Tyranny in the Wartime Central Highlands

Abstract

By analyzing the fate of a Malagasy town under the reign of a tyrannical administrator during the Vichy era, this chapter considers chronological ruptures and continuities. Mostly it allows one to take stock of arbitrariness in a colonial context. Reminiscent in many ways of the scenario of Bertrand Tavernier’s film “Coup de torchon,” this episode highlights the role of Quaker missionaries, of Malagasy women determined to hold their own in the face of a mercurial local dictator, the use of a veritable coercive apparatus, including denunciations, forced labor, the Indigénat code, and the pursuit of political crimes. A number of tensions and trends present in Madagascar for decades were distorted and exacerbated under Vichy rule.