Struggle In Mozambique, By Eduardo Mondlane: The Struggle For Mozambique

Eduardo Mondlane, a nationalist leader and the founding president of the Mozambican Liberation Front, wrote a text called “The struggle for Mozambique”. He explains what the situation in colonial Mozambique was at the time and the tribulations that the country faced under Portugal’s rule. He brings to light certain cases, the episodes of the nationalist struggle in Mozambique and its aftermath. This essay will analyse the text of Mondlane and give an account of his reasoning’s.
According to Mondlane relations between Portugal and Mozambique began in the late 1400’s with the main interest of opening a safer route to India for means of trade. This was not the case for long. They discovered how rich the country was in natural resources and realised
The idea of assimilado showcases a certain racial bias and although it had the intention of equality to an extent the assimilated were still treated differently. With regards to wage rates racial differences can be seen and a “very considerable differential in salaries” are marked between whites and supposedly assimilated blacks. Henricksen argues that the assimilation system did nothing but repress the black Mozambican. The purpose of the assimilation system was at the same time very contradicting because while the blacks did not receive the same treatment as the whites, they were expected to identify themselves with them. Mondlane argues that the Portuguese alluded to the position of the assimilado to counter the charges of racialism and only a few Africans were assimilated out of 6 million in 1950, so the system “must be considered virtually
The Portuguese had and Eurocentric and submission approach when it came to the intellectual abilities of the Mozambicans rather than a plan for development. Mondlane states that “Africa in particular was thought to have made no contribution to human development, was regarded as a closed and completely backward world only brought into the mainstream of development as a result of the European invasion” , which is a clear insult and representation of their own ‘limited’ intellectual capabilities. He further says that a recent scholarship has shown that the above mentioned is a product of the introversion and ethnocentrism of Western thought , which supports my above mentioned statement and their lack of noticing other laws but their own. Mondlane argues that the system was designed to make it impossible for an African to get an education which would make him qualified for nothing but menial work at the end of the day and it rather produced servants of Portugal rather than citizens. Through the colony’s own version of education they uprooted the Africans from their past and forced them to adapt to colonial society. The carefully controlled colonists’ education system was only focussed on the spread of the Portuguese language and culture with the idea that in time the Mozambicans would only speak Portuguese and embrace Christianity