The rotaka was a series of farmer and student protests in Madagascar between April 1971 and May 1972 that led to the collapse of the First Republic of Madagascar under President Philibert Tsiranana.
The rotaka was a series of farmer and student protests in Madagascar between April 1971 and May 1972 that led to the collapse of the First Republic of Madagascar under President Philibert Tsiranana.
Madagascar regained independence from France in 1960. The nation's first president, Philibert Tsiranana, was not selected in an open election, but rather was nominated by the senate, in which Tsiranana's heavily pro-French Socialist Democratic Party (PSD) dominated. The PSD was an outgrowth of PADESM, a pro-French, pro-cotiers (coastal peoples') party formed in reaction to the establishment of MDRM in 1946 by Merina elites, who many cotiers feared would attempt to re-establish the Merina hegemony that existed under the pre-colonial Kingdom of Imerina. [1] Under Tsiranana's leadership, French influence remained ever present. In 1969, foreigners controlled 95% of the modern industrial sector and produced a quarter of all exported agricultural products, despite making up a tiny fraction of the population. The sale of manufactured goods was largely controlled by the South Asian population, while import-export companies were French-owned. [2] Although Madagascar enjoyed a period of economic prosperity for much of the First Republic, the late 1960s saw a recession and deterioration in quality of life in Madagascar, largely prompted by global economic conditions but to which the Tsiranana response had been ineffectual and muted. [1]
Popular disapproval of the Tsiranana administration began to grow. Among his loudest critics was Monja Jaona, a Tandroy politician of the MONIMA party who had served two years as mayor of Toliara (1959–1961) before being chased from office by power politics. Jaona had since developed an image as an opposition figure and champion of the common man against the increasingly unpopular policies of the PSD, including the neo-colonial economic and cultural relationship with France perpetuated by PSD political elites. [1]
Over the first decade of PSD domination in Malagasy politics, PSD members gradually became less focused on the shared objective of preventing a revival of Merina power as under the former Kingdom of Madagascar, and more on maximizing access to political and financial benefits for their particular ethnic group. By 1970, there were strong tensions within the PSD between its alliance of northern and western members - including the Tsimihety president Tsiranana – and members in the southern part of the island, who were relatively marginalized and increasingly sympathetic to Jaona. To neutralize Jaona and the crush the MONIMA party, the PSD devised a ploy whereby the Minister of the Interior, Andre Resampa from the western coastal town of Morondava, approached Jaona on 10 March 1971 to urge him to lead a movement to unseat Tsiranana. Jaona's eventual action would provide PSD with an opportunity to arrest the leader and other key party figures in the "rebellion", which they would stave off before it grew large enough to pose a threat; Tsiranana's advisers expected the arrest of Jaona would also demoralize and hobble southern PSD politicians and their constituencies alike, and cement northern control of the party and the country's politics. [1]
Jaona incited armed farmers to protest in Toliara in early April 1971. [3] MONIMA was dissolved by official decree on 3 April 1971. [1] On 6 April Tsiranana gave a radio address in which he blamed Jaona for the bloodshed resulting from clashes between the police and armed protesters and accused him of being a communist, which Jaona loudly denied, instead declaring himself a nationalist since the day he was born. [4] On 12 May, Tsiranana and six ministers, including Resampa, came to Toliara to meet with Jaona; the MONIMA leader only agreed to talk with the president if the conversation could be held in the Malagasy language rather than French, a term to which Tsiranana agreed. Jaona declared that he sought to find a way to work in harmony with the president, and was released from prison. [5]
While the protest had been quickly foiled and MONIMA disbanded, Jaona's efforts made a significant impact on public opinion of Tsiranana. The Malagasy people's image of their country as moramora (laid back, gentle) and their first president as a refined leader had been shattered by his violent crushing of the clearly harmless farmer protest. [6]
On 24 March 1971, students at the College of Medicine in Antananarivo started a protest [6] to express popular rejection of the policies and repression of president Tsiranana's neo-colonial administration. [7] The protest quickly spread to include 5,000 students across numerous colleges at the University of Antananarivo. Tsiranana responded by temporarily closing the university and forbidding the meetings of numerous student organizations, while continuing to permit that of the PSD-affiliated socialist student group. The news media reported this protest and that occurring in Toliara, inspiring students in high schools and junior high schools to launch protests in solidarity beginning on 19 April. A committee was formed of students, media, lawyers and other figures to demand information on the status of the prisoners sent to Nosy Lava, which resulted in the rapid release of the southerners held in the island prison. [6]
On 24 April 1972, secondary school students in the capital of Antananarivo protested in solidarity with the city's medical university students to support revisions of the colonial era curriculum and the dismissal of teachers from France. [8] On 13 May, security forces shot student protesters in Antananarivo. [9]
Within days, Tsiranana announced his resignation and a transitional government was put in place under General Gabriel Ramanantsoa. [9]
Madagascar's most popular musical group, Mahaleo, was formed by high school students who performed at their school's protests in Antsirabe. [8]
Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava was President of Madagascar for six days in February 1975. His assassination in 1975 led to a civil war.
The flag of Madagascar was adopted on 14 October 1958, two years before the independence of that nation, as Madagascar prepared for a referendum on its status in the French Community.
The Merina people are the largest ethnic group in Madagascar. They are the "highlander" Malagasy ethnic group of the African island and one of the country's eighteen official ethnic groups. Their origins are mixed, predominantly with Indonesians arriving before the 5th century AD, then many centuries later by Arabs, Africans and other ethnic groups. They speak the Merina dialect of the official Malagasy language of Madagascar.
The Malagasy Uprising was a Malagasy nationalist rebellion against French colonial rule in Madagascar, lasting from March 1947 to February 1949. Starting in late 1945, Madagascar's first French National Assembly deputies, Joseph Raseta, Joseph Ravoahangy and Jacques Rabemananjara of the Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache (MDRM) political party, led an effort to achieve independence for Madagascar through legal channels. The failure of this initiative and the harsh response it drew from the Socialist Ramadier administration radicalized elements of the Malagasy population, including leaders of several militant nationalist secret societies.
Andrianampoinimerinā (1745–1810) ruled the Kingdom of Imerina from 1787 until his death. His reign was marked by the reunification of Imerina following 77 years of civil war, and the subsequent expansion of his kingdom into neighboring territories, thereby initiating the unification of Madagascar under Merina rule. Andrianampoinimerina is a cultural hero and holds near mythic status among the Merina people, and is considered one of the greatest military and political leaders in the history of Madagascar.
Gabriel Ramanantsoa was the President and Prime Minister of Madagascar from 1972 to 1975.
Articles related to Madagascar include:
The Malagasy Republic was a state situated in Southeast Africa. It was established in 1958 as an autonomous republic within the newly created French Community, became fully independent in 1960, and existed until the proclamation of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar in 1975.
Madagascar for the Malagasy, political party in Madagascar, usually known as Madagasikara otronin'ny Malagasy (Monima), and as MONIMA.
Monja Jaona (1910-1994) was a Malagasy politician and early nationalist who significantly drove political events on the island during his lifetime. He was a member of Jiny, a militant nationalist group formed in southern Madagascar in the 1940s that sided with MDRM during the ultimately unsuccessful Malagasy Uprising of 1947 against French rule. The colonial government imprisoned him from 1946 to 1950 for his affiliation with Jiny. He formed the Madagascar for the Malagasy (MONIMA) party in 1958 and successfully campaigned for the seat of mayor in Toliara, a position he held from 1959 to 1961. He came to view president Philibert Tsiranana and his Social Democratic Party (PSD) supporters as unduly favorable to continued French interests on the island after independence in 1960. Jaona instigated the 1971-72 rotaka farmer and student protests that successfully forced Tsiranana's resignation.
Madagascar – United States relations are bilateral relations between Madagascar and the United States.
Education in Madagascar has a long and distinguished history. Formal schooling began with medieval Arab seafarers, who established a handful of Islamic primary schools (kuttabs) and developed a transcription of the Malagasy language using Arabic script, known as sorabe. These schools were short-lived, and formal education was only to return under the 19th-century Kingdom of Madagascar when the support of successive kings and queens produced the most developed public school system in precolonial Sub-Saharan Africa. However, formal schools were largely limited to the central highlands around the capital of Antananarivo and were frequented by children of the noble class andriana. Among other segments of the island's population, traditional education predominated through the early 20th century. This informal transmission of communal knowledge, skills and norms was oriented toward preparing children to take their place in a social hierarchy dominated by community elders and particularly the ancestors (razana), who were believed to oversee and influence events on earth.
The Merina Kingdom or Kingdom of Madagascar, officially the Kingdom of Imerina, was a pre-colonial state off the coast of Southeast Africa that, by the 19th century, dominated most of what is now Madagascar. It spread outward from Imerina, the Central Highlands region primarily inhabited by the Merina ethnic group with a spiritual capital at Ambohimanga and a political capital 24 kilometres (15 mi) west at Antananarivo, currently the seat of government for the modern state of Madagascar. The Merina kings and queens who ruled over greater Madagascar in the 19th century were the descendants of a long line of hereditary Merina royalty originating with Andriamanelo, who is traditionally credited with founding Imerina in 1540.
Philibert Tsiranana was a Malagasy politician and leader, who served as the first President of Madagascar from 1959 to 1972.
The Antaifasy are an ethnic group of Madagascar inhabiting the southeast coastal region around Farafangana. Historically a fishing and farming people, many Antaifasy were heavily conscripted into forced labor (fanampoana) and brought to Antananarivo as slaves under the 19th century authority of the Kingdom of Imerina. Antaifasy society was historically divided into three groups, each ruled by a king and strongly concentrated around the constraints of traditional moral codes. Approximately 150,000 Antaifasy inhabit Madagascar as of 2013.
This is a list of prime ministers of Madagascar, since the establishment of the office of Chief Minister in 1828, during the Merina Kingdom.
The Colony of Madagascar and Dependencies was a French colony off the coast of Southeast Africa between 1897 and 1958.
Mahaleo is a folk-pop band from Madagascar that is widely viewed as the most popular Malagasy group of all time. The band was founded by Dama with six of his classmates after first performing together during the rotaka student protests at their high school on 13 May 1972. Mahaleo's lyrics draw upon the indirect language of traditional hainteny and ohabolana to expose contemporary political and social issues and invite listeners to identify their own solutions.
The Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache or MDRM was the first political party formed in Madagascar, following the Brazzaville Conference of 1944 during which General Charles de Gaulle announced all colonies were to become French overseas territories entitled to representation in the French National Assembly.
The Parti des déshérités de Madagascar was a political party active in Madagascar from June 1946 into the First Republic (1960–1972). It was formed in reaction to the establishment and rapid political success of the Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache (MDRM) political party, formed by Merina elites on a platform of independence from France. While nationalism - and therefore the MDRM - had widespread support from all ethnic communities, PADESM championed the empowerment and equitable government of coastal peoples, who had historically been subjugated by the Merina and feared the MDRM could ensure their return to political dominance upon independence. They actively recruited and campaigned along ethnic lines, initially including coastal peoples and the descendants of Merina slaves, but eventually excluding the latter entirely. The formation and political success of PADESM was actively fostered by the French colonial administration, which manipulated election results in favor of the coastal party.