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People &
Politics |
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Malagasy
culture revolves around a complex system of fadys (taboos),
which vary from place to place, and vintana, a religious
calendar that specifies what activities are fitting
for each day of the week. These stipulations, many being
preserved in proverbs, determine rites, traditions and
daily rules.
The Malagasy people’s beliefs and values essentially
revolve around reverence for the ancestors, the Razana,
who they see as charged to take care of those who are
alive and who are the intermediaries between themselves
and Zanahary (God). In everyday life, then, there is
a pervasive interest in pleasing the ancestors. Malagasy
tombs are sometimes very elaborate, being seen as permanent
dwellings compared to the temporary dwellings of those
in common earthly life. Some Malagasy ethnic groups
have elaborate ‘bone-turning’ rituals, involving
the cleaning, parading, dancing and re-shrouding of
bones. Far from being grim or macabre, these are very
up-tempo and celebratory occasions - essentially expressing
a more ‘overlapping’, interrelational understanding
of what we, looking through the lenses of Western culture,
tend to more clinically divide into a straight duality
between ‘living’ and ‘dead’.
Most of the Malagasy people live as subsistence farmers,
their extreme poverty driving deforestation as they
clear land to grow crops. Some 70% of the population
live under the poverty line of a dollar a day. Slash-and-burn
agriculture has combined with felling for fuel, timber
and other industrial purposes to generate extensive
damage; to date, some 90% of Madagascar's original forest
cover has been destroyed (September 2002). This forest
loss contributes to substantial problems of erosion
and flooding. Meanwhile the loss of habitat has meant
many unique species have become extinct, while many
others currently face extinction.
The island is increasingly being recognised as one the
world's top conservation priorities, while the plight
of the Malagasy people is slowly gaining international
attention. So far, however, effective action has been
extremely limited, and essential needs - health, education,
conservation and sustainable livelihoods— have
commonly been left for organisations such as Azafady
to provide for local people.
Following disputed presidential election results, in 2002 Madagascar spiralled into a civil crisis, crippling its
already weak economy. With the stabilizing of the political
situation, “normality” returned to Madagascar
as the grinding human and environmental toll of extreme
poverty. With the island’s cholera epidemic now
in its fourth year, official sources seem to have lost
count of the numbers affected. Certainly we know that
thousands have died, and cyclone impacts and drought
in recent years have compounded Madagascar’s problems.
The new president of the island, Marc Ravalomanana,
has pledged to get Madagascar’s people out of poverty. |
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Over a decade later, the situation in Madagascar is no less critical. |
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