Doctor, do not release: The Betrayal of Communication and Education in the Post-Independence Period

Luís Munguambe Júnior"

Fifty years have passed since independence, but in Mozambique, an elite wasn't born to liberate the people—an elite was born to rule them. A caste of "Mister Doctors" who flaunt diplomas like medals, but who, deep down, are merely diligent repeaters of the same logic that colonized us.

Back in 1975, Samora warned in Beira: comrades would come and build 15-story buildings, without ever explaining where the money came from. He wasn't wrong. Today, the buildings stand, armored cars roam, bank accounts in Dubai are growing, and the people remain in houses made of sheet metal and mud, with children studying under trees.

The most serious issue is that education and communication, which should be instruments of emancipation, have been hijacked. Universities have become career factories, not schools of critical thought. Courses prepare professionals to obey, not to think. They produce chiefs of staff, not community leaders; specialists in "projects," not revolutionaries. They produce "doctors" who speak of Paulo Freire, but in practice, they reproduce the colonial model that guarantees them privileges. Education that doesn't liberate is merely training.

And journalism? It has become a domestic dog of power. It no longer barks, nor bites. Public and private media thrive on official statements, press conferences, and the repetition of technical narratives that numb the public. Denunciation has been replaced by entertainment; investigation by complicit silence. Today, journalists who dare to ask too many questions risk their career—or their life. Communication that doesn't revolt only serves to distract.

Meanwhile, the people are deceived by "development strategies," "resilience plans," "inclusion programs," and other imported words. The reality remains the same: hospitals without medicine, schools without desks, neighborhoods without water. But the Black elite, with their framed "diplomazito" (little diplomacy), feels authorized to exploit other Black people. They dress up as "Excellencies," speak on behalf of the people, but they do not live with them, do not suffer with them, do not die with them.

The betrayal is here: the rupture they promised us was merely aesthetic. They removed the colonist's statue, but kept the system. They changed the flags and anthems, but left the mechanisms of exploitation intact. Communication and education, which should have been the people's trenches, were converted into showcases to legitimize inequalities.

Therefore, we continue to be first in sacrifice and last in benefit. We continue to die in hospitals without doctors, to travel on pothole-filled roads, to work without decent wages—while the "Doctors" amuse themselves in international seminars discussing solutions that never come to fruition.

The time has come to say enough. We don't need more academic rhetoric, nor theses that sit on shelves. We need an education that teaches us to question, to demand, to build. We need communication that denounces, that unmasks, that calls out thieves by name. Serving the people isn't about quoting foreign authors; it's about building with them a knowledge that revolts, that emancipates, that shatters fear.

Because tomorrow, when someone builds another 15-story building, we have to have the courage to ask him bluntly: “Comrade, where did you get that money?

2025/12/3