Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0228/02282.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 22KB | 362 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02282}
$Pretitle{354D}
$Title{Madagascar
Chapter 2C.   New Classes and Social Elites}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Frederica M. Bunge}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{education
percent
educational
secondary
malagasy
schools
level
school
madagascar
antananarivo}
$Date{19}
$Log{}
Country:     Madagascar
Book:        Indian Ocean Countries, An Area Study: Madagascar
Author:      Frederica M. Bunge
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        19

Chapter 2C.   New Classes and Social Elites

     In the villages the social structure has apparently continued to be
defined in terms of unequal and hierarchically arranged kinship groups,
although migration has attenuated the links between individuals and their
tanindrazana in many cases. Peasant youth have become increasingly alienated
from traditional institutions, including the fokonolona. In the cities a
class structure based on the division of labor in a technically more
developed society with links to the outside world has grown up. This
reportedly included in the 1970s an upper middle-class elite (haute
bourgeoisie) of high government officials; the directors of large economic and
financial enterprises; professionals such as lawyers, doctors, and university
professors; and the ministers of the largest Protestant churches (these
latter having been an elite, particularly in the Central Highlands, since the
nineteenth century). A lower middle class (petite bourgeoisie), including
lower level government officials, schoolteachers, shopkeepers, and
white-collar workers, lacked the economic resources, social status, and
political power of the elite. It distinguished itself nonetheless from the
urban lower class in terms of education, knowledge of European manners and
customs, ability to converse in French, and a puritanical devotion, according
to some observers, to hard work in contrast to the more worldly upper middle
class. The lack of an industrial base, even in the urban areas, has apparently
retarded the growth of a genuine working class. A marginal population of the
unemployed or underemployed, however, many of them young emigrants from the
rural areas lacking adequate education or skills, has been a prominent feature
in urban life. In 1972 unemployed youth calling themselves the Young Cowboys
of Madagascar (Zale/Zatova Western Anivonny Madagasikara-ZWAM), distinguished
for the wearing of cowboy hats, burst upon the scene. Supported by Power for
the Little People (Mpitolona ho amin'ny Fanjakan'ny Madinika-MFM), the ZWAM
became politically active as the Party of the Unemployed Youth of Madagascar
(Zatovo Orinasa Anivonny Madagasikara-ZOAM). Its members served as "shock
troops" for the radical left wing during the 1972-75 period (see Political
Development, this ch.).

     Although the Central Highlands has traditionally been the most developed
region of the country, a modern economic and professional elite has appeared
among the coastal peoples. It dominated the political process during the
presidency of Tsiranana, himself a Tsimihety, and in 1982 continued to play an
important role in national affairs.

     Although women in traditional Malagasy society were seen as inferior to
men in terms of social role, some, principally those from urban upper
middle-class families, have obtained professional positions after receiving a
university education. It is reported, however, that even in the cities, social
expectations are such that women are obliged to defer to men in the expression
of opinions or other aspects of daily life, even if the latter are less well
educated.

Religion in Contemporary Madagascar

     Although exact figures on religious affiliations cannot be given, it is
estimated that in 1982 some 57 percent of the total population adhered to
traditional beliefs; 40 percent were Christian, about evenly divided between
Roman Catholics and Protestants. In August 1968, on the one hundred fiftieth
anniversary of the arrival of the London Missionary Society, three Protestant
churches united: the Church of Christ in Madagascar, the Malagasy Friends
Church, and the Evangelical Church of Madagascar. This new united church,
having a Presbyterian synodal constitution, claimed over 800,000 members in
the early 1970s and forms, with the 300,000 members of the Malagasy Lutheran
Church, the Protestant Federation of Madagascar.

     The Protestant churches have long had Malagasy pastors. As of the early
1970s, however, five missionary societies, having a total of 167 missionaries,
were still represented in the country: the American Lutheran, the Franco-Swiss
Mission de Paris, the Norwegian Lutheran, and two English societies.

     The Roman Catholic Church, claiming some 1.5 million members, had
archdioceses in Antsiranana, Antananarivo, and Fianarantsoa. In the early
1970s about one-third of the priests were Malagasy, including the archbishop
of Antananarivo. About a dozen Roman Catholic missionary societies were
active, including the Jesuits, the Fathers of the Holy Ghost, and the
Lazarists. Because it was first espoused by Merina freemen, Protestantism has
been historically the denomination of the upper classes; Catholicism, that of
slaves and the cotiers. These divisions, however, were no longer clear-cut in
1982.

     The nineteenth century witnessed a confrontation between Christianity and
traditional religious beliefs, as Queen Ranavalona I (1828-61) expelled
foreign missionaries and persecuted Christians, putting many of them to death.
The tide reversed at her death, and at the beginning of the reign of
Ranavalona II, the old sampy-idols or talismans supposedly endowed with
supernatural powers to protect the kingdom-were destroyed, and Protestantism
became the religion of the royal family. Yet opposition has given way in many
cases to a kind of mutual assimilation. Christian missionaries were able to
build on the Malagasy concept of a supreme God by using the term Andriamanitra
to refer to the biblical God and choosing one of the traditional terms for
soul, fanahy, to define the Christian concept of the soul. Although the
supremacy of Christianity in the Central Highlands led to the demise of idol
worship, Malagasy pastors have not challenged the strength of traditional
beliefs in the power and authority of the razana. Christians have their dead
blessed at a church before burying them according to the old ceremonies. They
may invite the pastor to attend a famadihana and place a cross on top of the
tomb. Christian belief in the power of a transcendent and somewhat distant God
has been blended with older beliefs in the closeness and intimacy of the dead
as spiritual beings. Some Malagasy Christians will even say that the dead have
become Christians themselves and continue to be the arbiters of right and
wrong.

     Followers of Islam, both Sunni and Shiite, constitute around 1 to 3
percent of the total population. Most are Comorians or Indo-Pakistanis; a
small number are Islamicized Malagasy. The majority are located in Mahajanga
Province. A small minority of the Indian community practices Hinduism.

Education

     In traditional Madagascar, education was not seen as separate from the
other spheres of life. It emphasized the importance of maintaining one's place
in a hierarchical society, trained people in the proper observation of ritual
and innumerable fady prohibitions and, above all, taught respect for
ancestors. Formal education in the modern sense first appeared with the
establishment of a school in Antananarivo by the missionary David Jones of the
London Missionary Society in 1820. It was sponsored by the king, Radama I, and
Jones' first students were children of the royal family. The building of more
schools in Imerina by the missionaries caused literacy to spread; in 1835 an
estimated 15,000 persons knew how to read and write the new Malagasy written
language. Despite reverses during the reign of Queen Ranavalona I, the
missionary school system, including both Protestant and Roman Catholic
institutions, conti