This paper discusses the symbolic significance of the entry of Mozambique in the British commonwealth. British and Portuguese colonial cultures in southern Africa are contrasted and compared to reveal the tension between the dogmas of ‘assimilation’ and ‘segregation’. This tension also permeates the post-colonial situation in Mozambique, producing strong assimilationism during the socialist period and an increasing desire to combine adherence to western culture with a concomitant celebration of local ‘tradition’. As Mozambique to-day draws closer to British and north American notions of multiculturalism and ‘ethnic difference’ the article shows how these in a sense represent the logical contemporary sequels of segregation in the past.