Editing Niger (section)

== Culture ==
{{Main|Culture of Niger}}
[[File:Sultan zinder.jpg|thumb|[[Sultanate of Damagaram|Sultan of Damagaram]] in the [[Hausa people|Hausa]] city of [[Zinder]]. The Sultanate continues to operate in a ceremonial function into the 21st century.]]
[[File:Niger, Toubou people at Koulélé (18).jpg|thumb|right|[[Toubou people|Toubou]] musicians at a formal ceremony]]
Nigerien culture is marked by variation, evidence of the cultural crossroads which [[French colonial empires|French colonialism]] formed into a unified state from the beginning of the 20th century. What is now Niger was created from four distinct cultural areas in the pre-colonial era: the [[Zarma people|Zarma]] and [[Songhay people (subgroup)|Songhai]] dominated the [[Niger River]] valley in the south-west; the northern periphery of [[Hausaland]], made mostly of those states which had resisted the [[Sokoto Caliphate]], and ranged along the long southern border with Nigeria; the [[Chad basin|Lake Chad basin]] and [[Kaouar]] in the far east, populated by [[Kanuri people|Kanuri]] farmers and [[Toubou]] pastoralists who had once been part of the [[Bornu Empire|Kanem–Bornu Empire]]; and the [[Tuareg people|Tuareg]] nomads of the [[Aïr Mountains]] and the Sahara in the vast north.

Each of these communities, along with smaller ethnic groups like the pastoral [[Wodaabe]] [[Fula people|Fula]], brought their own cultural traditions to the new state of Niger. While successive post-independence governments have tried to forge a shared national culture, this has been slow forming, in part because the major Nigerien communities have their own cultural histories, and in part because Nigerien ethnic groups such as the [[Hausa people|Hausa]], Tuareg and Kanuri are but part of larger ethnic communities which cross borders introduced under colonialism.

Until the 1990s, government and politics was inordinately dominated by [[Niamey]] and the [[Zarma people]] of the surrounding region. At the same time the plurality of the population, in the Hausa borderlands between [[Birni-N'Konni]] and [[Maine-Soroa]], have often looked culturally more to Hausaland in Nigeria than Niamey. Between 1996 and 2003, primary school attendance was around 30%,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/Niger_statistics.html |title=At a glance: Niger |access-date=22 June 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091130170853/http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/Niger_statistics.html |archive-date=30 November 2009 }}</ref> including 36% of males and only 25% of females. Additional education occurs through [[madrasa]]s.

=== Festivals and cultural events ===
==== Guérewol festival ====
{{Main|Guérewol}}
[[File:1997 274-5 Gerewol.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Participants in the [[Guérewol]] perform the ''Guérewol'' dance, 1997.]]
The Guérewol festival is a traditional Wodaabe cultural event that takes place in [[Abalak]] in [[Tahoua Region|Tahoua region]] or [[In-Gall|In'Gall]] in [[Agadez Region]]. It is an annual traditional courtship ritual practiced by the Wodaabe (Fula) people of Niger. During this ceremony, young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attention of marriageable young women. The Guérewol festival is an international attraction and was featured in films and magazines as prominent as the [[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]].

==== Cure Salée festival ====
{{Main|Cure Salee}}
"La Cure salée" (English: Salt Cure) is a yearly festival of Tuareg and Wodaabe nomads in [[In-Gall|In'Gall]] in [[Agadez Region]] traditionally to celebrate the end of the rainy season. For three days, the festival features a parade of [[Tuareg]] camel riders followed with camel and horse races, songs, dances, and storytelling.

=== Media ===
{{Main|Media of Niger}}
Niger began developing diverse media in the late 1990s. Prior to the Third Republic, Nigeriens only had access to tightly controlled state media.<ref name=sainforeport2002fr>[http://africa.ifj.org/pdfs/sainforeport2002fr.pdf SEMINAIRE-ATELIER DE FORMATION ET DE SENSIBILISATION "Mission de service public dans les entreprises de presse d’Etat et privée"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20150702011318/http://www.ifj.org/regions/africa |date=2 July 2015 }}. Historical introduction to Press Laws, in conference proceedings, Organised by FIJ/SAINFO/LO-TCO CCOG. NIAMEY, June 2002.</ref> Now Niamey contains scores of newspapers and magazines; some, like ''Le Sahel'', are government operated, while many are critical of the government.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/ng82.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091213180757/http://www.afdevinfo.com/htmlreports/ng82.html|url-status=dead|title=Media in Niger: the African Development Information Database|archivedate=13 December 2009}}</ref><ref>[http://www.gret.org/parma/uk2/ressource/edm/pdf/niger.pdf Medias Status Report: Niger] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304011302/http://www.gret.org/parma/uk2/ressource/edm/pdf/niger.pdf |date=4 March 2009 }}. Summary document written for the African Media Partners Network. Guy-Michel Boluvi, Les Echos du Sahel Niamey, January 2001.</ref> Radio is the most important medium, as television sets are beyond the buying power of many of the rural poor, and illiteracy prevents print media from becoming a mass medium.<ref name="Geels2006">Geels, Jolijn. ''Niger''. Bradt UK/Globe Pequot Press USA, 2006. {{ISBN|978-1-84162-152-4}}</ref>

In addition to the national and regional radio services of the state broadcaster [[Office of Radio and Television of Niger|ORTN]], there are four privately owned radio networks which total more than 100 stations. Three of them—the [[Anfani FM|Anfani Group]], Sarounia and Tenere—are urban-based commercial-format [[FM broadcasting|FM]] networks in the major towns.<ref name=ussd9506>U.S. Department of State. Report on Human Rights Practices&nbsp;– Niger. [http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/democracy/hrp_index.html 1993–1995] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090616143410/http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/democracy/hrp_index.html |date=16 June 2009 }} to [https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78750.htm 2006] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200421204423/https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78750.htm |date=21 April 2020 }}.</ref> There is also a network of over 80 community radio stations spread across all seven regions of the country, governed by the Comité de Pilotage de Radios de Proximité (CPRP), a civil society organisation. The independent-sector radio networks are collectively estimated by CPRP officials to cover some 7.6&nbsp;million people, or about 73% of the population (2005).

Aside from Nigerien radio stations, the [[BBC]]'s Hausa service is listened to on FM repeaters across wide parts of the country, particularly in the south, close to the border with Nigeria. [[Radio France Internationale]] also rebroadcasts in French through some of the commercial stations, via satellite. Tenere FM also runs a national independent television station of the same name.<ref name="ussd9506"/>

Despite relative freedom at the national level, Nigerien [[Journalism|journalists]] say they are often pressured by local authorities.<ref name="issa04">[http://www.panos-ao.org/ipao/spip.php?article39 Niger : Conseil de presse. Les journalistes refusent la mise sous tutelle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510075744/http://www.panos-ao.org/ipao/spip.php?article39|date=10 May 2011}}. Ousseini Issa. Médi@ctions n°37, Institut PANOS Afrique de l'Ouest. March 2004.</ref> The state ORTN network depends financially on the government, partly through a surcharge on electricity bills, and partly through direct subsidy. The sector is governed by the [[High Council for Communication (Niger)|Conseil Supérieur de Communications]], established as an independent body in the early 1990s, since 2007 headed by [[Daouda Diallo]]. International human rights groups have criticised the government since at least 1996 as using regulation and police to punish criticism of the state.<ref name=cpj2006>[http://cpj.org/2007/02/attacks-on-the-press-2006-niger.php Attacks on the press: Niger 2006] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110920053522/http://www.cpj.org/2007/02/attacks-on-the-press-2006-niger.php |date=20 September 2011 }}. Committee to Protect Journalists (2007). Retrieved 23 February 2009.</ref><ref>[http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR430012007?open&of=ENG-2F5 Niger: Emergency legislation infringes non-derogable human rights] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090211134003/http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR430012007?open&of=ENG-2F5 |date=11 February 2009 }}. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Public Statement. AI Index: AFR 43/001/2007 (Public Document) Press Service Number: 181/07. 21 September 2007.</ref>