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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... Foreign assistance disbursements from OECD, OPEC, and multilateral sources, 1986-1991. Maps. Madagascar and surrounding region 1.1 Provinces and cities of Madagascar 4.1 Ethnic groups of Madagascar. Photos. Sailing boat harbor of the island ...
... Foreign Service officer handed to a very junior subordinate an incoming dispatch from American Embassy Tananarive (now Antananarivo). The dispatch complained about our Foreign Service's habitual misuse of the names "Malagasy" and ...
... Foreign slave raiding afflicted the west coast throughout the nineteenth century , even after the Merina state had undertaken to bring it to an end . Radama used foreign lesson and example to organize his dominions . He imposed labor ...
... foreign powers. As P. M. Mutibwa concludes, "Ranavalona I had tried to protect her country's traditions from foreign ideology, and, forced to make a choice, she had preferred her nation's independence, as she and her government ...
... foreign Christians—only strengthened the morale of the indigenous churches, and they would eventually win the day under her successors.67 Europe's technological and cultural attraction had been potent for Radama and it could not be ...
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 | |