Power, conflict, and citizenship: Mozambique’s contemporary struggles

Abstract

The paper analyzes Mozambique’s political trajectory through the prism of the relationship between state and society. It argues that a political culture deeply rooted in millennial thinking – based on the eschatological belief that political intervention settles societal problems once and for all – has fostered a deep hostility towards citizenship rights and, for this reason, has regularly brought democracy to the brink of collapse. Thus, the paper is an attempt at identifying a conceptual framework on the basis of which empirically grounded descriptions of Mozambique’s recent political history can be conducted.

Keywords:

• Citizenship
• millennial consciousness
• eschatological nationalism
• Frelimo
• Renamo

Notes

1. See Macamo 2014.

2. Mozambique became independent from Portugal in 1975 after a protracted armed liberation struggle. The movement that led the struggle for independence was Frelimo – Mozambique’s Liberation Front – which at independence opted for a one-party state committed to the socialist transformation of the country. In 1977 Frelimo declared itself a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party. In the meantime, Renamo was created – Mozambique’s National Resistance – and with the support of Southern Rhodesia at first, and then of South Africa, waged a guerrilla war against the government of Frelimo which it described as an anti-communist war. In the mid-eighties, Frelimo was forced to seek assistance from the West which came in the form of an IMF and World Bank sponsored structural adjustment program. This was the ideological turning point in Mozambique’s postcolonial history. Soon after peace negotiations started with Renamo while at the same time the political system was opened up. In 1992 a peace agreement brokered by the Italian Santo Eggidio Community was signed and in 1994 the first multiparty elections were held which Frelimo won. Since then four general elections have been held alongside municipal elections, all of which have been won by Frelimo.

3. See, for example, Southall 2013; Clapham 2012; Torreguitar 2009.

4. The reference here is to the Portuguese colonial policy of distinguishing between ‘natives’ and ‘assimilated Africans’ whereby the latter, the majority of whom were black, were granted some measure of citizenship almost similar to that enjoyed by the white Portuguese. In his seminal work on the politics of the colonial state, Mamdani (1996) makes the distinction ‘citizen’ and ‘subject’ which is very close to this.

5. See Aurillac 1964; Enes 1893; Freire de Andrade 1925; Lopes Galvão1925.

6. The Mozambican historian, João Paulo Borges Coelho, has described a similar phenomenon in connection with the dominant historical narrative: Mozambique’s official history produced a single account that idealized the struggle for independence into a justification of the prerogative of some to hold power (2015). I have elaborated on this notion by reference to the idea of a ‘political teleology’ (see Macamo 2016).

7. Every revolution, like Cronus, the Greek deity, seems to have its own way of eating its own children. ‘Xiconhoca’ was a cartoon figure that made a parody of social behavior that did not correspond to what the revolutionary government of Frelimo thought was ideal. ‘Xiconhoca’ was morally corrupt and always acted against the interests of the people (which were, of course, defined by Frelimo). This cartoon figure stood for a phenomenon that has been well described by Susini (2008) in her brilliant discussion of witch-hunts in medieval Europe. Maria Paula Meneses has produced a brilliant description of ‘Xiconhoca’ as the official construction of an enemy by the revolutionary State (See Meneses 2015).

8. Victor Igrejas analysis of State violence in the immediate post-independence period describes the practical effects of this official stance in Mozambique (Igreja 2010).

9. See in this connection the excellent work by Cruz e Silva 2001.

10. Particularly in his seminal book on Ideology and Utopia (Mannheim 1954).

11. This is the reason why I find it particularly problematic to explain the failure of the socialist project in Mozambique with reference to the idea that local ‘creole’ elites may have used it simply to justify their own accumulation of power. See in this connection Cahen 2012; see also Macamo 2002.

12. Of course the same argument could be applied to the ‘struggle for democracy’ by Renamo, the opposition party.

13. See Macamo and Neubert 2003.

14. See Macamo 2010.

15. See Ronald Dworkin’s discussion on the United States (2008).

16. Francisco, Sugahara, and Fisker 2013.

17. This is actually the language in Mozambique. When people talk about ‘the party’ everyone knows they mean Frelimo.