Madagascar: Conflicts Of Authority In The Great IslandThe world's fourth largest island, with a unique biological and physical endowment, Madagascar is home to an extraordinary insular civilization that has struggled for more than a century against external domination. In this sensitive introduction to the Indian Ocean's "great island," Philip Allen shows how family affinities and community loyalties at the foundation of Madagascar's culture have influenced Malagasy nationalism and forged islandwide traditions. These same principles have nonetheless engendered social cleavages and resistance to economic and political change. In chapters on modern Madagascar, Allen analyzes the inability of a series of regimes to maintain authority among a people deeply bound to rituals of communication with their spiritual environment. He demonstrates how the first Malagasy Republic became stigmatized by its lingering identification with French colonialism and how the nationalist revolution in 1972 soon hardened into autocratic radicalism. Allen explores the complex challenges facing Madagascar's resurgent democratic forces–including a need to conserve the island's irreplaceable biodiversity and to facilitate authentic participation in public affairs without offending ancestral customs and local precedents. Finally, he discusses efforts to end Madagascar's economic and political dependence and to improve living conditions for its tragically impoverished population. |
From inside the book
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... Paris and the CeDRASEMI collection at Sophia Antipolis . Pam Williams at my own university's library was especially helpful , as was René Atkinson of WFWM - FM . The librarians at the IMF / World Bank in Washington offered refuge among ...
... Madagascar's empty spaces and a French establishment for decanting surplus Creole populations. Réunionnais champions pressed Paris relentlessly for privileges in Madagascar, stimulating cycles of antagonism with the Malagasy.37 As Bloch ...
... Paris and London in a futile, almost Thucidydean attempt to explain to imperial powers how the Malagasy understood ... Madagascar would have preferred to contract on more indigenously Malagasy terms. The French connived with Sakalava ...
... France established control after an inglorious bit of war in 1883-1885. In that combat, French fleets had their way along the northwest and east coasts, but they failed to suffocate the kingdom. Paris settled by imposing another ruinous ...
... Madagascar remained a steady source of sustenance for the Mascarenes, and the court did act to curtail the maritime commerce in slaves. Concurrently, Madagascar ... Paris—for they applauded the short-lived Radama II for just this intention— ...
Contents
From Paternalism to Revolution | |
Revolution as Myth | |
Society in Modern Madagascar | |
Flight from Reality | |
Continuity as Revolution | |
Revolution and Continuity in International Relations | |
Notes | |
Selected Bibliography | |
Index | |