(The Nationalist, 15 March 2002)
Madagascar is among the poorest countries in the world. It is the only place where I saw probably more than half the adult population walk around barefoot, or where people buy bread by the slice and cabbage by the leaf. Unemployment reaches to the stars and malnutrition and child mortality rates are high.
For a good part of its post-independence history, Madagascar was governed by a one-party Marxist military dictatorship under one Didier Ratsiraka. He had been a Lieutenant Commander in Madagascar’s minuscule navy but he made himself Admiral, and President, too, for good measure. The country was poor when his rule began and it became poorer. How do people without power, position, or possessions remove from office someone who has control over the armed forces, the police, the judiciary and the media?
They began by using their heads. What they had was numbers, time, and – as events were to demonstrate – self-discipline. They gathered in the open space beside the lake that lies at the foot of the hill on which the presidential palace is built. They did so each day, from dawn to dusk. They did nothing except sit in silence and look up at the palace. They had no banners or placards – they probably couldn’t afford them. Since they were not shouting, or marching, or attacking anyone, the police had no excuse for intervening. They could not possibly arrest all of them, because they were too many. The smallest crowd was estimated at 200,000, and the largest somewhere between 1 and 2 million. Since so many were unemployed, they had nothing else to do.
But their real strength was not only numbers and time. It was their self-discipline. They kept up their silent demonstration every day, sitting in silence from dawn to dusk, looking up at the windows of the palace – for seven months. In the end, Ratsiraka took the hint, held fair elections, lost and was replaced.
In Spain, it happens that, from time to time, a policeman, judge or army officer is shot by members of ETA, the Basque paramilitary group who want to separate the Basque territory from Spain by force. When they do that, it is common for Spanish men and women to demonstrate in cities and towns across Spain in very large numbers, demanding that the killing stop and saying to ETA that they have no mandate from the people.
In Ireland, by contrast, we seem remarkably passive in the face of our problems in the North. Despite the real political progress made under the Good Friday Agreement, punishment beatings are at an all-time high, and sectarian murders are growing more common. Our response for the most part is to do nothing. Why? Where is the leadership?