A DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY OF MAYOMBE
Mayombe is a novel which was written by one of the
major Angolan writers of fiction, Pepetela, between 1970 and 1971 but published
only in 1980. Pepetela fought with the MPLA's guerrillas and so he was an
eyewitness of the difficulties which these were facing. The publication of
Mayombe was delayed for political reasons and Pepetela remembers
asking questions like this - «será que é útil, a
revolução era ainda muito recente [...] Poderia o livro servir os
inimigos [is it useful? The revolution was still going on [...] Could the book
be useful to the enemies]?» (qtd. in «Literatura»). In other
words, Mayombe demystifies the MPLA and its militants by showing that
the movement was not made up of ideal, heroic revolutionary supermen. Since
Pepetela puts into fiction the reality that he himself lived, he also
contributes to this demystification. Even Agostinho Neto, the president of the
MPLA at the time, agreed that Mayombe should be published.
In Mayombe, Pepetela uses several episodes from the
Angolan revolution to portray the relationships among a group of MPLA
guerrillas in the Angolan Northern Province of Cabinda. Ethnic and ideological
differences and tribalism tend to distract the guerrillas from their many
shared ideals and perspectives. Prejudices, suspicion, racism, hatred and
jealousy result from ethnicity, tribalism and ideological differences. These
divisions are so acute that they hinder the
collective resistance against colonial domination and thus
lead to divisions between the guerrillas and even among those in the High
Command. Fearless, the Commander, is very much aware of this and on one of the
occasions in which the guerrillas refuse to volunteer to rescue Muatianvua, he
says, «No-one wanted to volunteer [...] Were [Muatianvua] Kikongo or
Kimbundu four or five would soon have come forward [...] Is that how we are
going to win the war?» (34). In other words, Fearless shows that because
of the loyalties of ethnicity, the significance of national unity and
collective action will be lost and the struggle to advance and force the
Portuguese out of Angola will loose its momentum.
Even though the guerrillas fight together as a solid
collective group against a common enemy - the Portuguese - this collectivity is
being undermined by each one of the guerrillas' personal motives, which
originally drove them to join the struggle. The Operations Chief (Ops) alludes
to the different motives that have involved them in the struggle: «The
reasons are different, but the actions are the same» (157). For instance,
Theory, who comes from Gabela and is of mixed blood (from a black mother and a
white father), joins the struggle so that «no-one [will] notice this about
him» (4) and he will be regarded as an Angolan, despite the colour of his
skin. Struggle comes from Cabinda and, since the Cabinda people have refused to
ally themselves with the guerrillas and are therefore considered to be
treacherous, he fights in the frontline so that the other guerrillas will not
think of him as someone not to be relied on. As he says, «How to convince
the guerrillas [...] that my people are not just made up of traitors? I shall
have [...] to assert myself, by being braver than anyone» (175-6).
New World sees himself as not driven by any personal motives.
He leaves Europe to join the struggle and because living in Europe would have
provided him with a better life, New World sees himself as unselfish (52). He
is a Marxist and applies a fundamentalist Marxism to the rationale of the
struggle. That is, for him «man as an individual is nothing, only the
masses can make History» (52). He enlarges on this: «The Revolution
is made by the mass of the people, the sole entity with leadership capacity
[...]» (72). Since popular support is needed for the revolution to
advance, New World's allusion expresses in theoretical terms what Fearless
tries to convey earlier when he says that, «A people' s war is not
measured by the number of enemy dead. It is measured by the degree of popular
support it has» (12). Unlike New World, Fearless gives up the study of
economics to join the struggle with the intent of «making up stories in
which [he] was the hero [and] the revolution gave [him] an opportunity to
create them in action» (84). Thus, contradicting New World, he says,
«what I am doing has a selfish purpose [...] No-one is permanently
unselfish» (50). This suggests that the guerrillas are not driven by the
motives of a liberated collectivity; ambition and personal interests dominate
their motivations and they readily put aside national interests.
Mayombe attempts to transcend these forces of
division among the guerrillas with a new multiculturalism based in the culture
of resistance and which is shaped by the liberation struggle. João and
Fearless are the architects of the culture of resistance for nation-building so
that a person will no longer act as Kimbundu or Kikongo but as an Angolan.
Fearless' saying that «I do not care if someone is Kikongo or Kimbundu
[but Angolan]» (128) testifies to it. It is the exposure to the same
political, economic and social forces that bind people together and motivate
them even to forget their own tribes. In Amilcar Cabral's terms, «[people]
rise above `tribalism'
[...] they realize their crucial role in the struggle [and]
break the bonds of their village» (qtd. in Davidson 323). In addition, as
Fearless says when they have to defend their base, «We mobilized more than
thirty men in under an hour [...] they forgot their various tribes [...] the
inconvenience and danger of the action [...] that's why I have confidence in
the Angolans. They are meddlers, but they all forget their quarrels and spites
to rescue a companion from danger [...] Another generation and the Angolan will
be a new man. What is needed is action» (151).
The action that Pepetela conveys through Fearless makes
necessary constant dialogue, internal cohesion and the acknowledgement of the
rights of the other for these break down the barriers which prevent the
promotion of collectivity. It also requires, as Fearless says, «to deny
[oneself] in order to be reborn in a different form, or better still, to give
rise to another so that instead of making one's ideas absolute truth, these
should pass through a regenerative cycle of `death' and `rebirth' and allow one
to see the ideas of others, [be they Cabinda or Umbundu] not as coming from
`pagans' [but from the `significant others']» (79-80). In spite of washing
away individual identification for nation-building, Mayombe is an
inspirational work for what the future Angola should be like. The deaths of
Fearless, who is a Kikongo and who dies to save a Kimbundu soldier and that of
Struggle, who is Cabinda and considered as a traitor throughout the novel but
who dies to save a Kimbundu soldier, should be exemplary models for the ideal
citizens of the new nation.
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