The Malagasy rebellion of 1947-1948 is designated by several terms: “troubles,” “war,” “insurrection,” and “flight.” Each name conveys different aspects of what is certainly one of the most important, complex events in Madagascar’s history. The rebellion started the night of March 29, 1947, when an extensive network of groups affiliated with the Democratic Movement for Malagasy Reform (MDRM), a Malagasy political party whose leaders were in the process of legally negotiating independence within the confines of the French political system, launched an insurrection. The revolt erupted simultaneously at a number of different points on the east coast, as rebel bands armed with spears and the occasional gun attacked military garrisons, administrative centers, and Malagasy sympathizers with the colonial regime, burning buildings and killing a number of French administrators and settlers. The French administration responded with force, leading a terrifying campaign of military repression that was matched by the brutality of rebel soldiers, who often forced civilians to join their cause. By the time the rebellion was declared officially over in December of 1948, 550 French were dead, and 100,000 Malagasy had been executed, tortured, starved, or driven into the forest. Over 11,000 appear to have been killed as a direct result of French military action.
The rebellion of 1947 was both an independence war and a popular revolt against state structures that came into being during and just after World War II. In 1940 the colonial administration aligned itself with Vichy France, which in turn sparked off a British invasion of Madagascar. The British handed the island over to a non-Vichy-aligned French government, which proceeded to use Madagascar as a reservoir of men and raw materials. The administration increased forced labor to intolerable proportions and seized peasant landholdings for the war effort. In 1943-1944 a famine broke out in the south of the island. In order to prevent starvation, the administration set up a “Rice Office” to control requisitions. The office was extremely unpopular because it created a huge black market in rice. Throughout Madagascar, villagers bore the brunt of the requisitions and were left without rice for their own consumption. At the same time, educated Malagasy were aware of independence struggles in other French colonial territories like Indochina, as well as the French humiliation at the hands of the Germans during World War II. This wider political context, in tandem with the growth of an organized independence movement whose claims were augmented by rumors that spread throughout the countryside, appears to have created an ambiance favorable to revolt.
A number of different theories have been advanced to try and explain the exact timing and organization of the rebellion. When the rebellion broke out French colonial officials blamed the leaders of the MDRM, which had enjoyed a substantial electoral victory in the provincial elections held in February 1947, and whose leaders were in the process of negotiating a peaceful independence. Circumstantial evidence was readily available. Rebels that had attacked the military garrison at Moramanga wore MDRM insignia and military expeditions aimed at destroying rebel camps found numerous documents bearing military orders in the name of the MDRM. The French further argued that because the MDRM was comprised largely of Merina (eight-tenths of MDRM organizers were Merina), the most powerful ethnic group in Madagascar, that the Merina had provoked the rebellion. French insistence on blaming the leaders of the MDRM and the Merina allowed the colonial government to destroy indigenous political development in the country, thereby reinforcing the French presence.
However, the colonial thesis of an MDRM and Merina led rebellion oversimplifies the case. When the rebellion broke out, the MDRM leaders were in the process of trying to obtain autonomy for Madagascar within the framework of existing political processes. While certain sections of the MDRM undoubtedly participated in the rebellion, the party leaders sought to distance themselves from the events, condemning the rebels and their actions. Characterizing the rebellion as a Merina plot is equally problematic. When French control over the island was relatively loose early in World War II and a seizure of power possible, the Me-rina remained friendly to the French. Moreover, those Merina who did advocate change did so within the limits imposed by the colonial system. Further, most of the fighting took place on the east coast, outside of the area traditionally occupied by the Merina. Merina were clearly key in organizing the growth of the MDRM, but members of the Betsimisaraka, Bezanozano, and Tanala ethnic groups from the east coast occupied many of the key military positions in the rebel army.
A more plausible explanation of the rebellion lies in the nature of the MDRM and its political affiliations. The MDRM was not a hierarchical structure, but rather a loose coalition of different organizations and personal networks, including two secret societies, the National Malagasy Party (PANAMA) formed in 1941, and the National Malagasy Youth (JINY) founded in 1943, whose members were ready to obtain independence by violent means. Initially supportive of the deputies’ efforts, the secret societies eventually grew impatient with the slow legal process and demanded violent, and immediate, action. Propagandists, some of whom were members of the MDRM, circulated through the countryside, declaring that, “the authority of the deputies has replaced that of France” and advised people, under threat of force, to stop working on colonial concessions. They also announced that Madagascar belonged to the Malagasy and that all Europeans would soon die. Some members of the MDRM advocated independence by legal means, but others were involved with the secret societies and eventually decided to follow a more radical policy by setting off the rebellion.
The crushing defeat suffered by the Malagasy, and the atrocities that were committed both by the French against Malagasy and among Malagasy, has made the place of the rebellion in Malagasy historical memory highly problematic. During the First Republic (1960-1972), the violence of the rebellion was largely ignored in favor of President Tsiranana’s policy of reconciliation. During the Second Republic (1975-1992) President Ratsiraka tried to resuscitate the memory of the rebellion as part of a long series of nationalist struggles culminating in his rule. However, many rural participants who perceived the rebellion as the result of their foolish engagement in state politics do not accept the nationalist interpretation of the rebellion; their experience has left them deeply mistrustful of the postcolonial state.
Jennifer Cole
Further Reading
Cole, J. “The Uses of Defeat”: Memory and Political Morality in East Madagascar.” In Memory and the Postcolony, edited by R. Werbern. London: Zed Books, 1998.
Randrianja, S. Le Parti Communiste (SFIC) de la Region de Madagascar (1936-1939). [The Communist Part in the Region of Madagascar] (1936-1939).
Tronchon, J. L’Insurrection Malgache de 1947: Essai d’lnter-pretation Historique [The Madagascan Revolt of 1947: An Essay of Historical Interpretation]. Paris: Karthala, 1986.
World History
