Tarika, Coming to San Juan Capistrano This Week, Pleads for an End to 50-Year-Old African Hatreds

When the Malagasy folk-pop band Tarika took some time off from touring in 1996, singer and main songwriter Hanitra could have taken the opportunity to relax a bit. Instead, she headed deep into Madagascar’s back country on a mission to shed light on buried history and old hatreds.

Her quest was to interview remaining survivors of the brutal suppression of a 1947 revolt in the island nation, in the Indian Ocean off Africa. The ruling French had used troops from their West African colonies to put down the insurrection--estimates of Malagasy killed range from 11,000 to 80,000, with many others wounded or tortured.

The incident is almost never discussed, said Hanitra (whose name is pronounced “anch”). “A lot of things have not been told. It’s almost like a taboo subject, a secret subject.” For many of the survivors, Hanitra’s visits were a first chance in half a century to talk freely of the experience. The interviews, she says, were highly charged, emotional outpourings.

“It was like I was giving life to people who wanted to tell these tales,” Hanitra, 32, said from a Tampa, Fla., stop on the tour that brings Tarika to San Juan Capistrano on Saturday. “If I didn’t do anything, these stories would have died with these people.”

The tales helped inspire the new Tarika release, “Son Egal,” an ambitious album that weaves themes of old prejudices and new beginnings with pleas for peace and reconciliation. (“Son Egal,” French for “equal sound,” is also a play on “Sonegaly,” the Malagasy word for “Senegalese.” Senegal is where the troops that quelled the rebellion were trained.)

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Where Tarika’s “Bibiango” tackled such broad themes as women’s issues and environmental degradation, the new album delves into specific incidents--and criticism of the government--in a way that is almost unheard of in Malagasy music.

“It’s very, very unique. Normally, you have some happy, dancing music,” Hanitra said. “The album arrived at a time when people had a freedom to talk about these things. People really backed it up. . . . It has really made us quite a celebrity. People recognize us when we walk down the street.”

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The album is making waves outside their homeland as well: It has topped world-music play charts on U.S. radio for eight weeks so far. The record’s serious messages (sung mostly in Malagasy) are buoyed by Tarika’s sparkling synthesis of regional folk styles and understated pop influences.

Hanitra and sister Noro first came to attention as singers in a band called Tarika Sammy (tarika is Malagasy for “group”) before they went on their own in 1993. Their current bandmates are Donne, who creates shimmering arpeggios on a variety of Malagasy stringed instruments; Ny Ony on bass, guitar and vocals; and Solo on drums. Professionally, all eschew their (very) long Malagasy names in favor of shorter monikers.

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Hanitra’s rising international profile led to a recent move to London; she says the time away from her homeland has allowed her to step back and explore what she sees as its problems in a more comprehensive way. “Avelo,” a reggae-tinged track from “Son Egal” that is a hit in Madagascar’s dance clubs, was inspired by news reports of grave robbing in a culture that always has held great respect for ancestors. The song is a plea to return to that respect--and to respect the living as well.

“Forever,” sung in English, is an attack on government corruption. “Diso Be” (Very Wrong) ties together two dark anniversaries, that of the 1947 revolt and the ruling French’s 1897 exile of Madagascar’s last queen, Ranavalona II.

“One hundred years ago we had our own monarchy, and it worked,” Hanitra said. “I’m not saying it was perfect, but at least it was ours. What I wanted to point out is, 100 years from then to now, what have we got?”

In a central track, the sinuous “Sonegaly,” Hanitra sings of the Senegalese, who became Madagascar’s boogeymen after the horrors of 1947. Hanitra’s research showed that though they were trained in Senegal, the troops sent to quell the rebellion came from all of France’s African colonies.

More important, Hanitra said, they acted under French orders. “Do you think,” she asks in the song’s lyric, “we blacks should fight against each other too?”

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The song and the album are “a plea for reconciliation between the Malagasy and the Senegalese,” Hanitra said. That reconciliation was symbolized in the making of the album: Contributions were included from two prominent Senegalese musicians from Baaba Maal’s sizzling band, kora player Kauwding Cissokho and percussionist Massamba Diop.

Though she hadn’t written specific parts for them, Hanitra says, she knew all along that she wanted them on the album.

“They just played. They found their spaces in the music. For so long now, we’ve been demonizing the Senegalese, and I want to show what we can do by working with them.”

* Tarika plays Saturday at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real. 7 and 9 p.m. $3-$6. Part of the San Juan Capistrano Multicultural Arts series. (714) 248-7469.