Madagascar: Flight over the cradles


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  • Between the disappearance of Air Madagascar, ITG, biometric cards, the news remains busy, but often looks like illusions to hide the real problems of everyday life.


    Between the disappearance of Air Madagascar, ITG, biometric cards, the news remains busy, but often looks like illusions to hide the real problems of everyday life.
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    The cosmopolitans and those who take the flight Tana-Paris are ecstatic. After 2 years, they will finally be able to leave the village and return to the civilized. The border opening is effective and we are told that the flights are full until the end of the year. It’s not surprising how eager these “people” are to ask for vaccination, especially the Janssen which does not really protect against covid, but allows you to travel abroad. Vaccination is also running its course and it is quite surprising that the government is promoting the Janssen vaccine more than the Sinopharm. Relative surprise, because the Janssen, the government buys with the 100 million dollars provided by the World Bank while the Chinese vaccine is free …

    But in recent weeks, the news has been marked by the Air Madagascar case. Nailed to the ground for 2 years, a debt of $ 70 million, but above all a catastrophic management for 30 years. Many foreign airlines went bankrupt and could only be saved by state aid. Air Madagascar has declared bankruptcy and will merge with Tsaradia, its subsidiary for regional flights, to become Madagascar Airlines. And I don’t know who came up with the name, but it is absolutely ugly. A two-ball marketer, trained in American thought, thought that anglicizing a historic company would save it.

    Air Madagascar has been part of Madagascar’s history since 1962. It has always had its ups and downs, the worst crisis in 2002 in the midst of political turmoil. But the business recovered in the following years. Air Madagascar had to hire a plane to adapt “to European standards” which plunged it into immense debt and had to merge with Air Austral. The latter dropped the case in 2017 and today Air Madagascar is mainly owned by the Malagasy state through Cnaps and a stake by Air France.

    Air France, Air Mauritius, Air Italia, these are names that mark and symbolize the history of a country. By removing Air Madagascar, the gray eminences behind Madagascar Airlines are not realizing what they have done. As if they were ashamed of the history of this company which is like the country, chaotic, poor, shaky, but which always manages to raise its head. A government, which has made Malagasy language one of its priorities, will therefore choose an English name to be the spearhead of its country. It means a lot of things. Because Tsaradia will also disappear. So, we lose Air Madagascar, we lose a company with the Malagasy name and we become a “nameless” company.

    Some gossipers believe that the government purposely sank the airline through its forced border closures. I think that’s partially true, but the struggles of this business dated back long before covid. Because we talk about mismanagement and the like, but we also forget the habit of successive presidents digging into the Air Mad fund for years and it’s also the same wandering hands in that of JIRAMA. Historically, governments have been accustomed to viewing national companies as their personal wallet. After a while, it still passes or it breaks. Our neighbor, Air Mauritius, had far worse financial difficulties, as its debt stood at $ 270 million. The state of Mauritius has injected nearly $ 240 million because it understood that the rescue of a name like Air Mauritius is not negotiable. Too bad the Malagasy state does not have the same vision.

    Considering the mechanics that are at stake, I am afraid that in a few years, Air Madagascar (I would continue to call it that) will be sold to foreign companies. This is a technique that we have seen dozens of times. We do nothing to save national companies, we make it crumble in debt and give it away. But given that the word “sovereignty” is found in every sentence of this government, let’s hope I’m wrong.

    Then, the other case, which has enamelled the terracotta cottages of the Big Island, is the generalization of the Therapeutic abortion by a bill. The ITG for Therapeutic Termination of Pregnancy is an abortion procedure, in the event of a serious malformation of the fetus or medical problems endangering the health of the mother. So if you are against ITG, you are a dangerous reactionary, wearing a swastika on your shoulder. I have very conservative positions on many issues today. I consider that the western left is degenerate and that it favors sterile struggles rather than the class struggle which never needed the left.

    The fact that the president received an award for his involvement in family planning and then a few weeks later we have this law on ITG coming up seems very suspicious to me. It is no open secret that this government is progressive. You have words like “women’s empowerment”, “inclusive education” or “climate change” in all government talk. Forgetting that Malagasy society has always been matrimonial throughout history. I am against this ITG law because it generalizes abortion. Because those who want to massify this practice, use the technique of salami. We go through it piece by piece and the people don’t understand what happens to them in the end.

    Let us not forget that in France, recently, we wanted to extend the ITG up to 9 months under the pretext of “psychosocial distress” (a term coined by the same marketers as those who think that Madagascar Airlines symbolize the Renaissance aesthetic) and this ITG at 9 months implies that the fetus is cut into pieces before expelling it even if for the moment, this remains only a bill.

    I am against ITG and even against generalized abortion when I am not personally concerned. I am single, with no children. But Madagascar is a Christian country. 95% of the population is Christian and believers. And in fact, I have listened to the different voices that make up the Malagasy population and each time I have heard a NO. So how dare the government propose a law which is rejected by the majority. Apart from the cosmopolitans who think of France (these are the same people who make two Tana-Paris flights per week).

    We agree that the ITG law will not reduce abortions. So, it can only generalize them. And why do ? The big idea behind the fact that women can abort however they want is that they are free, that their bodies are theirs and all the nonsense they are taught in a Western thought that has collapsed. I could get out of religious and theological arguments about abortion, but I prefer to go through capitalist logic. It is estimated that a woman with children can no longer work or be free.

    But if it’s to be free to become a supermarket cashier, to sell phone credits in a phone point or to be a saleswoman in Behoririka, I don’t really see the freedom in that. The conservative stance against abortion is that it brings women into the workforce. However, there is competition on salaries since there are more people for the same positions and no, competence will not be the selection criterion, but the lowest salary.

    We are also told that the ITG is subject to strict conditions. Such as having the opinion of several doctors, the involvement of the police (in cases of rape and incest), etc. But we’re talking about Madagascar here where for a banknote any doctor can write the certificate you want and I’m not even talking about corruption in the police. These safeguards are useless. And we can also say the opposite. Doctors did not wait for the ITG to perform the abortion if the fetus was in trouble or the mother was in danger. The whole point of this law is useless, because it does not correspond to any need … except to destroy the family structure and our demographic advantage.

    I can also be objected that there are too many children per woman and that the population must be reduced. Of course, Madagascar has an above-average fertility rate, around 4 children per woman, but we also have an infant mortality of 25% which is enormous and which slows down our demography. The issue of overpopulation does not apply to us because the country has a large area and can support many more people. In the national density, we are at 43 inhabitants per km² which is ridiculous. This means that the country is basically empty. New cities, corresponding to the living standards of the Malagasy people and not the white elephants of ultra-modern cities that no one can afford, would make it possible to better distribute the population, develop gigantic unoccupied areas and open up these regions.

    Today, many Western countries bite their fingers for blindly following family planning, as their number of children per woman is lower than their population turnover. And nature, like countries, abhors a vacuum and it will be filled by immigrants. We have no immigration problems in Madagascar, but leaving large areas unoccupied makes them vulnerable to organized gangs and trafficking of all kinds. Demography is not a problem in Madagascar, because since 1960 we have had a drop in the number of children per woman (we were down to 7 children per woman in 1960). This indicates that the demographics are naturally declining and should not be rushed with stupid laws like ITG that will make abortion a massive and benign practice.

    Between the disappearance of Air Madagascar, ITG, biometric cards, the news remains busy, but often looks like illusions to hide the real problems of everyday life.

    The evolution of the number of children per woman in Madagascar since the 1960s

    It is also interesting that this law is promoted by “coat racks”, deputies who came out of nowhere and who become experts overnight. The name of Masy Goulamaly circulates a lot, an independent member of the South, supports this law against thick and thin. It is an old political technique where the government wants to use a fuse when it knows a law is not popular. The full name of this MP is MASY Goulamaly Marie Jeanne d´Arc! I think such a long name shows you have an inferiority complex and I wonder if the Virgin Mary or Joan of Arc would support abortion. I think not.

    We can also think that this law on ITG is there to create a diversion. Despite the government’s promises, prices are not going down. Stable foods sometimes see increases of 50 to 80% and despite the government importing cheap foodstuffs, well, it doesn’t work. And that shows all the naivety of this government. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen this. Seems like the government thinks the people are Excel columns where when you type a formula you get precise math results. But the people don’t want to say anything. The interest of the grocer, who is happy with the soaring prices, is the same as the wholesaler who will be able to buy a new car every month and who is not happy with the government meddling in the prices of HIS products. The only way to be respected is sanctions and some imprisonment of wholesalers or distributors who do not play the game.

    The problem with the current Malagasy government is that it is inspired by the West while the future is Asian. Rather than listen to Western policies and institutions that have destroyed their own people, he had better take inspiration from China, Japan, South Korea or even Russia. The latter being a model of sovereignty in all areas.

    The world is on the move and if we can’t impose vaccination in poor countries because they don’t care, we will do it through other means such as digitization. A big government project, the new fokontany notebooks have been launched (called biometric cards), QR Code and all the fuss to back it up. I received mine, they misspelled both my first name and my last name, which means that the accuracy of the information leaves something to be desired. But in a world where digital sovereignty has become crucial, I remain worried about this excessive digitization of the entire Malagasy population.

    Sure, a lot of government needs to be digitized and that’s part of the world, but what about the data? Where will this data be stored and what are the security guarantees? The digitized data of the entire population is a great windfall for multinationals who always want more means to track us down in detail and no citizen should feel comfortable with that. I remember that presidential address in 2020 where he cited the example that police officers in a car could simply scan the address of a house through a phone and have access to the information in this biometric card. A possibility that did not reassure me at all.

    All these ups and downs in recent months show that Madagascar continues to advance, but the resistance is long and hard. The Malagasy government has handled the covid crisis well, it is a reality. But in many other areas, he should understand that governing isn’t about lining up data on an Excel column to have magical results.

     

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