“O branco não tem panela para nos cozer”: eco popular dos movimentos pan-fricano e nacionalista no sul de Moçambique

Abstract

Racism and social inequality experienced by black people in Africa and the diaspora caused the emergence of a pan-Africanist movement. In this sense, their philosophical orientations contributed to the development of national liberation movements in different African countries from the 1950s to the 1970s. African intellectuals played a significant role in these movements, as thinkers and activists that showed the inseparability of being an academic and an activist, a scientist and a politician, objective and subjective. In Southern Africa, intellectuals such as Július Nyerere and Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane entered history. These intellectuals were examples of that combination, whose endeavors were not due solely to foreign influences, but also to the personal experiences of anonymous history, vital to the process of building these leaders. These political intellectuals were, sometimes, the echo of the experiences of their communities of origin. Regarding mutual inspiration and collusion, actors and actresses of these communities acted, thus, as co-participantes in the process of transformation, collective or individual.These were people who, despite not having " alisado o banco da ciência " showed ownership of wisdom and deep and simple insight into life, and were able to arouse the awareness and encouragement of others in the process of transformation of the given social reality. Therefore, some intellectuals were and others continue to be spokespersons of these contemporary experiences and knowledge. In this article, rather than follow the path of one of these intellectuals, observing the interaction between this and their community, I demonstrate popular expressions of nationalism and pan-Africanism in southern Mozambique that sometimes surpassed the status of a reproduction of the discourse of intellectuals sometimes did not, which, I believe have contributed to a process of awareness and maintenance of hope in the victory over colonialism.