Abstract
Abstract This article analyses the main categories of accusation found in the speeches of leaders from the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) during the Civil War in Angola (1975-2002). Seeking to understand the entanglements between the global and local dimensions of the conflict, we argue that the accusations made by Agostinho Neto (MPLA), José Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA), and Jonas Savimbi (UNITA) aimed to delegitimize the ‘other’ in the act of claiming legitimacy to occupy the state. This is achieved through the opposition between accusatory categories attributed to the ‘other’ and their inverse, categories attributed to the person making the accusation. We thereby show how the understanding of political conflicts in general, and the conflict in Angola specifically, can be illuminated through the analysis of categories whose linguistic dimension is entangled with historically constituted social positionalities.
Highlights
Este artigo analisa os principais designadores de alteridade presentes nos discursos das lideranças do Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) e da União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (Unita) durante a guerra civil em Angola (1975-2002)
Seeking to understand the entanglements between global and local dimensions of the conflict, we argue that the accusations made by Agostinho Neto (MPLA), José Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA) and Jonas Savimbi (UNITA) aimed to delegitimize the ‘other’ while claiming their own legitimacy to occupy the state
By taking into account the multiple processes of differentiation articulated in the speeches of leaders from the MPLA and Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in order to fix or displace an ‘other’ to be politically delegitimized, we aim to show how the understanding of political conflicts generally, and the conflict in Angola necessarily involves an engagement with categories whose linguistic dimension is entangled with historically constituted social positionalities
Summary
Este artigo analisa os principais designadores de alteridade presentes nos discursos das lideranças do Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) e da União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (Unita) durante a guerra civil em Angola (1975-2002). No esforço de compreendermos os imbricamentos entre as dimensões globais e locais do conflito, argumentamos que as acusações proferidas por Agostinho Neto (MPLA), José Eduardo dos Santos (MPLA) e Jonas Savimbi (Unita) buscam deslegitimar o “outro” em sua reivindicação de legitimidade para ocupar o estado. Isso é feito a partir da contraposição entre categorias acusatórias atribuídas ao “outro” e o oposto destas, atribuídas a quem faz a acusação. Palavras-chave: Angola; colonialismo e pós-colonialismo; guerra civil; acusação; diferenciação
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