Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Revisionism in Postcolonial Africa: the case of Mozambique, 1975–1994 (review)

Following Mozambique’s independence, the Frelimo regime embarked on a crusade against local-level authorities and, according to official discourse, the countryside was the scene of a revolutionary rupture. In reality Frelimo struggled to implement its dissolution of chiefly hierarchies and, as documented in this book, not only often overlooked their survival but also, at times, encouraged it. This, of course, is already widely accepted within Mozambican studies, but Dinerman starts where the other observers leave off, by unveiling the rationale underpinning Frelimo’s discourse: this identifies the demise of chiefly rule as a leading, if not the leading cause of the country’s post-independence crisis. All the more intriguing is the fact that, while endorsing what Dinerman calls the ‘myth of revolutionary rupture’, Frelimo publicly apologized for an error that never really materialized.

The book recounts the complex evolution of the relationship between the state and rural authority in post-independence Mozambique, with a focus on Namapa District (Nampula Province) where this relationship was particularly contentious. In doing so, it presents a provocative analysis of memory practices adopted by Frelimo, namely the mnemonic revision it undertook in the late 1980s with regard to the retraditionalization of local-level administration. The first half of the book examines the context for the 1975–87 and 1987–94 periods, while carefully building a case for the argument. Dinerman documents Frelimo’s failed attempt to do away with chiefly rule by demonstrating continuities. She further departs from the revisionist literature, which sees in the reinstatement of traditional authorities a sign of Frelimo’s submission to Renamo, by arguing that the shift was first and foremost an attempt to restore colonial labour practices (Chapter 3). She then discusses the ways in which this apparent transformation was justified to the population in Nampula, and addresses the local political struggles that arose from this policy shift (Chapters 5 and 6).

The last two chapters focus more specifically on Frelimo’s memory practices and delve into the reasons why the ‘myth of revolutionary rupture’ proved so unyielding in the early 1990s. According to Dinerman’s findings, the myth allowed Frelimo to address its legitimacy crisis by narrowing it down to a single cause and by calling for a straightforward solution, retraditionalization – which, as she argues, promised to please most actors, especially foreign donors. By the same token, it enabled Frelimo to gloss over the party’s other misguided policies, namely its (forced) resettlement project, along with Renamo’s influence in provoking policy shifts. And although the socio-political levelling thesis was truer to local exegeses of the late 1980s power vacuum, recognizing this interpretation would have forced the party to take stock of its now abandoned egalitarianism, and of the social mobility of its officials. The myth conveniently deflected attention from this dimension while also emphasizing Frelimo’s revolutionary origins. In short, the myth’s appeal lay in its power to act as a ‘screen’ by simultaneously concealing selected aspects of the past, and providing a ‘canvas’ onto which the country’s history could be ‘projected’ (p. 224).

In this long-awaited book, Dinerman develops some of the arguments presented in her 1994 Journal of Southern African Studies article. This time around, however, she is much more composed, and it is not so much the late Christian Geffray who is targeted (after all, her socio-historical portrait of the Namapa region relies heavily on his work), but the whole revisionist school, and the way it paradoxically remains trapped into/by Frelimo’s own discourse. Dinerman succeeds in making sense out of what appear to be disjointed practices. In doing so, she paints an image of Frelimo as being a lot less candid than the revisionists would have us believe (Chapter 8). Deplorably missing from the analysis, however, is the role of religious authorities in rural political dynamics – an omission Dinerman herself acknowledges but is unable to justify convincingly...