Mozambique: Colonialism and the corporatist state (1926-1960)

Updated Jan 2008

A coup in 1926 brought a fascist government to power that instituted a corporatist state and tightened up its grip on its colonial territories and subjects (Crawfurd 2002; ISS Undated). This expressed itself ideologically in the mythos of Pan-Lusitanianism, a community of political unity between the metropolis and the colonies and was achieved by expanding the state apparatus to centralize and consolidate control (ISS Undated). The Colonial Act of 1930 provided the legal basis for the centralization process (Stanford Undated). Dissent was ruthlessly suppressed and dissenters were imprisoned, driven into exile or killed (IIASA 2001).

In practical terms it meant the extraction of capital by the state from the colonies through intensification of the forced labour system (Crawfurd 2002; ISS Undated). Legislation was passed in the 1930s that impeded colonial natives from trading or running their own businesses and so prevented them from evading forced labour by securing the cash income needed to pay taxes (IIASA 2001; Crawfurd 2002). The government encouraged the poor whites in Portugal, primarily peasants, to settle in the colonies by grants of land and forced labour was channeled to the farms and plantations of white settlers, but the conditions that prevailed there were so harsh that many migrated to neigbouring territories, especially South Africa, to work and earn the income necessary to pay taxes (ISS Undated; IIASA 2001; Crawfurd 2002).

In 1932 the government decided not renew the charters of the large corporations that empowered them to administer their territories and that state control was to be expanded to cover these territories as the charters lapsed, though it was not until 1941 that the last of these charters lapsed and the entire territory was united under a single administration (Columbia Encyclopedia 2007; Macamo 2002; Rupiya 1998). Transport infrastructure was created and railway lines in particular opened up the interior for settlement and exploitation while increasing revenue earned from transit goods from the landlocked British colonies in the interior; however poor administration resulted in little revenue actually accruing to the colonial government (ISS Undated; Crawfurd 2002). The Great Depression ensured that little economic progress was made in Portugal's African colonies until the Second World War (ISS Undated).

Such health and educational facilities that the state provided were aimed at those with full citizenship, which in practical terms meant white settlers (Crawfurd 2002; IIASA 2001). Since education was necessary to attain cultural assimilation necessary to obtain full citizenship, and since this was not provided by the state and colonial subjects were hemmed in every way to prevent them from earning independent incomes, few were able to escape the cycle of poverty and forced labour that colonial policy had created (ISS Undated; IIASA 2001). Less than 1% of black Mozambicans did qualify for full citizenship (Rupiya 1998). Thus colonial practice made nonsense of the colonial ideology that justified it, namely the mission of the Portuguese to civilize, uplift and assimilate the benighted natives of Portuguese colonial possessions: "In fact Portugal lacked the means to carry out such a policy, while its local agents remained actively hostile to the implied dream of racial assimilation" (ISS Undated).

Part of the Colonial ideology of civilization and assimilation was the Christianization of the indigenous population. Catholicism, which formed a key aspect of Portuguese identity and corporatist ideology, had been present in Mozambique from the arrival of the first Portuguese, but the Church had made only sporadic and ineffective efforts at engaging in mission activity (Sengulane & Goncalves 1998; Macamo 2002). Protestant missions of various denominations had been established in the territory during the course of the 19th Century (Sengulane & Goncalves 1998).

In 1940 a Concordat and Missionary Agreement was signed between the Portuguese government and the Vatican which privileged the Catholic Church in the colonial territories and extensive mission work was begun and missions were established staffed by priests from various Mediterranean Catholic countries whose salaries were paid by the colonial government (Sengulane & Goncalves 1998; Macamo 2002). The Church was specifically and exclusively empowered to provide education for the unassimilated native (Macamo 2002). All this not withstanding, progress proved to be slow so that by the 1990s Christians formed only 53% of the population and Catholics less than have of these (Instituto Nacional de Estatística 1997).

In the wake of the War changes in sentiment internationally favoured the right of peoples to self-determination and the right itself was enshrined in the founding charter of the United Nations so, to ward off pressure to decolonize Mozambique and other Portuguese colonies were declared "overseas provinces" of Portugal in 1951 (Cravinho 2007, 796; Columbia Encyclopedia 2007; Rupiya 1998).

The international economic boom after World War Two, fueled by reconstruction, led to rises in the prices of commodities and the economy began to expand (ISS Undated). From 1955 development plans were laid and new investments made in communication and transportation infrastructure and policy was directed to encouraging private investment in the colonies (IIASA 2001). As a consequence more land was expropriated for farming intensifying the poverty and misery of the colonial populations (ISS Undated). White immigration to Mozambique increased rapidly, but many were peasants with few skills or resources who were not able to succeed in agriculture under African condition and they drifted into the town and cities where they competed with blacks and mestiços for jobs (ISS Undated; Rupiya 1998). The effect of all of this was to raise tensions between the races (ISS Undated). The white population increased from 27 000 in 1940 to 97 000 in 1964 (IIASA 2001).

The rise in settler numbers saw greater demands on the part of settlers for decentralization of power to Mozambique and greater say for them in the governance of the territory (ISS Undated). The small community of blacks that had one full citizenship rights favoured investment in healthcare and education for the unassimilated so that they would gradually attain to citizenship (ISS Undated). The deterioration of the situation of peasants gave rise to a variety of milleniumist and traditionalist movements (ISS Undated).

References

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2007, "Mozambique: History", Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Mozambiq.html [opens new window] (accessed 11 Mar 2010).

CRAVINHO, JG 2007 "Mozambique: Recent History" IN Frame, I (ed) Africa South of the Sahara 2008, Europa Publications, 796-801.

CRAWFURD, J 2002 "Mozambique Timeline", [www] http://crawfurd.dk/africa/mozambique_timeline.htm [opens new window] (accessed 11 Mar 2010).

INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTATÍSTICA 1997 "Indicarores Socio-Demogáficos/Socio-Demographic Indictors: Mozambique" IN Recenseamento Geral da População e Habitação 1997.

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS (IIASA) 2001 "Country Briefs: Mozambique - Chronology of History" IN Botswana's future, Mozambique's Future, Namibia's Future: Modeling Population and Sustainable development Challenges in the Era of HIV/AIDS [www] http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/POP/pde/briefs/mz-history.html [opens new window] (accessed 11 Mar 2010).

INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES (ISS) UNDATED "Mozambique: History and Politics", [www] http://www.iss.co.za/af/profiles/Mozambique/Politics.html (offline 11 Mar 2010).

MACAMO, E 2002 "The Denial of Modernity - The Regulation of Native Labour in Colonial Mozambique and its Postcolonial Aftermath", CODESRIA 10th General Assembly, Kampala 8th-12th December, [www] http://www.codesria.org/Archives/ga10/Abstracts%20GA%201-5/colonialism_Macamo.htm (offline 11 Mar 2010).

RUPIYA, M 1998 "Historical context: war and peace in Mozambique" IN Accord, [www] http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/mozambique/historical-context.php [opens new window] (accessed 11 Mar 2010).

SENGULANE, DS & GONCALVES, JP 1998 "A Calling for Peace: Christian Leaders and the Quest for Reconciliation in Mozambique" IN Accord, [www] http://web.archive.org/web/20020419161151/www.c-r.org/accord/acc_moz/sengulane.htm [opens new window] (accessed 11 Mar 2010).

STANFORD, E UNDATED "Culture of MOZAMBIQUE", [www] http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Mozambique.html [opens new window] (accessed 11 Mar 2010).