Thwack! Arahli Watterene gives an authoritative slap to his camel’s behind and moves off to where a group of nomadic camel-riders are circling a huddle of women chanting and playing tinde drums. They are performing a traditional Touareg ritual, known as an ilugan, in which the women relate stories of the riders’ bravery and heroism, and their beauty and elegance. But Watterene’s huge white beast dwarfs its peers and is soon going at twice their speed, spraying all in his wake with a generous cloud of sand. True to Touareg traditions, he’s showing off, giving all who care to look a demonstration of his camel-riding skills.

I’m in Iferouane, a village in the province of Aïr, northern Niger, for the Festival de l’Aïr, a celebration of the Touareg’s flamboyant and poetic culture. And Watterene, who is the local chief of police, appears bored with the elegant ilugan parade and is intent on stealing the show. And it’s working. Because the audience of several hundred men, women and children begins to cheer him on.

Suddenly, Watterene turns and begins charging towards us. Dumbfounded, no-one moves. At the last moment, he steers his mount away and begins to circle once more. When he starts a second charge, however, it’s clear he won’t stop this time, and as the beast’s long white legs pound the parched, dusty earth, the onlookers scramble and tumble over one another to get out of his way.

In a flash, Watterene charges past and races away from the cheering crowd. After a thundering gallop, he turns once more and returns with an equally ostentatious show. It’s a momentous and terrifying display, a flashback to the Touareg nomad of yore who, in his prime, was a feared warrior raider and haughty aristocrat.

Feuding Touareg tribes have met at the Festival de l’Aïr every year since 2001. The first event was held to mark peace after a decade of rebellion against Niger’s government. But five years on, its organisers are hoping the festival will encourage their youth to hold on to their ancient traditions in the face of adversity and modernity.


Under pressure

The Touareg first settled in the Sahara during the tenth century. Sharing a common ancestry with the Berbers of northern Africa, they were light-skinned and sometimes blue-eyed, and formed highly structured groups of nobles, warriors, blacksmiths, artisans and vassals, trading with agriculturalists of different ethnic origins.

Renowned for their ruthlessness, the Touareg governed all desert trade routes and were invincible for a millennium. With up to 20,000 camels, their great caravans set out across the desert in all directions, carrying salt to be traded for gold, cloth and corn. (Such was the shortage of salt outside the Sahara during the 15th century that it was exchanged for equal quantities of gold in areas south of the Sahara.)

During the 20th century, however, the Touareg’s fortunes began to change. In 1916, the French colonisation of Aïr saw them surrender control of Saharan trade. Then during the 1970s and ’80s, drought scorched their land and killed their animals. Left with no other option, many Touareg abandoned their nomadic lifestyle for a sedentary life. But in towns such as Agadez, they only encountered more hardship, with high unemployment and cultural conflict with the Hausa majority and, more recently, Islamic fundamentalism.

Since coming into more frequent contact with wider society, the Touareg have also faced discrimination: despite owning the land near Arlit on which the world’s third-largest uranium mine was established more than 40 years ago, they have only been employed to provide cheap labour, while the French owners and the national government have kept the profits for themselves.

Disillusionment among poorly educated young Touareg known as ichoumars (from the French word chomage, meaning ‘unemployment’) eventually boiled over into civil war. From 1991 to 1995, around 1,000 ichoumars, trained in neighbouring Algeria and Libya, waged a guerrilla war from bases deep in the desert that became known as the Touareg Rebellion. During the conflict, government troops frequently attacked unarmed settlements, slaughtering livestock and contaminating wells. Although a ceasefire was agreed in 1995, it wasn’t until an arms amnesty, marked by a huge bonfire in Agadez in September 2000, that the fighting stopped.

Today, the availability of water continues to shape the Touareg’s fortunes. Although the nomads in the north escaped the widely publicised famine that devastated the south of Niger in 2005, their livestock has suffered during such events. Those who haven’t lost their herds of camels altogether face the considerable inconvenience of having to move their campsites with increasing frequency to find pasture. Many, however, haven’t been able to sustain their livestock and have been forced to continue the exodus from the desert to the towns.

In both cases, the Touareg’s culture is suffering. Those who remain in the desert continue to practice their traditional lifestyle, but the hardship they now face there leaves them little time for anything other than basic survival. If their wells don’t dry up altogether, they are now so deep that drawing enough water each day in almost 50°C heat is an increasingly exhausting task that takes all day. The women seldom have time to teach their children the imzad – a one-string, bowed instrument made of a calabash and horse hair – and the art of poetry, or even Tifinagh, the Touareg’s ancient written language.

In the towns, their fortunes are mixed. While the ichoumars missed their youth and schooling, today’s young Touareg are better educated. Many have now found work in tourism, often working as tour guides organising trips into the desert.

At the same time, however, the forces of globalisation are eroding their traditional culture. The new generation has an appetite for Western trappings: they surf the web, talk technology, download the latest Western music, covet motorbikes and eschew traditional Touareg costume. According to Watterene, many of today’s urban Touareg don’t wear the veil properly or know how to ride a camel. Indeed, many youngsters speak their mother-tongue, Tamashek, poorly, frequently muddling it with Hausa.




Cultural identity

The Festival de l’Aïr is a joyful celebration of the Touareg’s existence, with camel parades and races, vigorous dancing and singing, and the ubiquitous large clouds of dust. The excitement calms in the evenings, when hushed crowds gather to hear recitations of traditional poetry accompanied by the imzad, and the guitar-led songs of the ichoumars recalling the dark rebellion years.

Behind the merriment, however, the festival has another purpose. As the new generation is drawn towards Western trappings, the festival is trying to preserve traditional Touareg culture. ‘[The Festival] is a calling to the youth to remind them who they are,’ says the president of the Iferouane cultural community. ‘One is no-one without cultural identity. It is life’s cement.’

And it seems to be working. Few of the young attending the festival dare come to the event unveiled. Here, at least, they experience the historic customs that were part of daily life until their parents’ generation.

But it isn’t just a reminder of bygone traditions. Thanks to the organisers’ efforts, the festival is helping to revitalise Touareg culture. Groups of nomads from all over the north now flock to the festival to take part in competitive events – including displays of singing and dancing and presentations of new jewellery, textiles and saddles – each with generous cash prizes. It’s particularly encouraging to note that the number of women chanting poetry accompanied by the imzad – both greatly revered skills – has doubled in recent years.

All dancers at the festival are required to be dressed in traditional clothes. And it’s a good thing, too, because the show – performed to a group of singing women – is nothing without the dazzling, colourful robes, flashing swords and lances, and decorated leather pouches.

There is hope that the young Touareg’s attachment to Western trends and clothes is an adolescent tendency that will wane with age, and that the urbanites might reclaim their cultural inheritance with the help of the festival. However, it would be a misconception to think that modernity is the enemy of the Touareg. The lives of many have been made easier by the use of four-wheeled transport. And a number of NGOs are trying to address the hardship and comparative isolation of the nomadic way of life by providing diesel-generated pumps for wells and other materials to help dig new wells. There are also efforts to establish more schools for nomads.

Finding a balance between modernity and preserving the wealth of the past may be the key to their future survival. This is the kind of future Watterene hopes for his children. ‘Life in the bush is so hard nowadays,’ he says. ‘I was born a nomad in the desert and grew up an ichoumar, but I don’t want my children to become nomads. They have a good education and I hope they can find jobs.’ Nevertheless, he wants them to keep in touch with their roots, and during the school holidays, he makes a point of taking them to visit his parents, who are nomads south of Agadez. ‘It’s important that they experience the kind of life I had as a boy, learning how to ride and milk camels and taking herds to the wells.’

The hope now is that if technology can make desert life easier, the urban refugees might be able to re-establish dependable nomadic bases. In the meantime, the festival is helping to rekindle the resilient Touareg soul.


A new uprising

The Touareg Rebellion returned to Aïr in February this year, when a new rebel group, the Movement for Justice for Nigériens (MNJ), began attacking government forces. Its activities are a reaction to the Touareg’s exclusion from the management of and profit from natural resources presently mined in their territories, after the government had made promises along these lines during the peace treaties of the late 1990s. Many Touareg also fear the environmental destruction and health problems associated with increased levels of mining.

The government, in return, has denounced the MNJ as bandits and drug traffickers, and the president has stressed his determination to exploit all Niger’s underground wealth for the benefit of all its citizens. The army is setting land mines in many Touareg areas, all with nomadic populations. The chief of police in Iferouane joined the MNJ in July.


Co-ordinates: Niger

When to go
The best time to visit Niger is from September to March. The Festival de l’Aïr takes place during the last week of December in Iferouane. However, since mid-June, movement throughout Aïr has been forbidden and Agadez is under military surveillance. Foreign media have been banned from the area. Consult the Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice service ( www.fco.gov.uk ) for updates.

Getting there
Point Afrique (+33 475 972040; www.pointe-afrique.com ) flies from Paris and Marseilles to Agadez. From here it’s a day’s drive, or bus ride, to Agadez. Once there, many Touareg tour companies can take you north to Iferouane. Try l’Agence Tidene (tidenexp2005@hotmail.com, www.agencetidene-expeditions.com) or Dunes Voyages (dunes@dunes-voyages.com, www.dunes-voyages.com ).

Red tape
UK citizens require a visa to visit Niger. However, with no consulate in the UK, you’ll have to contact the Ambassade du Niger in Paris (+33 145 048060, www.ambassadeniger.org ).




October 2007