the sound of the fall?
Clashes in Antananarivo today between certain units of the army + gendarmes and ‘the elite intervention unit’- both confirmed and unconfirmed rumors of a protest gone haywire, one civilian wounded as a result (admittedly, the gendarmes responsible were apologetic and said that they would try to be careful of ‘collateral damage’). It has been called a ‘thwarted mutiny’…
… mutiny, eh? Not just for the high seas anymore. Some people are saying this could be the beginning of the end for Rajoelina. This story comes on the heels of reports of soldiers raiding an allegedly ‘opposition’ radio station, assaulting staff and journalists, a couple of days ago.
In other terrible news, hunger is a hard sell for donors these days, according to IRIN. Not a sexy topic. People want 1 million shirts and celebrities and guys on boats made out of bottles. There has been no rainfall this year in some areas of Madagascar, the crisis has really screwed with already failing local economies, so severe malnutrition has become the norm. Meanwhile, in other, more verdant places in Madagascar, markets are bursting with food.
Market in Tamatave - Photo by Lindsay Redifer
The programs in place are obviously not going to cut it this time – the structural food issues should prompt a good hard look at organizational priorities (and a frank talk with donors who aren’t seeing the big picture). There has to be a way to prevent famine in a country that produces enough to feed its entire population.
I’m scheduled to go back to Madagascar at the end of June. Hopefully all the ruckus will quiet down by then.
It should be pointed out that having ten children (by age 27, no less) seems rather morally indefensible and logistically myopic, all things considered. It also seems rather clear from the IRIN article that, at least in the anecdote of the prolific young mother, the decision to have so many children is not an ‘accident’. I think it would be a negligent affront to honesty in any structuralist analysis of food security and international aid in Madagascar not to mention the epidemic cruelty of careless reproduction and how this fits in to the story. Romanticizing short-sightedness of this sort is condescending at best and requires that certain kind of special pleading that one can only find in graduate theses, high school AP essays, or the online journal(/resume) of a Peace Corps volunteer.
Firms like Orange, Telma, Rio Tinto, Sherritt, Coke and Daewoo know how to exploit emergent opportunities for profit in any macro-framework, even if it results in inequities. They have drawn the battle lines. I think we can assume that their calculatedly expedient gestalt view of ‘development’ is predicated on not caring about any one individual mother or her twenty starving kids. So it seems like it’s time to fight. Maybe this fight could start with more responsible birth rates, in some cases.
These firms who now ‘hold the key’ to Malagasy financial development have expanded the reach of their moral circle commensurate only with the pursuit of material self-interest. How is a heedless lack of family planning any different? These choices impute suffering on those who come into existence and also preclude very limited resources from going to those who already do exist. Isn’t this the fundamental ‘problem’ with the immorality of unthinking profit-driven firm behavior?
The Malagasy who already do exist are people who, given the right opportunity, access to information, confidence and health, could possibly stand together to pursue the best interests of each other, their regions and their country. But this seems self-evident to me (getting there is a different story). Having ten kids in a parched and infecund wasteland is just being lazy and uncreative. I am as outraged about this as I am about some juggernaut oil firm moving in or the lack of attention some starfucking aid agency is giving to the Malagasy.