Since August 7, 2023, France has no longer issued any new visas to Malian, Nigerien and Burkinabe nationals. No exceptions will therefore be made for artists, nor for students or all those from the academic and scientific world who have planned a trip to France (often at the cost of long and costly procedures). For what ? How and where do these so-called “security” decisions come from? Each administration shifts the responsibility to each other, to the great dismay of the people affected, affected and impacted in the short, medium and also long term. If the French players in the sector, in particular the performing arts circles, reacted strongly, on the other hand, in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the time has come for incomprehension.

Alioune Ifra Ndiaye is one of the great figures of Malian culture, residing in Bamako, from where he directs, with great energy and independence, the incredible Blonba Cultural Complex, the result of a very long Franco-Malian cooperation. Also president of the Federation of Mali Artists (Fedama), this director, author of numerous theater and audiovisual works and many others, never hesitates to speak publicly to defend his convictions and commitments. Today, he calls Malians and French people to witness and warns against “bureaucratic directives” which could undermine all the efforts made by all to build solid working relations. He spoke to Point Afrique.

Le Point Afrique: An incomplete letter from the General Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac), asks the management of cultural organizations subsidized by the French State to “suspend, until further notice, all cooperation with the following countries: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso”, has been causing indignation since the start of the school year. Have you heard of it? If so, are you affected? Concretely, are your projects impacted in one way or another by these so-called “security” measures decided by French officials?

Alioune Ifra Ndiaye: Yes, I will be impacted if the suspension is effective. I have been working for a year on a show project which should be created in December 2024 as part of the Africolor festival. This project has a strong chance of not seeing the light of day. Furthermore, we have already lost funding from Accès Culture, a program of the AFD and the French Institute. BlonBa isn’t the only one who lost it. Several Malian artistic companies have lost it.

You have personally forged very strong links with several French cultural actors. Tell us how these working relationships have evolved, which over time often become fraternal despite administrations and political contexts…

I am one of the millions of fruits resulting from the relationship between France and Mali. And human and fraternal relationships are its basis. Mine began with the twinning of my high school, the Askia Mohamed high school in Bamako, and the Jean Vilar college in Angers, as part of the Angers-Bamako twinning. We received middle school students from this Angers school in Bamako in 1989. In return, we stayed in Angers with families in 1990. Then I co-founded the BlonBa theater company with the French writer Jean-Louis Sagot-Duvauroux in 2000. From this tool, we built a dynamic that has today impacted the professional lives of thousands of artists and artists. cultural actors and entertained millions of people through live shows, television shows, social network content in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso , in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Canada… Georges Bigot, leading actor in Ariane Mnouchkine’s company and former director of the Blaye festival, Patrick Le Mauf, director of the Francophonie festival, Claude Yersin, former director of the Drama center the Nouveau Théâtre d’Angers, Monique Blin, former director of the Théâtre de la Francophonie have all committed to our side as directors, writers, playwrights or directors of French cultural institutions to help us register in a rigorous practice of theatrical art, from writing to creation, including acting and production.

Thanks to these partnerships which were possible through friendly and fraternal relationships, and not through bureaucratic directives, today we can claim more than a hundred artistic creations directly and indirectly. In Mali, big names and also young upstarts have taken advantage of this dynamic to engage in a rigorous artistic practice.

This dynamic allowed me to come back and settle in Bamako with a cultural engineering and production company and the construction of an independent venue; the BlonBa Cultural Complex. It allowed us to expand our network with support such as that of Jean Loup Pivin, architect and co-founder of Revue Noire, and new French partnerships including those built with Diaby Doucouré, the current director of the Municipal Youth Office d’Aubervilliers, Aurélie Gros, former vice-president of the department of Essonne, Sébastien Lagrave, current director of Africolor, Vincent Mambatchaka, current Africa mission manager of the city’s theater. All based, beyond the professional, on fraternal relationships.

These partnerships have allowed us to boost urban culture in Mali. We can thus claim the revival of humor in Mali through the KotèBa Club of Blonba through which we were able to bring winners of the Jamel Comédie Club to Mali to participate in the training of young shoots. The current Malian rap movement owes a lot to this work. The first introductions to home studio and live rap performances were possible thanks to these partnerships. In collaboration with BlonBa, the Aubervilliers Municipal Youth Office regularly brought young people to Mali during the holidays who took charge of these transfers of skills. The Arlequin theater had been delegated management to the BlonBa theater company in the department of Essonne as a sort of Malian cultural center in France.

The dynamic also allowed the emergence of proven expertise in audiovisual in Mali thanks to a partnership with the late Jerome Kanapa, associated founder of CIFAP (Centre International de Formation Audiovisuel Professionnel), a training center in France in Montreuil, also with Daniel Lonis and the late Mr. Tass of Loca Image. This expertise has allowed us to create and produce successful television programs like Case Sanga, Manyamagan, À nous la Citoyenneté, etc. Several stars of music and audiovisual animation have been revealed by these programs.

The dynamic also made it possible to strengthen the capacity of young directors in digital cartoons including Dramane Minta and Issouf Bah, all awarded today at FESPACO. Finally, the head of this cultural engineering is Fatoumata Diawara. We have supported Fatoumata Diawara since her beginnings, accompanying her step by step until she entered into a professional dynamic. Today she is an undeniable star of African music. And she knew how to build an artistic identity that speaks to the world with intelligence and rigor. This was possible thanks to Jean Luc Courcoult of the Royal de Luxe company who, at one point during this support, agreed to take her into his company.

These are just some of the results of a Franco-Malian partnership. They are not the fruits of bureaucratic directives. They are the fruits of fraternal relationships between individuals. However, what I can say is that administrative directives can destroy them. This is unfortunately what is happening today. Whether in France or Mali.

Beyond the diplomatic field, the question at the heart of this sequence is also that of financing. How does the degraded state of relations between Mali and France impact your daily work? Whether it’s your financial resources, the aid you receive?

As said above, 75% of my technical, financial and artistic partners are French. Imagine the consequences. I furloughed 80% of my staff. My room’s programming activities are 100% stopped.

You have often spoken out to defend the cultural world in the face of religious entryism, in the face of the risk of dislocation of Mali and the Sahel, what has happened in concrete terms since the military junta came to power?

Between the Malian state which tends to corporalize us and that of France which wants to deprive us of an effective system, the deconstruction of the cultural sector in Mali is accelerating.

What does this sequence ultimately teach us… Can we still talk about Franco-African cooperation?

We are condemned to live and cooperate. We cannot deconstruct the history that binds us. It goes beyond our little egos today.

What is your view on the security and political crisis that Mali has been experiencing over the past ten years?

The arrival of the military to power is in fact only the visible part of an iceberg. The State of Mali is a command administration resulting from colonization. This is controlled by civil servants, including the military. It is not the general interest that it represents. It is a private device under the orders of the princes of the day. In this context, to survive, everyone manages to make the most of the game and uses the tools at their disposal to build an income. Thus the military and armed groups use weapons, the police use traffic, judges use the law, trade unionists use strikes, civil servants use the embezzlement of public funds and public procurement, young people use the industry of mobilization and videomania, traders speculation, professors trading notes, religious people, mosques and funerals exploiting the fear and dismay of citizens…. We need to reinvent ourselves. We are experiencing this trauma. Which explains our multidimensional crisis.

Doesn’t the seizure of power by the military mark a democratic step backwards?

The decline started before them. When political parties agree to prevent voters from sanctioning them, it is already a coup d’état against democracy. In the last legislative elections in Mali, the opposition and majority parties were on the same list. The soldiers came to do theirs outside the regulatory framework and with weapons. And the situation is getting worse day by day. And the country is held hostage between armed authorities, armed groups, a corrupt public administration, religious leaders seeking power, politicians watching for opportunities to regain power, a civil society following the orders of those in power…

Where can the start come from to finally straighten out the country, especially in such a tense geopolitical context?

The crisis is global. Mali is one of the countries least prepared for this situation. However, there is potential and possibilities that today’s world offers us to reinvent ourselves immediately. These include digital technology, renewable energies and a young population (75% of the population is under 25).

The military has no plan. However, Mali is full of talent. Solutions are being developed, outside of public spheres. Our solution will come from entrepreneurs. They know how to work and develop.

How do you analyze the situation in Niger and the reactions of ECOWAS?

This is part of the activities of capturing public revenues. Except that today, it has become a question of global security.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, faced with the war in Ukraine and climate change, Africa is increasingly asserting its independence. Are we hearing enough of the continent’s voice on major international issues?

Indeed, we affirm it. But what is the plan? This is where things get fuzzy. But it is the project that is important. Not the incantations.