I have spent many hours in the past week editing an oral history interview I did about 11 years ago. The Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) which conducts these interviews has clearly tired of waiting for me to edit the interview I did over a decade ago and has threatened to turn over the unedited manuscript to the Library of Congress. I have taken the threat seriously.
As I edit the parts about my early days as a diplomat, I find myself thinking that things were better then; through the haze and fog of memory at least, the past is much more compelling than the present. What could I write this week about Bangladesh or Pakistan that would be as interesting as my overland safari to Timbuctu almost 40 years ago.
Turning back the pages of my memory, I find many treasured experiences to reminisce about. And I realize that in some cases, the only way I can go back to places and times I found exhilarating is through memory. Much has changed in the ensuing decades, and for the worse. One of those experiences I could not repeat was that wonderful trip I made with four companions from Monrovia, Liberia, to the historic and fabled city of Timbuctu in Mali.
They suggested we find a guide and place the Land Rover on a ferry. We decided to ignore both suggestions
When I grew up, Timbuctu was probably the only city in Africa I knew of. It was shrouded in mystery, and often used as a metaphor for the furthest place one could ever go on the earth. I grew up wanting to go there, and my chance came in 1966. My ambition to explore and learn knew no bounds; my comprehension of the pitfalls and hazards was next to zero.
We chose January as the month to make this ambitious voyage; that was the dry season so we wouldn’t have to worry about rain—not that we would have given rain in the Sahara much thought anyway. As the crow flies, Timbuctu is northeast of Monrovia. But while the crow may fly that direction, we couldn’t drive that way as there were no roads, and there are mountains in the way. We went east into Ivory Coast (Cote D’Ivoire) and straight North to Mali’s capital, Bamako. My companions thought it a good idea that we stop by the US Embassy in Bamako to let them know we were traveling in the country, and pick up any hints about traveling there.
Salt caravan on the Sahara
The embassy in Bamako was very helpful, perhaps overly concerned about such inexperienced wanderers in their domain. They suggested we find a guide at Segou where we would cross the Niger and also that we place the Land Rover on a ferry that shuttled up and down the Niger from Timbuctu. We decided to ignore both suggestions. The Niger in the dry season was often too low for the ferry to operate. And why would we need a guide. If we kept the river in sight we couldn’t miss Timbuctu. But we had to cross the bridge there as it was the last one for several hundred miles and Timbuctu is on the north side of the river.
Across the river, we began to see small groups of the fearsome and colorful Tauregs, who once controlled Northern Mali, and lived in the 1960s pretty much as they always had, a nomadic life in the Sahara. They were not unfriendly, but their grim appearance and swords made them scary. They normally just stared at us curiously as we passed without friendly signs but without, as far as I could tell, hostile intention. They are often called the “Blue People,” because the blue color of the cloth they wear used to turn their skin blue. Taureg are fiercely independent and have resisted control by outsiders for many centuries.
Tauregs in the lower Sahara
We reached Timbuctu in a few days keeping the river in sight on our right. But there was no road, just tire tracks to follow. All seemed generally to be going the same way. We arrived in Timbuctu at just the right time—there was a celebration going on, the occasion being the first stretch of paved road which was about a kilometer in length in that area, and the first telephone connection between Timbuctu and Bamako. We drove into Timbuctu on the paved road. A good many Tauregs had come to join the fun. During the day, they raced camels up and down the main street, my first sight of a race between those ungainly looking animals. The President of Mali was there to open the road and make the first call; he was to last about another year before being removed by a coup. We followed him around and, thus, got to see a large part of the town.
The Taureg and the Islamists have both fought with and against each other
Mali has a glorious history, but that was pretty threadbare by 1966. In the 14th and 15th centuries, it was the center of three great African Empires, the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires. At times these empires covered most of what is now West Africa. And during those times, the stability those empires brought fostered an intellectual renaissance in which art, literature, mathematics and astronomy bloomed. And Timbuctu was the center of Malian greatness.
After the 12th century, Timbuctu was the center for African trade across the Sahara, trade in salt, gold, Ivory, and slaves. It was a trading post that grew rich from the salt trade and turned into an intellectual and religious center. Its reputation drew Islamic scholar travelers such as Ibn Battuta to Timbuctu. Universities and libraries sprang up and its population grew to around 50,000, which enabled Timbuctu to support a scholarly class.
Trade routes across the Sahara to North Africa and beyond in the 15th century
All this began to unravel as the empires broke up, as empires tend to do. Moreover, the trade routes became less important as the Europeans after the end of the 15th century found their way in longer range ships down the West coast of Africa to trade the same goods that Timbuctu had specialized in. European imperialism relegated Timbuctu to a back seat, but it remained a legendary and mysterious place that only a very few foreigners had visited.
And now, of course, it has all turned sour. The Taureg are in revolt (though this is a common thread in their history), and tried to set up their own state in Northern Mali in 2012. Islamist extremists have flowed into the North after the Libyan meltdown. The Taureg and the Islamists have both fought with and against each other. Timbuctu was under Islamist/Taureg control for some months during which some of the ancient manuscripts and burial sites were destroyed. Mali, itself, has had its own meltdown, with an Army coup in 2012, but has now restored its successful democracy. With the help of the French Army, Timbuctu is back in the hands of the Malian government. But Mali remains unsettled and fragile. Timbuctu is not a place that will attract foreign visitors at present. I shall remember it as it was.
[*The photos I have taken off the internet. I have a wonderful set of photos, but they on slides; I have not had them digitalized. I shall have to do so before 11 more years are up.]
The author is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Chief of Mission in Liberia
