A 15-year-old boy stabbed his father to death. Four boys between 11 and 14 years old raped a teenager. A 15-year-old student brought a knife to school with the intention of murdering her teacher. These acts of youth violence have generated commotion and debate in Mozambique.
These events coincided with the head of state’s announcement to include opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane in the Council of State. Days later his party, the Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique (ANAMOLA), was approved.
While youth violence sparked a debate that divided public opinion, Mondlane’s integration into the Council of State was consensual and seen as an act of pacification. Will it be enough to appease and reconcile the country?
Adolescent aggressiveness revived the debate on education. The fact that these kids find the way to solve their problems in violence, the lack of values, the Internet and social networks – which seem to replace traditional agents of socialization – were once again topics of conversation.
Everyone remembers the last post-election crisis. Who does not have in mind the riots and looting that occurred, the presence of children and adolescents in that context and the questions that this raised? The exposure of children to violence is not something new. Our children came into the world from fathers and mothers oppressed by poverty, affected by an armed conflict that lasted 16 years and ended without a process to heal the wounds. In fact, these children carry in their genetic load the traumas and rebellion of the generations that preceded them.
While it is true that “the assimilation of a culture presupposes learning,” the culture of violence practiced by adults is being assimilated by children, who respond with that instrument every time they face a problem.
Having Venâncio Mondlane in the Council of State is an act that goes in the right direction, but the process of pacification and reconciliation in Mozambique remains an urgent need.
The country has launched a national consultation in which people, individually or through various organisations, have the opportunity to contribute to the changes they wish to see in the nation. This is an initiative that can be truly reconciliatory.
This consultative process, called the Inclusive National Dialogue, could lead to peace if Mozambicans understand its importance, participate in it and realize that they count. Although the objective of this process is to collect the population’s concerns to “translate them into governance and legislation proposals”, there is widespread skepticism around it.
When the Fórum Mulher, a feminist organization that coordinates the development actions of women’s groups that work in favor of their rights, addresses the public saying: “Enough of being troupes,” they are actually expressing a national demand. What they express is their desire to actively participate in the country’s decisions, they want to feel that they are important. «We want an inclusive State! “We demand to have a voice and vote!” they say.
The non-integration of Mondlane into the National Dialogue calls into question the inclusive nature of this process, which should not be limited only to the integration of the leader of ANAMOLA, women or other categories, but must necessarily include a process that heals the wounds in the social fabric, because only by eliminating structural violence will any political project be viable.
