Jul23rd2010

My grandfather

This great man managed feats. He founded the AEOM, the Malagasy students association, when he was in Bordeaux, an association which laid the theoretical foundations to the Malagasy independence in 1960.
He was a man who loved learning and did not cease learning throughout his life.

He mastered and loved, defended the Malagasy language : he founded the editing house Salohy, wrote countless textbooks. He completed his autobiography shortly before his death and it is a must read for any Malagasy worth his salt in my humble opinion. One day I swear I will translate it in English and a great literary exercise it will be.

He fought for the recognition of Malagasy as one of the official languages of the Malagasy Republic, etc…

One if his greatest accomplishments would be the education of many Malagasies in the French Protestant tradition, a combination of Malagasy pride, a mastery of Malagasy language, a solid Malagasy identity, a preponderant place for scoutism movements, a certain prudery ;-) …It is hard to describe but if you hang out around Malagasy men in their 60-70s who have been educated at Paul Minault, you will understand what I mean.

A great man indeed.

In company of other illustrious Malagasies, like painter Ramanakamonjy, he represented Madagascar at the Exposition coloniale in 1931 : below is a picture of him at the Exposition coloniale.

I do not know what to think about the raffia skirt a la Josephine Baker. I am quite sure he did not wear a raffia skirt in the streets of Antananarivo. A malabary would have been more genuine. He bears a strong resemblance to my son. And my brothers. And my father.

That’s him third from the left.

Dadabe

Elsewhere on the internet, they write about the 1931 colonial exhibit.

“outside the exhibit building, an odd skit was taking place. A Madagascar woman rounded up one of her little boys, stood him up in a tub and proceeded to wash him down with clear water. As the scrubbing advanced, the child glistened with cleanliness, but the water turned progressively dirtier. Finally, the woman reached down, scooped up a bottleful of the liquid, and had the boy drink it down. According to Jean Camp and André Corbier, visitors came away persuaded that this was how the black race maintained its shadowy color.”

I am on my third re-reading of the excellent “Small Island“, by Andrea Levy. It is partly set during and after WWII, but it opens with a little girl, Queenie, attending the London British Empire Exhibition, in the 30s. This is what Queenie observes.
“A black man who looked to be carved from melting chocolate … A monkey man sweating a smell of mothballs. Blacker than when you smudge your face with sooty cork. His lips were brown, not pink like they should be, and they bulged with air like bicycle tires. His hair was wooly as a black shorn sheep. His nose, squashed flat, had two nostrils big as train tunnels. And he was looking down at me … He could have swallowed me up, this big nigger man.

Queenie is then astonished when the man speaks very proper English.

I cannot help but wonder who this “big nigger man” was, and what his story was…