Charm Battles: Vigilantes, Magic, and the State in Middle-Western
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Title: Charm Battles: Vigilantes, Magic, and the State in Middle-Western Madagascar Journal: Small Wars & Insurgencies (Print ISSN: 0959-2318 Online ISSN: 1743-9558) [peer reviewed version 08.04.2019, in press 2019] 1 Abstract: Growing insecurity in rural areas of Madagascar is linked to what has been understood as a disintegration of the legal and the real state, both in Africa and beyond. Nevertheless, violence and insecurity is nothing new on Madagascar, and village communities have a long history of coping with disorder, and of self-defense. New vigilante movements, which are founded by charismatic leaders, are based on a long-established and well- known socio-cultural code, it is proposed. This includes belief of magic forces, which again results in an interpretation of confrontations by local actors as charm battles. The two vigilante groups described, called Zazamainty and Lambamena, should be seen, in spite of major ideological differences, as variants of the same basic code, providing them with a similar interpretation of the ongoing clashes. This first Malagasy case study of vigilantism adds to the ongoing theorization of the vigilante phenomenon as well as efforts to understand the proliferation of non-state armed organizations or ‘twilight institutions’ beyond the state. Keywords: Vigilantism, Madagascar, Zazamainty, Lambamena, Non-state armed actors, community-based armed groups, village conventions, magic, dina, dahalo Word count: 9.499 2 Introduction Vigilantism is increasingly attracting scholarly attention. Such interest today goes far beyond specific case studies and includes investigations that aim to understand vigilante movements in a more systematic way, on a global level, with respect to specific cultural or territorial spaces, and through time.1 A central observation pervading the literature is the ambiguous link between vigilantism and the state in which they are inevitably embedded. Vigilantes such as the Malagasy groups presented here usually accept globally the state. As they feel compelled to assume elements of the (in their view) failed capacity of the state to provide security authority they turn towards local, usually conservative resources of wisdom and power, including magic, and a considerable degree of violence. This article contributes to the growing field of study by presenting two newly developing vigilante groups in Madagascar, and by investigating for the first time the phenomenon of vigilantism on this island more systematically. The groups studied are commonly known as Zazamainty (meaning ‘Children of the Black’) or Lambamena (‘Red Clothes’), names that seize upon one of the most recognizable features of their adherents when in action: a black or red scarf respectively, slung around the head, a well-known example of iconography that descends from warriors in pre-colonial times. Both movements were founded in approximately the same geographical area (the Vakinankaratra region, south and southwest of the capital, Antananarivo), and gaining greater recognition in about 2016 as they were increasingly able to attract adherents. Following this development, these organizations as well as their field of action quickly spread to a vast area that can roughly be described as the intermediary between central Madagascar and the west coast. 3 It is estimated that their number increased to several thousand or even tens of thousands (although most probably a figure below 10,000 individuals) by mid-2018.i The Zazamainty and Lambamena are essentially community-based armed groups, organized by villagers to ensure local security in the context of significant issues of banditry, mostly related to cattle rustling. Nonetheless, they are not formally or independently organized by individual or collaborative village communities. In fact, the ‘Children of the Black’ and the ‘Red Clothes’ were established as private associations acting on an inter-regional level. As will be seen, their origin is connected to charismatic leaders who propose new, creative ways of ensuring security, while at the same time referring to a very well-known socio-cultural code. They establish bonds and trust between otherwise unconnected adherents of very different villages in a ‘traditional’ way (i.e., linked to magical beliefs and practices including charms) in largely the same way as the cattle rustlers (dahalo in official Malagasy), with whom they usually fight and which are, basically, embedded in the same rural background. Part one of the paper provides a short overview of the linked topics of vigilantism, magic, and violence, specifically with respect to the African continent. Part two develops the key aspects of the historical pathway of Malagasy ideas and practices related to local self- defense and vigilantism. Part three presents ethnographic data on ongoing violence in middle-western Madagascar and its perception as a kind of magic battle. The case study is continued in the final part, where the main aspects of the Zazamainty and Lambamena movements are presented. i By Nartin Ramboanarivo, the president of Lambamena, and the informant Philemon Andriamampandry. 4 The original information presented here on the two vigilante groups was gathered between November 2016 and December 2018, mainly in the Bongolava region (the town of Tsiroanomandidy and its surroundings) and the Vakinankratra region (the towns of Mandoto and Betafo and adjacent areas). Interviews were held with the main actors and members of the vigilantes, as well as with villagers, politicians and state functionaries in French and Malagasy (the latter supported by an assistant). 1. Linking Vigilantism, Magic and Violence in Africa Vigilantism can be broadly understood, according to Les Johnston’s valuable definition, as a ‘social movement constituted by “private volunteer agents” who [aim] to control crime and to provide security for the movement’s members and for significant others by using or threatening of using violence.’ 2 However, a more precise analysis reveals that a clear-cut definition of such groups is scarcely possible, because (among other issues) links to the state might be fluid, ambivalent and dynamic, and vigilante groups in a more proper sense might transform into other non-state armed groups like militias or warlords.3 Consequently, instead of regarding vigilantes as a distinct category, it seems more useful to see them as part of a broad range of phenomena of groups – including rebels, warlords, marauders, militias and para-militias – claiming parts of the legal and executive power of the state, with vigilantes on the more consensual, state-related side of such groups. A central aspect of vigilantism is its necessary embeddedness within a state. In this sense, Abrahams has described vigilantism as a ‘fundamentally relational phenomenon.’4 Another common point for vigilantes is the need to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices, a norm-based dichotomy that ‘is translated into the distinction between 5 “malefactor” and “non-malefactor,”’5 i.e., between somebody who does wrong versus somebody who does the right thing. Based on such an understanding, it is only consequential that the recent global proliferation of independently operating armed groups ‘with more parochial objectives, such as militias, gangs and vigilantes’6 in a number of countries has been said to have resulted from the worldwide erosion of state structures, and the underlying moral values and norms in the post-Cold War period.7 The African continent, though, provides a particularly strong example for such an observed relationship. The dynamic towards a separation of the real and the legal state in Africa 8 has been powerfully described in terms of images such as the ‘rhizome,’9 the ‘politics of the belly’10 or more simply the ‘shadow state’11. The strategy pushing towards such a shadow state consists usually in establishing ‘alliances between elite cliques and global economic interests, including private businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donors and illicit trading networks,’12 as one scholar has claimed based on an investigation of Madagascar. Not surprisingly, the spread of vigilantism on the African continent kept pace with the falling apart of the post-colonial state, producing ‘a picture of bewildering volatility and complexity’13, in particular since the 1990’s. Pertinent case studies include Nigeria, South Africa or Benin, among others, but not the island of Madagascar.14 The mentioned fight of the ‘good’ against ‘bad’ forces leads vigilantes regularly to have recourse on two elements that are central for this article: the use of violence, as a means of establishing authority and order, and of magic, as a locally accepted interpretative framework of the overall situation and as a transcendental element of protection and success. The recourse on violence, and more precisely physical violence (including open or clandestine killings of suspected persons, sometimes sheer atrocities, the abuse of self- proclaimed authority or simply lynching), has been described frequently as part of the 6 work of vigilantes, nevertheless not as a necessary and inevitable element.15 Thereby, an important paradox or contradiction inherent to many vigilante groups appears: While vigilantes attempt to realize an effective pacification of their local arena, they feel often pushed to confront the local population with an impressive ‘breathtakingly blunt, brutal message’16, contradicting ‘without doubt […] standards of human rights and democracy.’17 Furthermore, the recourse