The peasant's arrested revolution

The 1970s marked a turning point in the history of the peasantry of the Sahel, the arid and semi-arid band immediately south of the Sahara that spans the breadth of Africa. That decade began with a humanitarian catastrophe, whose origins apparently lay in a protracted period of drought, and ended with a drastic challenge to the Sahelian social system by a multi-faceted peasant movement. The drought and subsequent famine prompted international interventions in 1972 and 1973; rather than centring that often undisciplined mobilisation (as many previous narratives have), this essay traces how the crisis gave rise to a new politics among the people who lived through it. Dr Idrissa focuses on the West African part of the Sahel, which includes Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.