'A family of the state': bureaucratic impediments to democratic reform in Mozambique

University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop Conference Democracy: Popular Precedents, Popular Practice and Popular Culture 13-15 July 1994.Mozambique is preparing for its first multi-party election since gaining independence in 1975. A national electoral census will take place from 1 June to I5 August 1994, with the election scheduled for 27-28 October 1994. Prospects for a "free and fair" election are encouraging. While it is true that democracy cannot take root without an open electoral process, it cannot nourish on that alone. Elections represent an important point of popular engagement with government. Indeed, that the election in South Africa was deemed to be "free and fair" is no small achievement. What matters is what follows the election; in the case of South Africa, the quality of the democracy that takes shape as a consequence of the election. And here, as in the case of Angola, there are many potential obstacles in the path towards the development of a government which genuinely reflects the popular will. One of these is the state bureacracy. Differing perspectives on this are discussed. The Mozambique case is particularly bad

A complex relationship:

The Comoro Islands have historically played a vital role in the commercial and religious history of the south-west Indian Ocean and as a human bridge between the African continent, Madagascar, and the Mascarene Islands. In this paper I seek to examine three aspects of this relationship as it pertains to Mozambique and to stimulate collaborative scholarly research. The first topic examines the intimate trading connections between the Comoros and Mozambique. While much attention has been focused on the slave trade of this circuit in the 19th century, we must not overlook the thriving, complex exchange of foodstuffs that was equally part of the same regional network. These connections underpinned the second and third issues that I discuss in this paper. The second aspect of this relationship focuses on the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean world. 1 examine how displaced African populations were absorbed into their host societies, the ways in which they maintained and transformed their own cultural identities, and the influences that they carried with them into these new historical situations in the Comoros. The third element of this relationship concerns the history of Islam in northern Mozambique, in the 19th and 20th centuries, which is intimately tied to the Comoros.Une relation complexe : le Mozambique et les Comores aux 19e et 20e siècles. -- Les Comores ont joué un rôle crucial dans l'histoire commerciale et religieuse du sud-ouest de l'océan Indien et en tant que trait d'union humain entre le continent africain, Madagascar et les Mascareignes. Dans cet article, je cherche à examiner ces trois aspects par rapport au Mozambique et dans le but de stimuler la recherche collective. Le premier aspect concerne les liens commerciaux étroits unissant les Comores au Mozambique. Alors que l'on a jusqu'ici mis l'accent sur le commerce des esclaves au cours du XIXe siècle, on ne doit pas sous-estimer la complexité et la prospérité du commerce de denrées alimentaires qui faisait également partie intégrante de ce même réseau régional. Ces relations sous-tendent les deux autres aspects abordés dans ce travail. Le second aspect concerne la diaspora africaine de l'océan Indien. J'analyse la façon dont des populations africaines déplacées ont été absorbées par les sociétés d'accueil, les moyens qu'elles ont utilisés pour à la fois maintenir et transformer leurs identités ainsi que les traditions qu'elles ont apportées avec elles. Le troisième aspect a trait à l'histoire de l'islam dans le nord du Mozambique au XIXe et au XXe siècle, histoire qui est intimement liée à celle des Comores

From Littoral to Ozone: On Mike Pearson’s Contributions to Indian Ocean History

In this article I examine two of Michael Pearson’s most important contributions to our understanding of Indian Ocean history: the concept of the littoral, which he first articulated in his seminal article on “Littoral society: the case for the coast” in The Great Circle 7, no. 1 (1985): 1-8, and his comment in The Indian Ocean (London and New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 9) that “I want it to have a whiff of ozone.” Accordingly, I review Pearson’s publications to see how he has written about these two notions and how they have influenced historical scholarship about the Indian Ocean

“le caractère d’une traite d’esclaves déguisée (the nature of a disguised slave trade)”? Labor recruitment for La Réunion at Portuguese Mozambique, 1887-1889

This paper examines the final moments of the French libres engagés system of labor recruitment from Mozambique to La Réunion in the late 1880s. Rather than simply regarding this system as a form of disguised slave trade, it seeks to understand how these workers were actually recruited and the conditions of their employment on the French colonial island. It draws upon both French and Portuguese archival sources to place this brief chapter in the longer context of post-abolition labor recruitment in the southwest Indian Ocean

Slavery, antislavery, political rivalry and regional networks in East African waters, 1877-1883

This paper explores the dynamic between local, regional, and global forces for the Comoro Islands between the 1873 treaty mandating abolition of the export slave trade from Zanzibar to the imposition of French suzerainty over the Comoro Islands in 1886. Locally, my context is the Comoro Islands; regionally, it takes in the Mozambique Channel and wider southwest Indian Ocean; globally, it is the larger British imperial antislavery campaign in the western Indian Ocean. My paper seeks specifically to understand how the final years of political rivalry and slaving in this region affected matters both local and regional. By examining these events in some detail I hope also to reveal the economic and social networks that connected the people of the Comoros to each other, and beyond the Comoros to Zanzibar and coastal Mozambique. In the process, I illustrate how British abolitionism played out in the Comoros

The Role of Culture in the Liberation of Mozambique

No abstrac

The Role of Culture in the Liberation of Mozambique

No abstrac

“le caractère d’une traite d’esclaves déguisée (the nature of a disguised slave trade)”? Labor recruitment for La Réunion at Portuguese Mozambique, 1887-1889

This paper examines the final moments of the French libres engagés system of labor recruitment from Mozambique to La Réunion in the late 1880s. Rather than simply regarding this system as a form of disguised slave trade, it seeks to understand how these workers were actually recruited and the conditions of their employment on the French colonial island. It draws upon both French and Portuguese archival sources to place this brief chapter in the longer context of post-abolition labor recruitment in the southwest Indian Ocean