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Race Relations in Mozambique

J. L. Ribeiro Torres

INTRODUCTION

A considerable amount has been writtenduring the last two decades about race rela-tions in Brazil, in Portugal's African territoriesand her other overseas possessions. Twoschools of thought have emerged: the one sub-scribing to the view that the Portuguese in theirrelations with peoples of colour, have adoptedwhat could be called, roughly, a non-racialapproach; the other school maintains that thePortuguese were, and are, even worse racialiststhan other Western European colonialists.

To the former belong Brazilians like Gil-berto Freyre, Portuguese like Jorge Dias,Americans and Englishmen like Abshire,Samuels, Egerton and Welch, To the latter,amongst the most prominent are Basil David-son, C. R. Boxer, Marvin Harris, Duffy, Chil-cote, Easton, the late Eduardo Mondlanc,Amilcar Cabral and other leaders of anti-Portuguese guerilla forces in Guinea, Angolaand Mozambique.

In the following paper I shall try to main-tain a balance between these two extremes;while presenting at first the official Portugueseview of race relations I shall also try to relatethis to what I have actually observed at firsthand in Portugal, Angola and Mozambique.Particular emphasis, however, will be placed onrace relations in Mozambique since this is the

area where I have been studying race relationsduring periodic visits over the last eight years.

The approach adopted in this paper is,broadly speaking, the ethnomethodological ap-proach as outlined by Alfred Schutz in his twoessays 'Common-sense and Scientific Interpre-tation of Human Action' and 'Concept andTheory Formation in the Social Sciences.'1Thus, for me in my observations, it has beenimportant to know and understand the socio-cultural environment in which these social re-lations take place as well as the meaning thatthe actors themselves attach to their actions. Inother words, it is both as actor and observerthat my study has been carried out. My quali-fications for so doing are that 1 am of mixedethno-cultural origin; Portuguese and Englishwere my 'home languages', and I have no diffi-culty in playing the role of a typical English-speaking South African, or of a typical Portu-guese from Portugal or from Mozambique.It has taken no great talent nor any particularinsight to be well aware of the fundamentaldifferences that separate what Schutz calls 'the'common-sense constructs of the reality of dailylife' as they appear to a Portuguese and to anEnglishman.

PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM

Most Portuguese are genuinely shocked andpuzzled when they are accused in the United

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Nations by spokesmen of the O.A.U. andvarious political leaders of Black Africa ofbeing racists. Colonialists, maybe, but racists,never! That is the general view. A number ofBritish and American academics have alsoexpressed the view that the Portuguese are justas racially prejudiced as any other Europeans,only somehow they seem to be able to dis-guise their prejudices or express them in a moresubtle way than other peoples.

But before attempting to deal with race re-lations in a specific area, it would be advisableto point out that this problem can be examinedin different ways, historically, psychologically,and sociologically. There is also the scientificstudy of races from the genetic, physical an-thropological and biological point of view; butas we are only concerned with the relationsbetween people of different races within thecontext of socio-economic situations, the de-tailed morphological characteristics of differ-ent human beings will not concern us, exceptincidentally.

While it is patently absurd for the Portu-guese to claim that race prejudice of any kindor form can never be found among them, itis equally absurd to accuse the governments ofPortugal and her overseas provinces of Angola,Guinea and Mocambique of being 'racist' re-gimes in the same way as the Republic ofSouth Africa admits to being. By racist I meanthat the racial differences of various com-munities are taken into account in grantingpolitical rights and social status and economicprivileges within a particular society.

There has never been any formal legaldiscrimination against black people in Portu-guese Africa, such as has existed in nearly allBritish colonies and in South Africa. That isnot to say that differential treatment wasnot meted out to Africans when a formal dis-tinction was made between subjects and citizensunder the 'Estatuto dos Indigenas'2 but, forexample, all government schools in these ter-ritories have always been integrated, despiteall claims to the contrary by some critics ofthe Portuguese. There are no separate entrancesfor Whites or Blacks to public buildings, nospecial benches for Whites, all public transportis integrated, as are all places of entertainment,benches, parks and public conveniences.

There are no official prohibitions againstmarriage or extra-marital sex between Whiteand Black such as exist in South Africa. One

only has to move from Durban or Johannes-burg to Lourenco Marques or Beira for a fewdays to realise that race relations in SouthAfrica and Mocambique are very different. Thequestion is, how different? And how can thesedifferences be discussed in the light of moderntheories of race relations?

It is a generally accepted proposition thata colonial situation produces a colour line, thatis, a division between colonizer and colonizedthat invariably places the colonized in a sub-ordinate position. It is generally assumed byAnglo-Saxon (British and American) as wellas French sociologists and Africanists, that thiscolonial situation and its colour line mustinevitably lead to conflict between colonizersand colonized. Therefore, multi-racial societiesmust perforce be plural societies, and in timesof crisis they consist of groups with no realbonds between them which must, under strain,disintegrate into their component ethnic parts.

The Portuguese do not subscribe to thisview. They still believe that a colonial situationcan, given the right circumstances, develop intoa multiracial integrated society under the um-brella of a commonly shared cultural and reli-gious tradition. This, they point out, is whathappened in Brazil after the abolition ofslavery, and this they maintain is what theirpolicies are designed to bring about in Angolaand Mocambique. According to the late DrSalazar:

These contacts [with coloured peoples]. . . have never involved the slightest ideaof superiority or racial discrimination. . . I think I can say that the distinguish-ing feature of Portuguese Africa — not-withstanding the concentrated effortsmade in many quarters to attack it byword as well as action — is the primacywhich we have always attached and willalways continue to attach to the en-hancement of the value and of the dig-nity of man without distinction ofcolour or creed, in the light of the prin-ciples of the civilization we carried tothe peoples who were in every way dis-tant from ourselves.3

Similarly, in the preamble to a decreeabolishing the special Statute for the Nativesof Angola, Guinea and Mocambique, we findthe following statement:

The heterogeneous composition of thePortuguese people, their traditional

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community and patriarchal structure,and the Christian ideal of brotherhoodwhich was always the base of our over-seas expansion early defined our reactionto other societies and cultures andstamped it from the beginning, with amarked respect for the manners andcustoms of the people we encountered.4

While agreeing with Boxer that 'the truthwas more complex, and that race relations inthe old Portuguese colonial empire did notinvariably present such a picture of harmoniousintegration as the foregoing quotations wouldimply',5 there still remains the problem of ac-counting for the fundamentally different at-titudes towards people of colour manifested bythe Portuguese and Spaniards in Africa, Asiaand the Americas, as compared to those dis-played by Englishmen and other WesternEuropeans in these areas.

It must be remembered that race attitudesand race relations are not static phenomena;attitudes and behaviour patterns change bothin time and space, and it is quite ridiculous toexpect to find, as Boxer obviously does, a rigidadherence of precept to practice in such acomplex field of human relations. For example,significant differences have occured in theevolution of race relations in Angola andMocambique. The background from which themajority of Angolan settlers have been drawnhas contributed to these differences; the factthat the majority of Whites in Mocambiqueuntil the 1950s were either oflicials or couldbe classed as a type of remittance man from theupper classes, is also important. Then there hasbeen the proximity of South Africa and Rho-desia to Mocambique which has strongly in-fluenced the local people and made them farmore race conscious than their Angolan coun-terparts. Despite this, however, consciousnessof skin colour as an important differentiatingfactor in human relations is only to be foundamong certain groups of Portuguese in Mocam-bique. It has never become part of officialgovernment policy,

Raymond Kennedy in the 'Colonial Crisisand the Future* says:

While social, economic and political con-ditions vary in the colonies of the differ-ent powers, and even between thecolonies of the same emp're in mostcases, and although there are variationsin policies, all the dependent areas mani-

fest certain common characteristicswhich may be termed the universaltraits of colonialism. The only markedinstance of deviation from the generalpattern is the Philippines, for here,during the forty odd years of Americancontrol, a rapid evolution away fromcolonial status has occurred . . .The first of the universal traits of colo-nialism is the colour line. In every de-pendent territory a true caste divisionexists, with the resident white popula-tion separated from the native masses bya social barrier that is virtually impass-able. The colour line, indeed, is thefoundation of the entire colonial system,for on it is built the whole social, econo-mic and political structure. All the rela-tionships between the racial groups arethose of super-ordination and sub-ordination, of superiority and inferior-ity. There is no mistaking this patternfor one of mere segregation, or separa-tion with equality. The colour line ishorizontal, so to speak, and cuts acrossevery colonial society in such a way asto leave the natives in the lower stratumand the whites in the upper.Even in the case of the one non-whiteimperialistic power, Japan, the represen-tatives of the ruling nation occupy anupper-caste position, which is supportedby a concept of racial superiority, al-though for practical purposes the Japan-ese have played up solidarity of thedarker races against white domination.Throughout the colonies, we find asystem of group discrimination andsubordination, and natives are judgedand treated, not on the basis of indivi-dual worth or ability, but as membersof an undifferentiated group. Althoughother elements are involved, the heartof the colonial problem is the nativeproblem, and the native problem is aracial or caste problem.5

Kennedy lists four other traits that are worthmentioning:

Political control by the possessing power,leaving the natives little or no share inthe government of their homelands.Economic dependence upon and controlby the mother country.The lack of social contacts between

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natives and the ruling caste.A very low stage of development ofsocial services, especially education.There is no doubt that Kennedy's neat

little model of colonialism fits all colonialsituations, but his first characteristic, the colourline does not apply fully to the situation inPortuguese Africa. In fact, it was on readingthis article in 1946, that my interest in thesubject was aroused and I have tried ever sinceto come to grips with the reasons for themarked difference in race attitudes of thePortuguese when contrasted with those ofEnglishmen, Belgians or even Italians andFrenchmen.

RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The Portuguese are of very mixed ethnicorigin. This is something that all critics of thePortuguese agree upon. It is my consideredopinion, based on first hand observation overa number of years, that this fact has helpedto a considerable extent to lower amongst mostPortuguese, the consciousness of colour as animportant differentiating factor in human re-lations. Although class distinctions are muchclearer in Portuguese society than they are inSouth Africa or Rhodesia, for example, a castesituation has never developed in any Portu-guese dominated territory. There is ample his-torical evidence that numbers of the indigenouspeoples, be they Africans, Mulattos, Moors,Chinese, South American Indians, or whatAmericans call East Indians, have, from theearliest days of contact, right up to the presenttime, been accepted as equals and assimilatedinto all levels of Portuguese society. Admittedlythey may only represent a fraction of the totalof so-called coloured people under Portugueserule, but one of the characteristics of Portu-guese and Spanish, and thus Iberian culture, isits emphasis on individual relations and itsneglect of the group as a social phenomenon.This comes out very clearly in the novels ofEca de Queiroz, Vicente Blasco Ibaficz, theBrazilians Machado de Assis and GeorgeAmado, and the essays of Jose Ortega y Gassetand Miguel de Unanamo.

The anthropologist, Jorge Dias, in an articleon the Portuguese character makes the follow-ing points:

The Portuguese man is, above all, pro-foundly humane and kind-hearted with-out being weak. He does not like to

make others suffer and he avoids con-flicts, but when ill-treated and hurt inhis pride he may become violent andeven cruel . . . The Portuguese havean enormous capacity to adapt them-selves to all situations, beings and ideas,without this meaning, however, anylessening of their character. It was thisfeature that permitted them to main-tain always that attitude of tolerancewhich gave the Portuguese colonizationa special and unmistakable aspect:assimilation by adaptation . . . The Por-tuguese, led by healthy instinct mixedwith the various populations of theworld and contributed highly to racialfusion. It was from the free exercise ofthis impulse that leads him to considermen as his equals and makes him lovewomen of all colours that was born thegreat Brazilian nation which surprisesthe world by its unique harmony ofhuman living. A similar miracle occursin some overseas provinces and is on theverge of taking place in others. Thatwhich we did, led by our natural ten-dencies and impelled by our hearts, thatmany criticised, and still do, is now-adays being justified by science.7

It is rather ironical that the Portuguese,who, for the last 150 years have been pilloriedin the writings of many English and Germantravellers and historians for their lack of 'racialpride', in mingling their blood so freely withthat of so-called 'lower coloured races' such asAfricans, Indians and heathen 'chinee', arenow being accused of not having mingledenough, and of being not only culturallyarrogant but racists as well! Some of theircritics still believe that the Portuguese haveno real claim to call themselves 'Europeans'but are in fact a 'coloured race'. The declineand fall of their Eastern Empire and their eco-nomic backwardness have often been attributedby Portuguese, as well as foreign historians,to a kind of national degeneration which theyregard as being a natural consequence of un-bridled miscegenation!

Portuguese relations with other races pre-sent us with a complex and a confusing picture.Historically, they can best be studied as theydeveloped in Brazil. Philip Mason, in his am-bitious work, Patterns of Dominance, describesthe two different approaches to race relations

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in Brazil, represented by Gilberto Freyre onthe one hand, and Marvin Harris, CharlesWagley and Pierre van der Berghe on theother. It would appear that more recent re-searches indicate the presence of an increas-ing degree of racial tension and racialawareness, particularly in the State of SaoPaulo and the more industrialized areas ofBrazil. These later findings have been takenas positive proof of the inaccuracy of Freyre'sinterpretation of Brazilian society. I am con-vinced, however, that much of the criticism ofFreyre's work is based on a misunderstandingof his aims and his methodology. Now thatParts II and III of his major work, Sobrados eMucambos and Ordem e Progress'o, are avail-able in English, a reading of the Introductionto Sobrados e Mucambos' (which could be trans-lated as 'Town House and Slum') would clearup many misunderstandings.

Gilberto Freyre never expected his inter-pretation of the formation of Brazilian societyto be accepted as the last word on the subject.Neither did he claim that it would be validfor all parts of Brazil. Regional differencesare so marked in climate, ethnic compositionand economic development that this wouldbe impossible. My own first impression onreading 'The Masters and the Slaves', whichshould, of course, have been translated as'Plantation Home and Slave Quarters', wasthat this kind of study should be made of otherareas where plantation slavery had existed, suchas the American Deep South, the Caribbeanand even South Africa where race hasbecome such an important factor in humanrelations. Unfortunately, it would be impossibleto make such a study in those areas, exceptpossibly the West Indies. I can just imaginethe furore that such a study would arouse inSouth Africa or the U.S.A. The author wouldinevitably be tarred and feathered, possiblyeven lynched, and he could look forward toa few petrol bombs being thrown through hiswindows, and his wife and children beingthreatened or even assaulted, in true indivi-dualistic democratic style.

Yet Freyre mentions names of prominentBrazilians and their families who had slaveancestry; he gives genealogical details thatwould be suppressed in any English-speakingcountry, for obvious reasons. Most English-men like to think of their ancestors havingled pure celibate lives while shouldering the

burdens of Empire; men like these could notpossibly be a prey to the same ungovernablelusts as dagoes and foreigners. But the Portu-guese, although they also turn a blind eye tomany aspects of social reality, that is, the waypeople actually behave in contrast to how theyare supposed to, or imagine themselves to be-have, have a different approach. For example,only recently a magazine published in LourencoMarques suggested that the house where Mou-zinho de Albuquerque, a national hero, livedwith his coloured girl friend when he was HighCommissioner for Mozambique, should bepreserved as a national monument. Not ironic-ally, with the intention of embarrassing hisdescendants or tarnishing his reputation, aswould be the case if Mouzinho had been aSouth African, an Englishman, an American,or a Rhodesian, but in all seriousness sincethis episode in Mouzinho's life is an integralpart of the history of Lourenco Marques andcitizens of this city like to know, and are en-titled to know, what happened in the early days.

In other words, I suggest that this differencein attitude reflects the fundamental differencebetween Anglo-Saxons and Portuguese in theirview of the individual and his role in society.The Anglo-Saxon has always felt that a leader'sprivate life was intimately bound up with,and reflected on, his public performance andreputation. The fall from grace of Parnell be-cause of his 'immoral' life, the obscurity ofVeblen, for his 'irregular' sex life, are twoexamples that spring to mind, not to mentionothers such as Oscar Wilde and Profumo.

Portuguese society does not have this view.A very clear distinction has always been madebetween a man's role as a public figure andas a private individual. His private frailties arenot held to detract from his public reputation.Thus, it was possible for a President of Portu-gal to live for most of his life 'in sin', as it were,with his female servant, and for her to joinhis legitimate widow in mourning at his grave-side. Everyone knew this, but I never heardanyone suggest that for this reason he shouldresign as unfit to hold such high public oilice.I could not imagine such a situation beingopenly tolerated in Britain or South Africa,even in these days of the 'permissive society'.

It would not surprise me to discover thatmany Brazilian and foreign critics of GilbertoFreyre never bothered to read his work pro-perly. In his first volume, he spares neither the

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'masters nor the slaves', nor the Indians. Hedescribes them all in the round, with all theirvirtues and their vices. The Portuguese settlersand pioneers, in particular, are described withno atom of sentimentality.

In his chapter on the Portuguese, GilbertoFreyre makes the point, that is repeated in asomewhat sentimental and idealized way in thepassage quoted from Jorge Dias, that is, thatthe Portuguese are very flexible and adaptablein their person to person relations with otherpeoples. They are seldom prone to xenophobia;on the contrary, they are far too easily im-pressed by the supposed virtues of otherpeoples, and it is one of their greatestweaknesses that they all too often try to copyothers, and uncritically adopt ideas andattitudes that are either inferior to their owncultural traditions, or are totally incompatiblewith them. Examples of this can be found inthe introduction in 1929 of the 'Estatuto dosIndigenas da Guine, Angola, Mozambique eTimor', modelled on the French colonial sys-tem of the idigenal.

In some of his other essays, Freyre hasalso suggested that when the Portuguese haveremained true to their easy-going traditions,they have created relatively stable and harmo-nious multiracial communities, but they havefailed miserably when they have tried toemulate the 'efficiency' of the British, theFrench or the Germans.

MOCAMBIQUE

The evolution of race relations in Mocam-bique illustrates this point very well. Manyof the Whites born and brought up inMozambique or who have spent most oftheir working lives in the territory, havebeen strongly influenced by the racism of theirSouth African and Rhodesian neighbours. Inearlier days, from the last decade of the nine-teenth century right up to the decade before thelast war, English influence predominated. Mostcommercial enterprises and financial institutionswere British, run and staffed by Britons. It wasonly as late as the 1960s that a well-knownpetrol company appointed a Portuguesemanager; Barclay's Bank still had a Britishmanager in 1964. Considerable areas ofMozambique were at one time ceded tochartered companies, which though nominallyPortuguese, were financed and staffed byBritons, South Africans and Rhodesians. In

the 1920s, employees in Southern Mozambiquewere paid in sterling, as the escudo, after adisastrous devaluation shortly after the firstWorld War, was held to have no value andwould only be accepted as legal tender underduress. It is not surprising, therefore, that manyPortuguese developed an outsized inferioritycomplex vis-a-vis their neighbours. DrSalazar's government put pressure on localfirms to employ more Portuguese and foreigninvestment was deliberately discouraged. Be rahad become almost an extension of BritishCentral Africa, and only in Lourengo Marquesand in the outlying districts were the Portu-guese to be found in their own home, so tospeak. It is not to be wondered at, therefore,that many Portuguese did their best to emulatethe attitudes of their economic masters. Also,it is not surprising that Lisbon viewed withdisfavour this process of 'de-nationalization' asthey called it, that was taking place in theirEast African possession.

Right up to the middle of the 1950s most'white' Portuguese were either in governmentservice or lived in Lourenco Marques. Thehinterland was inhabited by few Portugueseand practically all trade was in the hands ofChinese and Indians, Settlers from Portugalwere debarred from entering the territory unlessthey had guaranteed employment, or consider-able cash in the bank. Mozambique wasregarded, until fairly recently, as unfit forEuropean settlers, and was essentially a planta-tion colony like Malaya and British WestAfrica. This, despite the fact that AntonioEnnes, writing in 1891, had this to say aboutthe Portuguese as immigrants to the tropics:

Physically our peasants will be able toresist Africa's climate better than north-erners, particularly if they acquire habitsof cleanliness and hygiene. This will pro-bably be the only asset they will haveto withstand the hard struggle for lifethat will await them. In such a terriblestruggle, only those will not fall by thewayside, who have, in their character,unbreakable and tenacious energy,backed up by practical abilities thatcan make up for the total lack ofmeans of action and protection, such ascivilized societies grant to individualsJiving within their own institutions. Thepioneer of new countries, no matter towhat kind of work he applies himself,

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must be self-sufficient: he must get fromhis isolated activity sufficient reward tosatisfy all his needs, and, he must beable to look after himself. Now, ournational character, such as it is, has beenformed during the last centuries by thesocial and moral forces that have beencharged with shaping it, and has shownitself to be singularly wanting in indivi-dual enterprise, either through shyness,or because it is not there. What we leastknow, is how to live only with ourselves,for ourselves. I must point out the factthat the Portuguese immigrant in othercountries rarely seeks out a field of ac-tion that is free and independent, orwork on his own account that carrieswith it great opportunities for successor failure. He does not look for an oc-cupation that will grant him the chanceto expand his own individuality. Heprefers a subordinate position to therisks and dangers of independence, andtends to follow well-trodden paths: thushe subjects himself to a wage for fearof uncertainty and goes to meet his bossalready conscious of the fact that hecannot look after himself. These are allthe symptoms of his limited capacity forgreat colonial enterprises. If by chance,he finds himself left to his own devices,he begins to clamour for the State toprotect him, to defend him, keep him,and even teach him how to live, and ifthe State does not put him on her knee,more often than not, he succumbs be-cause he really is not fit or trained toface up to the adventures he has em-barked on . . .

Antonio Ennes goes on to speak of the Englishsettler:

The pioneers that civilization calls on,to take possession of the new worldsand tame them, are not recruited fromthe ranks of the prudent middle-classesnor from among the peaceful and timidrural populations; they usually comefrom the masses of the rootless and theclassless sections of the population, in-dividuals who have been subjected bythe need to keep alive, to take up anyprofession, to do all kinds of work; theseare the people who can face up to anydanger and adapt themselves to any

situation. It is particularly with adven-turers that the virgin countries aresettled, especially as today, the migrationof peoples from Europe for politicaland religious reasons has ceased, and ifthe English have potential colonists asno other people have, it is most be-cause Britain sheds throughout theworld, multitudes hardened in a toughschool of life who are prepared torisk everything because they have no-thing to lose, and who gamble with lifeitself for a bare living. It is that Bohe-mian crew that supplies the CharteredCompany with police, sends settlers toquarter the land under the protection ofthe forts at Salisbury and Victoria, andthat covers the Mutare Valley withminers. If, in order to colonize oroccupy the Countries of the Mashonasand the Matabeles, it were necessary torecruit people from the villages of York-shire and Northumberland, as it is sug-gested that we should get colonists fromthe meadows of Bcira and the Alemtejoto settle Mocambique, the attempts to doso would inevitably fail, or if they didnot do so completely, they would onlybe able to get immigrants who would notbe able to display the qualities requiredof them by the promoters of the ex-pansion of the British race in CentralAfrica , . . 8

Antonio Ennes was quite right in hisassessment of the Portuguese peasant as apioneer settler. Such people would only besettled in large numbers on the land, in properlyorganized and heavily subsidised schemes,which v/ere quite unheard of in the nineteenthcentury. On the other hand, the type of settlerhe so much admired, the 'lumpenproletariat*of Britain's industrial revolution, the remittancemen and other outcasts from middle-classrespectability, have created an insoluble pro-blem of race relations in Central and SouthAfrica, as we all know to our cost. These twopassages arc interesting because they illustratethe point I was making earlier about the pro-pensity of the Portuguese to be influenced byother peoples. It also explains to some extentwhy it took the Portuguese so long to realisethat these much despised peasants were not,in fact, quite as helpless or as useless as Ennesand his contemporaries supposed them to be.

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Opposition to opening the doors to peasantsettlers from Portugal was strong amongst thesmall 'white community' in Mozambique for anumber of reasons. In contrast to Angola,where numbers of such settlers had been al-lowed into the territory even before the turnof the century, albeit in very small numbers, andalthough Mozambique during the nineteenthcentury had been the dumping ground forconvicts and many political malcontents, thelocal white inhabitants prided themselves onbeing a cut above the average. The thought ofhaving a large 'poor white community' was toomuch, since it would cause their wealthy neigh-bours to despise them even more. Even today,many Portuguese in Mozambique deplore thefact that most of their countrymen who im-migrate to South Africa are illiterate peasantsor unskilled labourers from the Island ofMadeira. Most of them run cafes or becomemarket gardeners. It has always amused meto find that it comes as a great surprise tomany South Africans to discover that not allPortuguese are illiterate or manual workers.For many reasons, not least their Catholicism,the Portuguese are not really welcome in SouthAfrica as immigrants.

MISCEGENATION

An aspect of race relations that illustratesthe wide gulf that separates the Portuguese'commonsense view of social reality' from thatof Englishmen or South Africans is the pheno-menon that in English is called 'miscegenation'and in Portuguese 'mesticagem', James Duffyrefers disparagingly to the Portuguese toleranceof, or propensity to, miscegenation, as follows:

In a strict sense inestigagem never be-came a colonial policy, but it was areality to which Portuguese statesmenfound it convenient to give a moraldignity and egalitarian significance.9

While it is true that miscegenation as aconscious policy was probably never carried outsystematically by any Portuguese governmentthroughout the colonial empire, since it is aninevitable consequence flowing from the meet-ing of peoples, it was surely sensible to acceptthe fact that they will mix, and to try andgrant to this process some moral dignity, ratherthan to pretend that it never occurred, as is sooften done in South Africa, or if it did, thento say that it only took place among 'moraldegenerates', a rationalisation very commonly

expressed by Englishmen and Americans.The fact is, Portuguese attitudes to mis-

cegenation vary greatly among different classesof people, though in general they tend to dis-play greater tolerance of its consequences thanother peoples. In the past, it was accepted asinevitable by the Portuguese, that white menin the Tropics would have African, Indian orChinese mistresses, and in some cases that itwould also be natural for a number of thesemen to marry their mistresses. But even wherematrimony did not set the seal of legality onthe conjugal relationship, when children wereborn, particularly sons, it was very commonfor the proud fathers to recognise these children.Thus it happened, that even as late as the early1930s, quite a number of Portuguese returnedto Lisbon or Oporto accompanied by theirmulatto children. They frequently married awhite girl and would expect her, as a matterof course, to be willing to accept these childrenas her own. I can well remember families inwhich half-brothers and sisters of differentcolours all lived together under the same roof.There has always been a chronic shortage ofwhite women in the Tropics, and before the endof the last war, few Portuguese women werewilling to face the hardships of living in tropicalAfrica. This was particularly so in Mozam-bique, but was not so in Angola, where, inMossamedes, Lobito, Benguela and Sa da Ban-deira, fairly large white communities weresettled from the turn of the century. Today,modern methods of controlling tropical dis-eases, air-condition'ng, refrigerators and otheraids to modern living, have greatly abated thehorror of life in the Tropics.

There has been a decline in the number ofmixed marriages and other permanent, or semi-permanent, conjugal relationships betweenwhite and black have decreased considerablyduring the last two decades. There are stillmany more Portuguese men than women inMozambique and the official policy today isto encourage mixed marriages. Does the ab-sence of any legal impediments to inter-racialmarriage mean that a great number of suchmarriages is taking place? The latest statisticsavailable to me showed that in 1963 only 117m:xed marriages took place in Mozambique.But statistics of this kind are of little use be-cause the Concordat between the Portuguesegovernment and the Vatican has made it vir-tually impossible for Catholics married in

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church to obtain a divorce. Thus many inter-racial conjugal relationships may be preventedfrom becoming marriages because one of theparties may already be canonically married toanother.

I do not doubt for a moment, that inter-racial sexual relations are as common inMocambique as they were elsewhere in colonialAfrica, but the assumption by some Englishand American writers that Anglo-Saxons wereless prone to fornicating across the colour line,is a perfect example of ethnocentric delusion.For example, some time ago an investigationwas carried out in one of South Africa's majorcities showing that African prostitutes wereable to get six times more white male customersthan their white sisters, and this, in spite ofthe savage penal lies incurred by anyone caughtby the police in terms of the infamous Im-morality Act. Swaziland has recently passed animmorality act of sorts to prevent South Afri-can and other whites from corrupting innocentSwazi girls. In all other ex-colonial areas of theworld, the Whites have left behind them anumerous coloured progeny who have become'a problem'. But nowhere, except possibly insome of France's West African Colonies, wasit possible for such coloureds, to use the com-mon term applied in South Africa, to be aseasily accepted socially as has always been thecase, and still is, in Portugal and her overseasterritories.

CULTURAL QUALIFICATIONS

No discussion of race relations in Mocam-bique must omit to examine the effects thatthe 'Estatuto Civil e Criminal dos Indigenas deAngola c Mocambique' of .1929,z as amended,has had on these relations. This law was re-pealed in 1961, but from 1929 to 1961 Afri-cans under Portuguese rule suffered from con-siderable disabilities under this law. It wasinspired by the French system of the indigenatand is another example of an unfortunate,borrowing in the name of efficiency and pro-gress. The preamble to this decree explainsits aims:

The new law is inspired by two basicideas. The first is to ensure not onlythat 'natives' whose guidance has beenentrusted to us enjoy the natural andunconditional rights that arc equalto those of Europeans, and which havebeen established in Portuguese colonial

legislation, but also that they shouldfulfil progressively their moral and legalduties to work, to become educated andto improve themselves with everyguarantee of liberty and justice. Thesecond idea, which is, of necessity, in-spired by the same basic doctrine, is tobring about all desirable improvementswithin the framework of their rudiment-ary civilization, so that the transforma-tion of their customs and habits, andtheir own improvement will take placegradually and gently, as will theirgradual integration into the body poli-tic of the colony, which is the extensionof the motherland. Such a system, whichis just, practical and efficient, impliesrespect for these laws and customs, aslong as they do not go against individualrights of freedom and life, the principlesof humanity and the sovereignty ofPortugal.This Decree (originally No. 12:533 of 23

October, 1926) was drafted before the adventof the Salazar regime to power. Rightly, Itbelongs to the Republican era but was not im-plemented before 1929. Criticising this measure.Lord Hailey quite correctly remarked, that'Insistence on a cultural qualification can inpractice create a more restrictive barrier thanthat of colour'.10

The abolition of the Estatuto in 1961" hasremoved the only legal restrictive barrier onAfricans, since all, black or white, tribaliscd,or detribalised, are now citizens by birth. Butfull rights of citizenship arc only enjoyed bythose who are enfranchised, and Portugal'squalified voting system excludes not only themajority of the non-westernised Africans butalso a large number of Whites. Duffy has somepertinent criticisms to make of this Decree:

In stressing the traditional Portuguesesentiments of racial equality and at thesame time devising a policy founded ontheories of cultural inequality, the Por-tuguese Government was walking on aconceptual tightrope . . . A system asselective as assimilation, which in aperiod of twenty-five years has affectedthe legal status of one half per cent ofthe African population, has little torecommend it as an instrument of nativepolicy . . . unless the purpose of thatpolicy is to maintain the degraded status

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of the greatest part of the population.12

As a Portuguese I can quite categorically statethat this was not the intention of the framersof this Decree; there was no intention of main-taining the majority of Africans in a per-manent state of degradation, but it is true thata number of employers, in particular, and somePortuguese, found this law to be a convenientway of exploiting Africans.

The educational and other requirementsdemanded of Africans by the Estatuto if theywished to become 'assimilados', that is fullPortuguese citizens, were not so high as toaccount for the very small proportion of themthat availed themselves of this privilege. Thequestion to be asked at this stage is, whywas the status of 'assimilado' so unattractiveto the many thousands of Africans, who, evenin 1950 must have been able to become citizens,had they been willing to do so? Since 'indigenas'according to all accounts, lived in a state of'degradation', obviously there must have beenvery good reasons for these unfortunates toturn their backs on what were possibly minor,but nonetheless still significant improvementsin their status. The number of 4 349 'assimi-lados' shown in the Census of 1950 does notreflect the total number of 'assimilados' inMozambique, because this figure only refersto first generation 'indigenas' who have become'assimilados'. The others are automaticallyclassified as 'non-natives' by birth, as can beclearly seen in Adriano Moreira's article.13

But even if their number then was really30 000 (a figure that Duffy considers to be toooptimistic)14 this still represents only a minutefraction of the total African population whichwas at that time six millions in round figures.

LABOUR

It was only when I started my fieldworkon race relations in Mozambique in 1964 thatI was able to discover some of the more im-portant factors that contributed to the failureof this law to achieve its stated ideal aims.Some of these were the heavier taxes paid bycitizens, the requirement of monogamy andChristianity (the latter only implied), as wellas the onerous bureaucratic proceduresattached to the process of becom'ng a citizen,which helped to deter a considerable number.But by far the most important I found to bethe insistence on equal pay for equal work thatapplies to all Portuguese citizens, regardless

of race. Few Africans in Mozambique couldcompete on equal terms with Whites, Indiansand Chinese in the labour market, mainly be-cause they lacked the manual and technicalskills that were sadly lacking in their owntraditional background.

The employer who had to choose betweena keen but less experienced, or even able,African artisan, and an experienced, andpossibly more efficient, white, Indian, Chineseor Mulatto tradesman or clerk, obviously optedfor the latter. Africans who had the status of'indigenas' could earn fairly good wages invarious skilled and semi-skilled occupationssuch as drivers, carpenters or bricklayers, butbecause they did not belong to labour syndic-ates, they were paid according to their indivi-dual worth. Once they became citizens, standardrates of pay were rigidly applied. In the caseof lorry drivers, for example, a well paid andresponsible job in Angola and Mozambique,as an 'indigena' an African could earn R40.00or more per month, but if he became an 'assimi-lado' the basic wage was double that amount.Very often he was only qualified as a driver,and so his employer might fire him and em-ploy an Indian, a Chinese, a White or a Mulattowho could not only drive but also undertakeail running repairs. It came as a surprise tome that labour syndicates, which correspondto our trade unions, because they are recognisedby the courts, can exercise so strong a pressureon employers.

The admirable egalitarian principle of 'equalpay for equal work', whether applied to womenor to people of different races or colours, isone to which most of us would give our un-qualified support. Unfortunately however, aswe have seen in South Africa, in practice it hasacted in a discriminatory way against Africans.The major breakthrough of Africans into theranks of skilled building artisans only tookplace in 1951 with the passing of the NativeBuilding Workers Act No. 27 of the sameyear. This measure provided for the trainingand employment of Africans at differentialrates of pay, considerably below those paidto white workers, as bricklayers, plasterers,carpenters and eventually building contractors,theoretically to be employed exclusively in theconsiruction of African urban townships aroundSouth Africa's larger cities. In practice, theAfrican has almost ousted the White from thebuilding industry, and much of the skilled

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and semi-skilled work carried out in buildingoperations in many parts of the country is, infact, performed by Africans, though a numberof white artisans are employed whereverpossible to give the appearance that the lawis not being contravened. There is no doubtthat if the law were to be changed, these Afri-can artisans could easily offset the criticalshortage of skilled white artisans in the build-ing industry that has sent their wages rocketingand has made building costs almost prohibitive.But it has taken just under twenty years forthis level to be reached, despite every oppor-tunity to progress.

This shows, not that the African is in-herently inferior to the White, but that theretarding effect of early cultural conditioningis greater than most of us think. I shouldnot really have been surprised that despitethe lack of any kind of job reservation legis-lation, only relatively few Africans wereable to compete on the open market withWhites and others whose cultural backgroundwas closer to Western technology than tradi-tional African society. After all, in BritishEast Africa, in colonial times, Africans maderelatively slower progress as artisans, clerksand traders than that achieved by West Afri-cans. This could be directly attributed to thepresence of large Indian communities who wereable to supply the labour markets in thoseterritories with a steady stream of such qualifiedpeople. It is interesting to note than in Natalwhere most Whites arc more antagonistic to-wards the Indian than towards the Zulu, whenthey wish to have some skilled or semi-skilledwork, most of them would automatically seekthe services of an Indian rather than that ofan African,

Labour conditions in the Portuguese Afri-can territories have been subjected to themajor barrage of international criticism againstPortuguese policy in general, and arc oftenquoted as proof of Portuguese racism. Apartfrom the regular statements from the UnitedNations Committee on Colonialism, the mainsources are to be found in the works of Duffy,Marvin Harris, Basil Davidson and Ferreira.It has been interesting for me to discover thatmost of the criticisms are based on an originalreport made by the late Captain Galvao andpublished in the Observer of 29 January, 1961.Since Captain Galvao was, at the time hecompiled his report, an Inspector in the Portu-

guese Colonial Service, it is natural that hisreport should be regarded as the most authorita-tive source of information on this subject. Myown observations in the field in Angola, butmuch more extensively and in much more de-tail in Mozambique over the last eight years,have convinced me that though some of hiscriticisms are true enough, taken as a wholethey convey a totally false picture of the situa-tion as it was then.

Captain Galvao claimed, for example, that'Clandestine emigration was exhausting at anincreasing pace the population of Guinea,Mocambique and Angola.' Population statis-tics for Angola and Mocambique, which I canassure you are as accurate as any availablefor any territory in Africa, show quite clearlythat there has been a steady overall increaseof the total population. The coastal regionsof Southern Mocambique, for example, arerunning the grave risk of becoming over-populated due to the high birthrate, which ishigher than the average for the whole Africancontinent. Thus, Captain Galvao's 'conserva-tive' estimate that 'the three colonies had lostone million natives by emigration in the pre-ceding ten years' is clearly a gross exaggeration.According to the most recent figures given inthe statistical year book for 1968, some"l50 000officially recruited as well as 'clandestine*migrant African workers are being employedoutside the territory in the Republic of SouthAfrica. Since the majority of them return toMocambique after one or two years* absence,this would account for the steady improvementin the average birthrate for the Southern SaveDistricts, whence most of these migrant workerscome.15

Compulsory labour, as experience in Africaand elsewhere has shown quite conclusively, is,in the long run, both expensive and inefficientlabour, and Galvao is on much surer groundwhen he castigates the Portuguese for clingingso long to the mistaken idea that shortagesof unskilled labour could ever be cured by anyform of compulsion or a legally entrenched'obligation to work'. There is only one sureway of attracting labour, and that is by payingwell, and when the bulk of such labour istribalised, by creating the need for consumersoods that have to be purchased for cash. Thereis another way, too, that has been practisedin other parts of Africa: to impose a poll tax

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payable in cash, and/or to push a large pro-portion of Africans off the land so that theonly alternative to starvation will be to seekwage employment. There is no shortage of landin Angola or Mozambique except in the districtof Inhambane, where a complicated situationexists at the moment. In the Southern LimpopoValley at Joao Bele the demand for land byAfricans wishing to become full-time farmersexceeds the supply, but the reclamation ofhigher reaches of the fertile valley has begunand the problem there will be solved.

Why then, critics ask, do so many Africansmigrate from Angola and Mozambique? Morenonsense has been written about the motivesor reasons for African migration than almostany other aspect of African life. Though Ihave no doubt that the abuses mentioned byGalvao in regard to the recruitment of labour,the fiddling of pay sheets, the use of illegalcompulsion by administrative officers whoseduty was to protect the workers, not exploitthem, occasionally took place, that these werethe rule rather than the exception, I am notprepared to accept; not for sentimental reasons,but because I have seen at first hand, workersbeing recruited and paid off after their periodof contract both in Angola and South Africa,and I had the opportunity of discussing the'shibalo' system with workers in the Tete andCabora Bassa regions. The information I wasable to gather, incidentally, without an ad-ministrative official or a policeman breathingdown my neck to ensure that I asked the'right' questions and received the 'right' answer,convinced me that if the abuses described byGalvao and Davidson had occurred as frequent-ly as they alleged, these would have precipit-ated such a flood of migrants across the bordersof Angola and Mozambique, that not eventhe most authoritarian of governments wouldhave been able to conceal this phenomenon.Furthermore, there would have been violentprotests from their neighbours.

Many years ago, in 1927, Brito Camacho,the last High Commissioner of the Liberal Re-public in Mocambique, said:

How do we explain then . . . that everyyear, tens of thousands of workersemigrate from Mozambique. This facthas this clear and prosaic enoughexplanation . . . the workers of Mozam-bique from South of the Save cannotfind sufficiently well-paid work in the

Province to satisfy their need for cash.Agriculture cannot be considered to be,in the southern districts, an economicfactor worthy of consideration, and allthe industry in Lourenco Marques joinedtogether can hardly provide enoughwork for more than a few dozen workers.Let people say what they like, what ap-pears to us to be an incontrovertiblefact is that the native of Mozambiqueemigrates in order to get a living, to getmoney with which to pay for cattle andwomen, with which to pay his taxesand to provide for the modest but in-evitable expenses of his household . . .We do not have the right to preventhim from emigrating unless we can pro-vide him with sufficiently well-paid em-ployment, as close as possible to hisvillages . . . IG

I think I have said enough to indicate howunreliable much of the information aboutlabour conditions in Portuguese Africa is,when one takes the trouble to look moreclosely into the subject.

The abolition of compulsory labour and ofthe compulsory cultivation of certain cropslike cotton since 1961, and the introductionof the new Rural Workers Code in October1962'7 have done away with most of theundesirable features of labour conditions inMocambique. The measures, which as far asMozambique is concerned, I have been ableto see for myself, are being rigorously im-plemented in practice, did not produce anymarked decline in the production of cottonor in the available supply of labour, as manyemployers in Mozambique were sure would bethe inevitable result of such rash measures.There has been a marked increase inthe numbers of Africans seeking employmentin the major urban centres and it is there thatthe problems of accommodation and socialcontrol are most complex.

The productivity of African labour all overthe continent continues to be low. A surveycarried out under the auspices of the C.C.T.A.(Commission for Technical Cooperation Southof the Sahara) from which Portugal and SouthAfrica were expelled, showed that there wasstill a high level of labour turnover in Angolaand Mozambique, which is a sure indicationof a low level of productivity. But even in theRepublic of South Africa, which claims to be

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the most economically advanced country onthis continent, labour turnover, except in afew select industries that provide proper train-ing for their workers, is relatively high andoverall productivity of South African industryis still much lower than that of more developedcountries.

My impression of labour conditions todayin Mozambique is that, except for skilled arti-sans, both wages as well as working conditionscompare favourably with those existing inSouth Africa. What Mozambique needs, withmost other countries in Africa is more avenuesfor employment in industry for the increasingnumber of Africans who cannot and will notbe able to become independent full time far-mers. Like other African economies, that ofMozambique will have to be diversified if itis not to be continually at the mercy of thelow level of world prices for its agriculturaland tropical products.

CONCLUSION

The first, and most important conclusionthat can be derived from this brief discussionof some of the stated aims, as well as actualpractice of Portuguese policy in Africa, isthat, as far as race relations are concerned, thePortuguese had no clear cut policy. This is clearfrom the most recent and detailed study ofPortuguese policy in Africa by Wilensky, butis even clearer from the following statementsextracted from a speech made by a formerMinister for Colonies, Dr. Armindo Monteiro,on 12 February, 1932, to the students of theSchool for Higher Colonial Studies in Lisbon:

The Empire lacks a colonial doctrinebased on the secular experience of the(Portuguese) people, worked out againstthe lessons of our victories and our de-feats; the successes that have crownedsome of our enterprises and the reversesthat have prevented the development ofsome of our collective ambitions; (welack) a doctrine that should point tothe future after carefully balancing thevirtues of our race against its weaknesses. . . Our colonial administration hasno stability. Ministers succeed ministersand governors follow governors withdisconcerting rapidity . . . In recenttimes during one year, several ministerswere in charge of the colonies. The ad-ministration of each colony changes

with every new governor — accordingto his thoughts, his ideas, his friendshipsand his interests. Instability is the mostsearing indictment that for a long timenow, has been levelled against us . . . '8

As far as actual race policy is concernedthen, until 1961, it was tacitly assumed thatsomehow or another, all the peoples of differ-ent ethnic origins living in Portuguese con-trolled territories would gradually becomeintegrated into a common Portuguese orientatedsociety. The Portuguese language would be themost important common cultural link betweenthem. This is what has happened with Brazil,with many of the inhabitants of the Indian en-claves of Goa, Damao and Diu, with theChinese inhabitants of Macau and many ofthe Indonesians of Timor.

After 1961, with the abolition of theEstatuto that discriminated between Portuguesecitizens and indigenous inhabitants and in-troduced the indigenat system copied from theFrench, the Portuguese government has beenfirmly committed to a clear cut policy of cultureamalgamation and biological fusion betweenpeoples of all races in their overseas provinces.In January 1972 further regulations were en-acted increasing the penalties to be appliedagainst persons or organizations found guiltyof racial discrimination of any kind.

The war in the northern and western dis-tricts of Mocambique has brought about acertain cooling in the very amicable and easy-going relations between White and Black, whichmade such an impression on me during myfirst long visit to the territory. They contrastedso strongly with the tension and antagonismI had become so used to experiencing in SouthAfrica. Even though writers, artists and otherintellectuals of any colour are viewed withconsiderable suspicion by the authorities, thereis not as much tension as might normally beexpected in a country that is going throughwhat is, after all, a crisis situation.

My own experience in various parts of thecountry, has convinced me that what Schutzcalls the 'lebenswelt' of the Portuguese is sodifferent from that of their neighbours, thatit allows for contacts between White and Blackto take place on a level of tolerance and equal-ity that has never been possible in South Africa,or what was British Central and East Africa.

I suggest that some of the fundamentalvalues and assumptions that are an integral

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part of the Portuguese life-style, are partlyresponsible for this. The old-fashioned humanis-tic traditions of the Renaissance and theEnlightenment are still a very strong part of thePortuguese cultural tradition. Theirs is an out-ward looking nationalism that welcomesstrangers and foreigners into their midst. Theyare pleased when peoples ©f other colours speaktheir language, share their values and act as theydo; they are flattered by imitation, not insulted;they are not upset by obvious differences, onlyinterested in them. They do not attach thesame value to money or commercial success

as their neighbours do. They consider all poli-ticians to be fools or knaves, or a little of both.They are highly and vociferously critical ofall authority and hero-worship is reservedstrictly for good soccer and basket-ball players,but even that is tinged with irony.

To conclude, the Portuguese still believein the essential dignity of every man, womanor child, regardless of race, and that this isworth protecting as against the demands ofthe machine, or of technology or the profitmotive. And it is this that gives life amongstthem a certain individual savour that is lackingin other countries.

Press,

REFERENCES

^Collected Papers, 3rd edit.. The Hague, Nijhoff, 1971, I, pp.3, 48.2'Estatuto Civil e Criminal dos Indigenas de Angola e Mozambique', Decree 16, 473 of 6.ii.l929.sQuoted in C. R. Boxer, Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire. 1415-1825. Oxford. Claredon

1963, p . l ."Ibid., p.2.

eThe Science of Alan in the World Crisis, ed. R. Linton, New York, Columbia Univ. Press 1944, p.308.7'Thc expansion of the Portuguese m the overseas m the light of modern anthropology', in Inquiry into Anti-colonialism, Lisbon, junta de Investigates do Ultramar, 1957, pp.241, 249.

^Quoted in Antologia Colonial Portuguesa. Lisbon, Agenda Geral da Colonias, 1946, I, pp.15, 16.^Portuguese Africa, Cambridge (Mass.). Harvard Univ. Press, 1959, p.261.

ioAn African Survey Revised 1956. London. Oxford Univ. Press, 1957 p.232."Decree 43, 893 of 6.ix.l961.'^Portuguese Africa, p.294.i3'Les elites noires dans les territoircs portugais sous le iegime de l'lndigenat'. Bulletin des Sciences Socialcs. 1958,

8, 475.^Portuguese Africa, p.295.isA. Rita Fcrreira, O Movimento Migratorio de Trabalhadores enlre Moqambique e a Africa, do Sid, Lisbon,

Junta de Inve.stigac.oes do Ultramar, 1963. Estudos de Ciencias Politicas e Sociais No. 67, p.139.islbid,, pp.157-8.nlbid., p.158; 'Rural labour code for Portuguese overseas provinces', International Labour Review, 1962, 86,

285-93; A. II. Wilensky, Trends in Portuguese Overseas Legislation for Africa, Braga, Pax, 1971, pp. 192ff.!8Quoted in Antologia Colonial Portuguesa. I, pp.245, 249.

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