Christianisation, Frenchification and Malgachisation: mission education during war and rebellion in French colonial Madagascar in the 1940s

Abstract

Education was an instrument in Christian missions’ and colonial powers’ civilisation projects. At the same time, education was also instrumental in fostering opposition. This article approaches perceptions of education mainly from the perspective of Norwegian Lutheran missionaries in French colonial Madagascar during the 1940s. The focus is on how the mission, after several years under a secular French colonial government, related to the change in educational policy that came with the rise and fall of the anti-republican and pro-religious Vichy regime. When secularisation and assimilation policies were again implemented after the Second World War, Protestant missions struggled for influence. Madagascar experienced a bloody anti-foreign revolt in 1947 for which French administrators, among others, blamed education. Norwegian missionaries strongly opposed the revolt, but they were also in favour of leading education onto a Malagasy track. In this shifting colonial Malagasy context, mission education contributed to Christianisation, Frenchification and Malgachisation in the Malagasy society.