2. It Was the Best of Times

In the memory of Joana Simeão (1937 -?)

The Expiring Empire – Sowing a Destiny – Darkness at Dawn

Not many had seen Joana before the live television interview broadcasted in May 1974 (1), at a time when the Portuguese colonial empire was in shambles. Not too many saw her alive thereafter. On the former event - easier to examine considering that truth blooms in the open - I briefly comment below. As for the latter, it is a bitter tale to tell, and we have to wait until a later occasion. Be that as it may: both public and hidden circumstances were revealed to me by a dear friend, as fitting examples of how political wisdom often spins into tragedy.

I met Father Ezequiel Gwembe in 1980 when we were both at Oxford. My tutor, Professor Ray Inskeep told me about the ‘other Mozambican’ I hadn’t heard of, studying anthropology at Campion Hall. I later ran into this man during a reception held at Wolfson College where I resided. A joyful, charismatic and secular figure, Ezequiel and I, Abel, quickly became friends. If not for other reasons, empathy sprouted from both having attended the same Jesuit School and grown out of the same Zambezian cradle, him in Tete, me in Beira. A decade older than me, Ezequiel conveyed the solid fabric of Jesuit learning I had tested during my brief stay at boarding school nearby Porto in northern Portugal. Knowing well how hard Jesuit discipline is, it surprised me how unorthodox he was. Ezequiel had humor and profane irreverence that suddenly would shift into spiritual wisdom and sobriety. There is very little capable of subduing a joyful African soul: in Ezequiel I saw the sparkle of the scarlet light dawning West over the tail end of the Rift Valley, the immemorial drumming, dancing and story-telling around the open fire. A reminiscence of my own hearth.

There’s hardly as interesting a trait as a scholar’s bookcase: Ezequiel’s kept in his room more of Margaret Mead than Claude Meillassoux, and more of both than Gnostic literature. Hearing him, pragmatism and Marxism were at odds: I reminded him of William James words, echoing many before him: ‘Sow an action, and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny’… and amusingly noted that, although recognizing the importance of habit, I never saw him wearing one (meaning the other ‘habit’, the religious Jesuit outfit). Ezequiel had been utterly reserved on his political views until hearing my concern and dissent as to where Mozambique was heading to. That day he lent me a prerecorded videotape to watch. In its label he had written ‘Joana’s interview, May 1974. Sixteen Minutes’.

I understood later that this was his way of challenging me with the stigma I had once rejected. Resident in Mozambique during most of the decade of the colonial struggle (1964-74), I held a southerner view of the April 1974 revolution. Ignoring details concerning pre-independence political conflicts among national leaders and parties, I had vaguely heard of Joana Simeão as a Frelimo political prisoner put away shortly after independence somewhere in Northern Mozambique. Joana and others branded as ‘reactionaries’ (namely Gwenjere and Simango) had been sent to ‘reeducation’ camps, and were allegedly alive. Ezequiel hinted otherwise: we would talk later, but I should perhaps look at her interview as her last legacy. On hindsight, I didn’t clearly understand what he meant. At the time I was suffering from a mild variant of intellectual ‘Stockholm syndrome’: after being free from the old colonial authority, by way of compensation, I had found trust from another faith, Frelimo’s faith.

Here are my observations, as I noted during my screening of the videotape: the 2nd of May 1974, one week after the military revolution in Lisbon, Joana is interviewed by the Portuguese National Television. A worried-looking, restrained journalist, impeccably dressed in a blazer and tie, black-rimmed glasses, unemotionally introduces ‘Dr Joana Simeão’ and reminds spectators how politically complex is the ‘Mozambican situation’ (… as if Portugal had no responsibility in its causes and effects, I wonder). What will be Joana’s leading role as part of a new democratic pressure-group, he asks?

Joana has attractive and graceful features, looking younger than her mid-thirties. The cameraman slowly zooms on her figure, dressed in a white dress pairing well with a darker and elegant African turban. Her responses are sensible, well-worded, and firm: in view of the war-fatigue, particularly in the last couple of years, her group has been in contact with a few liberal politicians from the old regime aiming to achieve a peaceful, democratic transition to independence. Such were principles their Group advocate at local meetings, at times ‘gathering over 20 thousand people’, unfortunately not welcomed by some ‘individuals’ (meaning Frelimo supporters). She does however recognize that Frelimo, as the only military opposition, should take the lead in many ways. The journalist asks what is her view on such leadership (she smiles somehow disconcerted). Her group recognizes the need to step back as far as formal independence negotiations go, she says. Although not having a direct contact with Frelimo, she and her group advocate a constructive, democratic role, which all Mozambicans should be allowed to partake. And to that effect, a few days ago, during the ‘World Peace Congress’ in Paris, she expressed such a desire to a Frelimo delegate.

Joana comes forward as an emotional and intellectual pragmatic person. A humanist, in a nutshell, to whom nothing has yet been proved in times of historical prophecy and collective dogma. She naively asks questions ‘beyond ideology’, as she put it: which economic and political systems and foreign policies will be implemented? How to bring together all different ethnical groups? How to preserve valuable industrial infrastructure and technical know-how? The journalist enquires whether in her view there is no danger for the country to be partitioned among different interests before Joana replying that ‘Balkanization’ is precisely what should be avoided. Peace must be preserved at any cost. She repeats it with yearning ‘Yes, peace at last!’, adding that a referendum to assure the choosing of a democratic future for all must follow.

To finalize the program, the journalist, reading aloud from breaking news delivered in hand, reports that “Frelimo will start tomorrow in Lusaka negotiations with Portuguese representatives” to discuss the terms for Mozambique’s independence. I see Joana with a startled face, leaning towards the piece of paper in the journalist’s hand, forming a broad smile, before loudly cheering the message and its messenger with a ‘Bravo!’

My annotations end with a scribbled question surely inspired by the recollection of an agonizing account recently read, set in an unnamed country ruled by totalitarianism (2): Darkness at Dawn?

1 https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/entevista-a-joana-simeao/: In April 1975, shortly before independence, Joana Simeão, a few other democratic leaders and over three hundred prisoners were last seen locked up in Nachingwea, a Frelimo Military Camp in Tanzanian. It is presumed that they were arbitrarily executed sometime afterwards when sent back to northern Mozambique (‘M'Telela Reeducation Camp’), their bodies never retrieved, their fate remaining virtually unknown. More at Cabrita J.M. (2000) M’telela — The Last Goodbye. In: Mozambique. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333977385_19

2 Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, Jonathan Cape, 1940.