The Voice of the Oppressed of Pérola: When Silence Ceases to Be an Option

Alípio Freeman "

The year that is ending does not allow for silence, nor comfortable neutrality, nor lukewarm speeches that attempt to anesthetize consciences. In Mozambique, the closing of the civil calendar coincides with the imperative need for a profound moral, political, and social assessment, because this was yet another year in which the country drifted aimlessly, carrying open wounds, unhealed pains, and an increasingly weary hope. This text is written on the occasion of the end of the year and Christmas, not as an empty celebration, but as a critical review of a wounded, exhausted, and yet resilient country.

The confirmation of the electoral fraud indelibly marked the beginning of the year, consolidating the rupture between rulers and the ruled and deepening collective distrust. A widely contested process paved the way for the rise to power of yet another president perceived by large sectors of society as politically illegitimate. A power erected under violent repression, baptized with the blood of hundreds of innocents who refused to accept the deception, could not be inaugurated with gestures of humility, reconciliation, or a sense of state. What followed was predictable: visceral arrogance, detachment from the real pain of the people, and an inflamed discourse, but poor in concrete actions.

Fear and anger lingered throughout the year as an almost permanent state. Mutual distrust took root, contaminated social relations, poisoned public debate, and pushed society toward dangerous polarization. Mozambique today lives in an environment of constant tension, like a powder keg, where social peace is only apparent and dialogue, so often proclaimed, is rarely practiced with truth and honesty.

The president continues on his path without a clear political destination, alternating bold statements with promises that rarely materialize into firm decisions or structural reforms capable of alleviating collective suffering. Words are not matched by government action, while public resources continue to be consumed on expensive trips, large delegations, and foreign agendas that are difficult to justify in a country where millions struggle daily for survival.

Economically, the reality is harsh and unforgiving. Salaries arrive in dribs and drabs, uncertainty settles into homes, and unemployment spreads silently but devastatingly. Historic companies and multinationals close their doors, leaving thousands of workers destitute. The cost of living rises, the currency weakens, and for many, the future becomes a constant exercise in resilience and improvisation.

Academia, which should be the nation's critical conscience, is deeply divided. There are academics who place knowledge at the service of power, opting for flattery over scrutiny, for economic interests over ethics, thus contributing to the trivialization of the debate of ideas. When PhDs become friends of the court, knowledge ceases to liberate and begins to legitimize oppression, impoverishing the public sphere and weakening the State itself.

In Cabo Delgado, the tragedy continues shrouded in strategic and convenient silences. After years of conflict, the inability or lack of political will to present a clear understanding of the nature of the war, its actors, financiers, and beneficiaries persists. The brutal killings, forced displacements, and systematic destruction of entire communities constitute crimes against humanity treated with indifference, while the country is asked to "tone down the narrative" so as not to scare away investors.

While blood flows, natural resources continue their course. Rubies, gas, and other riches fuel global interests in an organized, perverse, and systemic system where barbarity is financed and normalized. To say that talking about war discourages investment means, in practice, demanding silence while brothers die in a war that officially seems not to exist.

Mozambique is fragmented. The north lives numbed by fear and abandonment, the center resists thanks to the seriousness and strength of some local leaders, while the national leadership continues to fail in building an inclusive and coherent project. National Highway Number One, transformed into ruins and a veritable graveyard of dreams, symbolizes the structural negligence of the State and the indifference to avoidable deaths, in a country whose topography has never been a real obstacle to its maintenance.

The institutions reveal a profound and dangerous deterioration: corruption without accountability, selective justice, announced reforms that never materialize, and propaganda confused with governance. The youth, the majority in the country, oscillate between revolt, frustration, and escape, in a State incapable of offering clear and dignified prospects.

It is impossible to end the year without mentioning those who disappeared in the post-election struggle, citizens whose whereabouts remain unknown, leaving families suspended between hope and permanent mourning. The disappearance, still unexplained today, of journalist and activist Arlindo Chisale remains an open wound in the national conscience and a symbol of the absence of truth, transparency, and justice.

Thousands of protesters, enthusiasts, and sons and daughters of this land lost their lives simply for demanding change, respect for the popular will, and the truth. These deaths cannot be swept under the rug in sterile dialogue, nor silenced by empty speeches of reconciliation that ignore the real pain of those left behind.

If we truly aspire to reconciliation as a people, it is imperative to look at these families, acknowledge their pain, clarify the disappearances, and provide material, psychological, and moral support to those who have lost children, parents, and siblings. There will be no true dialogue until there is a sincere approach to those who are wounded in their souls and abandoned by the State. Reconciliation cannot be decreed; it is built with truth, justice, and humanity.

In healthcare there is a shortage of medicines, in education there is a lack of resources, in the countryside there is a lack of serious and sustainable policies. This is the stark portrait of a year in which promises far exceeded deliveries and in which Christmas appears more as an appeal to conscience than as a full celebration.

Even so, Mozambique resists. There are citizens who refuse to be silent, persistent journalists, committed community leaders, and voices that continue to denounce. The Pearl of the Indian Ocean is wounded, deeply scarred, but it is not dead.

This Christmas, the request is simple and profoundly human: that we invest in medicine and not weapons, that we prioritize life and not war, that we look after the unfortunate poor who have nothing to eat, and that we govern with truth, historical responsibility, and respect for human dignity.

2025/12/3