By João Feijó
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – In recent weeks, a structural problem requiring a political and sensitive solution, has been handled by the Mozambican government as if it were a security problem.
The incapacity of dealing with this social phenomenon has unleashed a popular uprising which seems difficult to reverse. In a scenario of generalised anarchy, in which power is falling to the street, what scenarios can be pondered for the coming weeks?
From “Frelimo is the people” to “Frelimo afraid of the people”
Five decades ago, we witnessed the end of a cycle of 50 years of colonial fascism. Despite the resistance of sectors loyal to the Portuguese forces, Frelimo managed to win broad support in society, particularly in the rural areas of the north and centre of Mozambique, in the outlying urban neighburhoods, and even among the more progressive sectors of colonial society, namely among students, jurists, journalists, or inside the Portuguese armed forces. Frelimo was presented as a movement of freedom from oppression but also of redistribution and of social justice.
From socialist speeches resting on “the liberation of the people and of the land”, in the following decades new visions emerged, resting on the possibility of previously colonised peoples becoming capitalists. Former liberators were being transformed into landowners and shareholders, in banks, mining or private security. The same system of social relations was reproduced, producing exclusion and inequalities.
Fifty years later, a new protest movement is emerging nationally, covering various sectors of society. The videos circulating on the internet allow us to note the existence of broad discontent among:
– Unemployed young people, who scrape by on odd jobs day to day, in the country’s main cities (Maputo, Matola, Nampula, Nacala, Chimoio, Moatize, etc.), but also in small border towns (Ressano Garcia and Machipanda) and places where major extractive projects are being implemented (Inhassoro, Inhassunge, Moma or Montepuez);
– Adolescents who have nothing to do, thanks to the strike of teachers in public secondary education, under increasingly precarious conditions, but also university students;
– “Mamanas” (slang for “mothers”) who are marching in the streets, in protest against living conditions and the murder of their children, both those on the demonstrations who are victims of the police, and those who are members of the police and who are facing popular vengeance ;
– Public employees, unhappy at the introduction of the Single Wage Table, or at delays in overtime payments, particularly education, health or justice professionals;
– Small business people in the formal sector, unhappy at the bad business environment, the excessive red tape, the corruption of opportunist inspectors, high interest rates, lack of support for economic activities and lack of security;
– Specialists and liberal professionals, notably jurists and journalists;
– Unionised workers, from the major extractive projects;
– Peasants in areas affected by large extractive projects, and artisanal miners, in Moma, Alto Molócué, Montepuez or Palma.
Before the elections, the “machine” or “steam-roller” of Frelimo, was able to build a great red wave. Through the closure of public institutions and the mobilisation of public employees and secondary school students, “carrying” people from distant areas in vehicles belonging to the state or to local business people, the party was able to bring together impressively large crowds. Two months later, public functionaries are deeply critical of Frelimo and are ever less timid about expressing their discontent. On social media, video and audio recordings proliferate, telling of the difficulties experienced by party leaders in mobilising their grass roots supporters, afraid to present themselves as adherents of Frelimo, particularly in Maputo. In a climate of growing intolerance, supporters of the ruling party or critics of Venâncio Mondlane are becoming targets of insults, threats or aggression.
During the funeral ceremonies held at the national headquarters of the Frelimo Party, after the death of the General Secretary of ACCLIN, Fernando Faustino, the access roads were closed in a radius of 100 metres from the building. A party which used to present itself under the slogan “Frelimo is the people, the people are Frelimo”, is now ever more isolated from society.
Stopping the wind with your hands
Over recent years, the various political crises which deserved a political response were managed only from a security perspective, with disproportionate levels of violence, which inflamed conflict. The data compiled by the “Decide” Platform, over the four stages of protest, tell of an increase in the number of shootings (from 47 in the first stage to 71 in the fourth) of deaths (from 16 to 36) and of the persistence of large numbers of detentions (from 464 to 348). The police shootings and the bans and ultimatums repeated by the Minister of the Interior and by the General Commander of the PRM merely boost the aggressiveness of the demonstrators and their civil disobedience.
The press tells of meetings of the Prime Minister with pro-government intellectuals, known for sharing his opinions on television channels, expressing the incapacity of thinking outside the box. It insists on personalising the conflict in the figure of Venâncio Mondlane, who becomes a scapegoat for the structural problems and mistakes of governance. Arguments are recycled about an “outside hand”, with accusations of foreign financing for NGOs or protesting citizens. Concerned with the political consequences of an irreverent youth, the vice-chancellors of public universities produce strategies to persuade and coerce students living in university residences, without any apparent success.
Health professionals threaten to go on strike, and teachers threaten to boycott national, exams. Police agents, members of the armed forces, of the customs service and of other public institutions have publicly presented their displeasure, and many public servants have entered a mode of passive resistance, which increases institutional fragility. The Mayor of Chimoio appears as an oasis in the desert. Aware that he cannot defeat the enemy, this member of Frelimo joined him, and led the march of supporters of Venâncio Mondlane, thus reducing the potential for violence.
And power falls into the street…
The successive demonstrations announced by Venâncio Mondlane were surprising because of their enormous popular participation, with large sectors of the population following Mondlane’s instructions to the letter, but also going beyond those instructions. There is a growing scenario of insubordination and civil disobedience.
The main access roads are blocked by people in a collective catharsis. City arteries are turned into football fields or are occupied by women with skipping ropes. Tables are set on important road corridors where young men drink beer and women bring out their stoves to cook. Men and women strip in public and couples even simulate sex. In an unprecedented move, road blocks are set up in the luxury neighbourhoods of Maputo. On the periphery, youths inspect vehicles and decide whether they can circulate depending on whether they show evidence of support for Venâncio Mondlane and/or pay money.
Teachers interrupt exams and pupils march in protest through the streets of Maputo and Matola. Mock funerals are held in the suburbs, symbolising the burial of the regime.
While it is true that various sectors of society are becoming tired of these measures, the reality is that, in the streets and on social media, important strata of the population believe that this moment presents an opportunity for change, and are putting pressure on Venâncio Mondlane to prolong the protest. The leader of the opposition is emerging as an evangelical version of the late President Samora Machel, repeating the same revolutionary intolerance.
The videos circulating on the internet show the increasing resignation of the authorities. Unable to prevent the general paralysis of the access roads, members of the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) negotiate passage with the demonstrators. Sometimes, after they have been let through, they even replace the obstacles.
In this apparently anarchic process, informal leaders are emerging who mobilise resources (such as tyres, tree trunks, stones and placards), who come to hold power in the streets, and are later harassed by agents of the FDS.
As power falls into the streets, and as forms of mass and revolutionary justice, in which demonstrators judge offenders and apply sanctions, are being rehearsed, some jurists are still reflecting on respect for fundamental rights. The speeches of Venâncio Mondlane on Facebook are interpreted as presidential decrees, zealously complied with by young people with no concept of social justice but greedy for improvements in their lives and even for vengeance. These youths, deprived of public services and who are demanding payment of informal tolls, are regarded as opportunists by citizens who have access to private health and education services. In fact, Constitutional Rights never applied to much of the population, aware that justice is strong for the weak, but weak for the strong.
Who upholds the State?
The country was already facing an enormous institutional fragility, and this protest movement has worsened the inefficiencies of the State. The rapid collapse of the institutions is not accompanied by the appearance of any alternatives to fill the gaps in the public health, education and even rubbish collection services, thus worsening problems of poverty and inequality.
Despite various initiatives of legal support for detained demonstrators or of solidarity with the victims of police violence, it is not clear that any new model of social solidarity is emerging.
The protest movement is held together by an anti-Frelimo feeling but does not present any specific ideas for a new social pact.
The same actors who, in recent decades, held reflections on “poverty and accumulation” or on “the strengthening of institutions” in hotels in Sommerschield, far from the social lumpen and without any social impact, are today proposing to prolong these initiatives,
Concern is increasing among the diplomatic corps. For decades, the penetration of multinationals was facilitated by joint ventures with the local nomenclatura, in exchange for political and fiscal protection. Social opposition resulting from the expropriation of the peasants, the lack of employment and the precarious nature of public services in areas of investment in the extractive industry, was violently repressed by the Rapid Intervention Unit. The weakening and capture of the State was functional for consolidating an energy corridor along the Mozambique Channel, but the diplomatic corps was slow to understand that the regime was illegitimate in the eyes of the population. Today there are fears for the safety of international investments. In a scenario of radicalisation, fake news circulates accusing embassies of supporting Frelimo or of financing NGOs and demonstrators
In this scenario, the destiny of the Mozambican State seams increasingly dependent on the following protagonists:
– Political party leaders embarking on a dialogue in order to constitute a political solution to the conflict. This is an increasingly unlikely scenario, after the failure of the round of negotiations promoted by President Nyusi;
– The Constitutional Council manages to find a legal solution to restore credibility and trust in the electoral institutions: the Council’s ruling depends on the enormous political pressure to which it is subject;
– The Defence and Security Forces restore public order through a coup d’etat, and hand over power to the most conservative forces of the regime, or to opposition forces, eventually forming a transitional government or a government of national unity;
– Several embassies are discreetly looking at these options, assessing investment risks and with no interest in power falling into the street.
The opposition is not prepared to govern. Is Frelimo prepared to leave power?
A question often raised by supporters of the Frelimo Party concerns the capacity of the opposition parties to govern. In recent decades a strategy has been used to weaken and disorganise the opposition, by coopting or threatening inconvenient leaders, by resorting to the courts to eliminate candidatures or by using more sinister methods. From this process, the most courageous and resilient leaders survive, and those most able to confront the ruling party directly. While it is true that the opposition has no experience of governance, it is also true that this inexperience results from Frelimo’s reluctance to leave power.
The Mozambican state was built in a very centralised manner, in which access to the State provides access to all public resources, namely land, mines, jobs and positions, and contracts with the State and public companies. This reality has allowed the accumulation of capital in the hands of a State ruling class which, aware that it has everything to lose, shows no openness towards leaving power.
This is a long-lasting phenomenon, responsible for the fact that all relevant political reforms have been the result of bloody struggles. Aware of this reality, the call of Venâncio Mondlane for protest in the streets in order to seize power is a continuity of the discourse of the late Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, for whom “Frelimo only learns from taking a beating”.
The “New State” of Portuguese colonial fascism lasted for 48 years and failed in its “civilising” project, leaving a territory marked by illiteracy, poverty and violence. The Frelimo regime has lasted for 49 years and has failed in its distributive project “to free the people and the land”. Just as 50 years ago, rebellious youths, with no prospect for a future, have today decided to face the ruling order, resorting to the slogan “Save Mozambique!” Any regime that emerges will also face structural problems. In 50 years’ time, there will be millions of Mozambicans to judge it. (JF)
