Past and present African citizenships of slave descent: lessons from Benin

Abstract

This paper takes up the notion of citizenship and ethnicity as forms of belonging in the context of globalisation. The discussion draws on a case study focusing on a Fulfuldephone servile group from Northern Benin called the Gando. Since pre-colonial times, their servile status ascribed by birth has been an argument for placing them at the margins of their society and excluding them from political participation. While still claiming their belonging to the nation-state of Benin and the Fulbe's culture, the Gando have progressively built a new social identity that is showing to be a new ethnic group. In the context of the decentralisation reform implemented in 2002–2003, the Gando have taken the opportunity to access local power; they conquered municipal power in the 2003 and 2008 local elections. In doing so they opened the gates to a full citizenship that in the context of today's Benin means a clientelistic citizenship. Contrary to recent literature focused on the simultaneous emergence of belonging dynamics and violent conflicts in the context of recent globalisation in developing countries, the author argues that belonging dynamics do not necessarily imply violent conflicts and exclusion dynamics.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• slave status
• ethnicity
• decentralisation
• elections
• local politics

Notes

 1. In this article, concept and notion are used synonymously.

 2. For, a critical perspective of ancient Greece and Republican Rome democracies and citizenship, see respectively, Veyne (2005) and Nicolet (1980).

 3. This study is based on recent empirical fieldwork I conducted in Benin 2006–2008. The historical perspective has been possible, thanks to former studies on the Fulbe of Northern Benin conducted by Bierschenk et al. 1987–1997. Citizenship was not the central issue of the research. Instead, it appeared at the crossroad of two research projects. One dealt with political culture and municipal governance in the context of recent decentralisation in Benin; the other focused on the reform of the literacy sector in Benin that seemed to be a major interest for the Fulbe and especially for the Gando. As already claimed in the late 1980s, education of the Fulbe through literacy was expected to promote better integration of the community/individuals into the nation-state of Benin.

 4. The Fulbe are known as Fulani in Anglophone literature and Peuls or Peulhs in French. While many Fulbe groups are hierarchical and stratified, some Fulbe societies such as the Woodabe of Niger are somewhat acephalous and non-hierarchical. This was also the case of the small groups of Fulbe that came to the Borgou region in the seventeenth century. By contact with the stratified groups of Borgou (Boo and Baatombu), the Fulbe adopted part of this hierarchical organisation and became stratified.

 5. According to these authors, former democratisation reforms were superficially implemented by central governments and led to ‘cosmetic democracies’. For this reason, decentralisation strategies that will allow people to rule themselves are a further development of democratisation processes.

 6. These ‘myths of linear development’ in Western aid discourses are discussed and deconstructed by Secher Marcussen and Bergendorff (2004).

 7. Escobar (1995) quoted by Secher Marcussen and Bergendorff (2004, p. 105).

 8. Baatonu is the adjective form of the name Baatonu (sing.). The plural form of the name is Baatombu (Bierschenk 1997a, p. 19).

 9. Though nowadays Fulbe also practice subsistence and commercial agriculture, they are not necessarily fulfuldephone and rarely practice goja any longer, but they still claim their specific identity.

10. The umbrella term Gando covers different categories (Tkiriku, Gandogibu, Yobu) in the Baatonu group (for details see Baldus 1977, pp. 438–439). Similar distinctions are made among the slaves of Fulbe (see Hardung 1997, pp. 109–111). The term Gando also includes a category of people who are not of slave origin. They belong to Baatonu and Boo chiefs' families who decided to settle among the Machube in pre-colonial times. They have adopted their way of life and their language (Fulfulde) and people consider them as Gando (see Hardung 1997, pp. 113–116). Some of the most influential Gando political leaders come from this latter group.

11. For a more detailed description on Fulbe's slaves, see Riesman (1974). For a comparative analysis of the endurance of ‘slavery’ in popular representations, see Hahonou (2009).

12. As noted by Guichard (1990, pp. 20–21), nowadays Fulbe use the same expression (e mon ñaame taki = take the food) to describe their exploitation by civil servants and peasants from other ethnic groups as they used in the past to describe the raids operated against them by Wasangari.

13. Village and camp chiefs were designated locally, as well as a superior Peul regional chief (Bierschenk 1993).

14. Indigénat system recognised an inferior legal status for natives of French Colonies. It was implemented in French West Africa in the 1880s and was abolished in the mid-1940s. Slavery was officially abolished in Dahomey in 1906.

15. The term ‘intellectual’ is used in francophone West African countries with reference to literate and school-educated people. The lack of intellectuals is due to the Fulbe's reluctance to send their children to the ‘school of Whites’ (janirde batuure) during colonial and post-colonial times. The Fulbe preferred to send the children of their slaves to school (Gando) (see Lombard 1965, p. 451).

16. Baatonu and Boo groups of Borgou belong to the same political system and share common cultural characteristics (Lombard 1965, pp. 41–42). Boo are less numerous than Baatombu and are concentrated in Segbana and Kalalé's areas. They were closely linked to the kingdom of Nikki. Both groups were able to manipulate the structures of the modern state, revolutionary and post-revolutionary, better than other groups of this area (cf. Elwert 1983, De Haan et al. 1990).

17. The notion of senteene or semteende (Fulfulde of Northern Nigeria) refers to the typical Pullo restraint and reserve in manifesting one's needs, emotions and various physical requirements (eating, urinating, etc.) cf. Brandt (1956, p. 35) and Boesen (1989).

18. In these ‘revolutionary’ times, the term ‘nationalities’ was the politically correct word to use to designate the various ethno-linguistic groups that composed the Popular Republic of Benin (1974–1990).

19. In other contexts, people of slave origins are designated by the term HaaBe or BaleeBe, translated as ‘blacks’ (cf. Botte 1994, p. 116). Here, due to the inclusive categories adopted by Benin's administration and to put the emphasis on group unity that prevailed at the Fulfulde seminar, the Gando were considered as Fulbe, at least on the front stage.

20. Many Gando of Southern Borgou were educated in protestant mission schools of the Soudan Interior Mission. According to Bierschenk (1997b), the Gando profited more than the Fulbe from modern educational facilities under colonialism and post-colonial regimes.

21. See Bierschenk (1993) a propos the creation ex nihilo of a tradition of chieftaincy among the Fulbe by French colonial power.

22. This was especially the case in the northern part of the country because the implementation of literacy policy started earlier in the South.

23. About the notion of brokerage, see Bierschenk et al. (2000).

24. Patrons were usually recruited among the Baatombu or the Boo.

25. Extract from the report of the Conference of the National Sub-Committee of Linguistics (Fulfulde) (Laawol Fulfulde 1987).

26. As most Fulbe, especially Gando, entered local organisations of cotton producers but had very few people able to read and write, they were usually cheated by intermediaries from other ethnic groups during weighting and payment operations of the cotton delivered to public firms. The cotton sector is highly corrupt (see Gray and Moseley 2008).

27. Subversive in regards to the aristocratic ideology briefly described previously.

28. Analysing the linguistic seminar of Laawol Fulfulde, Guichard (1990, pp. 29–32) insists particularly on the opposition between Fulbe siire (intellectuals, sedentarized in towns, villages and chefs-lieux de districts) and Fulbe ladde (illiterates, still nomads living in the bush) but pays very little attention to the opposition between Gando and Fulbe.

29. ‘How can they want to be Peuls? These are Je'aaBe (slaves) and that's evident’ (citation of Boesen 1997, p. 42). ‘A Gando is a Gando’ (quoted by Hardung 1997, p. 112).

30. This metaphor used by some Gando leaders has been repeatedly addressed later on during electoral campaigns to enrol followers among Gando electorate. Indeed, in pre-colonial times the masters secured the newly bought slaves with ropes around a big tree at their settlement.

31. For a perspective on the confusion between Gando and Fulbe in national statistics, see Bierschenk (1997b, pp. 80 seq.).

32. RUND is the ‘Rassemblement pour l'Unité Nationale et la Démocratie’. The national president of the RUND party (who is not from Kalalé) contributed financially to the creation of the Idi Waadi association. He also funded the electoral campaign of Orou Sé Guéné.

33. Ourou Sé Guéné presided over the Association for the Economic and Social Development of the District of Kalalé (ADESKA) for many years. He was a member of the national bureau of the Laawol Fulfulde (responsible for propaganda and information), of the Idi Waadi association, and possibly other associations. He was always close to organisations of cotton producers, supporting the electoral campaigns of some of their leaders.

34. Nevertheless, the participation of a once marginalized group is not a guarantee for ‘good governance’ and ‘good citizenship’ in their normative sense as shown by Hahonou (2009).

35. Another political party distributed money to municipal councillors in order to secure the dismissal of the mayor.

36. Before decentralization, appointed functionaries called ‘sous-préfets’ incarnated the ‘commandant’ figure inherited from colonial times. They were authoritative, could act as local despots and were much feared. In Nikki, people gave a nickname to one of them: ‘I am going to lock you up [in jail!]!’.

37. Expression borrowed from Bayart (1989).

38. The inhabitants of the municipality consider their councillor as a patron or as an intermediary to the mayor (the big patron) in a hierarchical system, where the latter has access to more advantages than the former.

39. ‘Vote for me. You will be allowed to come into the protected area of the forest to cultivate and to graze your cattle, you will be free from the payment of tolls for your motorbikes…’ was the leitmotiv of the former mayor when addressing Gando peasants.

40. G13 is a coalition group of 13 deputies elected under various lists in March 2007. FCBE, Force Cauris pour un Benin Emergeant, is a coalition of political parties that support the President Yayi Boni. In Kalalé FCBE won the municipal election after a much contested vote and a postponed deliberation of the Supreme Court.

41. Out of loyalty to Orou Sé Guéné most of his followers refused to pay taxes to the municipality after his dismissal by municipal councillors in 2005. Thus, the municipality of Kalalé had huge difficulties in paying salaries and making any kind of investment.

42. According to people's cosmology in Northern Borgou, once the child-sorcerer (Yonobu) has been cured by the blessing of the Pullo, the child's malediction turns into good fortune. That is the explanation usually given to the Gando's prosperity (in comparison with other ethnic groups).

43. I use this approach too.

44. My translation of the French anthropologists' expression ‘cadets sociaux’. This notion underlines the differentiation between seniors (‘aînés’) and juniors (‘cadets’) in African political systems. Generally, this etic concept encompasses women, young men and slaves. See Meillassoux (1977) and Olivier de Sardan (1994).

45. In the discourses of donors and aid organisations, people of slave origin were never targeted as marginalised groups that might benefit the positive effects on empowerment expected from the implementation of decentralisation reforms. Some scholars, such as Beridogo (1997), were even doubtful whether ‘social juniors’ could emerge in municipal councils in Mali because of the existing traditional social structures, the weight of status and the electoral practices before decentralisation.