| | The Tuareg are hardly represented in the Saharan states in which they live, and their twentieth century history is characterised by cycles of insurrection, exile and passive resistance. The idea for this book arose from the discrepancy between the mass media versions of the aftermath of the 1990 Tuareg insurrection and the points of view of the actors themselves, which are largely unknown to the outside world. The editors are an ethno-linguist specialising in the Tuareg and a Tuareg writer based in France. They have not tried to put across a single interpretation of events; on the contrary they have collected together a multiplicity of views. What most of these, 'solitary voices' have in common is that they are Tuareg, speak from exile, and their messages are unrepresented in the officially publicised version of events: they are the voices of elderly community leaders (one has since died in exile in Morocco), of women surviving in refugee camps, of young ex-fighters (including one woman), of intellectuals. |
