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‘Grande Herói da Banda’: The Political Uses of the Memory of Hoji ya Henda in Angola
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2022
Abstract
The article explores the political uses of the memory of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola's (MPLA's) heroic combatant Hoji ya Henda from the independence of Angola in 1975 to recent times. Based on extensive archival work in Luanda, the article maps the historical periods and circumstances during which the ruling regime invoked Henda's memory, noting how changes in the political system directly affected how his memory permeated the public domain, oscillating between presence, silence, replacement, and resurgence. In doing so, the article explores a dilemma in the study of memory, opposing historical continuity and active construction in memory-making. It concludes that even when subjected to political manipulation for several decades, the original memorialisation of national heroes such as Hoji ya Henda, although subject to historical circumstance, always retains its original mnemonic signifier in society. This signals an important nuance in entrenched debates concerning the opposition between history and the political construction of memory.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
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6 I follow Susannah Radstone and Katharine Hodgkin when arguing that to speak of regimes of memory is to note that ‘what is understood as history and as memory is produced by historically specific and contestable systems of knowledge and power and that what history and memory produce as knowledge is also contingent upon the (contestable) systems of knowledge and power that produce them.’ See S. Radstone and K. Hodgkin ‘Regimes of memory, an introduction’, in S. Radstone and K. Hodgkin (eds.), Memory Cultures: Memory, Subjectivity and Recognition (New Brunswick, 2005), 11.
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12 The expression was used by A. Neto when founding the MPLA-PT in 1977.
13 UNITA was created by Jonas Savimbi in 1966 as a third stream of Angolan nationalism to fight Portuguese colonialism.
14 The Youth of the MPLA (JMPLA). The MPLA did the same with its women's wing, the Organisation of Angolan Women (OMA), represented by Deolinda Rodrigues, and with the Organisation of the Angolan Pioneer (OPA), the children's wing, which albeit represented by A. Neto celebrates the life and death of Augusto Ngangula.
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16 V. Martins and M. Cardina, ‘A memory of concrete: politics of representation and silence in the Agostinho Neto Memorial’, Kronos, 45 (2019). Apart from commemorating people or events associated with the history of the MPLA, the broader spectrum of anti-colonial nationalism characterised by the history of the UPA/FNLA and UNITA remains sidelined in official celebrations. These political parties do not regard heroes like Hoji ya Henda as Angolan heroes but rather as MPLA heroes. They don't contest their heroic deeds but rather the one-sided political dimension of celebration and marginalisation of other voices and stories.
17 M. wa Muiu, ‘Unsung heroes and heroines: the role of people and organizations in South Africa's liberation struggle’, African Studies Review, 50:1 (2007), 133–9.
18 For a comprehensive biography of José Mendes de Carvalho ‘Hoji ya Henda’, see P. M. Júnior, José Mendes de Carvalho – Comandante Hoji ya Henda. Um testemunho à sua memória (Luanda, 2001).
19 The Native Statute (1926–61) was a colonial law that divided Angolans between assimilated and indigenous. It curtailed fundamental rights to all Angolans unless they became assimilated, which meant obedience to Portuguese cultural norms under the close scrutiny of the colonial state.
20 Marissa Moorman shows how despite being recognised as an overwhelming force, the PIDE was often nervous about the liberation movements. See M. Moorman, ‘Guerrilla broadcasters and the unnerved colonial state in Angola (1961–1974)’, The Journal of African History, 59:2 (2018), 241–61.
21 For a comprehensive analysis of the Trial of the 50, see: M. C. Medina, Angola: os processos políticos da luta pela independência (Coimbra, 2005).
22 André Mendes de Carvalho ‘Uanhenga Xitu’ was a top MPLA cadre commander and one of Angola's most famous writers.
23 Interview with I. Martins, Luanda, 26 Feb. 2020. I. Martins is a top Angolan diplomat. Feb. 4 is a national holiday in Angola that celebrates the start of the armed struggle for liberation against Portuguese colonialism in 1961, an event that official history registers as led by the MPLA.
24 Interview with I. Martins, Luanda, 26 Feb. 2020. Henda underwent military training in Ghana and Morocco between November 1961 and 1963, not Algeria.
25 Lúcio Lara Archive at the Associação Tchiweka de Documentação, Luanda (ATD), Vitória ou Morte, Orgão de Informação do MPLA, 17 Apr. 1968.
26 M. Traça, Do EPLA às FAPLA: Apontamentos para a história das forças Armadas de Angola (Luanda, 2013), 58. M. Traça is an Angolan nationalist, MPLA militant and former guerrilla fighter in the Second and Third regions of the movement.
27 List of publications surveyed in the Lúcio Lara Archive of the ATD featuring content about Henda: Angola in Arms (1969–71); Boletim do Militante do MPLA (1964–69); Boletim de Informação do MPLA (1969); Boletim Informativo da JMPLA (1979); Boletim Informativo da OMA (1979–85); Boletim Informativo do MPLA/MPLA-PT (1977–81); O Njango ya Sualali, the journal of the FAPLA (1968); Flash sur l'Angola, a publication by the department of information of the MPLA in French language (1970–72); Informação ao Militante MPLA (1970–73); Henda, Orgão Nacional da Juventude do MPLA (1976–77); Jornal Juventude (first page missing, year unknown); Lavra e Oficina (1979–81); Luta do Povo, Comités Henda (1974); MPLA Informations (1965–69); Ngangula, official bulletin of the OPA (1977–85); Revista Militar FAPLA (1979–83); Vitória ou Morte (1962–69); Vitória é Certa (1973–76).
28 Slogans in publications connected with the MPLA and the JMPLA in the 1970s and 80s. See footnote 31.
29 Ibid.
30 On the concept of products and practices of memory see J. Olick, ‘From collective memory to the sociology of mnemonic practices and products’, in A. Erll and A. Nünning (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (Berlin, 2010), 158.
31 Luta do Povo [newspaper of the Comité Henda], 3 (1974), 31.
32 Centres for Revolutionary Instruction were trainings camps built by the MPLA during the liberation struggle for the military and political instruction of its guerrilla fighters.
33 On the 27 May 1977, see D. Mateus and A. Mateus, Mateus, Purga em Angola: o 27 de Maio de 1977 (Alfragide, 2007); L. Pawson, In the Name of the People: Angola's Forgotten Massacre (London, 2014).
34 J. M. Mabeko-Tali, Guerrilhas e Lutas Sociais: o MPLA perante si próprio (1966–1977) (Lisbon, 2018), 424–5.
35 On the connection between Alves and musicians see M. Moorman, Intonations: A social history of music and nation in Luanda, Angola, from 1945 to recent times (Athens, OH, 2008), 175.
36 The MPLA would later create an honour titled Medal Hoji ya Henda, attributed to militants of the JMPLA that have excelled in that organisation for more than ten years.
37 Elias Dia Kimuezo LP 1975, N'Gola. See also Orquestra A Voz D'Africa's song Hoji ya Henda (Angola: Merengue, 1974), Pépé Pepito (Angola: CDA, 1977) and Cajó Pimenta's record Muzuedi Kidi (Angola: N'gola, n.d.). On this see A. P. Alves, ‘O Agrupamento Kissanguela e a canção no pós-independência em Angola (1975–1979)’, Afro-Ásia, 60 (2019). Henda's celebration in the music of the 1970s underscores Moorman's note that the ‘state symbolically reclaimed music, musicians and entertainment for its nation-building project’. See Moorman, ‘Intonations’, 181.
38 I was not able to ascertain the specific date for the removal of the monument to Hoji ya Henda and subsequent repositioning of his bust in the Fortaleza.
39 On the liberation script see J. P. Borges Coelho, ‘Politics and contemporary history in Mozambique: a set of epistemological notes’, Kronos, 39:1 (2013). On how the MPLA built its historical memory as official Angolan history see V. Martins, ‘Hegemony, resistance and gradation: the politics of remembering Angola's liberation struggle’, History and Memory, 33:2 (2021).
40 Ducharme and Fine, ‘The construction of nonpersonhood and demonization: commemorating the traitorous reputation of Benedict Arnold’, Social Forces, 73:4 (1995), 1310.
41 ‘Acto central do 14 de Abril teve lugar na Manauto-1’, Jornal de Angola, 15 Apr. 1980, 11. Afonso Van-Dúnem was a top cadre of the MPLA and Minister of External Relations between 1985 and 1989.
42 For more on the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, see P. Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria and the struggle for Southern Africa 1976–1991 (Chapel Hill, 2013), 393–420.
43 Military service was compulsory at the time. Henda's memory was mobilised to provide a raison d’être to fight an unpopular war thousands of kilometers from home.
44 ‘Envergar a farda do exército nacional deve ser orgulho de todo o jovem Angolano’, Jornal de Angola, 14 Apr. 1987, 14.
45 ‘XX Aniversário da morte em combate do Comandante Hoji ya Henda. Declaração do Bureau Político sobre o Dia da Juventude Angolana’, Jornal de Angola, 15 Apr. 1988, 7.
46 Not only the edition of the 14 of April but editions of days previous and after were also included in the analysis.
47 I was not able to find the editions referent to the years 1995, 2000, and 2002 at the archives of the Angolan National Library.
48 Margarida Paredes argued that Deolinda had always been marginalised within the party for misogynous reasons. See M. Paredes, ‘Deolinda Rodrigues, da Família Metodista à Família MPLA, o Papel da Cultura na Política’. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 20, (2010). Without disputing the intricacies of the Angolan patriarchy – see S. Makana, ‘Motherhood as Activism in the Angolan People's War, 1961–1975’, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, 15/2 (2017) – and indeed Deolinda's experiences as a woman in the party, I question the heroic hyper-representation the nation made of her in the 1970s and 80s. Like Henda, she also faded from public memory from the 1990s onwards. In fact, all three patrons of the MPLA's base organisations were suspended from the public sphere after the turn to democratic rule.
49 B. Korte and S. Wendt, ‘Introduction: Studying Heroism from a Global Perspective’, in B. Korte, S. Wendt, and N. Falkenayner, Heroism and a Global Phenomenon in Contemporary Culture (New York, 2019), 5.
50 C. Lentz and M. Lowe, Remembering Independence (London, 2018), 77.
51 The prominence of José Eduardo dos Santos in Angolan liberation history had already been somewhat exaggerated before, as he was a student in the Soviet Union at the time. The monumentalisation of the boat dos Santos used to escape from Angola in 1962, displayed in Lobito, serves as an example of the attempts to elevate his contribution.
52 The political uses of the memory of Hoji ya Henda match Fouéré's idea of a moral matrix, a composition of readings of the personality, life, and actions of Nyerere ‘reduced to striking images, familiar terms, and moral examples that are used as a reservoir of positive moral principles, metaphors, and beliefs.’ See Fouéré, ‘Remembering Nyerere’, 39.
53 See Gabriel Bunga, ‘Hoji ya Henda repousa em novo túmulo’, reporting for Jornal de Angola, 21 Dec. 2015.
54 In an interview to Portuguese television channel SIC conducted by Henrique Cymerman on 6 June 2013, José Eduardo dos Santos responded to the still young youth movement by stating that the protesting youth were no more than ‘people with certain frustrations’, and downplayed the social and economic problems that assail this important segment of Angolan society.
55 Paulo Julião and José Rodrigues, ‘Grande entrevista com Sérgio Rescova’, Televisão Pública de Angola – TPA, 11 Feb. 2017.
56 On the construction of José Eduardo dos Santos as the ‘architect of peace’ see Lázaro, G., ‘Post-civil war in Angola: inducing “oblivion” and “public forgiveness” as the official policy’, in Florêncio, F. (ed.), Dynamics of Social Reconstruction in Post-war Angola (Freiburg, 2016)Google Scholar. Various segments of Angolan society resist the proposal of conceiving dos Santos as the architect of peace and continue looking for other figures in search of a moral blueprint. For the uses of Jonas Savimbi's memory as an alternative to MPLA constituted heroes, see Martins, V., “A nossa lâmpada não se apaga”: the mnemonic return of Angola's Jonas Savimbi’, African Studies Review, 64:1 (2020)Google Scholar.
57 Pitcher, M. A., ‘Forgetting from above and memory from below: strategies of legitimation and struggle in postsocialist Mozambique’, Africa, 76:1 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
58 Edna Dala, ‘JMPLA abre primeira feira de educação e tecnologias’, reporting for the Jornal de Angola, 27 Apr. 2018.
59 Even though Hoji ya Henda was never involved with the JMPLA during his life.
60 I could not conduct an interview with the JMPLA secretary to ask about the story of the replacement of José Eduardo dos Santos’ photograph. The former president will also disappear from the new currency bills Angola is producing, which will only depict the first President António Agostinho Neto.
61 On the link between youth and morality in music see Moorman, M., ‘Anatomy of Kuduro: articulating the Angolan body politics after the war’, African Studies Review, 57:3 (2014), 21–40Google Scholar. The data here presented regards the production of memory, not the overall reception of memory in popular consciousness.