Politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau

Precolonial Influence on the Postcolonial State

Mariama Khan

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000539462
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Categoría: Politica africana

This book explores how precolonial political traditions and practices shape modern-day politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.

The precolonial Kaabu empire dominated the region for over 300 years, leaving a rich oral and ritual culture that emphasized the importance of a ruler's legitimacy among the general population. This book traces how postcolonial political administrations and Justice, Integrity and Truth (JIT) movements have mobilized to reclaim, reinvent and subvert traditional Kabunka norms of statecraft to prove their political legitimacy. It shows how cultural memory, oral arts and musical forms can be used to express ideals of leadership and followership and, in the process, create various conversations and debates about politics and society, social attitudes and morality. In doing so, the book captures how the latent but influential social and political practices from Kaabu are reclaimed, reproduced or subverted to contribute to the evolving nature of political rhetoric in these two countries.

Whereas many studies of the state in Africa take Western democratic principles as a starting point, this book provides important evidence on the continuity of precolonial political culture along African's west coast. It will be of interest to researchers studying politics, history and anthropology both within the region and elsewhere in Africa.

1Politics, religion and society in Kaabu

DOI: 10.4324/9781003140009-2

Being a woman is no infirmity

(A Mandinka saying)

To be a Mandinka is to be honorable, to keep promises

(A Mandinka saying)

In Chapter 1, I discuss the kinds of moral reservoirs that frame postcolonial political culture in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau with other examples drawn from Senegal and Mali. I also discuss the new demands for moral politics and the kinds of historical and cultural constructs that shape these emerging visions of how politics should be. Additionally, I discuss how music is used to express political futures. More importantly, the chapter highlights how Justice, Truth and Integrity movements (JITs) use pre-colonial political practices, rhetoric and cultural viewpoints to highlight modern social debates about the state, politics and visions of the future. This chapter explores statecraft in Kaabu, an important polity that has become a common source of references in Gambian and Bissau-Guinean politics. It reconstructs relevant aspects of Kaabunka political and cultural history to show to what extent, as Bayart and other authors argue, the past shapes the present. The aim here is to explore historical trends and discontinuities in political culture to contextualize how JITs borrow from history and culture to rationalize politics in The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and, by extension, Senegal and Mali.

Freund (1998: 1) observed that “Africans have been conceptualizing their lives and social relations historically” from ancient times. The production of African historical knowledge by praise singers, diviners or court officials were ideological in nature. Knowledge was necessary for achieving social and political visions. But competence in history afforded the necessary pathway for understanding society in relation to any ideological concerns and visions it sought to achieve. Thus, the colonial state, like most precolonial African rulers, was obsessed with amassing historical data and materials on Africa and African people. However, the postcolonial rulers had a different relation to both history and culture. Most of them deviated from history and culture, thanks to their subjugation to colonial and neocolonial ideologies that significantly discount African history and traditions. They adopted “African high standards” conceived competitively to show that their “standards of education and administration are as good as those of their former colonizers” (Ekeh, 1975: 101). Their preoccupations leave them with no adequate room to critically engage with the worldviews and visions of their people. It made it easier for thinking about the African state to be sub-contracted to Western social scientists and development experts. Ekeh concludes that the African ruling classes produced by colonial rule are not elites in the true sense of the word. Unlike the traditional aristocrats defeated by the colonizer, members of this new ruling class did not have autonomy in the formation of their values and in their decision-making processes due to external influences (Ekeh, 1975: 94). Rulers of the modern African state largely expended their energies on “catching up” with the West, even if this has proven to be illusive after more than half a century since independence.

JITs seek to redefine African politics and embed it within African history and culture. Their pre-occupations with postcolonial politics derived from self-realizations similar to those of what Ayittey called the “angry generation of Africans” of the mid-1980s. He argued the “internalists” believe external factors including colonialism have decisive influence on African politics and societies. However, internal factors such as “misguided leadership, misgovernance, systemic corruption, capital flight, economic mismanagement, declining investment, collapsed infrastructure, decayed institutions, senseless civil wars, political tyranny, flagrant violations of human rights, and military vandalism” have contributed to the African crisis (Ayittey, 2006: 4). JITs demand politics that prioritize African interests. This view in no way denounces external interests. Instead, it means people (citizens) should matter to the state and they should be first in the affairs of the state. It is with such understanding that, for instance, today many people in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau make references to Kaabu to express their political or cultural ideals. Peter Karibe Mendy, a Gambian and Bissau-Guinean scholar, noted in an interview that “references to the Kaabu Empire are constantly made as an important historical development … and the cultural heritages (including the kora and kora music) that emanate from that” (Karibe Mendy, 2020). The “Mandinkanization” of diverse ethnic groups, including the Manjacos/Manjagos who were not under Kaabu’ s rule, created a significant acculturation in the upper Guinea Coast. “For example, the Manjago word for rice is oumani, from mano, the Mandinka word for the staple foodcrop” (Karibe Mendy, 2020).

Kaabu existed within a multi-ethnic environment similar to the ethnic landscape in modern Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Irrespective of this fact, its culture has widely affected different ethnic groups in the region. Its legacy as a dominant political force in the Senegambia region and the upper Guinea Coast is appropriated by people from different ethnic origins. It is in this sense that I use Kabunka political culture under Mama Janky Wally, last Kaabu mansa (ruler), to discuss how latent but highly influential Kabunka political discourses and practices today influence politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.

Janky Wally (the preferred short form of his name used in this work) is the subject of various popular epic songs and oral histories. He ruled in the late precolonial period, shortly before the scramble for and the later partition of Africa. His reign demonstrated some of the changes the Atlantic slave trade engendered in Kaabu’s history and politics. Janky Wally decisively influenced Kabunka political culture, social practices and customs as will be seen later in the chapter. It is reasonable to use his 19th-century rule in Kaabu to discuss 21st-century politics in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau because in modern Gambia and Guinea-Bissau people reclaim, subvert and appropriate ancient Mandinka strategies for Mandinka hegemony as the foundation for their social, political or ethnic visions. The appropriation of Mandinka history and culture in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau can be understood in terms of a broad Mandinka legacy that started even before they founded the Mali empire. Dr Mark Christian defines legacy as “what has been transmitted by that generation who fought for better life opportunities for the next generations to follow them” (Christian, 2021: 289). Based on this definition, Manding legacy includes what Gambians and Bissau-Guineans appropriate from Kabunka culture, history and politics. But also what Kaabu learnt and appropriated from Manding culture and politics from the Mali empire.

The main question the chapter deals with is: what roles did knowledge, history, and culture play in shaping Kabunka political culture, ethics and morals? The question highlights how Kaabu had used historical and cultural knowledge from its Mande ancestry to develop a state-system that first existed as a vassal entity of the Mali empire but later became an independent kingdom that expanded into an empire. I argue that, unlike the postcolonial African bourgeois class who inherited power from the colonialists, Mande people were successful state-builders because they groomed thinkers, spiritual leaders, occupational groups that fostered merit-based ethical leadership and followership, to achieve Mande visions. As state-builders, certain moral and ethical dispositions guided their political development and advancement. These values include Telingho (justice/or being just), Forooyaa (possessing an exemplary character), Mooya (endowed with social intelligence), Hakiliyerewa (consciousness, the source of wisdom and critical thinking) and Sobeya (values for hard work and seriousness). Kaabu appropriated Mande political culture, social thoughts, values, and ethics to build a hegemonic state in the upper Guinea Coast.

Before proceeding, I will clarify how certain terms are used in this work. Kabunka (also spelt Kaabunké) is the term used for the people of Kaabu. Mande is also known as Manding, the reference for the original homeland of all Mandinka people, which is also known as the Mali empire. Various groups from the Mande homeland dispersed to other areas of West Africa for state-building, trade and other purposes. The Manding world created a number of successful empires and kingdoms from their original homeland and beyond, including in Kaabu. They had mature political and cultural institutions, some of which survive today. I will interchangeably use Kaabu with Mandinka since it was founded by the ethnic Mandinkas, who adapted their different political, cultural and social institutions to suit their visions for Kaabu. This book uses Manding as the preferred reference for the original homeland of Mandinka people. It is the dominant term used in The Gambia and other parts of the Senegambia region. It will also interchangeably use Mande and Mandinka as the ethnic reference for people of Manding heritage. The term Mandinka or Mandinque is also commonly used in The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and other parts of the Senegambia region.

This introduction is followed by an exploration of Mandinka and Kabunka origins, and the nature of statecraft in the empire. After that the chapter explores Kaabu’s government and state institutions, the roles women and youth played and how gender was related to social conflicts and customs. This is followed by an analysis of the rise of Mama Janky Wally and the genocide that ended Kaabu’s independence. The chapter ends with the conclusion.

Kaabu and Mandinka origins

According to Gambian historian, Patience Sonko-Godwin (2003), Mandinkas can be found in different West African countries: The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali and Ivory Coast. They are also known by other ethnic names – Malinke, Mandingo, Dioula, Susu, Maninka Mori or Wangara (in Ghana). There are conflicting records about the exact origins of the Mandinka people. Brooks and other scholars believed they originated from areas around the Senegambia, along the northern borders of Futa Jallon. Hunter-gatherer proto-Mandinka speakers moved from the bends of the Senegal and Niger rivers to the green Sahara when the environment became drier. This new location had ample rainfall, numerous water bodies (streams, swamps, shallow lakes, etc.) and abundant grassland. In the future, water would hold metaphorical and symbolic importance in Manding culture, religion and politics.

Mandinka people are believed to have splintered into two groups: one went south to look for greater rainfall and became farmers of millet and sorghum, two important Mandinka staple crops. The other group – hunter-gathers and herders – stayed in the Sahel and the fringes of the Sahara and spoke northern Manding dialects (Brooks, 1989, 28). “As ecological conditions worsened, people living in the area of the Sahara either modified their lifestyles or sought more favorable environments by migrating north, south, or east into the Nile” (Brooks, 1989, 26). Some popular Mandinka oral traditions in the Senegambia region narrate that Mandinkas originated from areas along the Kulunjunbe Baa (which is a Mandinka name for the Nile). One oral tradition specifically mentions Karrtumi, a reference for Khartoum, the capital of modern Sudan, as the specific place they originated from.

Brooks (1989) highlighted that Mandinkas responded to climate and changing rainfall patterns and ecological conditions in West Africa in one of three major ways. First, they adapted and coped with new local environmental challenges. In this case, they found new economic opportunities out of the changing climatic conditions. Secondly, they migrated to other areas in western Sudan. Sonko-Godwin (2003) relates this was how Mandinka populations arrived in the Senegambia region long before Mali empire was founded. Thirdly, they raided and occupied other territories. This was also an important strategy for the dispersion and settling of Mandinka groups in Kaabu and other parts of the upper Guinea Coast. The last two strategies were important for the future expansion of Manding. They contributed to the three major waves of Mandinka migration (see Knorr and Filho, 2010).

From the Mali empire, Mandinka migrations consisted of first, small groups of agriculturalists in search of land and blacksmiths looking for wood to sustain their smith work. Secondly, Muslim Mandinka traders, popularly known as the juula or julolu, traded between the Savannah and the forest regions. Thirdly, Mandinka state-builders, including warriors looking for new sites to broadcast their power and authority, were instrumental in the founding of Kaabu, an imperial province of Mali and later an independent empire. These three broad groups of Mandinka migrants integrated in different communities and locations in West Africa through conquest, assimilation, resistance and co-optation (Knorr and Filho, 2010: 4).

The founding of Kaabu

According to Gambian oral historian Dembo Fatty, after the founding of the Mali empire, mansa Sundiata sent emissaries to procure horses in the Senegambia region. However, bourba Jollof (king of the Jollof kingdom) captured and killed them. Jollof was located in the northeast of modern-day Senegal. Bourba Jollof also ruled over the ancient state of Laff, whose people were known as Waalaff (the people of Laff), the ethnic origin of the Wollof people. When the botched horse procurement mission was reported to Sundiata, he assigned Fakoli Dumbuya, the master warrior of Manding, to avenge the dead of the emissaries. Fakoli was an estranged nephew of Sumanguru Kanteh, the Suso king, who terrorized the Mandinka before Sundiata and his generals came to rescue them. But general Tiramakan Traore insisted that he lead the mission to avenge Manding blood, or he would commit suicide. He undertook the mission, defeated and killed bourba Jollof, and proceeded to conquer large parts of the lower Senegambia region. This territory was first called Tiramakan Banku (“Tiramakan country” named after the general). Later, it was renamed Kaabu.

By 1240, Tiramakan Tarawally and his warriors extended the frontiers of the Mali empire as far as Thiaroye in Dakar, in present-day Senegal. At that time, the Gambia area had about 13–14 states among them Nuimi, Baddibu, Saloum, upper and lower Niani, Wuropana, Kiang, Jarra, Wuli, Jimara, Kantora, Foni, Kombo. Later, these formed the new state of colonial Gambia. Sonko-Godwin also noted that the military expedition to the Senegambia area was followed by the migration of the Mandinka from Mali to the Senegambia region. This was around the mid-13th century. Over 75,000 people, including princes, generals, marabouts, slaves, freemen and different artisan groups, left the Mali empire to settle in the Senegambia region (Sonko-Godwin, 2003). According to Green, “by the sixteenth century Kaabu’s influence extended over what are now The Gambia, the southern Senegalese region of Casamance and Guinea- Bissau. This was a federation with a fierce warrior aristocracy, the nyantios, who shaped Kaabu’s strength and secure its power for centuries to come” (Green, 2019, 75–76).

From the 13th century, Kaabu was an imperial province of Mali, but it became an independent state from 1537 to 1867. Green argues that “it may in fact be that the very idea of Kaabu – or the idea of Kaabu as many have been accustomed to think of it – is a colonial projection.” He agrees with Giesing and Vydrine (2007: 4 quoted in Green, 2019: 6) that “in the texts of tradition in Mandinka that we have studied in Guinea-Bissau, we have not found a specific term to designate the political entity of Kaabu, which is just known as ‘the land of Kaabu’.”

In contrast to Green and Giesing and Vydrine’s position, I argue that the name Kaabu is an indigenous creation, not a colonial one. Different oral sources corroborated that before Kaabu was widely known by that name, it was called Tiramakan Banku – “the state of Tiramakan,” “Tiramakan country,” or “the land of Tiramakan.” The transition of the original place name to Kaabu can be understood in terms of traditional Mandinka place name rules and patterns. It was customary that when Mandinka settlers arrived at a new place, conquered or settled there, they named it after the person leading the group, as an honor. They could also name it after the original home they left to come to the new place. Alternatively, they gave it a name based on what the area symbolica...