Malagasy feminist socialist leader of the 1972 student movement
From 24 April 1972 she advanced abolition of the 1960 Cooperation Agreement and Malgachisation as a 'second independence', which the 1972-1975 military government did not implement. Ranjanoro calls it a 'third independence', and the FAEM general secretaryship is disputed.
A feminist socialist born and raised in Madagascar, from a petit bourgeois family in which politics was considered a man's preserve. The Student Christian Movement (SCM-MPIKRIMA) exposed her to socialist ideas and politicised her. In 1972, a third-year student of Malagasy literature and language, she led the nationwide movement that began on 24 April as general secretary of the FAEM student federation, demanding abolition of the 1960 Cooperation Agreement and Malgachisation as a 'second independence'; on the night of 12 May she was arrested and detained on Nosy Lava. In Nairobi she led the WSCF 'Liberation' programme; in 1975 family life took her first to Geneva, and she returned to Nairobi in 1978 before moving to Canada after her husband's arrest and release. From 1991 in the UK, she headed UNIFEM's Africa section and retired in 2010.
Career Timeline
- 1972Third-year student of Malagasy literature and language; FAEM general secretary and strike committee member
- 1972Arrested on the night of 12 May and detained on Nosy Lava
- 이후Programme officer at the WSCF Regional Office for Africa in Nairobi leading the 'Liberation' programme; commissioner of the World Council of Churches Programme to Combat Racism; founder and West Africa portfolio head at the Agency for Cooperation and Research for Development
- 1975~1991Via Geneva to Nairobi again in 1978; women's studies and French teaching in Canada before moving to the UK
- 2010Retired as Head of the Africa section at UNIFEM; since then an independent expert consultant