Over the past decade Stuart Emmrich and Suzanne McNeille of The New York Times commmissioned several travel pieces that gave me a grounding in Mali’s music and culture. Evan Ratcliffe and Katia Bachko at The Atavist Magazine allowed me to explore the relationship between Manny Ansar and Iyad Ag Ghali for my May 2015 piece, “The Desert Blues.” The reporting turned up new details that enriched the book’s narrative. Oliver Payne and Victoria Clark of National Geographic also provided a highly visible outlet and more funding for my research into the manuscript story.
I’m deeply indebted to my longtime friend Karen Crabbs, of Toguna Adventure Tours in Bamako, who has organized half a dozen trips for me through Mali since 2006, some of them at the height of the country’s instability. Karen introduced me to key sources, found me fixers and translators, provided astute observations about security conditions and politics, and showed me Bamako’s vibrant nightlife. It was over a dinner with her one evening in 2013 in Bamako that I first began contemplating a book on Mali, and she served as an important sounding board for the work-in-progress. Adam Thiam, Mali’s most celebrated journalist, shared his reporting on the jihadist takeover of northern Mali, as well as his contact list in Timbuktu and Gao. Manny Ansar, whom I first met through Karen Crabbs in Bamako in January 2013, became a critical source of information about Malian music, Tinariwen, Tuareg culture and history, and the life of his one-time close friend, Iyad Ag Ghali. During our many rendezvous in Oslo, Berlin, Bamako, and Ségou in 2013 and 2014, Manny was unfailingly generous with his time and unlocked many memories, some quite painful, that he had stored away for years. Azima Ag Ali Mohammed, my frequent guide in Timbuktu, opened up doors to secret corners of the city. Mohammed Touré, the until know unsung hero among the bad-ass librarians, shared his stories in gripping detail. The musicologist and Tinariwen expert Andy Morgan shared his intimate knowledge of the band and of recent Tuareg history.
I owe a tremendous thanks to Abdel Kader Haidara, whom I first met in Timbuktu in 2006 and had remained in intermittent touch with over the years before returning to Mali for this book project in January 2014. Haidara devoted twenty hours of his time in Bamako and in Brussels to telling me his life story, displaying infinite patience, opening up a world to me, sharing his insights into Islam, Timbuktu Society, Sorhai culture, and, of course, the genius of the Islamic manuscripts of Timbuktu’s Golden Age.
In Paris, my longtime friend and colleague Jon Randal, the legendary former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, introduced me to his contacts in the French Ministry of Defense, who gave me access to key military officers involved in Operation Serval. They helped me recreate this obscure but important campaign against the jihadis in the northern desert. Thanks to Pierre Bayle, General Bernard Barrera, Captain Raphaël Oudot de Dainville, and Colonel Bruno Bert of the 2e régiment d’infanterie—régiment d’Auvergne, who hosted me at his camp in Clermont Ferrand and introduced me to his troops over a long lunch with multiple glasses of French wine and champagne. Vivienne Walt and Jeffrey Schaeffer accommodated me in style at their apartment in Sèvres-Babylone, and offered their friendship and enthusiasm for the work in progress. Thanks as well to the staff of the National Library at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, for facilitating my access to vital archival materials.
Stateside, former Ambassador to Mali Vicki Huddleston made herself available on repeated occasions, in person, by phone, and by email, to answer questions about the U.S. response to the growing jihadi threat in the Sahel. Former Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic, former General Chuck Wald, and former defense attaché William Mantiply also gave generously of their time. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates shared with me vivid detail about his often inspiring, sometimes exasperating encounters with Abdel Kader Haidara. Scott Johnson, Janet Reitman, Lee Smith, Kathleen Hughes, Bob and Frankie Drogin, Keith Richburg, Nicole Gaouette, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Clifton Weins, Michael Kimmelman, and, in London, Alex Perry, provided encouraging words and advice about the narrative, as did my father, Richard Hammer, my stepmother, Arlene Hammer, my mother, Nina Hammer, and my stepfather Mitchell Cotter. At Simon & Schuster, my editor Priscilla Painton, ably assisted by Megan Hogan, Sophia Jimenez, and Jonathan Evans, worked tirelessly on the project, whipping up my enthusiasm, helping me to find and shape the narrative, and coming up with the wonderful title. My agent Flip Brophy was, as always, a steady voice of support.
In Berlin, Paul Hockenos, Mark Simon, Sam Loewenberg, and Melissa Eddy offered their friendship and advice over many enjoyable meals and conversations. Annette Krämer devoted herself to caring for her grandson, Tom, for countless hours, easing the family burdens and making my travel and writing possible. My sons, Max, Nico, and Tom helped me retain my perspective and kept my spirits high. Above all I want to thank my partner, Cordula Krämer, for her unflagging commitment, support, and love throughout all the ups and downs of this project, for her amazing ability to hold down a challenging job and be an astonishingly good mother of a three-year-old. She is bad-ass, in the best sense of the word.
About the Author
© COURTESY OF JOSH HAMMER
JOSHUA HAMMER was born in New York and graduated from Princeton University with a cum laude degree in English literature. He joined the staff of Newsweek as a business and media writer in 1988, and between 1993 and 2006 served as a bureau chief and correspondent-at-large on five continents. Hammer is now a contributing editor to Smithsonian and Outside, and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and has written for publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveler, The Atlantic, and The Atavist Magazine. He is the author of three nonfiction books and has won numerous journalism awards. Since 2007 he has been based in Berlin, Germany, and continues to travel widely around the world.
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Notes
Prologue
He shifted nervously in the front passenger seat: Author interview with Mohammed Touré, Bamako, February 17, 2014.
Chapter One
“Abdel Kader . . . you are the one”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Haidara, Bamako, January 27, 2014.
“You have no right to give the manuscripts away”: Haidara interview.
“I need you to come and see me”: Haidara interview
“Thanks, but I really don’t want to”: Haidara interview.
“You have to come”: Haidara interview.
“You are the custodian”: Haidara interview.
“Every time they drive into the villages”: Haidara interview.
Chapter Two
“The rich king of Tombuto [who] hath many plates”: Hassan Mohammed Al Wazzan Al Zayati (Leo Africanus), The History and Description of Africa: And of the Notable Things Therein Contained (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 824.
“Salt comes from the north”: Michael Woods and Mary B. Woods, Seven Wonders of Ancient Africa (London: Lerner Books, 2009).
“the one with the big belly button”: Rick Antonson, To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa (Toronto: Dundurn, 2008).
“The emperor flooded Cairo with his benefactions”: Nehemia Levtzion, “Mamluk Egypt and Takrür,” in Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, ed. Mose Sharon, (Jerusalem: E.J. Brill, 1986), p. 190.
<
br /> “The great oppressor and evildoer Sunni Ali”: John Hunwick, ed. and trans., Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa‘dī’s Ta’rikh al-sūdān Down to 1613 and other Contemporary Documents (Leiden, NLD: Brill, 2003).
“spend a great part of the night”: Hassan Mohammed Al Wazzan Al Zayati, The History and Description of Africa, p. 825.
“The land of Djenné is prosperous and densely inhabited”: Hunwick, Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire.
“In the year 991 in God’s month of Rajab the Godly”: Lila Azam Zanganeh, “When Timbuktu was the Paris of Islamic Intellectuals in Africa,” The New York Times, April 24, 2004.
“Drinking cow-milk and mixing the powder”: Aslam Farouk-Alli and Mohamed Shaid Mathee, “The Tombouctou Manuscript Project: Social History Approaches,” in The Meanings of Timbuktu, Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, eds. (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008), p. 182.
“God orders that slaves must be treated”: Mahmoud Zouber, “Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu (1556–1627): Introduction to His Life and Works” in Timbuktu: Script and Scholarship, Lalou Meltzer, Lindsay Hooper, and Gerald Kinghardt, eds. (Cape Town: Tombouctou Manuscripts Project/Iziko, 2008), p. 25.
“rise up and kill the Jews”: Ralph A. Austen, Trans-Saharan Africa in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 99.
“The King is an inveterate enemy”: Hassan Mohammed Al Wazzan Al Zayati, The History and Description of Africa, p. 825.
“Why did you conquer Timbuktu?”: Chris Gratien, “Race, Slavery, and Islamic Law in the Early Modern Atlantic,” in Journal of North African Studies 18, no. 3 (2013): pp. 454–468.
“All these people, who possess a small degree of learning”: Heinrich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London: Ward, Lock, and Co., 1890), p. 435.
“They were afraid that I should practice”: Félix Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, trans. Diana White (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896), p. 289.
“Poetry and works of imagination”: Ibid., p. 287.
“Perhaps in the future”: Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Africa: The Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books, December 17, 1998.
Chapter Three
“Say you’re the son of Mamma Haidara”: Haidara interview, January 30, 2014.
“You? . . . Who do you think you are?”: Haidara interview.
“They form the sole population”: Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, p. 20.
“I have seen them set out”: Ibid.
“Stay here, don’t go”: Haidara interview.
“Nobody’s talking to me”: Haidara interview.
“Pay attention, you have to keep hold”: Haidara interview.
“Who led you here?”: Haidara interview.
“The ramparts of the city were of salt”: John O. Hunwick and Alida Jay Boye, The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: Historic City of Islamic Africa (London: Thames & Hudson, 2008), p. 55.
“He’s dangerous. What does he want”: Haidara interview.
“It’s for the town’s orphans”: Haidara interview.
“My predecessors made a number”: Haidara interview.
“I gave out a lot of cows”: Haidara interview.
“tens of thousands of dollars”: Haidara interview.
“You come from where?”: Haidara interview.
“How much do you want for this?”: Haidara interview.
“You found all that?”: Haidara interview.
“When I was at the Ahmed Baba Institute”: Haidara interview.
“What’s the matter with you?”: Haidara interview.
“What’s the problem?”: Haidara interview.
“Who told you about that?”: Haidara interview.
“I was well paid for this work”: Haidara interview.
Chapter Four
“You know I have a problem”: Haidara interview.
“We’re going to help you”: Haidara interview.
“I understood their politics”: Haidara interview.
“It blew my mind and the image stuck with me”: Phone interview with Henry Louis Gates, October 1, 2014.
“I am apt to suspect the Negroes”: Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, (New York: Penguin Books, 1995).
“The Negroes of Africa have by nature”: P.H. Coetzee and A.P.J. Roux, eds., The African Philosophy Reader, (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 81.
“It is no historical part of the World”: Robert Dainotto, Europe (In Theory) (Raleigh: Duke University Press, 2007), p. 169.
Chapter Five
“suffocating remoteness”: Joshua Hammer, “Timbuktu Postcard: Still Here,” The New Republic, November 13, 1995.
“Sweeping out of the Sahara”: Ibid.
“The next Air Mali flight from Bamako”: Ibid.
“I said, ‘You have to open your own libraries’ ”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Haidara in Timbuktu for Smithsonian, March 4, 2006.
“Really, we are doing good work”: Haidara interview, March 4, 2006.
“Nobody in the family had thought about collecting them”: Author interview with Sidi Yayia Al Wangari for Smithsonian, March 5, 2006.
“This one is rotten”: Al Wangari interview.
“It was a lending library”: Author interview with Ismail Diadjié Haidara for Smithsonian, March 5, 2006.
“This will protect them”: Author interview with Mohamed Gallah Dicko for Smithsonian, March 5, 2006.
“We’re expanding our search”: Dicko interview.
“Dust is the enemy”: Author interview with Fida Ag Mohammed for Smithsonian, March 6, 2006.
Chapter Six
“the Zelig of air power”: John Barry, “Lt. Gen. Charles F. Wald,” Newsweek, December 30, 2001.
“vast, ungoverned spaces”: Author interview with Charles F. Wald, at Le Meridien Hotel, Arlington, Virginia, February 24, 2014.
“It’s too bad that there’s no ocean here”: Djamel Alilat, “Avec Les Chômeurs de la vallée de Metlili (Ghardaïa),” El Watan, March 23, 2013.
“Osama bin Laden’s Ambassador”: Duncan Gardham, “Abu Qatada Profile: ‘Osama Bin Laden’s ambassador man in Europe,’ ” The Telegraph, June 17, 2008.
“The GIA attacked families, young people”: Salima Mellah, The Massacres in Algeria, 1992–2004: Extracts from a report presented by the Justice Commission for Algeria at the 32nd Session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal on Human Rights Violations in Algeria (1992–2004), May 2004, p. 12.
“The sound of gunfire”: Ibid., p. 20.
“The weaker brethren”: Robert Fisk, “Mokhtar Belmokhtar: The new face of al Qa’ida (and why he’s nothing like Osama bin Laden),” The Independent, January 24, 2013.
“It was Abed who painted that”: Alfred de Montesquiou, “Abou Zeid veut être le Ben Laden du Sahara,” Paris Match, September 30, 2010.
“He was manhandled [by the police] many times”: Ibid.
“Before [his father died] he had always been very open”: Ibid.
“He is ugly and even shorter than [French president Nicolas] Sarkozy”: Ibid.
“In the name of God we rise up and begin”: Author interview with Manny Ansar, Ségou, Mali, February 6, 2014.
“Tuaregs didn’t go to school”: Interview with General El Haj El Gamou, former Tuareg rebel commander, Bamako, January 25, 2014.
the “eternal Saharan mystique” of “a veiled nomad”: Pierre Boilley, Les Touaregs Kel Adagh: Dépendances et révoltes: du Soudan français au Mali contemporain (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 1999), p. 9.
“He was Clint Eastwood, John Wayne”: Ansar interview, February 6, 2014.
“The Pakistanis are up there converting all the former Tuareg rebels”: Phone interview with Manny Ansar, April 9, 2015.
“Life is like a waiting room in an airport”: Ansar phone interview, April 9, 2015.
“twice as many prayers”: Ansar phone interview, April 9, 2015
“He began to lose his friends”: Author interview with Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, Lee
ds, England, May 6, 2014.
“You know the Festival in the Desert is not something constructive”: Ansar interview, February 6, 2014.
“Iyad approached the German ambassador”: Author interview with General El Hadj Ag Gamou, Bamako, January 25, 2014.
“The Germans gave him the vehicle”: El Gamou interview.
“everybody knew about it as soon as it happened”: Author interview with Vicki Huddleston, former U.S. ambassador to Mali, Raleigh, North Carolina, February 27, 2014.
Chapter Seven
“We wove them together”: Wald interview.
“concerned”: Huddleston interview.
“What are they doing?”: Huddleston interview.
“Tell me exactly who’s out there”: Huddleston interview.
“There was a resentment”: Wald interview.
“She didn’t know us well at the time”: Wald interview.
“I guess you came to thank me”: Huddleston interview.
“Imam, you’ve got your own website?”: Wald interview.
“creating an armed terrorist group”: Jeremy Keenan, “The Collapse of the Second Front,” Algeria-Watch, September 26, 2006.
“We knew he had close contacts”: Huddleston interview.
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu Page 24