“Sadness, fear, hatred—how they rise in the heart and mind every time we open the pages of these letters of destiny”: in the archaeology of the present time, what will future generations unearth? It is truly terrible that this succession and multiplication of sordid and criminal “miscellaneous facts,” a sinister serial of macabre counts, the shameful news of Madagascar 2026, brings me back to reading a masterpiece written so long ago, in 1948, in a country as distant as South Africa, at the very beginning of apartheid. Reading notes on the novel “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton.
Make no mistake, it is fear that reigns in this country, for what can men do when such multitudes turn away from the laws? How can one enjoy the beautiful landscape, how can one enjoy seventy years of life, and the sun shining on the earth, when one has dread in one’s heart? How can one walk peacefully in the shade of the jacarandas when their beauty has become a threat? How can one rest in peace in one’s bed when the shadows hide so many secrets? What lovers will abandon themselves to the delight of lying under the stars when danger grows precisely because of their isolation?
We do not know, we do not know. We will continue to live day by day and will have locks added to our doors, and we will buy a beautiful fierce dog when the neighbor’s beautiful fierce dog has puppies, and we will clutch our handbags tighter. And the beauty of the trees in the night and the delights of lovers under the stars will no longer be for us. We will avoid returning through the nocturnal streets, we will give up evening walks in the veld by starlight. We will be cautious and strike these things from our existence; we will surround ourselves with assurances and precautions. And our lives will be diminished; and we will live in fear. And conscience will be put on hold; the light of life will not be extinguished but, for a time, hidden under a bushel to be preserved for a generation that will one day be illuminated by it again; but how that day will come, and when it will come, it is better not to think about it.
Yes, it is dawn. The titihoya wakes up and begins to cast its melancholy cry. The sun touches the mountains with light. The great valley is still plunged in darkness, but the light will penetrate it too. For it is the dawn that has risen as it has for a thousand centuries without ever failing. But when the dawn of our liberation will rise, the one that will deliver us from the fear of slavery and the slavery of fear, that is a secret.
Captured & Published at: 2026-08-28 05:38:55 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/08/pleure-o-pays-bien-aime.html