The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people

This article examines how the writing of the national anthem - taken as an object of a history of post-independence Mozambique - reveals processes of identification concerning the imagining of a subject-people. This involves an analysis of three calls to submit proposals for an anthem and the respon...

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Main Author: Maria-Benedita Basto
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of the Western Cape, Centre for Humanities Research and the History Department
Series:Kronos
Online Access:http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-01902013000100008&lng=en&tlng=en
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author Maria-Benedita Basto
author_facet Maria-Benedita Basto
author_sort Maria-Benedita Basto
collection DOAJ
description This article examines how the writing of the national anthem - taken as an object of a history of post-independence Mozambique - reveals processes of identification concerning the imagining of a subject-people. This involves an analysis of three calls to submit proposals for an anthem and the responses to such calls, at the eve of independence, in the context of the civil war and the Fourth Congress in the early 1980s, and after the advent of multiparty democracy. While each of these calls was related to a different fiction of the people, all of them shared a common contradiction: the postulate of an active, sovereign people coexisted with the presumption of its passivity, conceived as the inability to produce the anthem which would represent the people's very self. Thus, rather than confirming the principle of popular sovereignty, the writings of the national anthem led to its problematisation and constitutes an intriguing historiographical object.
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spelling doaj.art-27fca4d3424a4e9e8fd3d620a09219352022-12-22T01:38:58ZengUniversity of the Western Cape, Centre for Humanities Research and the History DepartmentKronos2309-9585391185203S0259-01902013000100008The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-peopleMaria-Benedita Basto0Paris Sorbonne/CRIMICThis article examines how the writing of the national anthem - taken as an object of a history of post-independence Mozambique - reveals processes of identification concerning the imagining of a subject-people. This involves an analysis of three calls to submit proposals for an anthem and the responses to such calls, at the eve of independence, in the context of the civil war and the Fourth Congress in the early 1980s, and after the advent of multiparty democracy. While each of these calls was related to a different fiction of the people, all of them shared a common contradiction: the postulate of an active, sovereign people coexisted with the presumption of its passivity, conceived as the inability to produce the anthem which would represent the people's very self. Thus, rather than confirming the principle of popular sovereignty, the writings of the national anthem led to its problematisation and constitutes an intriguing historiographical object.http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-01902013000100008&lng=en&tlng=en
spellingShingle Maria-Benedita Basto
The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people
Kronos
title The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people
title_full The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people
title_fullStr The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people
title_full_unstemmed The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people
title_short The writings of the national anthem in independent Mozambique: fictions of the subject-people
title_sort writings of the national anthem in independent mozambique fictions of the subject people
url http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-01902013000100008&lng=en&tlng=en
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