Processes of Ethnic and Cultural Marginalisation in Post-Colonial Africa.The Case of the Amakhuwa of Mozambique

Abstract

Although the ethnic question has never been an explicit element in the construction of the Mozambican State, it has always characterised the country’s public life with relevant but generally disregarded tensions. During the liberation struggle, two ethnic groups allied, the “intellectuals” Ronga and the Makonde “guerrillas”, excluding the other peoples of Mozambique from this process that would indelibly mark the history of the post-colonial country. In the socialist era, the motto “kill the tribe to make the nation” continued to procrastinate “ethnic disregard”, prefiguring an unsuccessful attempt to impose the authoritarian socialist model formulated by the Ronga and Machangana onto the rest of the country. The same situation occurred with the democratic turn of the 1990s. Faced with formal pluralism, the elements of power, as well as prioritised cultural and artistic elements, were, once again, those produced in the south (timbila and marrabenta) and in the north, by the Makonde (mapiko and sculptures), to the detriment of other peoples, including the Amakhuwa, the most populous group in Mozambique. International donors and researchers contributed to this process of ethnic marginalisation by accepting and developing the agenda proposed by the Liberation Front of Mozambique, interpreting traditional practices, such as initiation rites, as violations of human rights. The research presented here explains how this long process of ethnic disregard was, in fact, a political program designed and implemented from the beginning of the liberation struggle and continued, with adaptations, until today, directly influencing the diffusion of local cultural and artistic production. The approach used is historical in nature, intermixed with analyses of Mozambique’s political and cultural policies.