4. The Pigeon-Hole
His Excellency the Comrade – A Golden Cage – The Black-hole
The letter arrived a few weeks after I had started my studies at Oxford. A stamped envelope, a statement laid neatly in my pigeon-hole message box. The seal: ‘The Embassy of the People’s Republic of Mozambique’. The date: 25 September 1979, four years to the day since independence, and around the time when Joana Simeão would be executed in a ‘Reeducation Camp’ in northern Mozambique. But being unaware of it myself, we have to wait until another occasion.
Surprise breeds skepticism: I checked again to be reassured that it was my own “Pigeon-hole”: a funny term by the way, one of the first of Oxford oddities I learned. The message box was indeed mine, and the letter formally addressed to “Comrade Abel M., Wolfson College, Linton Road, University of Oxford”. The Autumn day was bright, the modern architecture effective at attracting the morning light and heat to further enhance its grandness; and yet, for no reason, I recall having a shivering premonition of an early winter.
The letter summoned us to meeting to take place in a few days in one of London’s hotels. It wasn’t an invitation; I was mandated. Somehow ‘voluntarily’ as in any other ‘flag-waving’ affairs I had seen back home, when workers were transported from their working places to attend political gatherings. His Excellency the Comrade Political Commissar was visiting the Royal Kingdom where he was expecting to meet all Mozambican students. To learn of their challenges, or perhaps to give them a few extra ones, I thought. Yet, if so, I had already enough obligations for a fully-packed academic year if I would ever be able to get a doctoral degree in African Archaeology.
What felt like a ‘wake-up call’ seemed to be a warning flag: ‘scientific socialism’ and patriotism must prevail even if you’re studying at an old beacon of free learning like Oxford. A golden chance to find out his views on how two worlds apart may connect? I suspect he will remind us that the privileged ones must to be made aware of luxuries and responsibilities. As for the poor, may they be blessed: “What else to do, Mother, to avoid insults (…) on Africa’s sensitive heart” as he wrote for the ‘Combat Poetry’ pamphlet (1). Raising the New African child requires not only machine-guns and sickles, but books, preferably revolutionary ones. But still, I thought, even if Nietzsche had reminded us in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra that 'Poets lie too much'… I was puzzled as to the purpose of the meeting.
I had seen how The Comrade Political Commissar would occasionally arrive for his private tutorials at the Center for African Studies: a ‘Balmoral Green’ Range Rover with driver and body guard. I suspect however that he did not have to write essays, let alone be interested in getting a degree from Eduardo Mondlane University. But surely all comparison would end there, to be fair: The Comrade did not need a degree to enlighten a country, and I had been privileged enough to go abroad, thanks to family support, international development aid and political trustworthiness.
The train arrived at London Paddington on time, and the double-decker bus dropped me at The Langham, by the Regent Park. Regent: quite an appropriate location for a meeting with the Comrade Ideological Leader. ‘One of us’, but different: inevitability will make him President one day, I imagine. In a suitable way, the hotel lounge was imposing and the conference room imperial. Room and occasion felt overwhelming, but perhaps he shared one of my own mottos: “It is all about generosity to give back what we receive”. A reassuring thought.
Roughly twenty of us were attending various British universities: humbly, we stood in line, greeting The Comrade as he entered the room, before being seated at a long, long table. A large chair at the top. We had been shyly chatting earlier on among ourselves, wondering what was on the cards. As the sermon unfolded, it became clear that he saw us as the elected few, the lucky lot: much to be expected, plenty to deliver. “Were we, as party members, aware of our duties?” The monologue felt like skillfully aiming to ridicule and we did not dare to ask if he came for our sake.
Life is like an onion: after proper peeling you may enjoy the cooking, but only after shedding tears. We were clearly challenged to a peeling event, I thought. There are many layers of ideological burden, and cross-examination is one of them. Perhaps he was saying that after ‘shedding tears’ other rewards would come our way? That, for a short while, we are lucky to have the chance to mature our cookery? But at the end, beyond academic burden, there will surely be a price to pay. Judging from the haunted faces around the table, there was synchronicity in the thought. For some reason Paul’s words to the Corinthians came to mind: “What do you have that you did not receive? “. Religion and party ideology blend well at times.
Floating thoughts took me away from the room. Sermons were what I was used to, from home to boarding school. Not to mention catechism at Beira’s catholic church where I went as a child (I was baptized there I come to think) ... Is it the neo-gothic architecture or intrusive scents I recall best? The wax from its polish red-tiled floors; or perhaps the ebony benches where we sat? Once I secretly climbed to its long spire, the first time I saw Beira’s unbroken cityscape, listening to pigeon nesting, genuine pigeon-holes. When was it that I realized that bad schooling is about replacing concept with jargon? But come now, back to reality…
Ultimately, the lecture targeting a handful of ‘privileged intellectuals’ was meant to cut open a deliberate wound to better instill fear and guilt: each of us, just as a Shakespearean Caliban, must know that the delight of living in this ‘isle full of noises, sounds and sweet airs ‘ will corrupt… Thus spoke the Political Commissar. The silence that followed echoed his mighty craft, his bewitching voice the proof that in bourgeois academia any windfall apple must be taken suspiciously. All of a sudden it made sense to me why ‘the new is rarely the good, because the good is only the new for a short time’(2): smoke and mirrors.
The Commissar had finished his lecture, which I could compile in two bleak, personal thoughts: although born in a nation one does not acquire existential rights, only their possibility. Would I, and most of us around the table (only one being black), having the benefit of a higher education, will ever be more than a ‘second-rate’ Africans of European or Asian heritage, we who became Mozambicans as a leap of faith? The light was dim, the air was heavier with impending tension. He invited questions. Very few dared, and those who did, failed miserably. There is always a sense of something hidden behind something else, which usually is no coincidence but connection… or disconnection, which was the case. Being there felt wrong: genuine estrangement. Words did not fly well with phrases and phrases were not in tune with true, spontaneous expression. Were we expected to keep a mouthpiece on? Would he understand my question?
Still I dared to raise my hand to enquire if The Commissar would kindly enlighten me as to the fate of comrade Luís B., a member of our Maputo University party cell, disappeared a year ago: rumors indicated he had been sent to a labor camp in Nyassa Province? He had been a dedicated lecturer and colleague… a flare in his eyes made me stop to further elaborate. As if transfixed I heard a spitefully question back: ‘are you asking because he is white?’
Mine was the last question. The night was descending, increasing the thickness of the atmosphere. We saw him leaving with a stiff pace, clearly positive of our allegiance and admiration. Following his shadow, however, I felt my self-imagining a new world crumbling as dreary sand in a black-hole. At least once in a lifetime one should be able to suffer the swift fullness of deceit, in order to avoid a pigeonholed fate (3).
(1) “Poesia de Combate”, Departamento de Trabalho Ideológico, FRELIMO, Maputo 1977: 24.
(2) Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, vol 2: 453, CUP 2015.
(3) Abel’s diary – which inspired this narrative - indicates that when back to Mozambique he returned his party member card, shortly before leaving into exile. The Comrade became the Mozambican President 2005-2015 and lead until 2019 the ‘African Trendy’ ranking of the 10 richest Mozambican citizens, all politicians. In 2020 he was in second position, after the current (as of 2022) President F. Nyusi. Sources: details regarding first-hand information, including international offshore banking assets are available at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10MAPUTO86_a.html ; and secondary social ‘news’ at https://www.plataformamedia.com/en/2020/07/01/filipe-nyusi-is-the-richest-in-mozambique/?lang=en