THE HISTORY OF BLANCPAIN

ART DE VIVRE
Mauro, an Italian community assistance
worker who has been here for twenty years,
has a sober – not to say resigned – commentary
on this spectacle. “It’s completely surreal,
as if a mouse were dying of hunger in a warehouse
full of cheese! There are coffee trees all
around us and here everything is in a state of
neglect.” As a good Italian, Mauro dreams of
getting this factory running again, in the context
of fair trade with trustworthy investors.
Mr. Didier, the last director of Cafema,
tells how the company met its demise in
1994. He mentions international competition
and wear and tear on the equipment,
which could not be replaced due to lack
of resources. The ill-advised or ill-intentioned
managers in the faraway capital of
Antananarivo spent more on extravagances
than on parts. He also lets drop the word
“privatisation,” so dear to the high priests of
liberalism who lay down their law from within
the World Trade Organisation (WTO). That
was all it took to bring Cafema down and
reduce hundreds of families to poverty. Like
so many others, Mr. Didier is out of a job.
And unemployment is a very strong word in
a country that has no unemployment benefits.
The former director gets by as best he
can, acting as an agent for several non-governmental
organisations that work on the
island. And the workers? They will have to
manage as best they can. And the farmers?
They no longer harvest coffee, no buyers
want it.