Table Of ContentAfrican Social Studies Series Sure Road? Nationalisms
in Angola, Guinea-Bissau
and Mozambique
Editorial Board
Martin R. Doornbos, lntemationallnstitute of Social Studies,
The Hague
Carola Lentz, University ofMainz
John Lonsdale, University of Cambridge Edited by
Eric Morier-Genoud
VOLUME28
BRILL
LE!DEN · BOSTON
The titles published in this series are listed at bri/Lnl/afts 2012
This book is published with the support of the Association des cherchems de ]a revue 'Lusotopie:
Recherches politiques internationales sm1es espaces issus de l'histoire et de la colonisation
portugaise'.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations.,. ... ,. ........... ,. .... ,.,. ...... ,.,. ... ,..,. ..... ,. ...... ,. ......... ,. ...... ,.,..,. .. ,. .... ,. .. vii
List of Contributors ................................................................................................. b<
Cover illustration: Mural "Terra de Cabral" by artist}oel Bergner on the walls of the Amilcar Cabral Introduction. Thinking about Nationalisms & Nations in Angola,
Foundation in Praia, Cape Verde.© joel Bergner, zon.
Guinea-Bissau and Mozam.bique ................................................... ,. ............ xiii
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eric Morier-Genoud
Sure road? Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique I edited by Eric Morier
l Anticolonialism & Nationalism: Deconstructing Synonymy,
Genoud.
p. em.-- (African social studies series; v. z8) Investigating Historical Processes. Notes on the Heterogeneity
Includes bibliographical references and index. of Fonner African Colonial Portuguese Areas ........................................... I
ISBN 978-go-04-22261-8 (pbk: alk paper) 1. Angola--Politics and government 2. Nationalism- Michel Cahen
Angola. 3· Guinea-Bissau--Politics and government. 4· Nationalism--Guinea-Bissau.
5· Mozambique--Politics and government. 6. Nationalism--Mozambique. 7· Africa, Portuguese
speaking--History--Autonomy and independence movements. 8. Portugal--Colonies--Africa- ll Virtual Nations and Failed States: Making Sense of the
History. g. Decolonization--Afuca, Portuguese-speaking-History. I. Morier-Genoud, Eric. Labyrinth ............ -.............................................................................................. 31
II. Series: African social studies series; v. 28.
Philip]. Havik
DT1348.S87 2012
320.540967--dcz3 lll Tbe Social Origins of Good and Bad Governance:
Re-interpreting the 1968 Schism in Frelimo .................. -..... -.................. 79
Georgi Der/uguian
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual "Brill" typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. N Writing a Nation or Writing a Culture? Frelimo and
For more information, please see vvww.brill.nl/brill-typeface.
Nationalism During the Mozambican Liberation War. ...................... 103
JSSN 1568-1203 Maria-Benedita Bas to
ISBN 978 90 04 222618 (paperback)
ISBN 978 90 04 22601 2 ( e-book)
V 'An Imaginary Nation'. Nationalism, Ideology &
Copyright zo12 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Lei den, The Netherlands. the Mozambican National Elite ................................................................ 127
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, jason Sumich
IDC Publishers and Martinus NijhoffPubhshers.
VI UN!TA and the Moral Economy of Exclusion in Angola,
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, 1956-1977 ......................................................................................................... 149
recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Didier Pee lard
Authorjzation to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, VII Angola's Euro-Mrican Nationalism: The United Angolan
zzz Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA Front. ................................................................................................................. 177
Fees are su b_ject to change.
Fernando Tavares Pimenta
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
vi CONTENTS
VIII Changing Nationalisms: From War to Peace in Angola ..... .,,.,.,.,, .. .,.1gg
justin Pearce
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IX ls 'Nationalism' a Feature of Angola's Cultural Identity? ,.,.,.,.,.,.,., ... z17
David Binningh am
Maps
X Nationalisms, Nations and States: Concluding Reflections .. , .... .,., ... 231
1. Map of contemporary Guinea-Bissau. ...................... ., ...... .,.,.,.,.,., .. .,., ... .,.,., 30
Gavin Williams
z. Map of contemporary Mozambique., .. ., .. .,., .. .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,., .. , .. ., .. .,., .. .,.,.,. 78
3- Map of contemporary Angola. ........... ., ............ ., .. ., .. ., .... ., ............................. 176
Thematic Bibliography .. ., ..... ., .............................................................................. 251
lndex. ....... ., ............................ ., ........................ ., .......... ., ................... .,., ..... .,.,.,.,.,.,.,. z65
Figures
1. First edition of the anthology Poesia de Combate, 1971,
one of the first two books published by FRELIMO .. ., .. ., ...... ., ................. l07
z. Cover page of Os Her6icos, one of the guenilleros'
newspapers ......................................................................................................... rn
3· Cover of the pamphlet resulting from the first seminar
on culture, 1971/72 ... ., .... ., .. .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,., .. .,., .................. ., .... ., ..........
.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,ns
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
MARIA-BENEDITA BASTO is Associate professor (Maitre de conferences) at
Paris-Sorbonne, University Paris IV, Department of Iberian and Latin
American studies, She works on colonial and postcolonial issues, on
memory, identity and nationalisms in the Lusophone world, as well as on
the internationalist movements of the 196os and 1970s, She has published
A guerra das escritas. Literatura, nayiio e teoria p6s-cofonial, Lisbon:
Vendaval, 2006 and edited Enjewc litteraires et espaces democratiques en
Afrique Subsaharienne, Paris: Editions EHESS, 2007, Her latest article is
entitled "Corps poetique et critique democratique: Vico et l'humanisme
engage chez Said", Tumultes, n°35, zmo/z, pp.103-117, She has recently
done research on representations of history at the intersection between
literature/writings and documentary cinema,
DAVID BIRMINGHAM was educated in Switzerland and took a history
degree at the University of Ghana in West Africa, His doctoral thesis, pub
lished in both English and Portuguese, considered the relations between
Portugal and Angola in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In addi
tion to teaching in rmiversities in Afrtca and Europe he has given lectures
1
across the world from California to China and published some thirty
essays on Angola and its neighbours. He retired in the year 2001 but many
of his books are still in print at Ohio University Press and his history of
Portugal lives on in several editions and languages,
MICHEL CAHEN is a political historian of modem colonial Portugal and
contemporary Portuguese-speaking Mrica. He is a Senior Researcher of
the Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique ( CNRS) at Bordeaux
Political Studies Institute, where he is the deputy-director of the Centre
"Les Mriques dans le monde", From 1994 to zoo6, he was editor-in-chief of
Lusotopie, a journal devoted to the political analysis of spaces stemming
from Portuguese Colonization and History, His main interests relate to
Marxism and nationalism, identity and citizenship, political identity of
the margins, coloniality and globalization. His most recent books are: Os
outros. Urn historiador em Moqambique, 1994, Basel: P. Schlettwein
Publishing Foundation, 2003; Le Portugal bilingue. Histoire et droits poli
tiques d'une minoriti linguistique: la communaut{ mirandaise, Rennes:
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, zoog.
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xi
X
GEORGI DERLU.GUIAN is a sociologist whose monograph Bourdieu's politics of the civil war in the Angolan Central Highlands, based largely on
Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-Systems Biography (Chicago interviews conducted in the region over the course of the previous tw-o
University Press, zoos) received many awards including the Norbert years. He currently holds an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the School
Elias Prize. He studied Mrican history and languages at Moscow State of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where he continues to
University in the 1g8os. During this period, he also spent two years in research and publish on Angolan politics ..
Mozambique. After 1990 Derluguian worked at the Femand Braude!
Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations DIDIER PlicLARD is senior researcher at the Swiss Peace Foundation (s wis
in Binghamton, New York. He presently teaches evolutionary macro speace) in Bern and lecturer in political science at the University of Basel.
historical sociology at Northwestern University and New York He has worked and published extensively on Christian missions and
University, USA. nationalism as well as on the politics of peace and transition in Angola. As
a fellow of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR)
PHILIP J. HAV1x (PhD, Leiden University, The Netherlands) is currently North-South, his current main research focus is on the dynamics of state
researcher at the Institute for Research in the Tropics (IICT) in Lisbon, hood after violent conflicts. He is the author, together with Caroline
while also teaching at universities in Portugal and Brazil. His multidisci Jeannerat and Eric Morier-Genoud, of Embroiled. Swiss Churches, South
plinary research centers upon the study of state formation, taxation, colo Africa and Apartheid, Munster: Lit Verlag, zon; and co-editor with Tobias
nial administration and entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa, with a Hagmann of Negotiating Statehood. Dynamics ofP ower and Domination in
special emphasis on WestMrica and the Guinea Bissau region. His recent Africa, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, zon.
publications include: Orlando Ribeiro: Cademos de Campo Guine 1947,
Oporto: CEAUP /Humus, zon, in collaboration with Suzanne Daveau; and FERNANDO TAVARES PIMENTA (PhD, European University Institute) is a
"Direct or Indirect Rule? Reconsidering the roles of appointed chiefs and researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of the zo"' Century,
native employees in Portuguese West Africa", Africana Studia, n°15, 2010, at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He is the author of the following
pp. zg-s6. books, among others: Brancos de Angola. Autonomismo e Nacionalismo,
1900-1961 Coimbra: Minerva, zoos;Angola no Percurso de um Nacionalista.
1
ERic MoRIER-GENOUD (PhD State UniversityofNewYork at Binghamton) Conversas com Adolfo Maria, Oporto: Afrontamento, zoo6; Angola. Os
is a lecturer in Mrican and Imperial history at Queen's University Belfast, Brancos e a IndependCncia, Oporto: Afrontamento, zoo8; Portugal e o
Northern Ireland. He has written extensively on religion and on politics in Seculo XX Estado-Imperio e Descolonizaqiio, 18go-1975, Oporto: Afron
Southern Africa and he works presently on missionaries and transna tamento, 2010; and StoriaPolitica delPortogallo Contemporaneo, 18oo-2ooo,
1
tional sciences and politics as well as war, memory and memorial in con Florence: Mondadori, 2011.
temporary Mozambique. He is editor of the journal Social Sciences and
Missions (Lei den: Brill); a co-author, with Caroline Jeannerat and Didier jASON SUMICH studied anthropology at the London School of Economics
Peclard, of Embroiled. Swiss Churches, South Africa and Apartheid, and his work examines nationalism, legitimacy, democratisation and
Munster: Lit Verlag, zon; and a co-editor, with Michel Cahen, of Imperial social stratification in Mozambique. He currently works as a Research
Migrations. Colonial Communities and Diaspora in the Portuguese World, Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, NTNU and as a fellow of
London: Palgrave, 2012. the Human Economy Research Programme, University of Pretoria. His
latest publications include: "Does all that is Solid Melt into Air?
jUSTIN PEARCE has been writing on Angola since 2001, as a journalist, Questioning 'Neo-Liberal' Occult Economies in Mozambique". Kronos:
researcher and academic, and has closely followed the political and social SouthemAfricanHistories, Vol. 36, pp.g8-n3 and "The Party and the State?
changes that have accompanied the transition from war to peace. The Ambiguities of Power in Mozambique", Development and Change
He received his doctorate from Oxford University in 2011 on the local Vol. 41(4), pp.679-698.
xii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
GAVJN WILLIAMS is South African, He studied at the Universities of
Stellenbosch and Oxford, He lectured at Durham University before being
elected to a Fellowship in 1975 at St Peter's College, and Lecturer at the INTRODUCTION
University of Oxford, He has taught and examined for Stellenbosch,
Rhodes, Natal and Witwatersrand Universities, He has supervised anum THINKING ABOUT NATIONALISMS & NATIONS
ber of masters and doctoral theses, of which four have been on IN ANGOLA, GillNEA-BISSAU AND MOZAMBIQUE
Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, He has published extensively on poli
tics, political economy, land and agricultural policies in Nigeria and South Eric Morier-Genoud
Africa, His primary interests are in social theory and the empirical study
of politics and societies, He is currently engaged in research on the history
Our sure road is pain and blood
of the South African wine industry,
Straight road to the sun
The sun of our freedom.1
Nationalism is back in force in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique,
While the years 1990s saw a rise in public debates about the liberation
struggle and national heroes, the years zooos saw a flurry of official com
memorations and the building of many monuments to celebrate nation
alist achievements, In Angola, three new memorials to national heroes
and martyrs have been built by the Ministry of Public Works since 2003 as
well as a Cultural Centre to the memory of Angola's first president
Agos!inho Neto. ln Mozambique, all fonners liberation war's military
bases have been turned into monuments, and a National Liberation
Museum has been created in the northern village of Chai in zoos, Smaller
memorials to specific nationalist figures have been inaugurated all over
the country as well as many monuments to the first postcolonial presi
dent, Samora MacheL In Guinea-Bissau, the on-and-off civil war since
1998 has absorbed most of the government's energies, But an interesting
initiative has still emerged in 2004 joining former African nationalist
guerrillas and former Portuguese soldiers to hold a conference, restore a
military base and establish a museum at Guiledje - the conference was
held in 2008 with the support of the Mario Soares Foundation,' In Cape
Verde, the government and the Amilcar Cabral Foundation were active
the same year in celebrating the memory of the national hero of Guinea
Bissau and Cape Verde who should have turned 8o that year, In all these
' Sampadjudo, "Our sure road" in Margaret Dickinson (ed.), When Buffets Begin to
Flower, Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1g8o [1972 ], pp. 106-107.
2 See the website: http://wv.TW.guiledje.org/ (accessed 3 August zmo ).
xiv ERIC MORIER-GENOUD INTRODUCTION: THINKING ABOUT NATIONALISMS AND NATIONS Y:V
countries, the inauguration of monuments, museums and centres, and publicly in the 1990s and this fostered much curiosity. As founding myths
the celebrations of anniversaries, have been accompanied by a bout of were shattered, a demand for "truth" emerged. Second, time has passed
nationalist discourse geared towards today's youth who is asked tocher since the liberation struggles of the rg6os and 1970s and a younger genera
ish the past and faithfully continue the work that heroes are said to have tion has come of age with no direct experience of the period while the
begun. men and women who lived through these events are gradually disappear
Needless to say, these nationalistic activities have led to much contro ing. This results in the old generation wishing to leave a testimony of its
versy. In Mozambique, the hottest discussion has been about who is, and experience, in particular war veterans, while the new generation wishes
who should be, in the crypt at Heroes Square. Individuals buried there to know more about a period which is clearly fimdamental yet not
before 2003 were all Frelimo liberation fighters and this came to be seen properly recounted. A third and final factor is the emergence of new
as problematic, even "Within the party in power, for two main reasons. state nationalisms in Portuguese-speaking Africa. Indeed, while the
First, because the heroes were all armed fighters. There was no civilian, authoritarian decompression fractured national myths, democracy and
and particularly none of the artists who had done so much to create a neo-liberalism simultaneously forced states and their elites to develop
national culture and consciousness. Second, the individuals in the crypt new forms of "patriotism".3 These new patriotisms generate their O"'\tVll set
were all members of Frelimo, the party in power since independence. of discussion and debates (about what the nation is, what it should be,
There were no nationalists not affiliated with the party in power, no where it comes from, and where it should go) and this sparks ever more
armed fighters from other Mozambican liberation movements, and interest in the topic within society.
none of the Frelimo dissidents who played a fundamental role in the Surprisingly academic research on nationalisms and nations in Angola,
foundation of the front. In 2003 and 2004, President Joaquim Chissano Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau has remained limited during the last
addressed the first line of critique by including two more personalities twenty years-particularly in English. Few academic works have revisited
in the crypt: the poetJoseJoii.o Craveirinha and the composer ofthe first the liberation struggles, have focused on the history of nationalisms, or
national hymn, Justino Chemane. But Chissano did not tackle the analysed the formation and make-up of contemporary Portuguese
partisan accusation, nor has his successor since 2005. This has led some speaking African "imagined communities". There are of course some wor
opposition parties, such as Renamo, to boycott official ceremonies at thy exceptions in English,' as well as in French and Portuguese.' Still,
Heroes Square which they argue is a partisan locale. Is this the case? one can say that, overall and comparatively to the interest developing in
ls Heroes Square merely a Frelimo place? Are Mozambique's official society, little has been published on the subject, and we are still very
heroes only from one political party? By extension, is today's official his
tory and commemoration selective and biased? If so: how, why, and since
when? What is being left out, what kind of nationalism is being promoted
3 Among others, see Sara Dorman, Daniel Hammett & Paul Nugent (eds), Making
(and obscured), and what impact does this all have on the national imag Nations, Creating Strangers. States and Citizenship inAfrica, Leiden: Brill, 2007 and the spe
ined community? To put it in broader terms, what is the history of the cial issue "New Nationalism and Xenophobia in Africa", Africa Spectrum (Hamburg,
Germany), Vol-41, No.1, 2oog.
formation and politics of nationalisms and nations in Mozambique and,
4 Mustafa Dhada, Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free, Niwott: University
by extension, Angola and Guinea-Bissau? Press of Colorado, 1993; Patrick Chabal ( ed. ), A History ofP ostcolonial Lusophone Africa,
There is today a strong interest in nationalisms and nations in London: Hurst & Co, 2002; Marissa Moorman, Intonations: A Social History ofM usic and
Nation in Luanda, Angola, from 1945 to Recent Times, Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008;
Portuguese-speaking Africa, both in society and in academia. This and Paolo Israel, "Utopia Live: singing the Mozambican struggle for national liberation",
renewed interest can be traced back to the 1ggos, and its cause to three Kronos (Cape Tovm), Vol.35, No.1, 2oog, pp. gS-141.
5 Christine Messiant, "Sur ]a premiere generation du MPLA: 1948-1g6o. M8.rio de
main factors. First, the authoritarian decompression which took place in
Andrade, entretiens avec Christine Messiant (1 982 )", Lusotopie 1999, Paris: Karthala,
the late rg8os-early 1ggos Jed to more open and pluralist political systems, pp. 185-224;]ean-Michel Mabeko-Tali, Dissidencias e poder de estado. 0 MPLA perante si
something which permitted the emergence in the public realm of new prOprio (1962-T977), Luanda: Editorial Nzila, zoot, 2 vols; Michel Cahen, Les bandits: Un
historien au Mozambique, 1994, Paris: Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002; Luis Reis
voices and new testimonies about the war ofliberation and the history of
Torgal, Fernando Tavares Pimenta &juli<'i.o Soares Sousa (e ds), Comunidades Imaginadas.
nationalisms. Voices dissonant from the official scripts begun to be heard Nafdo e Nacionalismos em Africa, Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2008.
ERIC MORJER-GENOUD INTRODUCTION: TH1NK1NG ABOUT NATIONALISMS AND NAT]ONS xvii
XVI
dependent on the material produced in the 1970s and 1g8os on, if not by, academic method and rigor. From the material already published, we can
the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertafiio de Angola), FRELIMO say for example that a majority of the work reads back into the past
(Frente de Liberta9iio de Mo9ambique) and the PA IGC (Partido Africano da and produces a teleological narrative of "decolonisation" or "national
Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde). Yet very important new archives liberation".7 Yet we know that there never was, nor ever is, any "sure road"
have opened in the last twenty years in Portugal as well as the Portuguese· or "straight road" to national formation and national liberation (the
speaking African couirtries: the FIDE secret police archives, the colonial alleged "sun of our freedom" as the opening militant poem states) or to
military archives, Frelimo's archives (partially), MPLA' archives (par· "decolonisation". The academic scholarship has already deconstructed
tially), etc. Moreover, the worldwide historiography on nationalisms and much of the official nationalist narratives and paradigms in relation
nations has evolved considerably and the theoretical approaches on the to Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau.8 The purpose of the present
subject have changed greatly (see more below). There is therefore not just volume is therefore not to repeat or continue such deconstruction, but to
a quantitative lack of investigation on nationalisms and nations in open up instead the subject by asking new questions and pointing
Portuguese-speaking Africa, but also a qualitative issue. There is an urgent new directions for research and debate. By looking at the nature and
need to revisit the subject of nationalisms and nations in Angola, Guinea· dynamics of "marginal" nationalisms, the role of culture, the way nation
Bissau and Mozambique to enrich and verify empirically as well as theo alist movements fitted into international netw-orks, or how particular
retically what we already know of the subject. The present collection of nationalist movement failed, we hope to restore the rmcertain, convo
essays aims to move in this twofold direction: bringing in new sources and luted and conflictual trajectories of nationalisms and nations before and
renewing our theoretical approaches. after independence.
Doing research on nationalisms and nations in Lusophone Africa today
is a complicated affair. States and parties-in-power, as we have noted, are
very active in developing and deploying new forms of patriotism and Table 1. International research projects on nationalism.
nationalisms. Linked to this, there is a spell of new public history projects Institution Project name Begun in
on the "liberation struggles" and there is a flurry of publications by former
Nordic Africa "Nordic Documentation on the Liberation 2003
actors of the liberation/colonial wars about "decolonisation". Historical
Institute Struggle in Southern Africa Project" [to "fill
projects have been launched in the last ten years by no less than the
the gaps that might exist in the search for
Comunidade dos Paises de Ungua Portuguesa ( CPLP), the Southern
a new liberation history"]
African Development Community (SADC), the Mozambican Ministry for
ALUKA "Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa" 2003
the Affairs of Former Combatants, the MPLA and the Frelimo parties,
SADC Hashim Mbita Project ["to document the 2004
among others - see more in table 1 and z below. On the former colonial history of the liberation struggles"]
side, some military scholars have published analysis of the African "cam·
CPLP Joint Historical Archive of the National 2005
paigus" and former soldiers are investing ever more in the writing of their
Liberation Struggles
memoirs (in paper as well as online).6 While this spate of research and
writings is most welcome and useful, it brings a range of problems con·
nected to the particular vantage point and objectives of the authors and
7 See for example Louren9o do Rositrio ( ed. ), II Congresso sabre a Luta de Lihertar;iio
researchers involved (e.g. veteran fighters) and their often uncertain Nacional-Guerra colonial 27 anos depois, a rejlexrio passive[, Maputo: Edi<.;6es ISPU, zoo4;
Helder Martins, Porqu§ Sakrani? Mem6rias dum Midico duma Guerrilha Esquecida,
Maputo: Editorial Terceiro Milenio, zo01.
8 Among others, see Carlos Pacheco, MPLA. Um nascimento polemico, Lisbon: Vega,
6 For military scholarship, see for example Aniceto Afonso & Carlos de Matos Gomes, 1997; Michel Cahen, "The Mueda Case and Maconde political ethnicity. Some notes on a
Guerra Colonial, Lisbon: Noticias, zooo; Carlos de Matos Gomes, Moyambique 1970. work in progress",Africana Studia (Oporto ), No.z, 1999, pp.zg-46; and Christine Messiant,
OperaqaoN6 G6rdio, Lisbon: Pref8.cio, zooz; and RogCrio Cardoso Teixeira, Angola (n'gola). '"Chez nous, meme le passe estimpr€visible'. L'exp€rience d'une recherche sur le national
Hist6ria do Batalhiio de Car;adores 109, Lisbon: Quarteto, 2008. For soldiers' memoirs, see isme angolais, et particulierementle MPLA: sources, critique, besoins actuels de la recher
the very rich website of the "Overseas wars" at http:/ /ultramar.terraweb.biz/ che", Lusotopie 1998, Paris: Karthala, pp.157-197.
xviii ERIC MORIER-GENOUD INTRODUCTION: THINKING ABOUT NATIONALISMS AND NATIONS xix
Table 2. National research projects on nationalism. still differed over the amount of imagining/primordiality they saw in
nations and nationalisms, but they reached a consensus that imagination
Country Project run b)' Begun in
was at work and that the latter was not performed "out of the blue"-there
Angola Arquivo Hist6rico de Angola ?
is always much history and politics involved.
Angola MPLAparty 2004 Coming from subaltern studies, Partha Chatteljee made an important
Mozambique Ministry for the Affairs of 2001/zoo8*
contribution in 1993 when he criticised the above-mentioned approaches
Fonner Combatants
for giving too passive a role to non-elite actors and non-Europeans.n He
Mozambique Frelimo party zooos
attacked Benedict Anderson in particular for claiming that the European
Guinea-Bissau Various 2004 model of modem national imagined communities had been merely
* zom is the date of a new state policy which aimed at fostering investigation; 2008 is the exported and reproduced overseas. Chatteljee argued in favour of an
date of the creation of the Centro de Pesquisa da Hist6ria da Luta de Libertw;do Nacionaf
analysis of the specific historicities of national imaginations, at the inter
section of a hegemonic Western nonnalizing project, various frontal and
Analysing Nationalisms and Nations fragmented resistances, and diverse dynamics of re-appropriation. The
aim, he claimed, was to reclaim the "freedom of imagination" of those
The historiography of nationalism and nations has evolved importantly once-colonized in the making of their own identities.~ Chatteljee was
over the last two decades. The 198os and 1990s saw intense debates rapidly joined in his deconstruction and complication of the history of
between "primordialist" and "modernist" authors, the first arguing Lhat nationalism( s) by other authors. Coming from a gender perspective,
nations were "ancient" and "natural" while the second put forward that Susan Geiger showed importantly in 1997 that not only had women been
nations were "modem" and "imagined", if not "invented".9 The debates active in nationalism in Tanganyika, but that they had often set the pace
drew much interest and have led to a growth of the field as well as the which educated male politicians had followed (if not taken advantage
development of new institutions and journals - the primordialist of).'' Authors like Elizabeth Schmidt pushed this line further and went on
launched for example the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and to study nationalism "from the bottom up"-how the mobilization of the
Nationalism in 1990 and the journal Nations and Nationalism in 1995. masses shaped elite nationalism."' Such "decentring" was reinforced in
Debates bore many intellectual fruits as new questions were raised, much the zooos with a recourse to the anthropology of consumption which
research undertaken and new answers proposed. By the 1990s already the argues that consumption is part the total production of commodities
primordialist and the modernist approaches had absorbed some of the (because consumption is an act of appropriation and alteration). Authors
critique made against them and had evolved as a result Primordialists like Kelly Askew thus looked at how the nation was performed in Tanzania,
recognised an element of imagination and invention in nations and that is formed through (in her case musical) performance."
nationalisms and they now argued that nations were imagined, if on the By 2012, the study of nationalisms and nations has swung from an anal
basis of something natural such as "ethnic cores".10 Modernists, on their ysis of export and imposition to one of diffusion and re-appropriation,
side, conceded that there could be no pure invention and went on to from an analysis of Western and elite nationalism to investigations from
argue in favour of an idea of a "construction", "imagining'' and "formation" below and the periphery, and from an analysis of production to that of
on the basis of history and pre-existing identities (thus still arguing these
processes were genuinely modem). By the years zooos, the two schools " Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments. Colonial and Postcolonial Histories
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. '
"' Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, op.cit., p. 13.
'3 Susan Geiger, TANU Women. Gender and Culture in the Making of Tanganyikan
9 For the classic primordialist approach, see Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival in Nationalism, 1955-1965, Oxford: James Currey, 1997.
the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. For the classic modernist 14 Elizabeth Schmidt, "Top Do'Wllor Bottom Up? National.istMobilization Reconsidered
approach, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities. Reflections on the Origin and
"With Special Reference to Guinea (French West Africa)", American Historical Review:
Spread ofN ationalism, London: Verso, 1983 and Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger (eds), No.uo, October zoos, pp. 975-1014.
The Invention oJTradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. '5 Kelly M. Askew, Peiforming the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania
Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins ofN ations, Oxford: Blackw-ell, 1986.
1U Chicago: Chicago University Press, zooz; see also Moorman, Intonations, op.cit. '
XX ERlC MORIER-GENOUD INTRODUCTION: THINKING ABOUT NATIONALISMS AND NATIONS xxi
reception and performance, While authors might prefer one approach to unpack these concepts: it is to analyse the intricate relation between the
another (and there are disciplinary, theoretical as well as political issues two and their evolution over time - how a nation comes into being and
here), a full understanding of the "historical formation" of nations and how nationalists build on, and contribute to shaping, a community imag
nationalisms will ev~ntually need to encompass all angles/6 And the fact ined by a much wider and diverse set of people,
is that much still needs to be done in terms of an analysis of nationalisms Still about concepts, one needs also to avoid conflating nations and
as social movements from below and of nations as cultural productions, nation-states as Michel Cahen reminds us in his opening text (chapter!),
among others, before we can talk of totalities and before we can recon The two can go together, partly or fully, but they rarely coincide - in
struct adequately the span of diversities and historicities of nations and fact they sometime do not correspond at all (in spite of what actors
nationalisms-and this is particularly true of the cases of Angola, Guinea may say), In the same vein, anti-colonialism and nationalism need to be
Bissau and Mozambique, This said, substantial theoretical lessons have distinguished even if, again, the two can go together, partly or fully, Anti
been gained already and it is worth discussing some key advances now so colonialism is more encompassing than nationalism and it is reactionary
as to enrich our understanding of the subject in general and in relation to (a reaction to colonialism) while nationalism can be that too, but it is also
the cases which interest us here, as well as to highlight some of the contri and above all a forward-looking social and political project, Last but not
butions which the present book makes, The list of advances will not be least, Cahen introduces in his chapter a new concept, "nationism", so as to
complete, nor tightly reflect the chapters that follow, Instead it will high distinguish between a form of nationalism which would build on or reflect
light certain aspects in the hope of offering structural foundations to a an existing nation, and nationism which does not build on or reflect an
critical understanding of the subject of nationalisms and nations, and in existing nation but aims at creating a nation (by force if necessary). Such
the hope of providing a stimulating perspective on how to read the chap concept and distinction help us think more finely about nationalism and
ters that constitute the present volume, its relation to the nation and other forms of imagined communities, Like
The first such advance is conceptual: a clarification of concepts and a the preceding distinctions, the difficulty of these concepts does not lie in
realisation that one has to be very careful with definitions and vocabulary, their definition, but in their application and our using them rigorously in
One needs to be attentive not to conflate words and concepts such as our analysis - too often authors and theorists slip, conflate or confuse
"nationalism" and "nationalist movements" for example. The two are not terms and concepts,
only different, but there is usually more nationalism in any society than A second advance made in the last twenty years relates to how we
what exists in any nationalist movements (as representative as the latter understand the history of nationalisms and nations, Much early literature
may be). Susan Geiger has shovm this, as we mentioned earlier, in relation focused on elite and the Western origins of nationalisms and nations as
to Tanganyika where women promoted nationalism before any national we have seen, and it tended to view change in an evolutionist fashion, The
ist movement was formed as well as outside and beyond existing political understanding of the history of nationalisms and nations was progressive
unions and parties when the latter came into being,'' Similarly, we need to and teleological: a succession of stages which inevitably led to the libera
distinguish between the concept of "nation" (a particular form of imag tion of all un-free nations, History was seen as linear and causal: change
ined community) and the concept of"nationalism" (an ideology or a polit was produced by antecedent causes, outcomes seemed by and large
ical project which aims at creating, defending or working for this imagined determined, and progress followed a straight and sure road between all
community), The history of a nation is not equivalent to the history of points.18 Nations were seen as actors of history who aimed at their own
nationalism: nation formation is a long-term society-wide development liberation and one could as a result practice history as an investigation
while nationalism can be short term and can be the affair of a small group into the origins of a pre-determined outcome, reading back into the
only, or even an individuaL The difficult part here is not to distinguish and past the origins and development of nations, The post-structuralist and
•G On the concept of "historical formation", see Jean-Fram;;ois Bayart, The Illusion of 'H For a good deconstruction of such linear nationalist history, see Prasenjit Duara,
Cultura!Identity, London: Hurst & Co., 2005, ch.2. Rescuing History from the Nation. Questioning narratives of Modem China, Chicago:
'7 Susan Geiger, TANUWomen, op.cit. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
