ZWAM (''Zatovo Western Andevo Malagasy''
or ''Zatovo Western Amical Malagasy''
) was a youth movement which emerged in
Antananarivo
Antananarivo ( French: ''Tananarive'', ), also known by its colonial shorthand form Tana, is the capital and largest city of Madagascar. The administrative area of the city, known as Antananarivo-Renivohitra ("Antananarivo-Mother Hill" or "An ...
,
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
(the Malagasy Republic) in 1972 to support the student protests against the rule of
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Philibert Tsiranana
Philibert Tsiranana (18 October 1912 – 16 April 1978) was a Malagasy politician and leader, who served as the first President of Madagascar from 1959 to 1972.
During the twelve years of his administration, the Republic of Madagascar expe ...
. The name has various interpretations, including "Malagasy Western Slave Youth" and "Zatovo Warriors' Association of Malagasy".
[ The term "Western" in the title comes from the fact that members of the group were fans of ]Spaghetti Western
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
s and dressed in cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...
hats. According to Lesley Sharp the "cowboys" of ZWAM "assumed a style of dress reminiscent of Clint Eastwood
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...
, a loner recognized as the 'champion of real justice' over 'the venal guardians of formal law'".[
The movement drew its membership from the poor, "black" quarters of the capital, traditionally inhabited by the descendants of ]slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
s. ZWAM were the first slave descendants to form an organisation in Madagascar and they campaigned against discrimination against slave descendants in education and employment.[
]
References
Sources
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*
*{{cite book, first=Lesley A. , last=Sharp , title=The Sacrificed Generation: Youth, History, and the Colonized Mind in Madagascar , publisher=University of California Press , year=2002 , isbn=0-520-22951-7 , oclc=59471111 , location=Berkeley
History of Madagascar
Youth movements