Raha tiany (Things We Like)
Tarika, Son Egal, 1997
(Rasoanaivo)
Well, it's in English, but...
In Madagascar, I am not considered to be important by certain authorities because I have a different way of dressing, hair cut and way of expressing myself. I have to follow the dress code, wear the same suit that these politicians wear, or they refuse point blank to even talk to me. I am just one of millions of people in Madagascar to experience this but I have the opportunity to say something about it.
Everybody knows that corruption and bureaucracy are bad but still encourage them by taking part. If I try to be good and not practice corruption, I cannot get anything done (i.e: no album recording), therefore my message will not get across to the people. If I do, I am just making the system worse. So I get trapped in this horrible endless tunnel of corruption disease which I call fever forever.
I once visited a village called Labeka by accident. It's in the north and is a place where anybody can go and dig for gold. It is extremely hard and risky work but everyone is hoping to become rich one day. They dig until the hole is big and deep enough. They crush the wall by hammer, put the rocks into a sack, carry them up a very wobbly ladder. Then they pound them in a mortar and take it to the river to find the bits of gold, to be sold in Ambilobe later on and bought by Asian businessmen. A lot of people have apparently died there, but their families do not even know.
Any foreigner could have come to this place, set up a whole kit of gold digging machinery and got anything they wanted. You just had to know the dress code to bribe the right people and you could have gone to Labeka and dug up gold for free.
Corruption has destroyed people, ways of life, beliefs, customs, lots of things, but worst of all, it has destroyed the spirit of my people.
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