Word: madagascar
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Savage Memories. At his first major stop-the large (230,500 square miles), lush island of Madagascar off Africa's East Coast-De Gaulle met with a lukewarm reception. In Tananarive, Madagascar's shady, boulevarded capital, a crowd of 30,000 gave him only sporadic applause even when he pointed dramatically to the baroque hilltop castle of the last native queen of Madagascar and declared: "It can be occupied again by the chief of the Madagascar state...
...reason for the crowd's reserve was obvious. De Gaulle was the first French Premier to dare even to appear in Madagascar in the past decade. The island's 5,000,000 inhabitants (who are divided into 20 distinct ethnic groups, but go by the collective name of "Malagasy") have not forgotten the savagery with which French troops put down the Madagascar revolt of 1947.* The political choice that De Gaulle offered Madagascar and the territories of French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa was 1) self-government within a federation (with foreign affairs, defense and economic policy...
...salesman of the new way is the general himself-proud, dedicated, remote, positive, full of paternal silences and prestigious mysteries. This week he is off on a 14,000-mile jet tour of Madagascar, Equatorial and West Africa, to sell a simple yes response to his package that with one word will commit all Frenchmen, whatever their questions and reservations, to the course he has set for them...
...governments, proved, said he, that Articles 14 and 21 are "indispensable." Then De Gaulle moved on to a subject the committee was anxious to hear more about-the question of the territories overseas, including the vast areas of French West Africa (see next page), French Equatorial Africa and Madagascar. For these, De Gaulle offered three choices: 1) status quo,as semi-autonomous territories; 2) integration as departments of France; or 3) some form of federation with France, with increased self-government...
...effect: either the territories must accept association, or they must secede and suffer all the "risks and perils" (i.e., no more aid) that that would involve. Then, having stated his case, the Premier strode out of the Palais Royal, announced that he would visit French West Africa and Madagascar to sell his program in person before the people troop to the polls to vote yes or no next month. He was counting on the fund of good will he had earned among Africans with his wartime Free French proclamations from Brazzaville on the Congo, and on a dawning African awareness...