Decolonising images? The liberation script in Mozambican history textbooks

Rosa Cabecinhas,Martins Mapera

doi:10.17159/2223-0386/2020/n24a1

Rosa Cabecinhas, Martins Mapera

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17159/2223-0386/2020/n24a1

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Abstract

Article developed in the scope of “Knowledge for Development Initiative”, supported by the Aga Khan Development Network and the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, IP (no. 333162622), under of the project “Memories, cultures and identities: how the past weights on the present-day intercultural relations in Mozambique and Portugal?”.

Highlights

In this article we examine the textbook narratives of the colonial past and the nation-building process in Mozambique, a Southern African country which gained its independence in 1975
According to Israel (2013:11), the Mozambican case can be viewed as both “paradigmatic” and “extreme”. It is “paradigmatic of a southern African tendency, whereby the political legitimacy acquired in liberation struggles,” in this case against Portuguese colonialism – “generated a triumphalist historical narrative, which became an instrument of state – and nation-building, a catalyst of collective identities, and a tool of power.”
In this article we have explored how the colonial past and the nationbuilding process are narrated in two Mozambican History textbooks, one published during the single-party period (INDE, 1986), and the other one currently in use (Mussa, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

In this article we examine the textbook narratives of the colonial past and the nation-building process in Mozambique, a Southern African country which gained its independence in 1975. While the Mozambican government was struggling to redesign the state apparatus, the so-called Cold War gained ground in the region (Piepiorka, 2020) In this context, the “post-independence development in education was triggered by foreigninduced impulses, stemming from ‘socialist solidarity’” (Piepiorka, 2020:289). Isaacman & Isaacman, 1983; Gasparini, 1989), worked as educational advisors, schoolteachers, curriculum designers, etc., together with local teams in the huge and challenging task of creating an approach that aimed to overcome “both traditional and colonial modes of education”, fighting oppressive systems of class divisions (Barnes, 1982:407) These post-independence socialist goals were integrated into the Mozambican national education system, implemented in 1983. According to Coelho (2013), the “Liberation script” disseminated in the public sphere emphasised the armed liberation struggle against colonialism, primarily through binary opposites: revolutionary versus colonialist, exploiter versus exploited, and so on This “usable past” (Wertsch, 2002) was disseminated by various instruments of the state, including the education system and the media

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