Mozambique has been facing violent extremism since October 2017. Ever since many research groups have been concerned with understanding the motivations for violence and many hypotheses have been explored, from the most appealing ones that have to do with extreme poverty, unemployment and low levels of education, to the most complex ones that have to do with ethnicity, marginalization, corruption and instrumentalization of marginalization through the financing of violence. I have been part of many individual and group analyses for different audiences on this phenomenon. On many occasions, I have seen my colleagues and I limited in our ability to provide answers. Especially given the fact that the group has no clear leadership, hasn’t presented grievances to the government and there is no openness to dialogue. Thus increasing the gap between what research reports present as causes of violence and the manifestation of violence itself. This presentation discusses the drivers of violence in Northern Mozambique by introducing elements of grievance not conveyed in formal conversations or interviews and, therefore forgotten. The data used in this reflection is based on literature reviews, Key Informant Interviews, Focus Group Discussions and non-systematic observation throughout the multiple fieldwork in Northern Mozambique.
Esta comunicação debruça-se sobre as eleições e a vigência da Assembleia Legislativa e da Junta Consultiva de Moçambique: as derradeiras eleições dos órgãos internos da era colonial em Moçambique e as primeiras após a entrada em vigor da nova Lei Orgânica do Ultramar (1972). Esta investigação evidencia um microcosmo das limitações do reformismo colonial do governo de Marcello Caetano, bem como uma pista sobre a hierarquia racial do colonialismo tardio português na costa leste africana.
Recorrendo aos arquivos do Ministério do Ultramar e do Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, essencialmente à comunicação interna do regime assim como a fontes hemerográficas endógenas e exógenas, procuramos provar como a sobrerrepresentação das comunidades que existiam entre a “branquitude” e a “negritude”, isto é, as comunidades mestiças ou oriundas da Ásia, nos órgãos legislativos estudados assim como o seu papel preponderante entre os vogais não-«brancos» aponta para o papel que estas desempenhavam como estrato social intermédio entre os colonizadores e os colonizados, em particular as comunidades que podiam traçar a sua ascendência ao subcontinente indiano. Para além disso, tornou-se óbvio que a figura prepotente do Governador-Geral nomeado por Lisboa, que presidia a Assembleia Legislativa e tinha poderes quase absolutos sobre ela, tirou credibilidade e poder ao órgão, resumindo as limitações da autonomia ultramarina propagada por Caetano.
Analisamos a dinâmica interna das estruturas eleitas, procurando sinais de tensões no seio da ordem colonial, nomeadamente de pendor independentista, e embora raras, estas, realmente, existiram. Também a perceção e relação estabelecida pelos moçambicanos em relação a estes órgãos coloniais foi estudada, assim como a capacidade de esta servir como “ponta de lança” dos colonos portugueses em Moçambique nas suas demandas autonomistas face a Lisboa. Por fim, foi dissecada a forma como o ato eleitoral, e o esforço de reformismo colonial em curso, era lido na cena internacional.
Far beyond the militant writing, a wide range of text can be considered as a resistant script or a resistant archive. Poems, letters, and other archival sources demonstrate strengths and contradictions in the resistant discourses of the 1950s and 60s in (and about) liberation in Angola and Mozambique. I will discuss José Craveirinha's poetry in contrast with unpublished prison writing by José Ramalho. Craveirinha's poetry and praxis were intended as dangerous by colonial authorities: soon after the publication of the collection of poems Xigubo (1964), the Mozambican poet was jailed, in a crescendo of repression because of his artistic production and social postures. José Ramalho, later known for collaborating with the newspaper To the Point (Johannesburg) after the independence of Mozambique, was also imprisoned by PIDE and wrote poems supporting the liberation movements. His manuscript Caminhemos Resolutos Insubmissos, which remains unpublished, offers interesting insights into risks and contradictions while approaching prison writing.
Both writers discussed Mozambican freedom and colonial oppression. Their works and epistemological perspectives, though, were extremely divergent. Nevertheless, this case study demonstrates some of the complexities we must consider while approaching archives and discussing genealogies of resistance.
La esclavización de personas originarias de las Islas Canarias antes, durante y después de la conquista tiene un inicio un tanto difuso, pero un final muy claro: se puede constreñir en el tiempo, con un final propiciado por la intervención de la Iglesia y su influencia en los Reyes Católicos, que resulta determinante para la liberación forzosa de los cautivados con origen en las Islas. Una política que se intentará reproducir posteriormente, aplicándose a los naturales de los territorios americanos y que no tendrá el mismo éxito, una política que parte de las empresas evangelizadoras de los Reyes Católicos y que se ve influida por intereses políticos y económicos tanto por parte de las Coronas de Castilla y Aragón como de personajes privados, pero que finalmente llevará a la publicación de diversas cédulas y leyes que establecerán como ilegal la esclavización de los naturales canarios, por ser considerados cristianos.
En diversas ciudades de la Península Ibérica, la Península Italiana o Sicilia e incluso otros Archipiélagos como Madeira, encontramos personas de este origen esclavizadas, tomando parte en diversos documentos de compraventa, inventarios de bienes, testamentos, pleitos o manumisiones. En mayor o menor medida, muchas ciudades dejan constancia de la presencia de individuos canarios, esclavizados o libertos, y algunas constancias llegan hasta la actualidad gracias a la toponimia. Este es el caso del Callejón de los Canarios, en Sevilla. ¿A qué se debe el nombre? ¿Qué historia, o historias, nos puede contar este lugar?
Since 2017, terrorist attacks have shackled Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique, displacing thousands of people and causing waves of humanitarian crises. Despite the intensity and frequency of the attacks, the Frelimo-ruled government in Maputo mounted an ineffective counter-response and limited press coverage of the events, using fines and jailing journalists. Against this backdrop, young activists launched a campaign under the hashtag ‘Cabo Delgado também é Moçambique’ (Cabo Delgado also is Mozambique).
The campaign, which started on Facebook, quickly collected followers and spread to other digital social media. The activists aimed to provide relief measures to affected populations but mainly they intended to break the silence the ruling party had imposed. They swung between digital activism and analogue engagement to foster a sense of common identity in the name of national belonging among Mozambicans, to create digital ties of empathy, reciprocation and support. Digital and physical-analogue actors blended in the campaign, as digital avatars were the first exposed and engaged in creating the country-wide networked community.
I question the involvement of humans and non-humans, in this case, digital-humans, in engaging in patterns of relationality, solidarity and reciprocating. These ideals are central to African political philosophies of communitarianism and Ubuntu, yet their rendition in contemporary underpinnings marked by digital technologies is to date underexplored. The interpretative and qualitative analysis I offer suggests that digital campaigns such as the ‘Cabo Delgado também é Moçambique’ trigger forms of post-anthropocentric relationality. By this I mean a form of relating that includes in equal yet not symmetrical terms human and non-human actors. The insights from the case in Mozambique are pivotal in understanding the reframing of political paradigms and ideologies but also communities in the digital sphere, and their interplay in the digital-analogue blurred boundaries.
