I've always found it ironic that countries that aren't one people, like the United States (What's an American look like anyway?) are called a nation, when nations that are one people have no land they can call their own. In North America alone there are hundreds of nations without their own land to control and similar situations exist the world over. When the European nations carved up Africa between themselves they did so with no regard to traditional national boundaries.
One result of this artificial delineation has been the various conflicts between ethnic groups that has scared Africa since the 1960s and culminated in the horror that was the genocide in Rwanda. While nothing comes close to matching ethnic violence in terms of human suffering, the impact of creating countries based on nothing more than convenience has been felt across the continent. Some of those most drastically affected have been the nomadic people that traveled the deserts as much a part of the natural rhythm of the land as the turning of the seasons.
The Tuareg people of the Sahara followed routes that now cross the borders of five countries; Libya, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Algeria. In the early 1990s the Tuareg finally had enough and began an uprising that only ended in 2001 with the election of governments in Mali and Algeria that have proven more responsive to their plight. Moussa Ag Keyna was 15 when he joined the uprising. But a bullet wound and the assassination of his rebellion chief (also his uncle) sent him into exile in France in 1995. 
He had bought a guitar and was set to form a band with friends and cousins when the war had broken out in 1990. It was in France that he decided to pick up his guitar again and continue the fight for his people in a non-violent way. In music he saw the opportunity to tell the world about his people and their circumstances. Although the shooting has stopped the war is far from over, as the Tuareg's territory is coveted by the various governments for the natural resources, uranium, oil, and gold, hidden beneath the sand.
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