"Sadness, fear, hatred, how they rise to the heart and mind each time one opens the pages of these letters of destiny": to the archaeology of the present time, what will future generations unearth? It is nonetheless terrible that this succession and the multiplication of sordid and criminal "miscellaneous facts," a sinister chronicle of macabre accounting, the infamous news of Madagascar 2026, send me back to reading a masterpiece written so long ago, in 1948, in a country as distant as South Africa, at the very beginning of apartheid. Reading notes from Alan Paton's novel "Cry, the Beloved Country."
Make no mistake, it is fear that reigns in this country, for what can men do when such multitudes turn away from the law? How can one enjoy the beautiful landscape, how can one enjoy seventy years of life, and the sun shining on the earth, when one has terror in one's heart? How can one walk peacefully in the shadow of jacarandas when their beauty has become a threat? How can one rest in peace in one's bed, when the shadow holds so many secrets? What lovers will abandon themselves to the delight of lying beneath the stars, when danger grows by reason of their very isolation?
We do not know, we do not know. We shall continue to live day by day and have more locks added to our doors and we shall buy a fine fierce dog when the neighbor's fine fierce dog has puppies, and we shall hold our handbag more tightly against us. And the beauty of the trees in the night and the delights of lovers beneath the stars will no longer be for us. We shall avoid returning through the night streets, we shall give up evening walks in the veld by starlight. We shall be cautious and strike these things from our existence, we shall surround ourselves with insurance and precautions. And our lives will be diminished; and we shall live in fear. And conscience will be put on hold; the light of life will not be extinguished but, for a time, hidden under a bushel to be preserved for a generation that will be enlightened by it again, one day to come; but how that day will come, and when it will come, it is better not to think about it.
Yes, it is dawn. The titihoya awakens and begins to cast its melancholy cry. The sun touches light upon the mountains. The great valley is still plunged in darkness, but light will penetrate it too. For it is dawn that has risen as it has risen for a thousand centuries without ever failing. But when will dawn rise for our liberation, the one that will deliver us from the fear of slavery and the slavery of fear, that is a secret.
Nasolo-Valiavo Andriamihaja