A brawl between young Mozambicans who infiltrated Muatala's OJM, a sign of FRELIMO's poor navigation?

Paulo Vilanculo "

In the Muatala neighbourhood of Nampula, physical clashes between members of the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM) have exposed internal divisions and latent tensions. This episode has rekindled the debate on the role of party youth organisations in a state that claims to be united, democratic and independent. Although unconsciously, a type of ideological and institutional separatism has emerged within Mozambican youth. The local party secretary attributed the violence to “young infiltrators”, associating them with the recent post-election demonstrations.Within this scenario of fragmentation and instrumentalization, a crucial question arises: what stance would be recommended for a truly united and unified national youth? Who, after all, would be the “infiltrators” when it comes to a single Mozambican youth participating in an organization that, theoretically, represents the youth of the nation?

Muatala, the largest neighbourhood in the city of Nampula, recently witnessed scenes of fighting between members of the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM), in an internal meeting that degenerated into physical violence. The local secretary of the Party, in an attempt to control the narrative, rushed to the press, blaming “young infiltrators”, an expression that has become commonplace and politically useless in covering up internal disagreements within the organisation’s youth.

The rhetoric of the infiltrator has become a reflection of the fragility of the party structure itself, which no longer supports the pluralism and criticism of young people who think differently, who question the ineffectiveness of the structures, who rise up against the lack of opportunities, and are automatically seen as saboteurs. However, the true saboteur of national unity is not the young people who protest and fight for its emergence, but rather the structure that every day transforms the youth into an ideological carpet of obedience. The celebration of the so-called “infiltrators” in Muatala is, in fact, the beginning of a rise in awareness and a step towards dismantling the idea that there is only one way and one color of being a young Mozambican.

Muatala’s OJM, instead of being a platform for dialogue and national construction, is now a stage for confrontations and exclusions, a reflection of the failure of a youth project based on the partisanship of citizenship. Instead of uniting young people, the structure serves to separate the “good comrades” on one side, and the “infiltrated rebels” on the other. This logic, far from strengthening national cohesion, deepens internal separatism disguised under the fallacy of national unity. Now, if Mozambican youth are, in fact, the future of the country, then it is urgent to allow them to organize themselves freely, in a plural way, independent of parties, because true patriotism is not built with colored t-shirts or recycled slogans, but with the freedom to think, disagree and propose. As long as the OJM continues to be used as an instrument of political control, division will continue to be sown in a field that should be for national and collective construction.

By promoting an exclusively partisan youth organization and treating it as the only legitimate voice of the nation’s youth, the party creates an artificial split between “youth from the system” and “youth from the rest of the country.” This symbolic separation within the youth ends up dividing what should be a single, united Mozambican national youth of young people with the same social problems, the same aspirations, the same desire for a better future. Instead, young people are organized, labeled, disciplined and, when necessary, attacked or expelled, all in the name of a united youth but which no longer convinces the rest of the Mozambican youth not affiliated with the (dis) “organization” of the party. On the other hand, the monopoly of youth through the OJM not only marginalizes those who think differently, but also feeds a logic of internal exclusion, where being a critical young person is equivalent to being an enemy of the country or, at the very least, being an “infiltrator.”

It is essential that Mozambican youth recognize themselves as autonomous political subjects, capable of thinking about the country beyond party divides. It requires courage to rebuild the role of obedient masses without opposition, willing to build horizontal, plural and inclusive spaces for debate. A unified youth that does not mean uniformity but, on the contrary, a unity based on healthy coexistence between differences, in the defense of common dignity and in the rejection of any attempt at ideological domination. A youth organized in independent platforms, ethical and civic movements, community associations and student initiatives that express their real interests in quality education, with employment, social justice and free and true political participation.

It is not about breaking with political colour, but about reappropriating it so that it can once again be an instrument of social transformation, and not of manipulation and control of a Mozambican youth that demands legitimate spaces for listening, with the capacity for real influence, where merit and creativity are valued and not blind party loyalty, a truly national and unitary youth that knows how to dialogue with the past without being pressured or imprisoned, a youth that honours the national liberation struggle but without allowing itself to be paralysed by it, and that assumes the responsibility of imagining a new future in which no one is excluded or excluded for thinking differently. This would be the youth that Mozambique perhaps longs to be reborn, even from the rubble of the Muatala brawls.

2025/12/3