics:
Azawad and its children see the rebellion emerging.
The forces of Azawad protect its leaders and its territory.
A revolution that all the sons of Azawad salute, and whose martyrs are the victims.
TAMIKREST ⵜⵎⴾⵔⵙⵜ AZAWAD ⴰⵣⵓⴷ
Lyrics:
Tifinagh engraved on the rock, proof of their passages,
prescence of desert inhabitants, who do not accept to live dominated.
“Tifinagh adoyan, felt kadayin akalnat tadjouhé n awakalnat mazzagh tilanin Ténéré, war ankabal tamazogh warit Dja dagh sarho” in the Tamasheq language. (The automatic translator for arabic is not exact)
PRETENSE OR CAMOUFLAGE TO OBSCURE ORIGINAL IDENTITY
“It’s wonderful to see our neighbors’ interest in Tamasheq clothing and swords, like Takouba. This demonstrates the extent of our civilization’s influence and historical depth in the region.
However, at the same time, there’s a big difference between shared pride in heritage and the pretense or camouflage that could obscure our original identity.
Tamasheq identity is not just about swords and clothing, but also about language, customs, lineage, the Tamasheq system, and our free outlook on life.
When some parties promote this heritage without explicitly referring to its Tamasheq Amazigh origins, this is considered a distortion of reality and a subtle cultural theft.
Our role today as Imouhagh is to document our history, highlight our symbols, and defend the authenticity of our identity without fanaticism, but rather with pride and awareness, because those who don’t tell their history will have it told by others as they wish.”
Khamidoune Ag Toumast
There is a genocide going on since 1963 on the people of Azawad. A large part of them are the Tuaregs, but there is not only Tuaregs in Azawad as have been said before, but it´s the Tuareg culture, part of the greater Amazigh culture that is the topic in this posting.
The Malian junta and the Russian “Africa Corps” (ex Wagner) are systematically exterminating everything living in Azawad. That`s the physical genocide. Then we have the cultural genocide – erasing and dissolving, with the goal of making it evaporate and disappear from being its own unique culture. Azawadian is called “Malian”…
When someone wants to erase an entire people, they kill their language – their identity – for example, the erasing of the tifinagh on the rocks, lack of health care, lack of everything, the destruction of their schools or neglect in building them, and kidnappings and murderings of their teachers.
Erasing their culture by marginalizing it, or for example rendering it into a “tourist attraction” hiding the real life and reality of the of these people and their struggle for the right to live in dignity and freedom.
This cultural genocide is a part of the physical genocide, which in turn is a part of the plans of a change of the demographics in Azawad.
Let`s read this again:
Mali is neither our river, nor our mountains, nor our savannah!
It is an open-air prison, shrouded in the silence of the world and ruled by the criminals of Bamako.
The dates of the genocides against the Tuareg in Azawad and Mali are: 1963, 1991-1996, 2012-2015 and 2023-2025.
Azawad Support Group
07-07-25