Oblivion, time, and identity formation in personal narratives

The impression my interview partners gave me—as belonging to a generation “in brackets” whose efforts for democracy were rarely officially acknowledged and, in their view, never adequately rewarded—has left its marks in how they emplotted their stories. Most remarkable for me was the kind of narrative pressure they felt under to make their perspectives heard. All of them depicted their time at the Grandes Écoles in Bamako as a very exciting period in their lives and accordingly felt a strong desire to talk extensively about the movement, their passion for politics, and the extraordinary atmosphere during the days of revolt. Hence, they produced what Riessman called “long stories” (Riessman, 2001, p. 695), which started as memories of their student years and evolved into detailed life histories in the course of our regular meetings. Their telling was characterized by a plethora of names and data concerning historical events and political resolutions. Even though their intention is easily understandable—namely to provide me, the outsider supposedly unfamiliar with events in the 1970s with a subjective account of what “really happened” during that time—, this method of storytelling often interrupted the narrative flow.

Another common feature was the recurrent comparisons between their own student generation and the one of today. This was difficult to analyse if not in the frame of the well-known genre of elderly persons’ tales about the “good old days”, where complaints tend to merge with nostalgic reveries (see van Dongen, 2008). Nevertheless, and in spite the impression they were a forgotten generation, elements, reports and comparisons obtained a deeper meaning through this reconstruction of past events. It works as a “coping strategy”, securing authorship over the period by living those events, not in passivity, but by actively reworking them, ensuring their place in Malian history (Jackson, 2002, p. 18).

With regard to an analytical stance, insights into the frame of narrative theory provided a fruitful starting point for my interest in identity constructions. This approach, which has grown rapidly over the past thirty years—some scholars even speak of a “narrative turn” in social studies (e.g. Czarniawska, 2004)—invites us to take a closer look at how people create identity by telling stories (for an overview see Cobley, 2014 (2001)). I found a remark made by Eakin inspiring: “our life stories are not merely about us but in an inescapable and profound way are us” (Eakin, 2008, p. x). His statement directs our attention to the interplay between storytelling and identity formation, the central focus of narrative theory, and one of its defining aspects for many authors (among others: Hancock, 2016; Lucius-Hoene, 2010; Ochs & Capps, 1996). A further one is the temporal shift privileged in the analysis of personal narratives insofar as the past is understood within the perspective of the present, sometimes even with an outlook to the future (Ricoeur, 2005). Hence, by talking about their lives, their experiences, and efforts in the past, members of the Cabral generation opened up spaces for negotiation on how they want to be seen in the here and now. In this sense—and unlike the oral history approach which focuses on understanding the past through reminiscences—narrative analysis conceives of the past as a reservoir for identity formation in the present (Bischoping & Gazso, 2016, p. 27).

Moreover, storytelling is first and foremost a relational activity, which is deeply shaped by the listener as well (Riessman, 2001, p. 701; Ritivoi, 2005, p. 234). The experience I had during the conversations was that the unfamiliarity, which often constitutes a concern in ethnological research, very soon gave way to proximity in several respects. Besides the similarities in age and academic background, I had also been politically active in my youth, although my engagement never reached the intensity or existential risk of my interview partners. Nevertheless, their visions as well as mine are grounded in the same sort of left-wing ideas that were popular in many parts of the world during and after the 1968 movement. So, in analysing the narratives, I noticed that on several points my reaction was quite compassionate, and sometimes I was even touched by a kind of admiration for the radical political commitment of this generation. Hence, my position as a sympathetic listener may have influenced their emplotting, probably also by accentuating the more heroic aspects in their presentations.

Nation builders and regime contesters: changing positions of the intellectual elite in the Grandes Écoles of Bamako

In many African countries the relationship between intellectuals and state power has always been very complex. Intellectuals need the state to realize their political ideas, but the state also needs intellectuals to legitimize the state. This interdependency was especially apparent after independence when the emerging nation states were in need of well-trained African civil servants to staff their new administrations. In the majority of cases, they recruited students who had completed their studies in France or Great Britain (for Burkina Faso see Engeler, 2018). On the other hand, many countries, including Mali, built up their own tertiary education establishments (Cloete, Maassen, & Bailey, 2015, p. 6). ^[6] Consequently, the first generation of graduates was directly absorbed by the state and occupied leading positions in the nation-building project, thereby strengthening the entanglement between academia and political power (Hodgkinson & Melchiorre, 2019, p. S2; Védrines, 2012, p. 41)—a topic, which was vividly debated among African scholars, especially with regard to loss of academic freedom (e.g. Mamdani, 1990, p. 6f; Mazrui, 1978, pp. 239ff, 295ff).

For instance, the Malawian social scientist Thandika Mkandawire qualified the relationship of African intellectuals towards the state as one of “unrequited love for the ‘prince’”. This love seemed so unconditional that the self-definition of intellectuals took place solely in reference to the state failing to claim an independent position, but suffering bitter disappointment when the regime turned its back on them (Mkandawire, 2005, p. 42). Hence, some scholars argue that students formed a category whose admittedly privileged status is less secure than that of other groups of the elite due to its constant exposure to political changes and social transformation processes (Nédelec, 1994, p. 421; Zeilig, 2013, p. 41).

In Mali, too, the intellectual class formed a crucial pillar in the nation-building process. Modibo Keïta, the first president of the new republic and a former teacher himself, accorded students a privileged position in his socialist-oriented programme, declaring them the architects of the future. Notable here is that ancient history served as an important reference in the construction of the young nation; inspired by the euphoria after independence, Modibo Keïta cherished the desire to restore to Mali the prestige and political influence enjoyed by the great Empire of the 14th century (Konaté, 1990, p. 23; Nédelec, 1994, p. 31). ^[7]

In 1962 two higher education institutions, ENSup and ENA, opened their doors, providing their students free access and accommodation. In turn, their graduates had to sign a ten-year contract with the state, which guaranteed them an elitist life paired with political responsibility and recognition. According to a study conducted in 1964, it was not only the president who saw in these academics the potential for societal innovation, but also the Malian population, convinced that their students were different from students elsewhere since they invested their high moral standards into the success of national goals (Zolberg, 1976, p. 126). However, this esteemed and pampered elite experienced a rapid growth in the following years, ^[8] constituting a new class of well-educated, urban intellectuals.

But the golden age of academics did not last long and the events that followed were proof of their vulnerable position. In 1968, a military regime under Moussa Traoré toppled the republic of Modibo Keïta and installed a strict dictatorship, which ruled for 23 years with young and intellectually poorly trained army leaders at its head. “Un coup de piston vaut mieux que cent ans d’études” was a common saying in their ranks—meaning that good relations are far more helpful than a good education, thus voicing their contempt for the intellectual class. Despite the radical change of government, the second student generation after independence, wholly imbued with socialist ideology and still convinced of their elitist status, adopted their predecessors’ sense of political responsibility to the full (Konaté, 1990, p. 28; Védrines, 2012, p. 38f).

But the differences between the military government in favour of economic liberalism and the Marxist-oriented students became increasingly acute, producing an explosive political climate. When, in 1977, the regime decided to comply with the advice of the International Monetary Fund and limit access to the Grandes Écoles and hence to civil servant jobs, the students’ resistance grew. Banded together in the UNEEM ^[9], they started an opposition movement with a series of ever-escalating protest actions between 1978 and 1980. The spirit of opposition became increasingly radicalized and the measures taken by the regime exceeded everything that had gone before in terms of violence. The peak of the bloody conflicts was the killing of Abdoul Karim Camara, called Cabral, the general secretary of UNEEM and figurehead of the student movement. The regime quelled the protests by closing down ENSup and ENA for an entire year and announcing a ban on striking students being re-enrolled after suspension. With this last act, the movement was broken; most of the students went back home, others were killed, badly injured, imprisoned, or escaped into exile. Years of repression and forced silence followed until 1991, when, in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain, a strong wind of change swept in the transition to democracy (Balsvik, 1998).

For the sake of the country: Protesters and patriots

In contrast to the first post-independence student generation, whose parents had occupied middle to high positions (Zolberg, 1976, p. 131), the second generation mostly came from modest, often rural backgrounds where nobody in the family had formal education. In their hometowns, they all excelled as brilliant students and were then sent to Bamako for tertiary education. Here they received state scholarships and an opportunity to stay in boarding houses, which were often attached to the campus. The fact that their parents lived in distant regions, and they were left to their own devices in the company of fellow students, had a strong impact on their social, political and intellectual becoming. When higher education first emerged, the Grandes Écoles were an entirely male domain, but beginning in the 1970s, more and more young women enrolled, aspiring to new professional prospects beyond their traditionally defined roles.

For Bintou Camara, leaving the constraining family circle, where she—as the only woman—took care of the household, this constituted a most liberating step. From her earliest youth, she had been enthusiastic about literature, considered a bookworm and was already writing her own stories. Like her role model Kani, the heroine in the novel Sous l’orage (Badian, 2006 (1957)), she too aspired to an independent life as a university teacher. In her own words, studying in Bamako was her life belt and introduced her to the new world of political resistance. “Men of the generation Cabral were very supportive and interested in women’s emancipation, they encouraged me to take up a leading seat in the bureau of the UNEEM”, Bintou acknowledged when describing how she had become an active member of the movement. But also, in social terms, she experienced unusual new ways of communal living. Together with her male and female fellow students, she stayed on the top floor of ENSup in a kind of residential community. ^[10] At that time, the campus vibrated with heated debates about fundamental issues, she recounted a bit wistfully, about socialism, nationalism, democracy, and the one-party system. These often resulted in nightlong meetings. All in all, she estimated her years at ENSup to be her most exciting and crucial to her further development as an author. She found the rehearsals for theatre plays particularly impressive, where critique of the regime had to be subtly concealed but nevertheless obvious to everyone.

Beside these political meetings, marches and sit-ins took up much space. Intensely lived forms of friendship and love were explored as well, often leading to lifelong relationships. “We were very much welded and this welding went very far”, as one of my interlocutors put it. In this sense they built a “special small life world” (Honer, 2003, p. 63f), a community with tremendous solidarity and cohesion, based on the inner vocation to bring their country forward on the socialist path. This small community, which was able to shake up the whole country and put it in a state of emergency, was ideologically and theoretically completely detached from the rest of the population (Zeilig, 2013, p. 34). Its inherent elitism, however, generated both a feeling of obligation towards the Malian people and accordingly an acceleration in their spirit of resistance, which evoked extreme violent reactions from the side of the police and army. Apart from torture and incarceration, both male students and their professors were particularly likely to be subjected to each and any form of humiliation. Several of my interlocutors reported how unbearable it had been for them to watch their comrades’ hair being shaved off with pieces of broken glass, insulting words being cut into their scalps, before they were forced to sing military songs broadcast on the radio. ^[11] Hence, the interplay between the perceived legacy of bringing about social justice to a classless society, internal group cohesion, and public discredit and degradation, created an atmosphere among the students which fuelled their impetus to rescue the country from the fetters of military dictatorship.

In the narratives of the exponents of the Cabral generation, expressions of patriotic commitment took centre stage. They drew on the loyalty—or better—on the deep devotion to their country, which sometimes even culminated in them equating their own person with the country: “We were the country and everything we did was for the sake of the country”. When mentioning “for the sake of the country”, an expression frequently used, they were not merely alluding to the Malian nation state of the 1970s, for within it resonated the historic importance of the Great Mali of the 14th century. As one of the most powerful and influential empires of its time, the Mali Empire had not only controlled the gold traffic on the African continent but had also developed a differentiated charter defining the rights of its inhabitants (Cissé & Kamissoko, 1988). Conceiving of themselves as the bearers of this old civilization, several of my interlocutors expressed pride in these longstanding roots as the essence of what it means to be a Malian. The Mali of today may be poor, but it is nevertheless rich in cultural values and could teach lessons to other, now influential states in the Western world, one of them emphasized. Hence, the patriotic self they presented was not only nurtured by the mission they had internalized and which the first academic generation had passed on to them after independence, but was also bound to a legacy of times long past.

In this respect, the patriotic contributions for the sake of the country, sometimes even amounting to self-sacrifice, were not described as being aimed at the current regime, but in relation to their longstanding roots, as Adama put it,

We knew men would come and go but the country would go on forever. Everything we did was for the sake of the country, not for the regime. All the sacrifices we made were for the country. And we made many, many sacrifices. (A.K. 17.1.2017)

Today Adama Keïta works as a magistrate in the high court, but after graduating from ENA he became the speaker of a group of young lawyers who were opposed to legal changes the regime intended to impose. Since these political initiatives displeased the military officers, Adama was sent to Bourem, a small city in the north with an unbearable climate. Here, at the peak of the Tuareg secession movement, when killings of civil servants were frequent, he was supposed to do his duty as judge. Since Bourem was not considered to be safe, he had to spend his nights in hidden, always changing places, which entailed dangerous journeys. The day he found his colleague murdered in the office, his throat slit, he was close to resigning his job. But he claimed that it was the moral obligation towards his country that forbade him to quit. In spite of these adverse conditions and in addition to being separated from his family for long periods of time, he decided to endure all adverse conditions for the progress of the country, Adama explained. It was only years later during the transition to democracy that he could return to his family in Bamako.

Being concerned about the sake of the country may also be expressed in terms of an emotional attachment, which can attain the intensity of familial affiliation, as was the case for Aïcha Koné:

First and foremost, we were all proud to be Malian. I was always concerned about the future of my country. I worried about my country as I worry about my husband, as I worry about my children. […] And up to now everything happening in this country affects me deeply. Because I do not think of myself first, of my personal future, but I care about whether my country is doing well (A.K. 13.2.2014).

Worrying about the country is contrasted here with a striving for individual success and expresses doubts as to the continued existence of patriotic values, which might have been replaced by personal interests alone. So, between the lines, this aspect of being worried together with her underlining of collective thinking also entails a subtle critique of orientations currently dominating the political field or even society at large.

The intense emphasis on their love for the country, which qualified the self-portrayals of my interlocutors, took place in parallel to a state that plunged more and more into a deep crisis. After the coup d’état staged by a military officer and his comrades in March 2012, the president in charge fled the country. Almost simultaneously, separatist and jihadist forces from the north advanced over a short period of time, taking over wide areas in the south—an invasion that was stopped by a last-minute intervention of the French military. ^[12] Subsequently the European Union, in need of a reliable partner for its “War on Terror”, enforced rapid presidential elections, which were won under chaotic circumstances, owing to the lack of preparations, by Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. But despite the massive deployment of military personnel—in total more than 15,000 people from the United Nations (MINUSMA) and French troops (Opération Serval, then Force Barkhane)—the government was not able to gain a foothold in large parts of the north nor to ensure political and social stability. In the face of these adverse conditions, the country slid increasingly into serious collapse, facing the deepest crisis ever: entire regions still not under state control, more than 460,000 displaced persons, recurrent terrorist attacks, and precarious living conditions are just some of its most alarming features (Moseley & Hoffman, 2017; Thiam, 2017).

In the narratives, these present-day conditions were rarely directly commented on—and if at all, only when the recording machine was turned off. Then I got the impression that my interlocutors related their criticism about the weakness of the state to their unheard warnings of the past. In this respect, they presented themselves as patriots fighting for a lost cause, who still insisted on the on-going importance of patriotism in their later lives, not only as an ideational principle, but also in guiding their actions. Hamidou Fofana for instance, today a university professor, perceived teaching as the perfect way to implant patriotic thoughts in the minds of the younger generation, conveying a sort of moral compass to them—and hence, “keeping the flame burning”, even if on a smaller, more modest scale.

Sidik Diarra, the head of AMSUNEEM, was determined to initiate steps born out of a patriotic impetus and at the same time to “heal the wounds” (panser les blessures) of the past. During the protests, Sidik was one of the prominent leaders of the movement and, as he introduced himself at our first meeting, Cabral’s closest confident. For him, the revolutionary cause was the “battle of his life” and it was a noble battle, he added. When the movement was banned, Sidik was informed that he was the most wanted man on the list of public enemies, so exile was his only option. He spent almost twelve years in various African countries trying to mobilize like-minded people, but without any noteworthy success. The endurance of all the hardships of exile he retrospectively delineated as the vivid expression of patriotism. Instead of settling down and getting married he lived in a state of permanent preparation for an imminent return:

I was convinced that I had to burn my wings to save what I assumed to be essential for my country. I truly believed we would definitively succeed and then make sure that Mali faces a different destiny (S.D. 3.3.2014).

Finally, in 1992 on the eve of the first democratic elections, he returned home. But contrary to his expectations of being rewarded for his on-going battle, Sidik was never given an appropriate position. This was “the end of all illusions”, and he still feels deeply bruised (profondément meurtri) by this neglect. Then, in March 2017, I was surprised to find a photograph of Sidik in a Malian newspaper in which he is awarding a medal of honour to Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, the President of the Republic, on behalf of AMSUNEEM (Keïta, 2017). In our next meeting, I asked Sidik about this event and he clarified that he had dual intentions: firstly, he wanted to remind the state that there is a group of competent people whose patriotic contributions have never been acknowledged, neither in moral nor in financial terms. And secondly, having played the role of mediator between two rivalling factions during the conflict over the referendum ^[13]—an intervention which he assumed was highly appreciated by the president—to offer their experience and knowledge in exchange for qualified positions as counsellors in the best interests of the country. Sidik himself is deeply convinced that his generation has sufficiently proven its patriotic vocation to induce change and to put an end to the abject misery of their country, but at our last contact he was still waiting for a reaction from the presidential side.

Closely linked to patriotism as an indicatory reference in my interlocutors’ identity constructions are their ambivalent relations towards the state and its changing forms of regime—be they in total identification as nation-builders after independence, as opponents during the military dictatorship, as university employees under democratic rule or, as became evident in the latter example, as courting applicants. In this sense, the “social pact” (Zeilig, 2013, p. 39), which exists inevitably between academics and the state, entails many facets and stages, shedding a light on their complex interdependency.

“Real academics” and their cosmopolitan intellectuality

The second most prominent aspect in the identity constructions of the narrators is intellectualism, whether through presenting themselves as intellectuals or by defending the intrinsic value of knowledge as a precondition to any kind of emancipation and progress. Hence, the pride but also nonchalance with which my interlocutors referred to high standing political theories, the way they alluded to the names of authors or relevant passages of their works, and the way they sprinkled the conversation with philosophical terms was proof of their familiarity with a global body of thought. In this regard, I was very impressed when Kader, now professor at the university of Bamako, recited in perfect German the famous monologue about religious tolerance in the play “Nathan the Wise”, written by G.E. Lessing in 1779. In his younger years, he explained, he was obsessed with the desire to read the writings of Marx and Engels in their original language. But studying German, he immediately added, was a tough decision since Germans had a reputation for not exercising any leniency. Comparing his years of studying with a military campaign, he emphasized that both the discipline as well as the fear of being defeated had influenced his years at ENSup.

Hamidou presented himself in a similar manner, as a “young cowboy” who was “passionate to discover another world, a world different from the francophone one”. This he found exploring English literature and language, while confirming in the same breath:

Our generation rejects easy gain. We worked very hard because the courses were extremely demanding and we were absolutely keen to discover new things. And thereby we weren’t afraid at all to get our hands dirty (mouiller le maillot), as one says. (H.F. 3.2.2014)

The enthusiasm for delving into the realm of other cultures constitutes a key element in many of my informants’ narratives and was mostly linked to descriptions of the efforts it took to acquire the knowledge needed. In this regard one interlocutor used the term “Stakhanovism” referring to the hardworking coal miners of the Soviet Union who ambitiously wanted to produce more than the five-year plan urged them to—a comparison, which probably prompted him to qualify the Cabral generation as the “only real academics” due to their intellectual striving.

Much like Kader’s statement about the risk of defeat, several of the study participants mentioned the competitive spirit that prevailed on the campus along with the shame of failing an examination. Apart from the selection system and the pressure to succeed because of familial expectations, rivalry among students seemed to be an issue, which severely impinged on their sense of honour. ^[14] To speak up in a student meeting without being publicly shamed demanded courage along with brilliant rhetorical skills and an in-depth knowledge of the latest philosophical works.

Notwithstanding this, every intellectual occupation always entails having the curiosity to enter unknown territories. On top of that, the exponents of the Cabral generation I spoke with presented themselves as intellectuals with an explicit interest in becoming enmeshed in other cultures’ achievements, with other systems of thought and meaning. In this sense, their self-presentations indicate a vivid cosmopolitan disposition—despite them never mentioning this term in any of the conversations.

The Swedish social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz, well known for his early explorations of transnational cultural processes, defines cosmopolitans as having an “aesthetic and intellectual stance of openness” and a “willingness to engage with the Other” (Hannerz, 1990, p. 239). And by alluding to the fact that there are many ways of entering other cultures’ realms, Hannerz explicitly accentuates the affinity which exists between cosmopolitanism and intellectuals since the latter show a particular predilection for making themselves at home in other cultures (Hannerz, 1990, p. 246).

The open-mindedness of students at that time did not manifest itself only on the intellectual level, but was to a great extent cultivated through frequent interactions with their professors. During the first two decades after independence, the faculty of the Grandes Écoles was mainly composed of expatriates from Western Europe and the Soviet Union, who enriched the classroom by bringing international discourses into their debates. Small classes and convivial gatherings on campus intensified the very personal contact between students and professors. Thus the professors, as closely accompanying mentors, significantly shaped the character and moral standards of their students. ^[15] Hence, the Grandes Écoles at that time became sites of a lived cosmopolitanism; partially through intellectual outreach and partially through personal exchanges. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that—although the term cosmopolitanism refers to a global involvement—the interest of the Cabral generation is primarily tuned to the European and US-American world, certainly due to the general academic orientation, but enhanced through the influence of their professors.

While cosmopolitanism is often associated with travelling through the cultures of others (Urry, 2000), staying there, and becoming fully immersed, only a few students of the Cabral generation were able to complement their mental journeys with corporeal travel. Since the higher education system in Mali did not offer PhD degrees, the only option for them was a scholarship from a university abroad. The many detours and year-long seeking this could entail are insightfully illustrated in Madou Traoré’s narrative.

Even before his birth, Madou told me, a marabout had prophesied to his mother that her son would become a person in whom knowledge dwells (habité par le savoir). This prophecy together with a magnetic attraction he felt towards everything and everyone coming from outside the country—especially from Europe—steered his whole life:

I would have loved to study in a European country for at least five years to see how these people are getting along – to know their culture, their organisational skills, their mentalities. I’m very open-minded and just curious to know how it came about that they invented all these things, which are now shaping our everyday life. And why we weren’t able to do so? So, by staying with them for a long time, I would have liked to understand all that. How do these people do? Who are they? Who are they? (M.T. 27.1. 2015)

If things had been done fairly, Madou should have been awarded a doctoral scholarship to France on the basis of his good grades. But the regime, as a means of sanctioning his political activities, he assumed, obstructed every single step he took in this matter. Most of his fellow comrades relinquished their intentions to obtain a higher academic degree, but Madou never gave up. It was only under democratic rule, in his late forties, that he was finally awarded his longed-for scholarship—not in France, as he had wished, but in China. There he experienced “the most important adventure of my life” for about five years and in close contact with people from many parts of the world, exploring their way of life, of thinking, and doing.

Although he could not find answers to all of his questions, he developed a new “sense of self” that made him feel a kind of personal satisfaction, revenge even, because he had managed to assert himself against the obstacles of the junta. And when he came home with a completed doctoral thesis on the higher education systems in China and Mali, he was proud of himself and convinced he would get a position which would valorise his intellectual achievements. But instead, he found all the doors were closed. In our first encounter, Madou was still searching for the right kind of work, bridging his job-seeking time by “taking up the chalk” (prendre la craie), a reference to his teaching and lectures at the teacher training college. But the last time we spoke, he was happy to have found a leading position in the department of education.

In summary, it has become evident that the intellectuality in the self-presentations of the Cabral generation has considerable cosmopolitan tones, which is addressed in social, political and emotional dimensions. Later, as Madou’s questions infer, their cosmopolitan intellectuality is grounded in the patriotic motivation to promote their country’s progress. Thereby the contrasting tendencies inherent in the notions of patriotism and cosmopolitanism—one more inwardly and the other more outwardly directed—can be regarded as diametrically opposed and for that reason even mutually exclusive. This argumentation was put forward by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum in the 1990s and subsequently triggered a lively debate in various disciplinary fields (Nussbaum, 2002). The more recent literature, however, stresses that cosmopolitanism should not be comprehended as an erosion of patriotism but rather—by referring to the etymological Greek roots of the term ^[16]—as a complementarity between two different semantical strands (Beck, 2014). The well-known Ghanaian-American philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah makes a similar argument (Appiah, 2006, 2011). Based on his strong interest in ethical questions he elaborates on the notion of “rooted cosmopolitanism”, underlining the moral responsibility of every citizen towards his own country as well as towards the world community (Appiah, 2011, p. 320f). In this regard, Appiah understands patriotism rather as a precondition for cosmopolitanism (Appiah, 2006, 2011), which probably captures best the lived form of the dual orientation presented in the narratives of my interlocutors.

Conclusion: Narrative repair in the era of the crumbling state

Listening to the narratives of some members of the Cabral generation, I learned that the topic of patriotism took up much space in their presentations and was in many respects addressed persistently whilst the Malian state slid increasingly into disintegration. This observation triggered questions about the linkage between remembering, identity formation, and self-positioning in the context of the crumbling state. As expounded in narrative theory, storytelling—apart from being subjective reconstructions of past experiences—opens up a free space for the creation of identities through self-presentation in the here and now. Narrative identity is thereby defined by the way in which people stage themselves as protagonists while creating meaning for themselves and for the listener. They do this by positioning their narrated ego within a social space of historic relationships (Lucius-Hoene 2010, p.154). In line with this, identities are formed, presented, and negotiated in narration. This understanding presupposes a double perspective: on the one hand, an analysis of the emplotments of the stories regarding their historical embedding; and on the other—this being my main analytical focus—, an exploration of the processes of identity construction in light of pervasive political turbulences which took place simultaneously to our conversations.

Patriotism as a feeling and as an action-guiding value may have many faces. It became strikingly salient that the patriotic selves of my interlocutors were to a great extent framed by an imaginary nurtured by the significance of the glorious Mali Empire. Conceiving themselves as bearers of this old civilization, they emplotted their pride and love for the country very differently. These descriptions ranged from complete identification to self-sacrificing loyalty, connected to Mali’s progress with unreserved commitment. These century old ideational connections not only fostered the participants’ patriotism, but also offered a strong motivation for academic improvement. In staging themselves, and by extension the whole Cabral generation, as the “real academics”, they referred to both the relentless efforts they invested in acquiring academic knowledge and the wide scope of their intellectual qualification. Using an elitist rhetoric sprinkled with the quotes of prominent thinkers, they conveyed the image of cosmopolitan intellectuals, who, owing to their curiosity and open-mindedness, made themselves at home in other cultures’ body of thought. Just like the patriotic identity, the cosmopolitan intellectual identity was crafted as an accentuated alterity in contrast to the perceived present-day decline in academic rigor.

With regard to the prominent aspects of identity construction, it became evident that doing memory is a practice in which moral imperatives play a central role. This is all the more noticeable in the case of my interlocutors since they see themselves as a “very special generation” whose efforts for democracy and social justice have never received public recognition. As a consequence, their storytelling was strongly influenced by the desire to correct this neglect. Putting forward an alternative view to the dominant one, which mainly consists in banalizing or forgetting their struggles, they underlined the importance of their striving as a moral duty. According to Lindemann Nelson, the deployment of so-called counterstories may serve to repair damaged identities because, since identities are narratively constituted, they can also be narratively repaired (Lindemann Nelson, 2001). The counterstories of the Cabral generation highlight the manifold efforts to liberate the country from the constraints of the ruling military regime. Consequently, they oppose the official records and situate the struggle for democracy much earlier, namely in the mid-1970s. In other words, the identity repair of the Cabral generation appears to be foremost related to their vanguard role as fighters for democracy and as outstanding intellectuals whose capacities were not utilized to their full extent. At the centre of their narrative identity repair are various facets of generational self-positioning, particularly those as dedicated patriots in the era of the crumbling state. Keeping in mind that the essence of their patriotic alluding is related to an empire of bygone days, that is, to a country in peak condition, the repairing efforts of my interlocutors may be understood not only as repairing their identity, but also as an attempt to narratively repair their damaged country on a symbolic level. In this sense, although these Mozarts were not endowed with musical gifts admired and listened to over many generations, they have nevertheless developed visions for their country, in whose future they still believe.