The author of this book, until his assassination early in 1969, was President of FRELIMO, the Mozambique Liberation Front. Here he analyzes the origins of the war in the economics of exploitation, in education for submission, and in general cultural deprivation; and he shows how African people’s liberation struggle implies a radical transformation of society at all levels.
The common thread of Portuguese colonialism on the continent of Africa and in the Americas (i.e. Brazil) is that the Portuguese adhere to assimilationist type subjugation. From the outset, the Africans who they colonized were placed in a situation that looked like post-civil rights United States. Africans who were colonized by the Portuguese have all analyzed this as anti-black racism which places Africans at the mercy of how “Portuguese” we can be. This book should be read as a companion to The Wretched of the Earth and is essential reading to understand all the ways in which colonialism affected the African world.
