On August 6, 130 years ago, with the adoption of the annexation law, Madagascar officially became a French colony. If Malagasy officials forget this, that is their concern. Parents, teachers, and intellectuals (if any remain) have a duty of remembrance: to remind present and future generations. Otherwise, mobilizing speeches about development remain futile. When young people, desperate about their lack of future prospects, openly say it would be better to return to colonization, why be surprised? Why blame them? No, this country is not destined to the fatality of any submission, much less to be abandoned by its own people seeking kinder skies elsewhere. To them, we must constantly hammer home that the colonial situation did not happen without resistance and does not necessarily fit the logic of history. It is true that the precolonial situation was far from idyllic, but comparing it to other nations that experienced their own evolution (with flaws and weaknesses, it must be said) and found social, political, and economic harmony because they overcame their own internal contradictions, one might think we could have followed their path. If we cannot go back and cannot rewrite history, let it at least serve as a lesson. As a reminder, let us reread some excerpts from Gallieni's notes, whose content speaks volumes and is no legend.
– "In September 1900, two vast regions remained unsubdued. In the East, the forest zone extending parallel to the coast along the borders of Fianarantsoa province... from Ikongo in the north to the Fort-Dauphin district in the south; in the south, the land of the Mahafaly and Antandroy. These were not the only areas where pacification remained incomplete..."
– "The best way to achieve pacification in our new and immense colony of Madagascar, with the limited resources at our disposal, is to employ combined action of force and politics. Colonial struggles too often impose, unfortunately, the insubordination of populations; we must destroy only as a last resort, and ruin only to build better. Always, we must spare the country and its inhabitants, since it is destined to receive our future colonization enterprises..."
– "Political action is by far the most important; it draws its greatest strength from knowledge of the country and its inhabitants... It is the study of the races occupying a region that determines the political organization to give it, the means to employ for its pacification. An officer who has succeeded in drawing an ethnographic map... is well on the way to having obtained its complete pacification, soon followed by the organization best suited to it."
– "Every agglomeration of individuals, race, people, tribe, or family represents a sum of common or opposing interests... There are also hatreds and rivalries that must be understood and used to our advantage, by opposing them to one another, by relying on some to better overcome others."
Today, we stand at a crossroads of our destiny: would we not gain by reviewing history? If successive governments in power have not deigned to fulfill their duty of remembrance, that is their affair.