Imperial Powers and Decolonization: Revolution in the Portuguese Colonies

1. ImperialPowers andDecolonization:Revolution in thePortuguese Colonies March 7 - 11

2. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Be Sure to Read/Re-ReadLecture on Decolonization – Settler Colonies(February 29) -relevant section for this lecture, slides 1-17

3. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Portuguese policy Post-WWII opposite to decolonization everywhere (except South Africa): - colonial policies intensified - large emigration movement encouraged to deal with large numbers of poor, uneducated and unemployed - ‘settlers’ provided with land through program of land alienation from Africans (similar to turn-of- century forcing of Africans off land in Kenya)

4. Decolonization: Settler Colonies New ‘settler regime’ created: but different than late 19th-early 20th century --- | - held mid-20thcentury views of Europe’s Fascist regimes (Germany, Italy): Portugal led by Fascist dictatorship - had strong political (Portuguese) support for repressive policies -- which were enacted!

5. Decolonization: Settler Colonies New ‘settler regime’ created: Strongly Racist| - rejected ‘mixing’ with Africansor mulattoes: (Mulattoes: descendants of generations of Portuguese-African ‘mixed’ marriages) - discriminated against assimilados :(assimilados: Africans adopting Catholicism, speaking Portuguese, moving into middle class)

6. Forced labourcontinued to underpinSettlerEconomy undernew emigration of 1950s. Not until early 1970s was system reformed .

7. Picturefrom 1960scould have been taken 30 or even 40 years earlier!

8. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies What was ‘different’ about armed battle for Independence in Portuguese Colonies? - Reid (Textbook) looks at Decolonization and Independence in terms of ‘negotiated’ versus ‘violent’ methods - problematic: e.g. he counts Kenya among ‘negotiated’ – difficulty for this interpretation being Mau Mau!

9. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Our Approach: distinguish between ‘non-settler’ and ‘settler’ regimes -consistent with Davidson: “Where settlers were many … the road to independence was soaked in blood.” [lecture Feb. 29]

10. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies “... The Road to Independence was soaked with Blood”: violence, armed struggle, war - because of Colonial Resistance ‘that road’ was often taken in the 1960s (even into the 1970s)

11. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Implications Twofold: - coincided with peak of Cold War (next week) which meant that many struggles were defined in terms of that war [evident and important in the Portuguese case but will be developed more in the context of the next few weeks] - necessitated strategies (military, economic) and ideologies to define ‘struggle’ such that its goals – ‘post-colonial society’ – were enough to convince people to give their lives

12. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies What made Portuguese Colonies Different? - recognition that needed African support (and needed foreign economic/military support) could only be acquired by developing a strong Ideology and Strategy for Struggle

13. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies What made Portuguese Colonies Different? - the unique local social/cultural make up: complicated challenges already significant because of (African) ethnic differences - mulattoes and even some assimiladoes did not necessarily ‘side’ with the Portuguese: these were ‘locals’ to be fought over/won over to the cause of Independence

14. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies What made Portuguese Colonies Different? - (therefore): RACE was not at all straightforward - it was not ‘black and white’ as it was in some colonies (e.g. Rhodesias) - required more ‘sophisticated’ concepts: Independence politics, Post-Independence Society -- became divisive issue within movements (e.g. Mozambique’s FRELIMO)

15. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies What made Portuguese Colonies Different? -their history would be one of not only ‘independence’ but ‘new societies’ in Africa -produced major intellectual, political ‘thinkers’:Amical Cabral (Portuguese Guinea) Samora Machel (Mozambique) [see Davidson Video segment, Add’l Rdgs]

16. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Amical Cabral (Portuguese Guinea): • openly questioned ‘real’ aims of imperialist countries (European and American) - in agreeing to African independence in context of emerging Cold War, were they not trying to prevent …

17. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies “…the enlargement of the socialist camp, [to] liberate the reactionary forces in our countries stifled by colonialism, and enable these forces to ally themselves with the international bourgeoisie [middle class].” [from B Davidson, Modern Africa, p.104] [taken from Lecture February 22, context of ‘Decolonization. Also relevant in Lectures on ‘Cold War’]

18. Amical Cabral(Portuguese Guinea)

19. Samora Machel (Mozambique)

20. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Decolonization did not only involve ‘negotiated’ (peaceful) processes and ‘non-negotiated’ (violent) processes [Reid] – it involved instances of real REVOLUTION: ‘process’ underpinned by ideological goals differing significantly and (in context of Cold War), confrontationally from values, economics, politics of former colonial power And as Davidson points out: not only was Portugal Western and Capitalist – but Fascist

21. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Video:Basil Davidson “Africa: Rise of Nationalism”[34:18 - 45:10]

22. Revolution: Portuguese Colonies Between 1961-63: political struggle became armed warfare in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and Angola

23. Revolution: Mozambique

24. Revolution: Mozambique Liberation forces FRELIMO: - central issue: how to unify? - Mozambique large, many ethnic groups, languages (in addition to ‘settler’ issues) - central divide: Zambesi River (created a distinct North and South) Leader Eduardo Mondelane: used Socialist ideology, Portuguese language (ironically) to address divisions

25. Rhodesia SouthAfrica

26. Revolution: Mozambique Portuguese reactions: - colonial power infiltrated liberation groups with informers - 1969: Mondelano assassinated [referenced in Davidson Video] - revealed and exacerbated internal FRELIMO ‘divisions’

27. Revolution: Mozambique Not All Mozambicans Favoured Independence Won by War: Mondelano’s Death Split FRELIMO - right wing: work with Portuguese, seek more opportunities • - left wing: full-scale social revolution, anti- colonial war Left wing emerged predominant: Samora Machel new FRELIMO leader

28. Battle against Colonialism, not ‘whites’ per se. Battle for Independence and ‘new society’.

29. Revolution: Mozambique FRELIMO strength principally in south, heavily rural areas - (mostly) opposed in north - taking large northern province of Tete, major victory [see Video and Machel’s explanation as to why Tete was so important]

30. Mozambique Rhodesia SouthAfrica

31. Revolution: Mozambique - allowed FRELIMO to cross Zambesi - position also allowed for attacks on critical Beira railroad: - railroad led to Rhodesia - transported materials for CaboraBassa Dam

32. BEIRA

33. Revolution: Mozambique Cabora Bassa Dam: - project funded by South Africa, various European countries - aim: to provide electricity to South African gold mines [more on South Africa later in the course] - huge international significance

34. Revolution: Mozambique Cabora Bassa Dam: - project employed many 1000s Africans - target (symbolic and real) of FRELIMO’s struggle - FRELIMO strategies effective

35. Cabora BassaDam: workersin the canteen.Differences between African service(top) , ‘Whites’(below)evidence of new racism.Whites paid up to 6X more than Blacks.

36. FRELIMO successful bombing,derailing trains on Beirarailroad.Disrupteddelivery supplies toCabora Bassa Dam; Rhodesia.

37. ‘’

38. FRELIMO in pictures: challenges, goals reflected in photos - taken by Canadian journalist ‘on the ground’ - publicized in Canada and West more generally Important not just as historical evidence but as insight into what was influencing international campaign at the time

39. Supplies had to be carriedoverland; ittook weeksto transportneeded goodsto the Frontlines.

40. Tactics: basic guerilla warfare

41. ‘Liberated Areas’: collective agricultural projectsundertaken for subsistence and export.

42. In all ‘Liberated Territories’ schools educatedthose‘cheated bycolonialism’.

44. Liberation Armies developed own textbooks.

46. Revolution: Mozambique Impact on Metropole: - Portugal drained by costs of war - early 1970s, almost half national budget spent on colonial wars in Africa - no development taking place in Portugal itself - young men migrating to France (and elsewhere) in search of work

47. Revolution: Mozambique Portuguese Military: - national military often seen as ‘way out’ for poor with no education, few skills, no future - Portuguese army no exception - but… war affecting recruitment of young men who had any other choice’ (including out- migration to France): problem • - draft (military conscription) enacted

48. Revolution: Mozambique Many appalled by reality of wars in Africa:- 1970s, pictures (like following) distributed internationally [part of same series by Canadian journalist cited above] - tactics of guerilla war when seen ‘up close in photos’ put new image on argument of ‘protecting overseas provinces’No longer military recruitment but army ‘on-the-ground’ desertions became major problem.