Abstract:
The advent of new information and communication technologies (ICTs)
particularly the internet and associated networks have made it possible to
express previously repressed nationalist sentiments, forbidden languages, ethnic
loyalties, and new identities free from the control exerted between the boundaries
of the state. New forms of nationalistic conflicts (that take place in what Arquilla
and Ronfeldt (1996, 2001) call ‘netwars’) are now being waged along the lines of
multiple forms of loyalties (civic, state-induced, or ethnic or subversive). Since the
advent of democracy in Francophone Africa, the state has lost its monopoly over
the media and now cannot control actors (particularly diasporic communities
scattered around the world) who are disputing its hegemony and legitimacy.
Citizens who no longer live in the national territory are fighting back against
divisive and subversive tendencies in the name of national cohesion, unity,
territorial integrity, and democratic governance. For example, in Niger since the
beginning of 2007, two rebel movements led by Tuareg insurgents have been
fighting the government on both the military and the virtual fronts. They have
invaded existing virtual networks such as discussion forums and online media
websites and created their own websites and chat rooms. In the name of national
unity and peaceful development, they are being countered by the state as well as
other citizens of the diaspora.
This article analyses how Tuareg identity has been framed over time by colonial
anthropologists and administrators in Niger and how this identity is now being
expressed online by current Nigerien Tuareg rebels in the context of conflicting
nationalisms involving the state and its opponents. The discussion argues that,
contrary to the deterministic role attributed to ICTs, it is the ‘external’ social and
political conditions that determine the online contours of nationalistic expressions
and conflicts. This article falls within the framework of the ‘structuralistconstructivist’
theory devised by Bourdieu; consequently, it approaches such
conflicting nationalisms as ‘symbolic struggles over the power to produce and to
impose a legitimate vision of the world’ (Bourdieu 1989, 20).
The topic here is limited to the Nigerien Tuareg movements and does not
address in any way the Malian Tuareg movements or the pan-Amazigh movement.
Where necessary, however, references will be made to the one or the other
