Abstract

COELHO, João Paulo Borges. Opening the Fable: Questions of the Politics of the Past in Mozambique. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2015, n.106, pp.153-166. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.5926.

This text discusses the use of the past in Mozambique political life today. It focuses particularly upon the founding narrative of the Mozambique nation (formulated as a moral tale or fable), and questions aspects such as its relationship with other memories and its oral nature. The latter has both enabled adaptation to the circumstantial alterations of the present, and empowered the narrative holders, the witnesses. It also discusses the tense relations between political memory and historiography, ultimately to gauge the extent to which this narrative is constituted as a powerful instrument of social differentiation and privilege in the context of the ongoing struggle for democracy.

Keywords : collective memory; historiography; identity; Mozambique; political struggle.

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