'Mission-Doers' in Madagascar
Ramambason's well-written and fascinating monograph 'Missiology: Its Subject-Matter and Method. A study of 'mission-doers' in Madagascar' has two sides. The first side is an assessment of missiology as an academic discipline in a non-Western context. The second side is a case study of a still fairly unexplored period in the history of Madagascar, namely the so-called 'Gorbatchev transition' (1985-1995).
By MARC R. SPINDLER
Dr Ramambason is not unknown at the IIAS: he attended the international congress on Madagascar in Leiden in 1994 and his contribution on 'The Merina/Sakalava Encounter in the Region of Analalava' was published in the proceedings of the congress (Cultures of Madagascar: Ebb and Flow of Influences/ Civilisations de Madagascar: Flux et reflux des influences, edited by Sandra Evers & Marc Spindler. Leiden: IIAS, 1995. Working Papers Series, 2, 193-219). For several years he has been a teacher at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Antananarivo where he created a Department of Mission Studies. Since 1998 he has served as Secretary for Mission Development and Education with the Council for World Mission in London. The enhancement of mission studies is part of his professional duty.The present reviewer presumes that readers of the IIAS Newsletter will be more at home in the second part of Ramambason's book Missiology: Its Subject-Matter and Method than specialists in the science of missions or missiology. But a one-sided reading of the book would be misleading. The double-track approach of this book is precisely what makes the book fascinating.
Ramambason's point of departure is the conviction that, even in a non-Western context, the science of missions must be a field of research and teaching. This is not only because the 'missionary factor' (Roland Oliver) has historically been very important in many countries, and not the least in Madagascar, but because present developments cannot be understood without taking into account the permanent reality of this factor. In other words, 'missions' are not (only) a factor of the past, and they are definitely not the affair of expatriates or a foreign interference in national matters. Ramambason takes the case of Madagascar very seriously because in this country missions have been an affair of Malagasy people since the establishment of Christianity as an official religion in 1869. This does not imply an immaculate record, on the contrary. Ramambason is very critical of the nationalist bias of Malagasy 'home' missions in the period of Merina monarchy in the 19th century. As long as national unity is not realized in depth, as long as ethnicity remains a strong factor in peoples's attitudes and relations, Malagasy missionaries among other Malagasy should take these factors into account, among many others.
What, then, is the subject-matter of missiology? Instead of a theoretical definition of «missions», Ramambason analyses the reality of what Malagasy Christians are doing in mission. They are what he calls 'mission-doers'. They are not applying a theory from above or from abroad. In other words Ramambason develops a missiology 'from below', not a missiology 'from top down'. His method is 'inductive', not 'deductive'. In this way, he discovers that the main 'missionary' activities of the Protestant Church in Madagascar pertain to development and healing through specialized departments which are more or less independent from the clerical hierarchy.
The second side of the book is a case study of the 'Gorbatchev transition' in Madagascar in the period 1985-1995. One wonders why a political development abroad, far away from Madagascar, is seen as relevant to the study of this country. Is this not a return to the 'deductive method'? Ramambason would answer that the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union really had an impact in Madagascar, because the communist model was at that time operative in Madagascar, in the official policy of the government as well as or in (part of) the opposition. The fading of the model cannot but paralyse the political will of the people and lead to political apathy. The other impact, in Madagascar of the collapse of communism abroad was the shift of priorities of all foreign powers. Madagascar was no longer an interesting asset on the geopolitical scene. Neither the West nor the East wanted to invest financially or politically in Malagasy affairs. The field was open to marginal political operators of the Indian Ocean rim, which had never been serious historical partners of the Malagasy. The only solid partner abroad remains, not France, the former colonial power, but the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Ramambason laments over these developments which amount to economic strangulation of Madagascar. The dreams of independence and liberation are not realized and, says Ramambason, must be revived. 'Mission-doers', to use his words, cannot stay idle, and indeed may provide the country with new incentives and concrete benefits.
Ramambason's approach could be defined as a sophisticated kind of 'liberation theology' giving full weight to the contribution of the social sciences to the construction of reality. After all, in spite of his vindication of an 'inductive method', starting from below, he cannot escape the methodological imperative of every scientific approach, namely the necessity of having a plausible starting point at the top of one's mind. *
- Ramambason, Laurent W.
Missiology: Its Subject-Matter and Method: A study of 'mission-doers' in Madagascar
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang,
Studies in the Intercultural History
of Christianity, Vol. 116, 1999, 208 pp.
Marc R. Spindler, is Emeritus Professor
of Missiology and Ecumenics,
Universiteit Leiden.
E-mail: marc.spindler@wanadoo.fr