The Fulani people
Geographical distribution
The Fulani are approximately 16,800,000 in Nigeria (190 million inhabitants), 4,900,000 in Guinea-Conakry (13 million inhabitants), 3,500,000 in Senegal (16 million inhabitants), 3 million in Mali (18.5 million inhabitants), 2,900,000 in Cameroon (24 million inhabitants), 1,600,000 in Niger (21 million inhabitants), 1,260,000 in Mauritania (4.2 million inhabitants), 1,200,000 in Burkina Faso (19 million inhabitants), 580,000 in Chad (15 million inhabitants), 320,000 in Gambia (2 million inhabitants), 320,000 in Guinea-Bissau (1.9 million inhabitants), 310,000 in Sierra Leone (6.2 million inhabitants), 250,000 in the Central African Republic
As a percentage of the population, the Fulani therefore represent about 38% of the population in Guinea-Conakry, 30% in Mauritania, just under 17% in Guinea-Bissau, 16% in Mali and Gambia, 12% in Cameroon, 22% in Senegal, just under 9% in Nigeria, 7.6% in Niger, 6.3% in Burkina Faso, 5% in Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, just under 4% in Chad and very small percentages in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
Fulani Empires
Several times in history, the Fulani have established empires. Thus:
- since the 18th century, the theocratic state of Fouta-Djalon in Middle Guinea;
- in the 19th century, the Fulani Empire of the Macina in Mali (1818-1862) of Sékou Amadou Barryi, then Amadou Sekou Amaadou, who conquered Timbuktu;
- also in the 19th century, the Sokoto Empire in Nigeria.
These Empires were, however, ephemeral and today the Fulani do not control any states.
Fulani way of life
Traditionally, the Fulani are transhumant herders, and they remain so, for the most part, even if gradually a certain number of them have become sedentary, both because of the constraints imposed on them by the progress of desertification in certain regions, because of their dispersion and mobility that encourage exchanges and miscegenation and because some governments have set up programmes aimed at settling the nomads.
The vast majority of them are Muslim, almost all of them in many countries. Historically, they have played an important role in the breakthrough of Islam in West Africa.
Jews of Africa?
The Malian writer and thinker Amadou Hampate Bâ (1900-1991), himself a Fulani, evoking the way they are perceived by other communities, made a comparison with Jews, insofar as, like Jews before the creation of Israel, they are dispersed in many countries, where they give rise to recurrent reproaches from other communities that do not differ much from one country to another: they are often perceived as prone to communitarianism, nepotism, and prompt to betray.
The traditional conflicts, in their transhumant areas, between these nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, as well as the fact that they are, more than most other ethnic groups, present in a large number of countries (and therefore in contact with diverse populations), undoubtedly contribute to explaining this reputation too often maintained by the populations to which they are opposed by disputes.
The idea that they are privileged vectors of jihadism is much more recent and can be explained by their role in the recent rise of terrorism in central Mali (Macina region, Niger loop).
Fulani and Jihadism
Throughout history, conflicts have existed all over Africa between sedentary farmers and generally nomadic pastoralists who practice transhumance. The former accuses the latter of ransacking their crops with their herds, while the latter complain of cattle theft, difficulties in accessing water points, and obstacles to their movement.
But since 2010, however, the conflicts, which have become more numerous and deadly
Left out of development policies, frequently feeling discriminated against by the authorities
However, the vast majority of nomadic herders are Fulani, who are also the only nomads present in all the countries of the region.
And the nature of some of the above-mentioned empires, as well as a certain bellicose tradition of the Fulani
However, the situation of the Fulani can differ greatly from one country to another, whether it is their lifestyle (degree of sedentarization, degree of education, etc.), the way they perceive themselves, or even the way they are perceived.
Fulani and Jihadism in central Mali: between change, social revolts and radicalization
While Operation Serval succeeded in 2013 in rebuffing the jihadists who occupied northern Mali, and Operation Barkhane prevented them from coming back to the forefront, forcing them into hiding, the attacks not only did not stop, but they spread to central Mali (in the Niger loop, a region also known as Macina) and have increased since 2015. The jihadists certainly do not control the region as they controlled the North in 2012 and they are forced to hide. They do not have a monopoly on violence, since militias have been set up to fight them, sometimes with the support of the authorities. Nevertheless, there are increasing targeted attacks and killings, and insecurity has reached such a level that the region is no longer under real government control, many civil servants have abandoned their posts, a significant number of schools have closed and the last presidential election could not be held in a number of municipalities.
To some extent, this situation is the result of a "contagion" from the North. Dislodged from the northern cities they had occupied for a few months, having failed to establish an independent state, forced to exercise discretion, jihadist armed groups, in search of new strategies and new modes of action, were able to use instability factors in the Central region to gain influence.
Some of these factors are common to both Central and Northern regions. It would, however, be wrong to consider that the serious incidents that now regularly occur in the Centre are only the extension of the northern conflict. Other weaknesses, in fact, are more specific to the Centre. The objectives of locally based communities, which jihadists exploit, are very different. While the Tuaregs claimed Azawad's
The importance of the role played by the Fulani in northern events, highlighted by all observers, is an indication of this difference. Indeed, the founder of the MLF (Macina Liberation Front), the most important of the armed groups involved, Hamadoun Koufa
Few in the North, the Fulani are numerous in the Centre, and, concerned like most other communities by the intensification of competition between herders and sedentary farmers that can be observed in the region, they suffer more from it, because of historical and cultural specifities.
The underlying trends in the region and Sahel as a whole, which make it more difficult for nomads and sedentary people to live together, are essentially of two kinds:
- climate change, already underway in the Sahel region (rainfall has dropped by 20% over the past 40 years), is forcing nomads to seek new grazing areas;
- population growth (Sahel is one of the very few regions in the world that have not yet begun their demographic transition), which is leading farmers to seek new land, is having a particular impact in this already densely populated region.
If the Fulani, transhumant herders, are particularly concerned by the competition between communities brought about by these developments, it is, on the one hand, because this competition pits them against almost all other communities
- even if the Malian authorities, unlike what may have happened in other countries, have never theorized the interest or necessity of sedentarization, the fact is that development projects are more directed towards sedentary people (under pressure from donors, generally in favor of abandoning nomadism, considered less compatible with the emergence of a modern state, and limiting access to education);
- the implementation in 1999 of decentralization, and municipal elections, which, while they provided the Fulani people with the opportunity to bring community demands into the political arena, mainly contributed to the emergence of new elitesThis effect, of course, has been limited by the vicissitudes of the decentralization policy. Nevertheless, it has been a reality in a number of municipalities. And undoubtedly the "feeling" of such transformations is greater than their real effects, especially among the Fulani, who tend to consider themselves "victimized"., and consequently to the questioning of traditional structures based on custom, history and religion. The Fulani people felt these transformations with particular intensity, insofar as the social relations within their community are old. These transformations also took place under the impetus of a State that they have always considered as "imported", the product of a Western culture far distant from their own.
Finally, historical reminiscences should not be ignored, although they should not be overestimated. In the Fulani imagination, the Macina Empire (of which Moptii was the capital) represents the golden age of the Centre. The heritage of this empire includes, in addition to the social structures, specific to the community, a certain relationship to religion: the Fulani live and are perceived as supporters of a pure Islam, in the wake of the Sufi brotherhood quaddiriya, sensitive to a rigorous application of the precepts of the Koran. The jihad advocated by leading figures in the Macina Empire, was different from that proclaimed by terrorists currently operating in Mali (which targeted other Muslims whose practices were not considered conforming with the founding text); Koufa's attitude towards the leading figures in the Macina Empire was ambiguous.
A trend seems to have emerged in recent months in the Centre: gradually, the initial motivations for joining purely local jihadist groups seem to be more ideological, a trend that is reflected in a questioning of the Malian State and modernity in general. Jihadist propaganda, which advocates the rejection of state control (imposed by the West and complicit in it) and the emancipation from the social hierarchies produced by colonization and this modern state finds a more "natural" echo among the Fulani than in other ethnic groups.
The regionalization of the Fulani issue in Sahel
Extension of the conflict to Burkina Faso
The Fulani are in the majority in the Sahelian part of Burkina Faso, which
Since late 2016, a new armed group claiming to be from the Islamic State has emerged, Ansarul Al Islamya or Ansarul Islam, whose main leader was Malam Ibrahim Dicko, a Fulani preacher who, like Hamadoun Koufa in Central Mali, had made himself known through his multiple attacks against the Burkina Faso Defence and Security Forces and schools in Soum, Seeno and Oudalan
However, the action of this group remains geographically limited for the time being.
But, as in central Mali, the Fulani are amalgamated and the whole community is perceived as an accomplice of jihadists that target sedentary communities. In response to the terrorist attacks, the sedentary communities formed their own militias to defend themselves.
Situation in Niger
Unlike Burkina Faso, Niger does not have any terrorist groups operating from its territory, despite Boko Haram's attempts to establish itself in the border regions, particularly on the Diffa side, by winning over young Nigerians whom the country's economic situation seems to deprive of a future. Even if the country is struggling to do so, Niger has so far succeeded in countering these attempts.
This situation is explained, in particular, by the importance given to security issues by the Nigerien authorities, which devote a very large part of the national budget to them. They have allocated substantial resources (taking into account their capabilities)
Moreover, the Nigerian authorities – just as they have managed, more than their Malian counterparts, to take measures that have largely defused the Tuareg issue – have also shown greater attention to the Fulani issue than Mali.
Niger, however, cannot entirely avoid contagion from neighbouring countries. The country is regularly subjected to terrorist attacks, both in the southeast, in the border regions of Nigeria, and in the west, in the regions near Mali. These are attacks from outside: operations led by Boko Haram in the southeast and operations from the Ménaka region in the west (the Ménaka region is a privileged area for "maturing" the Tuareg rebellions in Mali).
The attackers from Mali are frequently Fulani. They do not have the same power as Boko Haram, but it is all the more difficult to prevent their attacks, as the porosity of the border is high. Many of the Fulani concerned are Nigerians or of Nigerian origin: many Fulani herders were forced to leave Niger and settle in neighboring Mali when, in the 1990s, the development of irrigated areas in the Tilabéry region reduced their grazing areas. Since then, they have been involved in the conflicts between Malian Fulani and Tuaregs (Imaghads and Daoussaks). Since the last Tuareg rebellion in Mali, the balance of power between the two groups has changed: until then, the Tuaregs, who had already risen several times since 1963, already had many weapons. The Fulani from Niger became "militarized" when the Ganda Izo
Fulani of Nigeria
The most populous country in West Africa with 190 million inhabitants, Nigeria, like many countries in the region, is characterized by a dichotomy between the South, inhabited mainly by Yoruba Christians, and the North, whose population is essentially Muslim, with many Fulani who, like everywhere, are herders.
Nigeria's "central belt", crossing the country from east to west,
These conflicts have been exacerbated in recent times, as the Fulani have also sought to extend their transhumance routes southward, with northern pastures suffering from increasingly severe drought, while farmers in the South, with their particularly dynamic populations, are seeking to establish farms further north.
In recent months, this antagonism has taken a dangerous turn of identity and religion between two communities that have become irreconcilable and have been governed by different legal systems since Islamic law was reintroduced in 2000 in twelve northern states.
This vision is fuelled by the fact that Boko Haram, which mainly targets Christians, seeks to exploit militias against the Fulani opponents and that, indeed, a number of this fighters have joined the ranks of the Islamist group. Christians consider that the Fulani (with the Hausa, who are related to them) provide the bulk of Boko Haram's troops. This is an excessive perception, given the fact that a certain number of Fulani militias remain autonomous. But the fact is that the antagonism has worsened in recent years.
The election of Mohamadou Buhari, Fulani and former leader of the largest Fulani cultural association (Tabital Pulaakou Internayional), as President of the Republic, did not help to ease tensions. The President is frequently accused of underhandedly supporting his Fulani parents, instead of instructing the security forces to repress their criminal acts.
Fulani of Guinea
Guinea Conakry is the only country in which the Fulani constitute the largest ethnic group, but not the majority (about 38% of the population). While they come from Middle Guinea, the central part of the country that includes cities such as Mamou, Pita, Labé and Gaoual, they are present in every other region, where they have migrated in search of better living conditions.
The region is not affected by jihadism, and the Fulani are not and have not been particularly involved in violent conflicts, except for traditional conflicts between herders and sedentary people.
They control most of the economic power and, to a large extent, intellectual and religious powers. They are the most educated. They became literate very early on, first in Arabic and then in French, through French schools. Imams, Koranic masters, senior officials from within and from the diaspora are, in their majority, Fulani.
However, we can wonder about the future, insofar as they have always been victims of discrimination since independence in order to keep them out of political power. The other ethnic groups feel encroached upon by these traditional nomads who come to tear up their best lands to build the most flourishing businesses and the most resplendent residences. In their perception, if the Fulani came to political power, they would have all the power and, given the mentality they attribute them, they would manage to keep it forever. This perception was reinforced by the violent hostile speech of the first Guinean president, Sékou Touré, against the Fulani community.
In the first democratic elections in 2010, Fulani candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo came out on top in the first round, but all ethnic groups joined forces in the second round to prevent him from becoming President, giving power to Alpha Condé (Malinke).
This situation is increasingly unfavorable to the Fulani people, and generates frustrations that recent democratization (2010) has allowed to express.
The next presidential election, in 2020, in which Alpha Condé will not be able to stand for re-election (the Constitution prohibiting more than two terms), will be an important deadline for the evolution of relations between the Fulani and other communities.
CONCLUSION
There is no Fulani predestination to jihadism, which would be induced by the history of the former theocratic empires.
Moreover, the Fulani complex society is often overlooked (see the annex below for Mali) and the interests of its components may differ and cause contradictory behavior, or even intra-community divisions.
But undoubtedly they have a predisposition to ally themselves with the opponents of established orders, which is inherent to the condition of itinerants. Besides, the consequence of the geographical dispersion condemns them to remain always in the minority and, subsequently, to be unable to decisively influence the fate of States.
The subjective perceptions that flow from this condition feed the opportunism they have learned to cultivate in adversity – facing detractors who consider them as threatening foreign bodies, while they themselves live as victims discriminated against and destined to marginalization.
Annexe 1 : Organizations and stratification of the Fulani society in central Mali
Like other agro-pastoral societies in the Sahel, the Fulani society in central Mali
The two main social groups of the Fulani ethnic group, the nobles (Rimbé) and the descendants of captives (Rimaybé),
Nevertheless, the "nobles" or "free" in the literal sense (singular dimo; plur. rimɓe)
In addition to these two main groups, which could be described as social classes
In the history of Fulani society, the issue of slavery is essential. Landowners were generally sedentary and highly Islamized Fulani, hence their status as religious leaders (marabouts), while their captives were mostly from non-Islamic populations such as the Bozos, Dogons and Bamans. The tensions prevailing in central Mali, between Fulani and various sedentary communities, are partly due to this historical fact. Collective memory in a sedentary environment retains this ephemeral memory of the Fulani hegemony that enslaved several sedentary communities during the glory of the Fulani Empires in the 18th century. The recent Fulani jihadism in central Mali is perceived by other communities, mainly sedentary ones, as a sign of a willingness of the Fulani to restore their hegemony with all its corollaries, including raids and the "slavery" of the Black communities. In the collective consciousness of the people, as among the Tuaregs, the black communities, "baleebe" (not in terms of skin colour, but because of their Sudanese descent), are perceived in the same way as slaves, since most of their slaves are from these communities.
The conjunction of the question of Islam, slavery and the "enhancement" of the colony is closely established. Thus, with the abolition of slavery – which was one of the watchwords of the colonial conquest and the so-called civilizing mission of colonization – the Marabouts (Modibaabe) and local elites (Ardo and Weheebe), who drew their wealth and prestige from the exploitation of their lands by the Rimaybes, believed that they had to reorganize themselves and find strategies to perpetuate their status and privileges without recourse to slavery.