Malangatana e a máquina de guerra: ultracolonialismo português e estratégias de resistência

Abstract

When addressing the work of an artist such as Malangatana Valente Ngwenya - and a representative part of Mozambican writers such as José Craveirinha, Luis Bernardo Honwana and Noêmia de Sousa - one must take into account the socioeconomic context of Mozambique during the 1930- 1960, under Portuguese colonial rule. Although the Lusitanian presence in the region dates back to the 15th century and although the independence of the colony occurred only in 1975, it is throughout these three decades of the twentieth century that the same system will reach the peak of the process of economic exploitation and social repression, , therefore, as the maximum representation of the Portuguese colonial effort; process that defines the legacy of war and material poverty that will mark the post-independence period; and a mechanism that, by its own brutality, will generate the opposing forces that will contribute to its end, including by the armed struggle, from 1961 - the year of the emergence of the Liberation Front of Mozambique - FRELIMO