A friend once told me that her mother says ‘I’m spittin’ kittens’ when she’s extremely angry. Yes, it’s the same friend who told me the ’sittin’ on a Christmas tree story’ below. Funny how both phrases are so germane to my feelings these days. Today, I’m spittin’ kittens about Andry Raojelina’s Open Letter to the Wall Street Journal.
I posted a link to the article on my facebook page before I went to bed, and woke up with several comments. Comments like ‘Wtf?!?! What a sad, illusory man’, and ‘The only thing necessary for Evil to flourish is for Good men to do nothing’, among others.
It seems like lots of folks are spittin’ kittens too, judging by these comments and the number of reposts.
I feel like a good person, and I certainly don’t want to let evil flourish, but what can I do? What should we do? We who care about Madagascar, and who are just as confused as everyone else trying to find a way to build a positive future for the country? Should we write an open letter? Will anyone read it? Will Andry read it? Can he read it? He obviously couldn’t have written that letter in English. Who does he have on his side that’s willing to translate that, and then have it published?
OK, I actually agree with him one thing, but the fact that he knows that it’s a little insane to be negotiating with two ex-presidents who were exiled (ahem, Ratsiraka and Zafy, you know I’m talking about you) because they were SO INCOMPETENT at being president, does not make me think he’s doing the right thing. Or even saying the right things. I want to go through his letter point by point to pull the rug out from under him, but that would be long and boring. I’ll just stick with saying that, though he claims that ‘the will of the large majority of the Malagasy people is to see me lead the Transitional Government’, I did not meet ONE PERSON, not one, during my time there that thought he should lead anything (and I talked to a lot of people).
The really sad thing, though, is that it does seem like there’s no way out of this. With the international community setting fire to Madagascar’s life rafts by pulling AGOA benefits and threatening sanctions (what in the Hell will they sanction?), it’s the people who suffer, and suffer big. In all of our years of experience in international ‘development’, have we not learned that these types of actions do not cause the desired outcomes, and that the people in charge – the rich, the powerful, the people who are rumored to have French passports and can escape at any time (it’s just a rumor, Andry Rajoelina), are largely unaffected? They just float along on their waves of self-righteousness, in well-built ships of ideology, comfortable in tailored suits, saying ‘Well I’m not to blame – I’m doing the right thing. For my people, obviously’.
So, what’s the answer?
