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The N'ko, a West African Prophetism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
One of the characteristics of this ending century might very well be the resurgence of ethnic, nationalist, and fundamentalist movements, a group of manifestations conveniently designated by S. Huntington in the expression “the clash of civilizations.” Although in the West we live, since the end of the nineteenth century, in the paradigm of class struggle - even despite the fact that World War I fighters had proven that they accepted to “die for their country” - the 1990s seem to toll this model's bell in favor of a hardening of identity demands.
1. S.H. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 1993, 72, (3), pp. 22-49.
2. E. Kantorowicz, Mourir pour la patrie, Paris, 1984.
3. For the French case, see J.-L. Amselle, Vers un multiculturalisme français, l'em pire de la coutume, Paris, 1996.
4. Concerning Africa, this problematic is defined in J.-L. Amselle and M'Bokolo (eds.), Au coeur de l'ethnie, ethnies, tribalisme et Etat en Afrique, Paris, 1985; and in J.-L Amselle, Logiques métisses, anthropologie de l'identité en Afrique et ailleurs, Paris, 1990; forthcoming english translation, Mestizo Logico, Connecticut, 1997.
5. In the context of this article, I indifferently use the terms Malinke, Mandigo, Mandenka, Maninka, etc.
6. Thus first names of Arabic origin such as Yakuba are accused of being Jewish.
7. S. Kanté, Méthode pratique d'écriture n'ko, Kankan, 1961.
8. M. Delafosse, La Langue mandingue et ses dialectes (Malinké, Bambara, Dioula), Paris, 1955.
9. In S. Kanté, (note 7 above).
10. See among others S. Kanté, Précis de l'histoire de l'empire Sosso (993-1235), 1993.
11. M. Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal Niger, Paris, 1972 (1912), 3 vols.
12. On K. Yao's scriptural prophetism, see M. Augé, Génie du paganisme, Paris, 1982, pp. 298-300. For further Ivory Coast examples, see J.-P. Dozon, La Cause des prophètes, Paris, 1995.
13. On the thematic of black Christs, see M. Augé, Ibid.; on the will for separation of the Muslim Soninké of France, see M. Timera, Les Soninké en France, Paris, 1996.
14. This confusion between writing and language is perfectly significant of the assimilation of the alphabet invented by Souleymane Kanté and of the Malinke language.
15. Hence the N'ko motto, "The light has risen up to the horizon, Light of the transcription of knowledge in the Mother Tongue."
16. On Muslim fundamentalism in Mali, see J.-L. Amselle, "A Case of Fundamen talism in West Africa: Wahhabism in Bamako," in L. Caplan (ed.), Studies in Religious Fundamentalism, London, 1987, pp. 79-94.
