'A family of the state': bureaucratic impediments to democratic reform in Mozambique

University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop Conference Democracy: Popular Precedents, Popular Practice and Popular Culture 13-15 July 1994.Mozambique is preparing for its first multi-party election since gaining independence in 1975. A national electoral census will take place from 1 June to I5 August 1994, with the election scheduled for 27-28 October 1994. Prospects for a "free and fair" election are encouraging. While it is true that democracy cannot take root without an open electoral process, it cannot nourish on that alone. Elections represent an important point of popular engagement with government. Indeed, that the election in South Africa was deemed to be "free and fair" is no small achievement. What matters is what follows the election; in the case of South Africa, the quality of the democracy that takes shape as a consequence of the election. And here, as in the case of Angola, there are many potential obstacles in the path towards the development of a government which genuinely reflects the popular will. One of these is the state bureacracy. Differing perspectives on this are discussed. The Mozambique case is particularly bad

Maritime Mozambique (sec. XIV - XXI)

Mozambique’s coastline is one of the longest in Africa. For historians, the most obvious examples of the connections linking Mozambique to the Indian Ocean are the export of gold, ivory and slaves, and the import of Indian textiles. Without minimizing the importance of these linkages, this article draws attention to several other elements that have contributed and continue to play a role in the relationship between Mozambique and the Indian Ocean. The article explores the maritime culture of the inhabitants of coastal Mozambique, including contemporary efforts to protect the environment and develop the fishing industry, also highlighting more mundane aspects of trade between Mozambique and its trading partners across the Mozambique Channel. Finally, we discuss the human connections that were enmeshed in all of these economic networks.Moçambique tem um dos litorais mais extensos da África. Para historiadores, os exemplos mais óbvios das conexões que ligam Moçambique ao oceano Índico são a exportação de ouro, marfim e escravos, nem como a importação de têxteis indianos. Sem minimizar a importância dessas conexões, este artigo chama a atenção para diversos outros elementos que contribuíram e continuam a desempenhar um papel nas relações entre Moçambique e o oceano Índico. O artigo explora a cultura marítima dos habitantes da costa moçambicana, incluindo esforços contemporâneos para proteger o meio ambiente e desenvolver a indústria da pesca, destacando aspectos mais mundanos do comércio entre Moçambique e seus parceiros comerciais através do Canal de Moçambique. Finalmente, discutem-se as conexões humanas emaranhadas em todas essas redes econômicas

The Role of the Yao in the Development of Trade in East-Central Africa, 1698-c.1850.

Long distance routes, based on ivory, from the interior of East-Central Africa to Mozambique and Kilwa were forged by the Maravi and the Yao, respectively, during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and by about 1698 the Yao apparently dominated both these routes. After 1698, factors influencing the ivory trade at the coast caused the Yao to shift most of their trade from Kilwa to Mozambique, where Yao ivory soon constituted the basis of the island's trade. In the interior, the Yao traded with the Maravi and, through the Bisa, with the recently established Eastern Lunda state of the Mwata Kazembe. After 1750, Kilwa slowly began to revive as Zanzibar, under Omani hegemony, became an increasingly important coastal entrepot, while the trade of Mozambique was plagued by Makua belligerence and by Portuguese harassment of the Indian trading community there. By 1785, influenced in particular by the better price paid for ivory at Kilwa, most Yao had rechannelled their trade back to Kilwa. Concurrently, the substance of trade in East-Central Africa was being altered, as slaves became an increasingly important commodity due to the rising demands of both the Arabs and French traders from the Mascarene Islands. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, although ivory still dominated the Yao trade to Kilwa, those Yao who continued to trade to Mozambique were already basing their trade on slaves. By the late 1830s slaves had also become dominant along the Kilwa route, which continued to command the bulk of Yao trade. The Ngoni invasions and mid-century dispersal of the Yao, caused by Makua and Lomwe attacks from the east, transformed the Yao from traders into invaders, as they spilled into Malawi and Tanzania, and marked the beginning of Yao political hegemony over a wider area of East-Central Africa, while destroying the earlier pattern of trade

A complex relationship:

The Comoro Islands have historically played a vital role in the commercial and religious history of the south-west Indian Ocean and as a human bridge between the African continent, Madagascar, and the Mascarene Islands. In this paper I seek to examine three aspects of this relationship as it pertains to Mozambique and to stimulate collaborative scholarly research. The first topic examines the intimate trading connections between the Comoros and Mozambique. While much attention has been focused on the slave trade of this circuit in the 19th century, we must not overlook the thriving, complex exchange of foodstuffs that was equally part of the same regional network. These connections underpinned the second and third issues that I discuss in this paper. The second aspect of this relationship focuses on the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean world. 1 examine how displaced African populations were absorbed into their host societies, the ways in which they maintained and transformed their own cultural identities, and the influences that they carried with them into these new historical situations in the Comoros. The third element of this relationship concerns the history of Islam in northern Mozambique, in the 19th and 20th centuries, which is intimately tied to the Comoros.Une relation complexe : le Mozambique et les Comores aux 19e et 20e siècles. -- Les Comores ont joué un rôle crucial dans l'histoire commerciale et religieuse du sud-ouest de l'océan Indien et en tant que trait d'union humain entre le continent africain, Madagascar et les Mascareignes. Dans cet article, je cherche à examiner ces trois aspects par rapport au Mozambique et dans le but de stimuler la recherche collective. Le premier aspect concerne les liens commerciaux étroits unissant les Comores au Mozambique. Alors que l'on a jusqu'ici mis l'accent sur le commerce des esclaves au cours du XIXe siècle, on ne doit pas sous-estimer la complexité et la prospérité du commerce de denrées alimentaires qui faisait également partie intégrante de ce même réseau régional. Ces relations sous-tendent les deux autres aspects abordés dans ce travail. Le second aspect concerne la diaspora africaine de l'océan Indien. J'analyse la façon dont des populations africaines déplacées ont été absorbées par les sociétés d'accueil, les moyens qu'elles ont utilisés pour à la fois maintenir et transformer leurs identités ainsi que les traditions qu'elles ont apportées avec elles. Le troisième aspect a trait à l'histoire de l'islam dans le nord du Mozambique au XIXe et au XXe siècle, histoire qui est intimement liée à celle des Comores

A clinical study of kuru patients with long incubation periods at the end of the epidemic in Papua New Guinea

Kuru is so far the principal human epidemic prion disease. While its incidence has steadily declined since the cessation of its route of transmission, endocannibalism, in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s, the arrival of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD), also thought to be transmitted by dietary prion exposure, has given kuru a new global relevance. We investigated all suspected cases of kuru from July 1996 to June 2004 and identified 11 kuru patients. There were four females and seven males, with an age range of 46–63 years at the onset of disease, in marked contrast to the age and sex distribution when kuru was first investigated 50 years ago. We obtained detailed histories of residence and exposure to mortuary feasts and performed serial neurological examination and genetic studies where possible. All patients were born a significant period before the mortuary practice of transumption ceased and their estimated incubation periods in some cases exceeded 50 years. The principal clinical features of kuru in the studied patients showed the same progressive cerebellar syndrome that had been previously described. Two patients showed marked cognitive impairment well before preterminal stages, in contrast to earlier clinical descriptions. In these patients, the mean clinical duration of 17 months was longer than the overall average in kuru but similar to that previously reported for the same age group, and this may relate to the effects of both patient age and PRNP codon 129 genotype. Importantly, no evidence for lymphoreticular colonization with prions, seen uniformly in vCJD, was observed in a patient with kuru at tonsil biopsy