Romancing the Archivist: A Dispatch from Africa

Here’s a cautionary story for the researcher in Africa.

You walk into the national archives of a certain country with research authorization in hand—a document signed by a government minister, with your photo and signature, a short paragraph in French explaining your project in the blandest most unthreatening terms, and a stamp fixed to the top right hand corner to show you’ve paid the “official documents tax.” You spent an entire day across the capital city, in and out of a dozen government buildings in search of the office that issues that stamp, and ten days in all getting together the necessary elements for this piece of paper, which is a license to gather information, carefully laminated to preserve it in the heat, the dust, and the touch of many hands. Finally, everything is set and one afternoon you enter the archives, a gleaming six-story marble and concrete building just finished thanks to the “benevolent generosity” of Colonel Gaddafi, Africa’s self-proclaimed “Guide.” You are sweating in 105 degrees, grit eating at the folds of skin in your neck, suffering maybe from a stomach parasite, and walk up three flights of stairs to the office of le Directeur, where the air-conditioning is aggressively cold. He greets you amiably from behind a large wooden desk, offers you a seat, a glass of strong sweet tea, asks about your family and your health. He takes your authorization and sits back in his chair, reading, grunting softly, and frowning. Finally, he looks up at you and smiles broadly as he reaches across his desk to hand you back your paper. You lean forward to shake his hand and thank him. Then he speaks.

“Obviously, you’re a spy,” he says, folding his hands on the desk. “This is very sensitive information you are seeking. I cannot possibly offer you access to the archives.”

You sputter. “But, but, I have an authorization, approved by the minister—“

He interrupts, persistent with his smile and accusation. “Yes, but I am director here, not the minister, and you may very well be a spy. I think you are working for the Senegalese.”

You stare at him, you utter one word—“Senegal?"—and you begin to laugh.

The director’s smile vanishes, replaced by a frown and a question. “What are you laughing at?”

You begin apologizing profusely. You have no choice. You and your research project are in serious trouble.

* * *

This was my first meeting with Ali Ongoiba, director of the national archives in Mali, West Africa. Our conversation began what has become—thanks to an accusation, an unfortunate laugh, and an apology—a long collaboration on my research subject, the 177 arbitrary lines that make up Africa’s political borderlands. That meeting, before I ever touched an archival document, is a useful scene because it works as a metaphor for the borderland, where every inch of land and every morsel of information is guarded and challenged, open to reinterpretation and, therefore, endless suspicion.

So, gingerly, after apologizing to him for my rude behavior and disrespect, I asked him a question he had given me: “So, why would Senegal send spies to your archives?”