History, legitimacy, and Renamo's return to arms in central Mozambique

Abstract

Twenty years after the Mozambican war ended, a return to arms from 2013 by the opposition movement Renamo served to revitalize support for the party in the 2014 election, and put pressure on the Frelimo government to consider demands for constitutional change. Building on existing research on post-war politics and on recent economic change, this article addresses the question of how Renamo obtained civilians’ approval for renewed armed action in the south of Sofala province, the region where conflict broke out in 2013. I argue that popular legitimacy for Renamo's challenge to the state is constituted in a narrative about Renamo that is congruent both with present-day grievances against the state and with understandings of local history dating to the anticolonial struggle that challenge the nationalist history on which Frelimo hegemony rests. Renamo has adapted this narrative in such a way as to claim a historic role for itself in defending the interests of central and northern Mozambique and in struggling for an inclusive and democratic state. In this way, Renamo has gained support for its renewed armed actions, not only among those politicized by Renamo in the earlier war but more broadly among civilians in the region.

‘It's not my story to tell’: ownership and the politics of history in Mocímboa da Praia, Mozambique

“…Where the struggle for influence hinges upon assertions of legitimacy, a claim to the past, accepted by all inhabitants of Mocímboa and expressed through ownership, provides one way of establishing a right to power. Discussions of history and its links with idioms of legitimacy have been fertile grounds for debate in Mozambique (Borges Coelho 2013; Igreja 2008; 2010; Israel 2013; Pearce 2020; Pitcher 2006). In this article, I have focused specifically on the ways in which a localized, vernacular expression of ownership finds expression in the more and less subtle struggles for recognition and local competition for power and resources, weaving together identity, belonging, politics, and memory through storytelling.…”

Violence, Rumor, and Elusive Trust in Mocímboa da Praia, Mozambique

“…This situation, which is not unique to Mocímboa, having been described elsewhere in the country, relates to imagined differences in education and dependability between Frelimo and Renamo supporters and their perceived political legitimacy (Bertelsen 2016b;Igreja 2015;Pearce 2020;Sumich 2013Sumich , 2016. In Muidumbe-one of the districts of the interior with a predominantly Makonde population, known as 'the cradle of Frelimo'-supporters of Renamo are either looked down upon or outright threatened (Israel 2006).…”

Maintaining a city against nature: climate adaptation in Beira

“…Renamo was funded by first the Rhodesian, then the South African Apartheid regime as a means to destabilise its Marxist neighbour. Yet despite portrayals as apolitical 'bandits' Renamo did in fact tap into and articulate political grievances of a part of the rural population especially in central Mozambique that felt alienated by Frelimo's urban, socialist, high-modernist and 'anti-tribalist' vision of independent Mozambique (Pearce 2020;Wiegink 2020). The civil war also brought about mass displacement of people from the countryside to the cities, which grew rapidly and in an unplanned way (Lubkemann 2005).…”