Contenu du sommaire : Mozambique : guerre et nationalismes.

The Frelimo state-party : a reassessment of its origins. At its formation in 1962, FRELIMO was no more than an alliance of unstable social fractions and ethnic groups with opposing tendencies. The crisis of 1968 resolved these internal contradictions in favour of the military and «revolutionary intellectuals» thus signalling the defeat of merchants and traditional authority. The guerilla movement received a boost but the peasant/military alliance was maintained more by the exigencies of war than by a social project internalized by the peasantry. The state apparatus then in formation was a generic factor of fragility as its object was the incorporation of rural society in the urban project of forging a Nation.

The war in Napula. How have the pro-South African guerillas been able to secure a certain social base ? This case study (of the Eráti district of Nampula Province) demonstrates the explosive character of the interplay of two factors : on the one hand, the emergence of discontent, and in fact, social criss among diverse strata of die population (young villagers, notables...) provoked by the process of social and inter-lineage differentiation resulting from the villagisation policy; on the other hand, the catalytic effect of the introduction of arms in the context of the guerilla infrastructure.

State farms and rural development in Mozambique. The mixed results of the Mozambican experience of state farms, rural cooperatives and communal villages has reawakened interest on this classic debate in Black Africa. Rather than opposing these policies, thus leading to incoherence, it is necessary to streamline state farms (or other large rural enterprises) with the surrounding peasant economy to stimulate the dynamics of development. What must be arrested is the «modern enclave» character of regional public enterprises rather than the enterprises themselves.

A colossus paralysed. Cahora-Bassa, the largest hydro-electric generating unit in Africa has not had more than a year's uninterrupted service, since it was launched in 1979. This colossus has in fact been structurally designed to function in the South African system. This permits the Apartheid regime to use it, through RENAMO sabotage attacks, as an instrument of economic warface against Mozambique and for putting pressure on Portugal in particular and Europe in general.

Literature and national consciousness in Mozambique. Delimiting the frontiers between nascent national literature and metropolitan literature produced in Africa has not been an easy task. This problem is even more complicated in the former Portuguese colonies where the role played by the «petits blancs» and mullatoes in initiating nationalism has been substantial. This situation became explosive when the country involved espouses a jacobin ideology and a marxist-leninist language while the existence of a large member of ethnic groups is negated by the growth of literacy and literary production exclusively in Portuguese.

About some good of scientific blindness. The manner in which Mozambican society is being ideologically penetrated by State power reflects a certain primary ignorance — assumed politically — of social relations of the peoples over whom authority is exercised. Be it the disparities in rural social relation, the social expectations surrounding racial distinction, taking into consideration indigenous languages etc., all are issues around which a taboo has been created by the microcosm of FRELIMO cadres, be they white, mullato or internationalist experts.