“History of Madagascar: The Construction of a Nation” is the title of the work written by a collective of six historians, researchers and teachers who are well known from the Big Island, such as Manassé Esoavelomandroso, Helihanta Rajaonarison or again Father Sylvain Urfer, author of many books about Madagascar.
These are 283 pages that trace the history of a people, from the arrival of the first inhabitants of the island who live on the coast to independence and the pursuit of democracy. The authors of the book presented it on Saturday, December 19, because it was officially released during a history café at the Photo Museum of Antananarivo. This is a rare and expected work because publications on the history of the Big Islands are often old and not very accessible to Madagascar.
Its authors wanted to trace Madagascar’s path by integrating the results of the latest research. This project, which was carried out for two years, started from an observation: many Malagasy people know little or little about their history.
“The school system is involved in this issue. I believe that is the role of public authorities in setting up programs. There are programs related to Madagascar, in school, but Madagascar’s history is always the youngest because it goes on to the last chapter and it often happens that we do not succeed in finishing the last chapter of the program. So there is a misunderstanding. Our historiographical and bibliographical references are also quite old and therefore we have kept up with the publications and information of the time, which leads to a lack of knowledge about history because from the 1970s until now there have been many many dissertations, new research results that have been published. We told ourselves that it was time to write this story about Madagascar, written by the people of Madagascar for the people of Madagascar, and in a register accessible to all. The idea and our goal is that all Malagasy people can understand the country’s history, explains Helihanta Rajaonarison, historian, teacher researcher at the University of Antananarivo and president of the Photo Museum.
A lack of knowledge that also comes from isolation between the regions continues for him Manassé Esoavelomandroso, historian and academic. “Our country is so vast and the lines of communication are so scarce that northerners do not necessarily know southerners and southerners do not necessarily know people from the east, west or center. . We need these lines of communication. It is better knowledge. But we are also isolated through means of communication. The newspapers are newspapers published in Antananarivo. It is not in the newspapers that you will know the reality, 100 km from the capital. So the written or audiovisual press does not spread the knowledge about Madagascar and the government authorities do not promote this knowledge about Madagascar by Madagascar either. ”.
Deconstructing stereotypes rooted in people’s minds is also the purpose of this work, which describes the people’s march towards unity.
“In the Malagasy consciousness in general, history is not national history. This is the story of his group. We must therefore come out of this fragmented history in order to arrive at a common history where everyone, no matter where they come from, can recognize each other and then have a common heritage. The clichés that prevent this are, for example, the division of Malagasy into two groups, says “Merina and the others”. Above all, there is mistrust between populations, driven by the lack of communication, of the isolation of the regions. It will therefore be necessary to divide these regions, to divide thoughts. We have a common history to know. We were different. We have entered this island which should have been a crucible but this crucible did not succeed and so it still continues until now and we hope that the reader will ask the question and find out that we must continue or complete the construction of this nation, explains Manasseh Esoavelomandroso.
Written in French, a Malagasy version of the book is planned for next year, with the main goal of being used in colleges and colleges on the Big Island.
