(English) Independence Day: history and what comes after

Miala tsiny fa tsy mbola misy amin’ny teny malagasy ity lahatsoratra ity.

Today marks the start of the 66^th year of the modern state of Madagascar.

Malagasy people gained their full independence from France, officially, on 26 June 1960.

Celebrations usually begin the night before, with celebrations including harendrina and tsipoapoaka (paper lanterns and firecrackers), to banish the ‘darkness of the past’ and welcome in (and commemorate the coming of) the ‘light of the future’.

People parade lanterns around their neighbourhoods, singing a call for the light to come. Tsipoapoaka – firecrackers – were once commonly used, to symbolise the gunfire in the Malagasy struggle for independence, but are now more commonly substituted for fireworks.

On the day itself, 26 June, the country holds military parades, street parties and in many cases Hiragasy performances and competitions, in which a group, or sometimes two groups in competition, perform music, dance, and kabary.

Even as it is vital for Madagascar, like every formerly colonised nation, to remember its struggle for, and celebrate its achievement of, independence, it is also important to remember that like every colonised nation, Madagascar has a long and proud history before it was ruled by another state, and a long future ahead of it.

Madagascar’s early (human) history is a cause of some controversy among historians. Some argue it was ‘fully’ inhabited (as opposed to visited by people who lived and returned somewhere else) as early as 350BCE, others believe the evidence can only confirm permanent settlement from 250CE.

But there is evidence for much earlier visits, including stone tools and bones with cut marks, indicating people spent time on the island around 2000BCE.

What is certain is that the island’s flora and fauna had been there far longer, and were thriving when the first permanent settlers arrived. Animals the settlers encountered included 17 species of giant lemurs, flightless elephant birds, the giant fossa, and many species of Malagasy hippopotamus, which are now all extinct.

Settlements on the coast existed for hundreds of years, with slow forest clearance – then as now human impact on the world around us was not always positive – eventually leading by 600CE to settlements forming in the once densely-forested Malagasy central highlands.

At around the same time, the first Arab traders began to include Madagascar in their wider Indian Ocean and East African trade routes, probably bringing with them zebu, which were kept alongside, and in groups with, East African sanga, and by 1000CE Bantu-speaking people from southeastern Africa arrived.

Malagasy people were able to rely on their extraordinarily vibrant and fertile surroundings for food, and one of the earliest deliberately cultivated crops was rice grown in paddy fields.

When the Merina people, whose rulers would later be declared potentates of the whole of Madagascar, first arrived in the central highlands – which they would rule, and from which they would later expand – in around 900-1000CE, they encountered an established population, who they called the Vazimba.

The Vazimba were almost certainly the descendants of an earlier Austronesian settlement group (Malagasy is an Austronesian language, unrelated to any on the African mainland).

The two groups lived side-by-side, perhaps uneasily, but the Merina kings Andriamanelo, Ralambo and Andrianjaka expelled the Vazimba in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries. The spirits of the Vazimba are today regarded as tompontany (ancestral masters of the land) by many traditional Malagasy communities.

Also in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the colonial powers reached Madagascar. The first to attempt to take the island were the Portuguese. Though, as in many places, the Portuguese arrivals largely attempted to set up only trade outposts, in what became known as a ‘trade empire’ approach, their efforts failed in the face of Malagasy people’s resistance.

In the 17^th century, both Dutch and British colonialists attempted to occupy and govern the island, but although the British maintained an ‘interest’ for two centuries, both – like the Portuguese – were driven back.

French efforts to colonise Madagascar began in 1642, and despite significant resistance and setbacks – including being forced to abandon its last settlement, Fort Dauphin, and leave the island altogether in 1674 – it would eventually rule the island for 63 years.

At around the same time as the French removal in 1674, the Malagasy ‘kingdoms system’ – in which each region was ruled by a recognised person – began to take shape.

The Merina gradually took control of greater and greater areas of the island until, in 1817, Britain recognised Merina ruler Radama as king of Madagascar.

By this point, the French had been back on the island for 51 years (they reoccupied Fort Dauphin in 1766) and in 1883, France invaded Madagascar.

After a drawn-out, 14-year conflict, extended not least because Malagasy people knew their land and surroundings better than the French forces did, France declared Madagascar a French colony in 1897.

While resistance was consistent across the island (though Malagasy people fought for France in the First World War: in the Second, they largely opposed the Vichy French regime) the most significant and bitterly-remembered uprising – known today as the Malagasy Uprising – began in March 1947, and lasted almost two years.

In that period, the French colonial forces killed at least tens of thousands of Malagasy people: some estimates suggest more than 100,000. Aside from the horrific loss in terms of human lives, it is widely agreed that this massacre effectively wiped out the Malagasy ‘managerial class’ for several decades, leading to deep problems for the state when it won its independence.

On a visit to Madagascar in 2005, then French President Jacques Chirac called the slaughter ‘unacceptable’, and – although the French government of 1949 was happy to declare its activities as a ‘necessary victory’ – France’s own experience of being ruled by a puppet government by an expansionist force during World War Two, combined with Malagasy outrage over the events of 1947-49 led to reforms of Malagasy rule in 1956.

Full independence, under Madagascar’s first independent president Philibert Tsiranana, followed, on 26 June 1960.

Today’s Madagascar, even as it celebrates its 65th ‘birthday’ faces challenges: its people face daily hunger, which drives them in some cases to try to take land from the rapidly-shrinking forest upon which we all rely.

But Malagasy people know their situation, and their home.

This is why we at Money for Madagascar work with and for them, listening to their needs and concerns, helping them define their challenges and solutions to them, and providing the equipment, training, advice, systems and finance they need to escape hunger, improve their lives, and achieve the potential they and their country has.

Madagascar’s history has not always been about living alongside and protecting its wilderness. But that wilderness has been part of Madagascar’s history since long before people arrived, and today we are working to help Malagasy people thrive while protecting and expanding their extraordinary surroundings.

The next chapter in Madagascar’s history is one which is vital for us all – every living thing – wherever we are.

We know that Malagasy people’s initiative, efforts and work will make it a story of success.