Sba’i, 40, replied 6 years ago to an invitation from Paléo Festival Nyon in Switzerland. When he took part to the activities of the World Quarter, he realised the depth of the historical links shared by the populations in Sahel and in Sahara, as well as the joint challenges between people in Morocco, Mali and Mauritania.
Halim Sba’i returned home with the iron will to launch an initiative in the objective to find solutions to the ecological and social problems of the Sahara. «I did not wait to start implement my wishes» states the president of «Zaïla» which literarily means «female dromedary» in Hassaniya, a common dialect in Sahara, in Mauritania and in Northern-Mali. So he adds: «we have decided to organise an annual festival with the name of ‘Taragalte’ which is the historical name of the zone around M’hamid El Ghizlane».
Halim Sba’i goes on: «the festival has become an annual rendezvous to publicise the music from Sahara, organise the sale of local products, give a voice to the population and to experts to talk about the fragile ecological situation of the region, and to present the various points of view on coherent touristic activities, on nomadic life… among others ».
From the beginnings of the festival participants from Mali were numerous. The first festival event brought in the Malian star band «Tinariwen». Its female colleagues «Tartit» and many other famous musical bands from Mali came in and joined later festival sessions.
The Director of the Festival of music from Sahara to Timbuktu, Ami Ansar, says that during the 2013 session, he was torn in between two feelings: one of joy to hear the Malian musicians sing on the stage of the Taragalte festival in the midst of the M’hamid El Ghizlane’s dunes; and one of sadness as another sound, that of weapons was being heard in North Mali and as he saw the suffering of Malian families from death, deportation and expulsion from Timbuktu and surroundings. «At that moment», he said to his Moroccan colleague, «we started to think on how to express our solidarity with our families from over there, hence the ‘Cultural Caravane for Peace’».
Harp against guns
The idea of the caravan got approved following a joint meeting in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. There three internationally famous directors of festivals agreed on «the necessity to make sure that harp will silence the guns ». These were the directors of the festivals Taragalte (Morocco), Segou (Niger) and Sahara (Timbuktu). They decided to transform culture in caravans which would transport the ideas of love in a zone marked by arms and conflict; a zone exhausted by tragedies created by common exodus and economic and ecological challenges.
«Young generations have abandoned their joint heritage of civilisation. This is the reason why the workshop Butterfly Works in Amsterdam adopted this project with the objective to strengthen dialogue and synergy between the people of Sahel and of Sahara», reads the statement published at the launch of the «Cultural Caravan for Peace». The caravan will be used to help set up a system of meetings between peoples in Sahara who have suffered from so many rivalry of political character.
The second session of the Cultural Caravan for Peace opened its field of operation to the constitution of the Cultural Caravan Network. This is a new tool to guarantee a better and more efficient coordination of the humanitarian trip planned in 2015.
Wedding nights, peace resolution training workshops and a visit of the Malian Minister for National Reconciliation Dhehbi Ould Mohamed marked this edition. The minister led an event of «national reconciliation», in front of authorities from Segou and the head of the European Union Delegation in Bamako.
For Mali, Halim Sba’i seems optimistic as to the initiative he launched with his colleagues. But will culture succeed where politics has failed? Only future sessions of the festival and the progress in the Malian national reconciliation may hold an answer to that question.
