Ideals in Maputo, Mozambique
Morten Nielsen Aarhus University etnomn@hum.au.dk
Paper to be delivered at the ’Spiritual Political and the Ethics of Democ- racy’ conference, Aarhus University, 8-9 October 2010.
Abstract
What happens to exhausted ideological ideals which are no longer capable of producing coherent utopian aspirations? This paper is a post-mortem study of democratic visions which, although having tired out, continue to assert their importance in paradoxical ways.
Based on an analysis of failed ideals associated with the resettlement process after the flooding which hit Mozambique in 2000, the paper explores how collapsed democratic visions surprisingly give rise to new forms of urban citizenship on the fringes of Maputo, the coun- try’s capital. By manifesting that which will no longer be (e.g. the ini- tial ambition of creating an ‘ideal neighbourhood’ or the aspirations of a collectively governed water system), these failed visions allow for meanings of what already exist to be stretched and reassembled in novel ways. In particular, the paper discusses how cosmological understandings of space and power are activated through vacuous notions of ‘democratic leadership’ and eventually laden with political significance.
Introduction
What happens to dead ideological visions which are no longer capable of producing coherent utopian aspirations? Is it possible for democratic ideals to retain socio-political power also after having exhausted them- selves? This paper is a post-mortem examination of certain democratic vi- sions at play in Maputo, Mozambique, which, although having tired out,
continue to assert their importance in paradoxical ways. Similar to other relatively new democratic nation-states in sub-Saharan Africa, Mozam- bique has undergone a series of governmental face lifts allegedly in order to unfold its incipient democratic potentials. Closely monitored by the om- nipresent batch of international development agencies eagerly document- ing the effects of their investments, the Mozambican government is imple- menting a series of structural adjustment programmes which will hope- fully create a democratic and transparent state apparatus that is suf- ciently flexible to cater the growing number of foreign investors coming to the former socialist regime. As Steven Sampson has recently argued (2002), development foci come and go in conjunctural waves and coun- tries, such as Mozambique, are currently in the conjuncture of ‘doing good’ which requires the stable functioning of a democratic state adminis- tration. Indeed, since Armando Guebuza, the current president, took over power in 2004, the need for democratic regulations has been particularly emphasized; not only in public discourses but also through a variety of ad- ministrative initiatives and juridical decrees. To take a few examples: in 2004 an autonomous anti-corruption ofce was set up in the Justice De- partment, a municipal ombudsman was installed in Maputo during the fol- lowing year and a ‘single counter’ policy has been implemented in many public ofces in order to improve overall adminstrative efciency and counteract red tape and petty corruption. Still, as I shall shortly argue, despite the noblest of intentions, democratic visions may have only short lifespans before their ideological potentials tire up completely. Surpris- ingly, though, disapperance does not necessarily follow from exhaustion and dead democratic ideals may continue to assert their importance al- beit in paradoxical and unexpected ways. In the following, I shall conse- quently explore the life and death of a set of ideological ideals which were formulated in the immediate aftermath to the devastating flooding which hit Mozambique in the early months of 2000. Realising the possibilities
for creating a community from scratch for the many disaster victims, the Maputo Municipality seeked to establish what was defined as a ‘model neighbourhood’ (bairro modelo) based on democratic principles of trans- parency and participation. Although it soon became apparent that ofcial agencies were completely incapable of realising the ambitious project, its decay and eventual death allowed for a peculiar afterlife which activated certain cosmological understandings of time and power widespread among residents living in the community that was initially imagined as a
‘model neighbourhood’. Whereas a horizon of pure myth is commonly rel- egated to a distant past beyond the limits of historical time (Evans- Pritchard 1940:107; Lévi-Strauss 1955:430), people in the southern part of Mozambique, such as those living in the resettlement area, project mythical imaginaries into the future. In other words, the present is actu- alised from an originary moment which has yet to be experienced. As we shall soon see, the idea of a founding mythical time that is still to come re- sembles the aesthetics of utopian democratic ideals cast into the future and it is these similarities which allow for a momentary disjunctive syn- thesis between the two. If we take democratophila to designate a desire for exhausted democratic ideals, then, the concept captures the signifi- cance of certain ideologically motivated visions still active in the area in- tended as a ‘model neighbourhood’. Despite the drying out of their ideo- logical potency, they reverberate aesthetically with widespread ideas of mythical times in the future. In a nutshell, a desire for dead democratic ideals can be understood as a reflection of a particular temporal orienta- tion towards a mythical future.
The slow death of democratic ideals
The fall of the Berlin Wall marked a radical shift in donor modalities re- garding subSaharan Africa. During the Cold War, external interventions were guided by geopolitical considerations in a global competition be-
tween the United States and the Soviet Union (McFerson 2010:68). Aid was consequently predicated on client countries’ willingness to act as ex- tensions of the global super powers whereas the widespread use of re- pression by African regimes was blatantly ignored. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no longer a need for proxy battles and so the adverse impact of malgovernace, corruption and red tape could be pub- licly addressed. Since then, good governance has indeed become a domi- nant watchword which guides Euro-American lending institutions and donor agencies in their efforts to implement what they take to be demo- cratic and transparent governance policies (Bayart, Ellis et al. 1996). As documented by a growing body of work (Fawole 2004; Ferguson 2006;
van de Walle 2005), the consequences of these development initiatives have been varied. Although the majority of recipient countries experience macro-economic stability, the huge spending cuts imposed on state admin- istrations followed by devaluations of national currencies and relaxations of strict price regulations have created a widespread informalization of bureaucratic administrations and forced white-collar workers to charge for hitherto free services.
Mozambique’s post-Independence history bears witness to a series of ideologically driven political projects that have gone astray. Today, com- munities throughout the country are imprinted with the failures of shift- ing public administrations incapable of providing the population with nec- essary services, such as functional infrastructure and stable housing mechanisms. In that regard, Mozambique resembles several other post- colonial countries, which, from initial aspirations to create a pure socialist nation state, have gradually succumbed to internal strife and external pressures to align national policies with neo-liberal economic agendas.
Frelimo, which was initially created was an anti-colonial movement in op- position to the Portuguese regime, took over power in 1975 and inherited a country on the verge of collapse after the exodus of nearly all Por-
tuguese ofcials and technical experts. In at attempt to create a pure and efcient socialist state, Frelimo adopted a nationalist form of Marxim- Leninism emphasizing the distantiation to any kind of exploitation, whether seen as colonialism, capitalism or domestic modes of production – what was defined as ‘obscurantism’ (Geffray 1991). The ruling party es- sentially considered itself as the crux of the nation and through the pro- motion of democratic centralism, a non-ethnic non-traditional nation-state and development solely through state-authored initiatives, Frelimo sought to establish a planned economy based on a nationalisation of the produc- tive sectors and, more profoundly, a ‘decolonisation of the mind’ (West 2001:121).
Although having moved into the ‘Soviet orbit’ in 1980 (Hall and Young 1997:140), already a few years later, regional political strife made it necessary for Mozambique to seek allies in the west. Hence, in 1983, the Mozambican government made the initial approach to Euro-American donors in order to alleviate the famine caused by the 1983-84 drought and only four years later, the country made its final ‘turn towards the West’, as it were, when agreeing to implement the first of a series of structural adjustment programmes (Devereux and Palmero 1999:3). And indeed, the increasing proximity to Western donors paid off in an alarm- ing way. From 1990-94, Mozambique became the largest aid recipient in sub-Saharan Africa and in 2004, aid constituted 48% of the government budget (Hanlon 1996:16; Renzio and Hanlon 2007:3). Mozambique can thus pride itself on being the eight most aid-dependent country in the world.
Since the early 1990s, development initiatives in Mozambique have been couched in an ideological vocabulary stressing the need for demo- cratic regulations. A primary feature has been the implicit or explicit as- sumption that legal reforms precede other development initiatives. It is consequently argued that only through legal reforms will Mozambique be
able to fight crime, ensure stable economic development and establish po- litical accountability and good governance. We might take the recent up- surge of anti-corruption meaures as a salient example of this tendency but also land reforms have proven to play a central role. According to the World Bank and other development institutions currently active in Mozambique, formalisation of property rights is seen as a sine qua non for improving living conditions by strengthening the potentials for eco- nomic activity, e.g. by using land as collateral for raising credit (The World Bank 2003; cf. Negrão 2002). In order to use land as a financial as- set, it is thus essential to formalise property rights so that legal posession can be verified. As we shall soon see, however, despite strong pressure from donor agencies, this ambitious objective might be harder to achive than expected.
Most things come at a price, and international aid is no exception. In order to continue receiving aid, Mozambique had to join the World Bank, which involved it in a series of economic structural adjustment pro- grammes. As argued by Joseph Hanlon, these strategies have been rooted in the overall assumption that inflation is caused by ‘too much money chasing too few goods’ and the only viable path has therefore been to re- duce domestic credit in order to lower the demand (1996:28). Similar to other nation-states in sub-Saharan Africa, there are indications, however, that the chosen development strategy is not entirely unproblematic. Ac- cording to international lending institutions, Mozambique continues to constitute one of the few African ‘success stories’ as it complies with all imposed conditionalities and continues to perform well with an annual economic growth of 8.5% and an inflation rate of 9.4% (Hanlon 2002; Re- public of Mozambique and Programme Aid Partners 2007). Still, whereas macro-economic indicators seem to reflect the success of structural ad- justment, the latter has nonetheless had serious detrimental social conse- quences for larges sectors of the Mozambican society. The strict cuts on
salaries have been particularly harsh to civil servants whose wages were more than halved, thus pushing teachers and nurses below the poverty line together with 60-70% of the rural population and more than 50% of the urban population who now live in absolute poverty as a consequence not least of the recent economic development strategies (Renzio and Han- lon 2007:7). According to recent estimates (Pitcher 2006), 120,000 Mozambicans have lost their jobs due to the conditionalities imposed by the World Bank and many have had no alternative but to engage in illegal or informal activities in order to survive. The urban area has witnessed a particularly significant growth of the informal sector,. In 1997 it was esti- mated that only 32% of the total number of those employed in Maputo were active in the formal sector whereas the informal sector provided jobs for approximately 50% of the active workforce (Jenkins 2006:121).
Mozambique’s continued position as a donor pet might thus be challeged by the negative effects of economic development policies. This was made abundantly clear in the early days of September this year, when angry cit- izens took to the streets in Maputo. Frustrated about the increasing prices on electricity, water, bread and fuel, demonstrators protested dur- ing several days which ended up causing 13 death and more than 300 people being injured.
When considering this volatile socio-economic situation from the per- spective of those unfortunate Mozambicans having to endure the negative consequences of inflexible donor conditionalities, a definitive rejection of the accompanying democratic ideals seems likely. And indeed, when ask- ing residents living on the outskirts of Maputo about their thoughts on current development policies, most consider the latter as utopian mi- rages. Still, as I argue below, it is for this same reason that dead demo- cratic ideals continue to assert their significance in paradoxical ways. In order to make this argument, I shall discuss a specific case study which outlines how exhausted democratic visions activate cosmological ideas
about time and power. First, however, we need to contextualise the case- study by briefly describing the flooding which hit Mozambique in the early months of 2000.
The peculiar afterlife of exhausted democratic ideals
When the waters withdrew in March 2000 after three months of torment- ing rain, their devastating power had brought Mozambique to its knees.
More than seven hundred people had died and over two million had been affected by the flooding, not least the approximately 550,000 people who had been forced to leave their homes and the 200,000 whose crops had been destroyed (Christie and Hanlon 2001:37). In Maputo, it was initially estimated that only one hundred families had lost their homes to the flooding and so Artur Canana, the Mayor in ofce, decided to resettle all disaster victims in Mulwene, a neighbourhood on the northern outskirts of the city hitherto inhabited only by a group of newcomers and the small- scale farmers from whom they bought their plots of land. However, as the rain continued to fall, the number of flooding victims increased accord- ingly. Hence, by the end of 2000, no less than 2040 resettled families had come to begin a new life in Mulwene and they were soon followed by thousands of newcomers realising the possibilities for acquiring relatively cheap land in the emerging urban neighbourhood. Hence, from a pre- flooding population on less than 2000, the continuous influx of people cul- minated in 2005 when the neighbourhood had 30,813 registered inhabi- tants.
From the very beginning, the city council made it clear that Mulwene was being planned as a ‘model neighbourhood’ (bairro modelo). In a mu- nicipal report on administrative and political aims concerning the reset- tlement process, it is stated that ‘the city council intends to make Mul- wene a bairro modelo with all the requirements that constitute adequate habitation’. As is clear from this and other reports drafted during the ini-
tial resettlement phase, the making of a bairro modelo would entail not only that land parcelling and house-building projects were realized in ac- cordance with a set of well-defined urban standards but, equally impor- tant, that a hierarchy of administrative units was set up based on demo- cratic ideals of popular participation and bureaucratic transparency. It was consequently envisioned that residents in the area could be allocated legal use-rights to formally acquired plots of land in correspondance with a legitimate urban plan comprising the entire neighbourhood. Moreover, these administrative tasks were to be carried out in a close co-operation between the Maputo Municipality and a committee of democratically elected residents. Not long after the first families had been installed in tents in a section of Mulwene, the first steps were taken towards actually creating the bairro modelo. Hence, 25 donor organisations were active during the first months of 2000 building a total of 1088 basic cement houses, making 460 drillings for individual and communiatian wells and constructing 1100 latrines, a football field, 300 ‘precarious houses’ (casas precárias) (i.e. reed huts) and two primary schools. The immediate result was, indeed, impressive, After only a few months, rows of cement houses with corrugated iron roofs began to appear where previously tents or reed huts were the only housing possibilities.
Despite the initial success, it was soon apparent that neither state nor international agencies were fully capable of realising the ambitious project of creating a bairro modelo. Soon after the flooding victims had been transferred to Mulwene, the majority of international donor agen- cies began to loose interest in the project and so it was up to state and municipal institutions to secure viable housing conditions for the growing number of residents coming to the area while also creating an adequate administrative structure that would respond to the needs of an emerging urban neighbourhood. With a weak state administration incapable of car- rying out even basic urban development schemes, the project of creating
a bairro modelo from scratch was a utopian mirage whose ideological and practical weaknesses soon became apparent. From the very beginning, archiects and land surveyors in collaboration with members from the neighbourhood committee parcelled out land illegally which were sold off to needy newcomers. Hence, despite the seemingly formal appearance of the area, its structure has in fact emerged during series of overlapping processes of informal parcelling through which local leaders and public ofcials made highly lucrative albeit illegal transactions in land (Nielsen n.d.). Moreover, residents acquire access to basic infrastructure, such as electricity, and water, not through broad-ranging development schemes but, rather, through informal transactions with local-level ofcials within state or municipal agencies.
Let me now turn to the particular case-study in order to unpack how the dried out ideals associated with the bairro modelo reverberate with cosmological understandings of time and power.
Khadaffi’s Water
During the resettlement process, Red Cross donated seven public wells but no piped water system was established. Thus, when the president of Libya, Moamar Khadaf, visited the area in 2000, he donated a small wa- ter supply system. From initially four boreholes, piped water was led to eight plastic tanks on metal towers from where parts of the neighbour- hood were supplied with water. As more people moved to the area and need for water increased, the neighbourhood administration made three additional borings on its own initiative thus comprising a total of seven boreholes.
According to the local district administrator, the initial intention was that the neighbourhood should control the water system autonomously.
Thus, a water commission [Comité de Gestão de Água] was established which received monthly payments from residents having connections to
the water system. Initially, all payments were handed over to the neigh- bourhood chief who was then responsible for maintaining the water sys- tem and remunerating the water commission. However, according to peo- ple in the area, money given to the Machaca, the neighbourhood chief, gradually started to disappear. As one resident told me with overt irrita- tion: ”When people started paying for water, they [i.e. Machaca and the neighbourhood administration] suckled [mamava] the money. So, it wasn’t their own money they spent when buying wine and roasted chickens. It was the people’s money; money from the people’s water”. Due to the many complaints, the district administrator decided to open a bank ac- count where all payments would be posited. Mula, the administrator ex- plains the rationality: ”I specified that no one from the neighbourhood ad- ministration could lead the water system, because if things go wrong, who should people complain to, then? So, the chief has to be free of any in- volvement. I said to Machaca that he couldn’t be involved…” Hence, ac- cording to the district administration, it ought to be democratically elected members of the water commission having responsibility for the bank account. This, however, was not the case as Machaca, the neigh- bourhood chief continued to control the money despite allegations of theft and corruption.
To be sure, the water system was a hot topic among residents I knew in Mulwene. Each day people lined up by the public wells as the ’water guards’ put on the tap which served as the only security measure prevent- ing non-members from stealing water. While waiting to fill up the huge 15 litre plastic containers, the water system was heatedly debated. ”If not Machaca then the administrator eats [come] the money”, Daniel, a local resident explained. ”That’s why people are angry. They know that the sys- tem was given by Libya”. Annannias Mafuiane, his diminutive neighbour, agreed. ”Machaca has three minibuses, two timberyards and a liquor stall [barraca]. Where did he get the money from? He used the water money.
Mula [i.e. the district administrator] told me. It’s not just street talk. If the water system had been legally constructed, there would be so many bil- lions with which to improve our roads, but they put the money in their pockets”. ”Ah”, Angelica Tembe who had silently overheard their conver- sation finally interrupted, ”Machaca and Samuel are very active [muito vivo]1. They eat the water money”.
The stable functioning of the system was hampered in various ways.
First, although extended with additional boreholes, the water system was never geared at supplying the whole neighbourhood with water. Thus, people with piped water experienced a gradually decreasing pressure.
Countless times did I witness the slow dripping of water into a still only partly full water container while the house owner became increasingly in- furiated with the water supply. From documents in the archive, it appears that the neighbourhood administration has, in fact, several times solicited permission to open yet more boreholes but still lacks a ’superior autho- rization’.2 Second, a vibrant illegal market exists where people with an in- house system sell water to needing neighbours at night. As Fernando Tembe told me, ”We get water from our neighbour at night. We can’t do it during daytime anymore because then we would be stealing”. According to the 2004 annual report from the water commission, the increasing pop- ularity of this illegal system is the reason why the monthly income de- creased with more than a third from June to December.3
According to the district administrator, the activities of the water commission are not controlled given a lack of administrative capacities.
Thus, no municipal or state agency inspected the annual account, accord- ing to which the water commission at the end of 2004 had a positive bal-
1 In fact, the term ’muito vivo’ [very alive] has implicit connotations of both witchcraft and pragmatic expertise.
2 Relatório do Comité de Gestão de Água (13.01.05). Document from municipal archive in Magoanine C.
3 In June 2004, the water administration received 121.062.099 MZM and in December only 49.261.099 MZM.
ance on 910.723.920 MZM of which 68.642.140 MZM was the ’physical amount in the cash box’ i.e. liquid assets administered by Machaca. I had a copy of the 2004 report from the water commission and certain num- bers continued to confuse me. Most months, expenses varied between 12 and 25 mio. MZM. However, in December expenses were 237.550.050 MZM, i.e. approx ten times the usual. According to the report, no particu- lar activity had occurred during December which could explain the higher expenses. Thus, I turned to Nelson who immediately enlightened me.
”There are all these chefe de quarteirãos who must be rewarded for their work. They get five litres of wine”. I continued to argue that the expenses were still much higher than what could be explained by the purchase of wine. ”Some leaders are both chefe de quarteirãos and members of the neighbourhood administration”, Nelson said with a smile. ”They also get a couple of bottles”. ”You are also a member of the administration. How many did you get?” I wanted to know. Nelson laughed: ”Two bottles”.
On May 6, 2005, the already heated debate regarding the question- able functioning of the water administration rose to new hights. Early in the morning, someone broke in to the neighbourhood chief’s ofce and stole 70 million MZM;4 money which had been collected the previous day among residents participating in the water system. Apparently, the in- truder had used a key to access the ofce as there were no signs of forced entry and the door was wideopen when Alçinda, the secretary, arrived to discovered that the money was missing. Only three persons had keys to the door: Machaca, the neighbourhood chief; Samuel, the land coordina- tor; and Esaias, the ofce clerk. As Machaca had appointed himself as chief investigator and Samuel being his confidante, the only logical con- clusion was that Esaias was the culprit. In order to test this hypothesis, Machaca and Samuel made the surprising decision to visit three local healers (curandeiras) who, after consulting their spirit guides, unani-
4 1,928 USD or the equivalent of 23 minimum wages
mously confirmed Machaca’s initial suspicion that Esaias was the guilty perpetrator having stolen the 70 million MZM. Machaca did not get a chance to act on this knowledge, however, as he soon found himself in a situation not unlike that experienced by Esaias.A few days after the reve- latory visits to the healers, the mayor of Maputo heard about the break-in at the neighbourhood chief’s ofce and without consulting the parties in- volved, he ordered the military police to pick up Machaca for questioning.
As the neighbourhood chief refused having anything to do with the break- in, he was put in the municipal prison accused of stealing 70 million MZM. Alçinda, Machaca’s secretary, came to visit him in prison the next day and she apparently persuaded the sorely tried neighbourhood chief to make a cut a deal with the mayor. In order to resolve the matter without a wearing trial which would most likely end up fruitless for all parties any- way, Machaca suggested that he repaid the stolen money in installments which were to be taken from his monthly salary. The mayor immediately agreed and soon afterwards, Machaca was back in Mulwene as neigh- bourhood chief and he continued to function as such until March 2008 when his tenure expired.
The spectacle of the future
During a recent interview with the Mozambican historian João Paulo Coelho, we discussed the ontology of kuzama utomi (‘trying to make a life’) which is a temporal concept unique to the southern part of Mozam- bique. When reflecting on the relationship between kuzama utomi and utopian political ideals, Coelho noted that,
“There is this political mythology about the future... about making plans, you know.
The political discourse has been like ‘within ten years, the whole country will be developed’... But people have learned to create (arrumar) their own registers from such messages. The government speaks in an abstract register and they know
themselves that they aren’t saying anything... But the everyday register (registo quotidiano)... that’s the true register of kuzama utomi (trying to make a life)”.
To people in the southern part of Mozambique, such as those living in Mulwene on the outskirts of Maputo, kuzama utomi crystallizes an exis- tential modality framed by an already existing future. It thus indicates a capacity to navigate in a temporal universe that is structured by a set of properties which have not yet been realised. This might pertain to a house not yet built; a social position not yet achieved or even a bairro modelo not yet realised. From this perspective, people make their lives by gazing backwards at the present from an imagined future moment when the ef- forts which go into realising such projects may be fully estimated. When residents in Mulwene try to make their lives, say, by building cement houses, they will consequently position themselves imaginatively at the moment of the finished construction project and by retrospectively gazing upon themselves in the present, the social universe is illuminated in novel and often surprising ways. I have elsewhere described the effects of these temporal dynamics by outlining how residents succeed in securing rights to land based on house-building projects which have not commenced yet and which will, most likely, never be completed (Nielsen 2009). Following the French philosopher Jacques Rancière (2004), we might therefore ar- gue that kuzama utomi involves a ’redistribution of the sensible’ by dis- turbing the stability of the existing social fabric and introducing other po- tential associations between ways of being, saying and doing. Let us re- turn to the failed ideals associated with the bairro modelo in order to ex- plore the dynamics of this temporal phenomenon further.
To ofcials and residents alike, the initial idea of a bairro modelo con- stituted something far more elaborate than a blue-print for physical and administrative planning; it established an originary moment cast into the future from where the present was actualised. In other words, the imag- ined moment when the bairro modelo was fully realised became a norma- tive standard for social life in the community. To take one example, de-
spite the overt lack of institutional capacities for allocating land to new- comers based on a set of fixed urban standards, e.g. regarding plot size and building materials, the residents have carried out this ambitious task themselves. Hence, despite occupying land illegally, residents have par- celled out more than two thirds of the entire neighbourhood in accor- dance with urban standards which ofcial agencies could have used if given sufcient human and financial capacities. When entering Mulwene, one is immediately struck by the seeming homogeneity of the area with rows of evenly parcelled-out plots divided by straight ten-meter wide sandy roads. Surprisingly, this spatial lay-out is not a result of ofcial planning initiatives but, rather, an effect of numerous informal parcelling processes through which otherwise illegal residents have acquired access to plots in an urbanised neighbourhood. According to residents in the area, the parcelling template used (15 x 30 meter for individual plots) is moreover crucial for avoiding disputes between neighbours who would otherwise contest the existing division of land.
As can be seen from this example, the exhaustion of the initially de- fined ideals regarding the bairro modelo did not automatically entail the collapse of its temporal momentum; it did not eradicate a founding mo- ment in the future, as it were. It is equally clear, however, that the after- life of the bairro modelo presents us with a set of temporal properties un- like those associated with other projects cast into the future such as the building of a cement house or aspirations for an improved social position through marriage. To residents and ofcials alike, the ideal of a bairro modelo constitutes a utopian democratic ideal which has already dried out. As a confirmation of Coelho’s succinct reflections on the relationship between kuzama utomi and political ideologies, people do acknowledge - and often so with a certain degree of cynic irony – the vacuity of political statements regarding the promised realisation of an ideal neighbourhood.
In order to account for the tenacity of and desire for the exhausted ideal,
we need to consider the future moment from where people gaze upon the present, that is, the imagined moment when the bairro modelo is fully re- alised, in terms of an internal doubling. While social activities in the neighbourhood may be guided by the ideal of creating a bairro modelo, they are equally defined by their distance to this utopian mirage. In other words, the process of making a life (kuzama utomi) within a temporal horizon defined by the bairro modelo is constituted as much by an imme- diate readability of the social landscape as its radical uncanniness. Fol- lowing Rancière, this might be considered as a process of impossible identification with otherness in general; or rather, a kind of dis-identifica- tion through which individual perspectives emerge by being what they are not (Davis 2010:87). In this regard, the attempts at making a life in Mul- wene acquire a particular theatrical quality where individuals emerge as social personae by pretending to be something they cannot be, i.e. inhabi- tants in a model neighbourhood. Let be briefly explain this further.
As previously argued, kuzama utomi implies that people gaze back- wards from a future moment when the efforts needed in order to arrive at this (imagined) moment can be properly evaluated. If we consider the mo- ment of the full realisation of the bairro modelo in terms of an internal doubling of readability and uncanniness, it implies that people evaluate not only the efforts needed to arrive at this moment, but also the forces which caused this imagined future to collapse. In the southern part of Mozambique (and in other parts of the region), these two seemingly oppo- sitional sets of properties are, in fact, part of the same phenomenon. To people I know in Mulwene, everyday life constitutes a latent exposure to malignant but also important forces beyond their control, ranging from ancestral spirits to erratic state administrations. Indeed, not everything is known and what is known is that power works in hidden and often capri- cious ways (cf. Ashforth 2005). By positioning themselves at the imagined moment when the bairro modelo is fully realised, then, people are allowed
a momentary glimpse of the real workings of power. As a spectacle of the future, the exhausted democratic ideals carve out a stage for the acting out of the uncanny forces at play in the social universe. Although they constitute the ontological basis for social life, they are rarely addressed in the public realm given the probability of disrupting a momentary stability.
I will consequently argue that it is from this perspective that the tur- moil surrounding the questionable functioning of the water system needs to be understood. Let me briefly recapitulate the primary occurrences de- scribed above:
1. Failure to democratically elect members for the water committee
2. Ofcial incapacities for monitoring the administration of the water sys- tem
3. Misuse of finances (for gift-giving) 5. Theft of 70 million MZM
6. Accusations based on statements from three healers (curandeiros) 7. Detention of neighbourhood chief
8. Repayment by neighbourhood chief in instalments
What I wish to propose, then, is that the framing of these occurrences by a set of dead democratic visions is what allowed for a playing out of the contradictory forces which shape the social universe. Put somewhat dif- ferently, people in Mulwene have an immediate desire for exhausted ideo- logical ideals because they give a momentary glimpse of those capricious powers which are normally presumed rather than addressed. In this re- gard, the initial aspirations for creating a bairro modelo delimits a re- stricted temporal and spatial scene for residents to become involved in a ruse of pretending something they are not in order to become it.
Surely, it might be argued that the theft of 70 million MZM is a very real occurence with severe consequence for people living in the area.
However, as my good friend Nelson told me,
”We have no problem with Esaias stealing the 70 million MZM. He was trying to make a life for his kids, you know. Problems would arise only if he had stolen the money from the population (o povo). So he was really an expert (esperto); he man- aged to make a life by stealing that money”.
In Mulwene, the notion of an ’expert’ is generally used when describing covert transactions with powerful ancestral spirits (xiChangana kuken- jha). The expert is consequently the person capable of manipulating the capricious ancestral forces for personal gain. Regarding the break-in at the neighbourhood administration, it was equally assumed that a theft of such magnitude could have occurred only by invoking ancestral spirits.
Discussing the incident with Daniel, my neighbour, I was again reminded of the importance of spiritual forces. ”They have very powerful spirits in Vilanculos”. Daniel put his head closer to mine and continued in a low voice. ”Machaca is from Vilanculos, you know”.
Furthermore, as Nelson also made clear, the economic realm that emerged with the bairro modelo was not within the domain of everyday transactions. A few days earlier, Nelson had outlined the economic logics of state-initiated projects.
Let’s say that a thief steals something… that’s bad because he stole from a person.
But when a person manages to steal from the state, we even praise it (elogiamos).
The state isn’t somebody (não é alguem); the state doesn’t cry because you stole from it… The state is something infinite, something which doesn’t stop; the state doesn’t stop, it doesn’t suffer. So you are stealing from it, but the state doesn’t suf - fer. Therefore you can steal as much as you like (laughs).
So, if Esaias (or Machaca, the neighbourhood chief) did not steal what is locally known as ‘living money’ (dinheiro vivo), that is, money which is ac- tive within the realm of everyday transactions, why the need to verify the identity of the culprit by visiting a healer? And why the need to make the incident publicly known and thus potentially expose the questionable functioning of the water administration? It might be argued, however, that the primary objective with the visit to the healer was not to spot the guilty perpetrator. Indeed, as a public institution, the neighbourhood ad-
ministration was without the necessary authority (let alone capacities) to act on such suspicions. Rather, the three sessions staged an apt opportu- nity for confirming the true functioning of power within and beyond the local social universe. To the parties involved and to people living in Mul- wene, it documented the efforts needed in order to reach (or potentially collapse) the future moment from where the present was gazed upon when attempting to make a life in a socio-political environment framed by exhausted democratic ideals.
Even the district administrator only reluctantly exposed the circum- stances surrounding the break-in. As he told me, his primary concern was to keep the problem within the neighbourhood and thus avoid further at- tention which might only reveal the failures of the initial ambitions of cre- ating a bairro modelo. As an echo of the administrator’s concerns, when the mayor finally heard about the incidence, he emphasized the need to find an immediate and pragmatic solution whereas the question of finding the guilty perpetrator was of lesser importance.
Conclusion
Many Mozambicans live in a social universe that is imprinted by the fail- ures of ideological ideals: Rural communities still mimick the physical lay- out of the communal villages of socialist era, the many dilapidated build- ings intended for collective farming serve as reminders of administrative deficiencies created during the early post-Independence period and, lately, the increase in corruption rates vividly document the limited atten- tion span of those international donor agencies which initially called to arms against corruption and red-tape.
In this presentation I have addressed the increasing number of failed ideological visions in Mozambique through a post-mortem examination of the dead democratic ideals associated with the creation of a model neigh- bourhood in the aftermath to the flooding which hit Mozambique in the
early months of 2000. As I have tried to make clear, the future-oriented utopianism of ideological projects, such as the bairro modelo, is aestheti- cally similar to the process of ‘trying to make a life’ (kuzama utomi) which entails a temporal displacement to a future moment in order to assess the efforts needed in order to get there. The exhausted ideal of creating a bairro modelo allowed for a peculiar doubling of the imagined future mo- ment
there and thus try to balance the
whereby into the future which it is a reflection of the temporal phenome- non of ‘trying to make a life’ (kuzama utomi) that
Er inverse look at these failures Another argument yet unaddressed prototyping
ranging from the physical lay-out of rural communities which the communal villages of the socialist era to the present-day which still imitate the socialist visions
Afterlife er mere real – som reality in mulwene To sum up, in this paper, I have described a
Bliver autentisk i form snarere end i substans - skal til sidst.
Makes visible that which is otherwise hidden: the uncanniness of power Theatrality: allows for playing out the chaos and intensity of social life while still on a confined and relatively visible scene. World composed by forces which cannot be seen and it is crucial to establish some order in or- der to control those potentially malignant forces which are also crucial to social life.
Becomes a spectacle to be actualised and through which it is possible to fremmane the working of power. a scene which people must present ex- ists already in order to create it.
Derved sker doubling: readability + uncanniness because the world emerges from a mythical time in the future – possible to see the real func- tioning of the world. Sker redistribution of the sensible (ranciere).
Bliver mere autentiske – muliggør at ser the real functioning of the world.
Er fra vilanculos; de spiser pengene. Og er derfor også nødvenigt at tage
til healer der er i stand til at etablere appropriate distances til otherwise malevolent forces…
Displacement: allows to speak about democracy but from a moment which has not yet occurred.
Constantly failing democratic ideals: bairro modelo, democratic function- ing of water system, etc.
Difference through radical sameness
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