THE
motive power of progress is the truth and nothing but the truth— truth which is
sometimes bitter. Matters related to the liberation of those dominated by
foreign :ers, the oppressed, the enslaved, the " exploited, require men,
women and .children alike: those who have the courage of their convictions: UDENAMO
will fail in its duty if it fails or hesitates to contribute fully to
any-question affecting the Mozambican people. We, the Mozambique National
Democratic Union (UDENAMO). speak as men and also as Africans. As men we freely
and fearlessly speak for our people. We speak for the silent, the dead, the
living and even the unborn. Above all, we have moral courage; and when moral
courage knows it is right, it dares anything. We therefore make no apology if
the bitter truth we expose offends anybody. Men of goodwill and conscience
throughout the ages have condemned the brutalities inflicted on the people-they
have condemned class distinction and political injustice inflicted on people
who, through no fault of their own, live under the iniquitous and evil system
of colonialism. We call upon mea of goodwill, not only to condemn colonialism,
but to help in eliminating it totally from the face of the earth. The colonial
mystique, so misplaced and meaningless today, not only hurts the people in. the
colonies, but vitiates the life of the people in the metropolis itself. The
problem of the Portuguese colonies in Africa has become not only difficult but
tragic, because of the arrogant frame of mind of the ruling stratum of
Portugal. We in. Mozambique have full perception of Portuguese colonialism as
distinct from that of the British and the French, of which too, we have some
perception; and have learnt of the peculiar flavour or texture, as it were, of
the Portuguese variety. It is tenacious, purblind, pathetic, autointoxicated.
It seeks and releases its raison d'etre in tilting at the windmills of history.
The Portuguese are proud of their history, and they deem their country among
the most gallant in the world. But instead of building an expanding future on
their past, they have sought to convert the past into a prison. Those who pride
themselves as being the greatest discoverers in the world strangely remain
anchored in the stagnant pool of the unchanging, ossifield past. They once made
a mighty effort, and now they seem determined to petrify that effort. The
heroic element of Portugal's past continues to haunt and distort their destiny.
This reminds us of another, more famous historical trial of ghosts: the holy
Roman Empire, "a sharing of spiritual values": but the "sharing",
no longer exist. The Portuguese spokesman in their lucid moments are not
unaware of the distortion and debasement of their dream—that of building a
Portuguese empire out of varied and different ethnic, geographical and cultural
groups of people—and beyond and beneath everything, this is economic
imperialism. One of them candidly stated, "It is often said that we
Portuguese have the vice of history. Some even say we take refuge in the past
to compensate for the smallness of the present—thus obeying the tragic law of
empire, corroded by stagnation and decadence". It is this insistance on
clinging to the tattered toga of yesterday that prevents modern Portugal from
revealing the intellectual fecundity and the spiritual dynamism of her people.
"Africa" says another of its colonial spokesman, "is for us
moral justification and our raison d'etre as a power. Without it we could be a
small nation: with it we are a great country". Here is the nation;
authentic idiom , in the past, the self-mummification as it were, that makes
the problem
of the
Portuguese colonies one of unabating tension. We have no doubt that when the
people of Portugal discover their authentic idiom, they will speak from thc
depth of their understanding the wise words we wish them to speak now; for in
seeking the liquidation of the Portuguese empire, we seek the realisation of a
freer and fuller expression of the Portuguese people themselves. The Portuguese
colonialists proclaim their non-racial record. But they fail to understand that
any claim- to racial equality is reduced to mockery when it is overlaid by
cultural inequality—nay, cultural genocide. The Portuguese empire is not
geographical, not even purely political, but fundamentally a cultural one..
With strange obtuseness Adriano Morreira, ex-minister for the socalled overseas
provinces of Portugal, observes in his book, "Portugal's Stand in
Africa", on page 111: "Now, we Portuguese have always repudiated the
philosophy of aggression and reprisal between cultures which inspired Nehru,
Nkrumah, Nasser; and, likewise, we repudiate conflict between classes and
races." The distinguished leaders of AfroAsia need no defence against this
blind and venomous attack, ,but one wonders at the intellectual temerity of a
person denouncing cultural aggression while holding fast to* the philosophy of
total aversion to cultural confluence of any kind. Do the Portuguese not
release the consequences, scalding and explosive, of the systematic debasement,
and eventual denial, nay obliteration, of the individuality of the Africans as
a subject people ? It is this willful blindness of the Portuguese rulers, the
topay-turvy logic of their Orwellian insouciance, their propensity to ignore
the terrible beam in their own eye, while furiously focussing on the non-existent
mote in their brother's, that constitutes a fearful threat to world peace and
the world sanity. What has been the record of the process of selective
assimilation ? After 465 years of Portuguese colonial rule over Mozambique only
a
Continued
on page 28
MAY/JUNE,
1964 23
handful of
the African' population has been favourably affected. Dictator Salazar, with
brutal candour says as much: "A law recognizing citizenship takes minutes
to draft and can be made right away: a citizen—that is a man fully and consiciously
integrated into a civilised political society—takes centuries to achieve."
In order that the decadent ruling elite of Portugal may cling to dieir, fond
"vice of history", the helpless peoples in the colony must live for
countless centuries in political serfdom and cultural thraldom—and such is the
prospect offered us. Such is the prospect the agents of the imperialists are
striving to perpetuate. For 465 years the relationship of oppressed Mozambique
African with the Portuguese has remained the same—of a servant; and 465 years,
of variations on the persistent theme —that of a servant—demands, not further
involvement in embroidery on the variation, but destruction of the theme
itself, its perpetuators, and its agents. It is not necessary for us to recapituate
here the picture, dismal and disturbing, that prevails in Mozambique. That
picture was drawn with precision and power by UDENAMO in its petition to other
United Nations in November 1963. Who does not know of the overwhelming
illiteracy, the griding poverty of the African people there ? Who does not
resent the constant surveillance under which the humblest African lives, where
any African who changes his residence, in all innocence, from one district to
another, is forthwith captured and penalised ? Need one repeat in detail the
story of repressive exploitation of the African by the ruling white minority
elite? Furthermore, dare we forget the many thousands of Africans killed by the
Portuguese forces", the many freedom fighters arrested and imprisoned, the
stench of the concentration camps, the situation whereby the innocent and
freedom-loving African has been turned into an export commodity, a domestic
slave, a forced labourer ? Let us frankly and decisively recognise that what
UDENAMO is involved in—the struggle for the' li
28 VOICE
OF AFRICA
beration
of Mozambique,—is something elemental, irrepressible and irreversible. UDENAMO
knows that the African of Mozambique must emerge, not only politically but
psychologically and economically. This assertion of the African personality,
this determined quest for national identity, by us for whom the dominant
Portugal has fixed boundaries, is of fundamental, worldshaking importance. The
Mozambican African for many generations was warned against aspiring for
excellence; he was asked to make peace, not only with mediority, but with
meanness. Today he is unbound; he is resolute in face of the most stubborn and
sustained brutality of the colonial powers. As the weight of the white man
lifts in the African continent, and as the horizon of political freedom widens,
his deeper and fuller assertion seeks unfettered expression. It is easy to wipe
away tears: it takes, however, deeper sympathy to wipe away the invisible tears
which continue to haunt laughter and speech and song. These inner tears will
dry only when cultural continuity is regained, thus assuring identity and
renewal at the foundation of our own lives. Today UDENAMO is engaged in that
miracle of rebirth: the joyous and triumphant reassertion of the individuality
of the Mozambican, and the unfolding of the African personality. In the
presence of that miracle of re-birth we of UDENAMO warn the world that the
problem of Mozambique is deeper than political freedom. It is one of cultural
emancipation. It is the strife-torn confrontation between the Portuguese
colonials and the Africans that make the situation in Mozambique so eminently
fateful. Thesheath of decadence cannot muffle or obstruct the expression of the
awakened Mozambican. Either the scales are removed willingly, or they must be
violently cast aside. The latter is our alternative. It is futile to hope for a
change of heart or of purpose among the Portuguese rulers. Only determined men,
united in the pursuit of freedom, can solve the problem. The facts of life and
the lessons of his
tory brand
these truths on our consciousness. To be with unlit lamps and ungirt loins at
this critical hour in the history and conscience of the Mozambique people is to
ignore our own peril.
Voice of
Africa
Supports
Union Government
For Africa
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