Open letter to our leaders. To understand where this word comes from, we must go back to the late 18th century, when dying at thirty was considered a long life and epidemics emptied villages faster than graves could be dug. Back then, "croquer" didn't mean to eat. It meant to make disappear, to steal away, like robbing a body from life without a sound. Some say they collected the plague-stricken with a hook on a pole, to avoid touching them. Others swear the real gesture, the only one that mattered, was biting the big toe of the deceased before closing the coffin, to verify once and for all that nothing was left to save.
The most interesting part of this story isn't the profession itself. It's the recognition they deserved. The toe-biter was present at every epidemic, every funeral, indispensable whenever death overflowed the cemeteries. Yet they never had a seat at the family table, never a place at the village counter—always that polite contempt reserved for those who remind us we are all mortal.
They were used at night and avoided by day, much like certain advisors summoned in emergencies and then disowned in public.
But if they bit the big toe of the deceased before burying them, it wasn't out of cruelty. There's an ohabolana that says it all: "Ny hanongotsongona ny maty, tahotry ny handevim-belona." Biting a dead man's toe is out of fear of burying someone alive. A final verification gesture before the irreversible, the only moment when this despised profession became, for a second, an act of mercy.
So, dear leaders, if we bite your big toe today, it's not to hurt you or make you falter. It's to verify that you're still alive: that you still hear the people murmur before they start to shout, that you still feel anger before it explodes, that you still have empathy before it turns to disdain. It's to prevent you from being buried alive.
The situation in Madagascar is what it is. If everyone swallowed everything, looked away, applauded just to please you, we would certainly end up burying you alive, like those former presidents the crowd removed out of disgust, out of exasperation, out of accumulated contempt. Our history is full of examples of power that believed itself eternal, until the street decided otherwise. On that day, no one takes time to bite the big toe. They bury directly, crowd and anger combined.
As an observer of this society, as someone who wishes the best for her country, biting your big toe is not easy. Interpretations abound. Those who lick, those who applaud no matter what, will say it's biting the hand that feeds you, that it's bad faith, harassment, even betrayal. It's not that. It's waking you up while there's still time, before the one preparing the formaldehyde injection arrives with his big needle and takes you down the path of no return.
A column, an article, a voice saying out loud what everyone thinks quietly, is nothing more than that: a toe bitten to check the pulse. The day when the press and citizens no longer dare to do it, it won't be a sign of social peace. It will be the silence that precedes burial.
A proper toe-biter prefers to be cursed for a timely bite than to stand with arms crossed watching a burial he could have prevented. So yes, we will continue to bite your big toe, dear leaders. Take it as a verification gesture, not as a bite.
The day no one does it anymore, it will already be too late.
Mbolatiana Raveloarimisa