It’s clear that this story, which is sadly true, cannot be repeated nowadays in the same form. But I’ll leave you to consider for yourselves parallels with occurrences in our part of the South, in Africa, in the World. Apprentice witch doctors still construct messianic prophecies and tragically drag whole peoples along with them towards suffering and despair.
Our continent runs the risk of becoming a forgotten territory, of secondary interest to the strategists of global integration. When I say “forgotten,” you will think I’m referring to the attitude of the great powers. But I’m referring to our own elites who have turned their backs on their responsibilities towards their own people, to the way their predatory behaviour helps denigrate our image and injures the dignity of all Africans. The discourse of most of our politicians is made up of banalities, incapable of illuminating the complex state of our countries and our peoples. Shallow demagoguery continues to replace the search for solutions. The ease with which dictators take possession of the destinies of entire nations is something that should alarm us. The ease with which present mistakes are explained by blaming the past should worry us all. It’s true that corruption and the abuse of power are not, as some would have it, exclusive to our continent. But the space we afford tyrants for manipulation is astonishing. We urgently need to curb the opportunities for the exercise of vanity, arrogance and impunity among those who grow rich through robbery. We urgently need to redefine the premises upon which our management models are predicated, and which exclude those who live outside the sphere of literacy and on the periphery of European logic and rationality.
We Mozambicans are living through a very particular moment of our history, with some perplexity. Until this point, Mozambique believed it could dispense with a radical interpretation of its very foundations. The Mozambican nation gained an epic sense of itself in its struggle against external forces. Hell was always elsewhere, the enemy was beyond its borders. It was Ian Smith, apartheid, imperialism. In the end, the country did what we all do in our everyday lives: we invent monsters in order to unsettle ourselves. But monsters also serve to placate us. We feel at ease knowing that they dwell outside us. Suddenly, the world has changed and we are forced to seek our demons within our own home. The enemy, the worst of our enemies, was always within us. We have discovered this simple truth and we are left alone with our own ghosts. And that has never happened to us before.
This is a moment of bleakness and despair. But it may also be a moment of growth. Confronted with our most deeply felt vulnerabilities, we must create a new vision, invent other utterances, attempt different scriptures. We are ever more alone in our historic responsibility to create another History. We cannot beg the world for another image. We cannot persist in an attitude of appeal. The only solution is to continue the long, hard journey towards conquering a place of which we and our nation are worthy. And that place can only be the product of our own creation.
Talk given to the Association of
Mozambican Economists, Maputo, August, 2003.
Our Poor Rich People
The greatest misfortune for a poor country is that, instead of producing wealth, it produces rich people. But rich people without wealth. In fact, it would be better to call them moneyed rather than rich: a rich person is one who possesses the means of production. A rich person is someone who generates money and provides jobs. A moneyed person is someone who quite simply has some cash. Or rather, he thinks he has. For, in reality, it’s the cash that has him.
The truth is this: our rich are too poor. What they have, they don’t hold on to. Worse still, that which they exhibit as being theirs is the property of others. It’s the product of robbery and sharp practice. Yet, our moneyed friends are unable to enjoy all they have stolen in peace and quiet. They live obsessed by the possibility that they may be robbed. They would need a police force of an appropriate standard. But a police force of an appropriate standard would throw them all in jail. They would need a social order in which there were few reasons to pursue crime. But if they have grown rich, it is precisely thanks to this same disorder.
The biggest dream of our new-rich in the end is quite smalclass="underline" a luxury car, a bit of temporary bling. But the luxury car cannot have too many dreams of its own, as it is shaken by the potholes of the city thoroughfares. A Mercedes or a BMW can’t make full use of its lustre, as it busily swerves to avoid the very convex buses along very concave roads. The existence of good roads would depend upon another type of wealth. A wealth that might serve the city. And the wealth of our new-rich originated in an opposing trend: the impoverishment of our city and our society.
The luxury houses of our false rich are designed less for living and more for being seen. They were built for the eyes of those passing by. But as they exhibit themselves in this way, full of frills and showing off, they end up attracting the greed of outsiders. No matter how many guards they may have at the door, our poor-rich cannot escape the fear of envy and the spells and curses that this envy invites. The solemn grandeur of their residences doesn’t make them immune. Our poor little rich people!
They are like a glass of draft beer. They are poured in an instant, but they’re mostly froth. Anything real that’s left belongs to the glass rather than the content. They could raise livestock or grow vegetables. But no. Instead, our moneyed friends, poured out on tap, create lovers. But these lovers (whether female or male) are a source of serious inconvenience: they need to be maintained with expensive gifts. The biggest snag, however, is the absence of any product guarantee. Someone’s lover today may be another’s tomorrow. The collector of lovers finds no peace of mind: whoever has betrayed, may be betrayed.
Our hurriedly assembled moneyed classes don’t feel comfortable in their own skins. They dream of being Americans, South Africans. They aspire to be others, far removed from their origins, their condition. And so there they are imitating others, assimilating the foibles of the really rich, from places that are really rich. But our aspiring entrepreneurs aren’t even capable of resolving the most basic dilemma: why they can buy appearances, but they cannot buy the respect and affection of others. Those others who see them parading their barely explained luxuries. Those others who recognize within them the translation of a lie. Our moneyed elite isn’t an elite: it’s a distortion, a hasty imitation.
The struggle for national liberation was guided by a moral principle: it was not intended to substitute an exploiting elite with another one, even if it was of a different racial composition. They didn’t want a mere change of shift among oppressors. Today, we are on the threshold of a decision: who are we going to play in the race for development? Is it these people who are going to represent us on the field known as “the struggle for progress”? Our new-rich (who can’t even explain where their money came from) have already picked themselves for the squad, anxious to take their turn in pillaging the country. They are national representatives, but only in appearance. For they’re prepared to be the servants of others, of foreigners. As long as these others promise them reward enough, they’ll end up selling off the little we have left.
Some of our moneyed elites are not far removed from the kids who ask to look after our cars. Our aspirants for power ask to look after the country. The donating community can go shopping or go and have a relaxed lunch, safe in the knowledge that the elite will look after the nation.