The Mali-Federation: A Pan-African Endeavour? Reflections on Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in Times of Decolonization

Abstract

The idea of joint political forces of Senegal and Soudan into a federation to enforce anti-colonial demands in 1959 seems to be the incarnation of pan-African nationalism. Considering the predominance of nation-statist ideas in Franco-African relations post-1945, federating looks like the anti-thesis to nation-statist agitation. I will argue that the two levels of nationalism, the pan- African level and the nation-state level, are not necessarily opposed diametrically to each other in the Mali federation, but are linked inextricably. My analysis focuses on two dimensions: the visionary dimension of the Mali Federation and its concrete political realisation. Initially, the federalist vision of Senegal’s Léopold Sédar Senghor and Soudan’s Modibo Keita aimed for an AOF-wide federation within the colonial framework. However, in the late 1950s, the pan-African vision became an indispensable tool for achieving national independence. The realisation of the Federation, however, was constrained by the nation-statist level of nationalism, its collapse being a case in point.

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