Conversations with a continent - Madagascar
by Ron Singer
[ politics | places - may 08 ]
Note: most editorial comments appear in bold face, within square brackets. One exception: commentary about the video Zebu Nation is incorporated into the report without this demarcation. - RS
Moderator: Nathaniel Johnson III, Associate Director of Education, Museum for African Art.
Genese M Sodikoff
Genese M Sodikoff is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rutgers, the State University (Newark). Professor Sodikoff has done fieldwork in Cultural Anthropology among the Malagasy (people of Madagascar).
Before the Europeans arrived, Madagascar had been settled, in waves, by East Africans, Arabs, and Austronesians. The Malagasy encountered by early Europeans, which group comprised French proto-eco-tourists, as well as pirates and Portuguese slave traders, were a mixture of these earlier settlement populations. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Dutch, French and English traded there. In 1896, France jumped the queue, past old-time English merchant traders, and annexed Madagascar -this, despite the additional fact that the English already had an alliance with the most powerful monarch on the Island, the center of whose kingdom was the site of the current capital, Antananarivo.
Since the advent of colonization, Mozambique has been known in the western world for its unique natural history. HG Wells's story, 'Aepyornis Island' (1894), allegorizes the protective-exploitative relationship between Europe and the Island by describing what happens when a European visitor discovers that three of the giant birds (the aepyornis), previously thought to be extinct are still alive. As early as the 1660s, French naturalists and Utopianists visited Madagascar to collect and categorize its flora and fauna. By1896, Europe was at the dawn of paleontology. The rage for collecting, drawing, and keeping journals about the natural world found passionate expression among European visitors to the Island, which came to be regarded (especially by missionaries) as Edenic, as a strange lost world, and as a land outside of time.
Nineteenth-century European visitors traveled in palanquins carried by Malagasy porters, and succumbed frequently to disease. For instance, a well-known traveler, the Austrian Ida Pfeiffer, visited in 1857 and was dead of malaria the next year.). Europeans decried slash-and-burn agriculture ("tavy" or "jjinja") It seems ironic that, carried about in their palanquins, some Europeans would also decry the laziness of Malagasy agriculturalists. Besides, some of the ecological problems were caused by European exploitation of Madagascar's natural wealth (timber, bauxite, etc. When, in 1897, the French began to legislate conservation, their motives were primarily economic. Ever since that year, on and off, nature reserves have been established.
Thanks to geographical isolation, very many plant and animal species are unique to Madagascar, including the celebrated lemur. (There are no monkeys or apes.) Perhaps 80%-90% of all species found on the Island are found nowhere else. But 200 years ago, as European outsiders began to arrive in numbers, the charismatic megafauna (ie, very large animals) disappeared. And, even far before that, in the pre-human period, a giant tsunami constituted a major extinction event. As early as the late 19th century, the entire habitat was threatened, and today, thanks to mining, timbering, and, especially, tavy, the threat is dire.
By the 1980s, two-thirds of the forests on Madagascar had been destroyed. By 2025, at the current rate, the only forests remaining will be on the slopes of the highest mountains. But the people are poor, so they continue to practice tavy. There are nascent attempts to turn the forests into centers of ecotourism. But, for some animal species, these attempts are too late. There are species today whose numbers are so small that their fate is sealed: one big fire, and they would be gone. These species are sometimes referred to as "the living dead," which makes them the opposite of Wells' aepyornis.
Razia Said, musician and environmental activist
Ms Said was born in Antalaha in northeast Madagascar (the home of world-famous Bourbon vanilla), where she lived until the age of 10. She next went to Gabon, in West Africa, then on to France, and, finally, in 1987, to New York, where she now lives. She grew up in a large family of agriculturalists who raised vanilla, spices (including cloves), rice (the island staple), and coffee. The family lived together in a single large wooden house, where she often played music with her numerous uncles.
Ms Said recently returned from a musical tour of the Island. This evening, she introduced Zebu Nation, a music and travel video/album that will help develop environmental awareness both among the Malagasy and around the world. A second goal is to preserve the Island's indigenous music. Zebu Nation calls on everyone to mifoaza, or "wake up!"
Malagasy, whatever their particular ethnic group, live in veneration of the ancestors, whose blessings are sought for any major endeavor, and who are ritually thanked for any major success. These ceremonial expressions of gratitude feature the sacrifice of the zebu (water buffalo), which are felt to embody the ancestral spirits. Big, joyous parties marked by feasting, music and dance accompany the sacrifices. Since zebu are expensive, however, chickens are used for lesser events.
Returning to the Island's ecological wealth and problems...
There are 74 sub-species of lemur, no apes or gorillas, on Madagascar, and 223 of the world's 226 varieties of frog live on the Island. Why have species survived as well as they have? No big predators [except us].
The ecological problems seem intractable because of political weakness and economic stresses (poverty and inflation). Erosion is also a major threat.
Madagascar [the world's fourth largest island, twice the size of Arizona, population c19 million] has 18 to 20 ethnic groups. There are many dialects of Malagasy [the name of the language, too], most of which are pretty much mutually intelligible. French and a widely spoken dialect of Malagasy are both taught in the schools. Some ethnic groups, however, resist speaking dialects other than their own.
The video Zebu Nation shows energetic children, numerous water buffalo, and scenes of Razia and her group, traveling around recording and encountering musicians and farmers in the fields, often in the act of practicing tavy. At each stop, there is different, often wonderful, music and dance. There is singing in harmony, a capella singing, and solo singing to instruments (accordion, drums, home made guitars, or kabosy, and indigenous guitar-and-violin-like instruments: the locanga and the marovany). Zebu Nation hopes to play an important role in getting the environmental message across in an involving and personal way. In its depiction of Razia and her musicians journeying back to the Island to discover their roots and to jam with local musicians, Zebu Nation recalls Wim Wenders' film, The Buena Vista Social Club.
Q & A
The politicians, led by a President and Prime Minister, are having a tough time coping with basic problems, such as how to stop tavy and still feed the population. There is an idea of getting farmers to turn to cash crops, but where would their food come from? Imports? And, if so, the switch would exacerbate the island's already terrible waste disposal problem. There is no system in place to deal with this problem, not a single land fill on the whole Island, for instance.
When zebu are about to be killed, they are thanked, and their heads pointed toward the East, where the sun rises. Today, sadly, because the population is rising and food is often scarce, zebu are becoming an ordinary food source, which could, over time, dilute their ceremonial power.
Zebu Nation
"Even though developing countries like Madagascar have only contributed a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, they are going to bear the brunt of these impacts.
"As a result, sea level rise, emerging infectious diseases and diseases of natural systems will take a toll on Madagascar's coastline, forests and people. Even tougher to deal with, long-established land use patterns such as slash-and-burn agriculture have gone from well adapted to the country's needs to wildly dysfunctional in a short time. The country must move quickly to preserve its forests and keep the ecosystems services that play such a vital role in its culture and economy.
"In the climate change business, optimism can wear thin in the face of all these challenges. It's easy to lose heart. That's why Zebu Nation is important - it mobilizes the cultural riches of Madagascar to strengthen its resilience.
"Foreign money and international agencies have a role to play in developing countries like Madagascar, and sometimes they are quite important. But cultural survival and climate survival aren't a matter of outsiders coming to the rescue. A nation can save itself by recognizing what it has and who it is. Zebu Nation kindles a vital hope… that the musicians of Madagascar may do more to save the country and its forests than any other single group."
- Brian Thomas, www.carbon-based-ghg.com
