The Anti-Lusotropicalist Good Fortune of a Mozambican Dissertation
The book discussed in this article is the published version of a doctoral dissertation defended at the University of São Paulo (USP) by a former leader of the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo). It received the prize for the 'best doctoral dissertation' of 2008 in that year's competition organised by the Associação Brasileira de Ciências Sociais (Brazilian Association for the Social Sciences or ANPOCS). Its success in Brazil is undoubtedly a result of the detailed analysis that tears 'Lusotropicalism' to pieces, mainly insofar as it applies to Africa. While the book may be convincing with regard to the analysis of Lusotropicalism and race relations, it raises serious questions, on the other, about several aspects of Mozambican history. Cabaço does not distance himself sufficiently from the Front's paradigm of authoritarian modernisation (modernity versus tradition). This paradigm was a veritable political culture that travelled through the transformation from 'nationalism' to 'revolutionary nationalism', from this to 'Marxism-Leninism' and finally to the 'self-esteem' of the current neo-liberal discourse.