Second Independence
제2의 독립
A concept built on the claim that the independence France granted in 1960 was only a nominal first stage. Madagascar's 1972 movement and left-wing parties demanded real independence through the cancellation of the cooperation agreements and economic and cultural decolonization.
In depth
Formation of the concept
Madagascar became independent from France on 26 June 1960, but the cooperation agreements signed the same year kept formalizing a French military, economic and cultural presence. The First Republic's Social Democratic Party (PSD) government maintained those agreements. In May 1972, twelve years after independence, young rebels were joined by parents and workers demanding a "second independence" (deuxième indépendance). They rose against the perpetuation of the French presence and wanted a more egalitarian society. The movement goes back to the peasant uprising that began in Toliara Province in April 1971 and to the student protests that followed.
The theoretical framework and the demands
The left-wing parties and increasingly politically aware social forces treated the independence of 1960 as "only the first stage on the long path to decolonisation" and saw that independence as nominal, as "independence (on paper) but we were not independent." From this developed a clear theoretical and ideological framework for a "second independence." French-language scholarship and journalism label the goal "the other independence" or "the second independence," and the underlying demand was "real independence," meaning economic and cultural independence, from France.
Concrete content
The general strike of secondary students in 1972 demanded an end to the cultural cooperation agreements with France, the replacement of French-designed curricula and French teachers with Malagasy programmes, and wider access to education for economically underprivileged youth. Protesters demanded the cancellation of the cooperation agreements with France and the malgachisation and democratisation of education, denouncing the neo-colonial economic and cultural relationship that PSD political elites perpetuated. Students moved beyond corporatist demands toward "total decolonisation": full ownership of the intellectual, social, economic and political means of production through abolition of the 1960 Cooperation Agreement with France, plus a Malagasy-owned framework ("Malgachisation").
The movement's course and outcome
The rotaka, the movement carrying this demand, was a series of farmer and student protests in Madagascar between April 1971 and May 1972 that led to the collapse of the First Republic under President Philibert Tsiranana. On 18 May 1972 Tsiranana announced his resignation and a transitional government was placed under General Gabriel Ramanantsoa. Transitional military governments endorsed by referendum followed from 1972 to 1975. Ratsiraka was seen by military peers as a consensus candidate able to forge unity among the various leftist parties, students, urban workers, the peasantry and the armed forces. Elected to a seven-year term in a national referendum on 21 December 1975, Ratsiraka inaugurated Madagascar's Second Republic.
Assessment
Organised and increasingly politically aware social forces produced a clear theoretical and ideological framework for a "second independence," and it led to a Second Republic committed to state planning and economic decolonization. Implementation, however, ran through transitional military governments from 1972 to 1975, and a gap separated the movement's intentions from its results.
French- and English-language Wikipedia respectively date the College of Medicine student protest to 24 March 1972 and 24 March 1971, so the exact date is left open here and the period is recorded as 1971–1972. The account draws on French Wikipedia (rotaka, Révolution malgache), English Wikipedia (Rotaka), the ROAPE interview, L'Humanité, the abstract in Le Mouvement Social, and the Library of Congress country study. Only the abstract of Blum's article was accessible; its full text could not be consulted.