Mozambique, a democratic country in a cold war?

Paulo Vilanculo"

According to DW, on October 9th, MC Bandeira was once again ambushed during his party's official presentation, an act that, more than isolated violence, reveals the discomfort of certain forces with the emergence of new political voices outside the traditional circles of power. The most recent episode of the attempted assassination of David Bandeira, deputy national mobilization leader of the ANAMOLA party, reopens the debate about the extent to which the country enjoys true political pluralism or merely simulates democratic coexistence to maintain appearances before the international community. MC Bandeira's case is just the tip of an iceberg that reveals how fragile the exercise of democracy is when differences of opinion become grounds for attempted physical elimination. This Mozambican "cold war" is not made of tanks and bombs, but of imposed silences, cultivated fears, and strategies of public demoralization.

 Faced with this disturbing scenario, the question remains that echoes like a mirror of our own humanity: have Mozambicans become wolves to other men?
This episode reminds us of the June 1934 massacres of left-wing opponents within the National Socialist-Nazi movement, which cemented its reputation for brutal violence and gangsterism, even internally controversial ones, which seriously damaged the state's reputation. The Nazi military campaign also radicalized the regime's political objectives, culminating in the Holocaust, a concerted effort to physically exterminate perceived national enemies, primarily Jews, in 1939–41. The genocide claimed approximately eleven million victims, representing only a fraction of the number the Nazi leadership intended to kill in establishing the so-called New Order, primarily through deliberate mass starvation schemes. One of the most prevalent early understandings of Marxist scholars argued since the 1920s that it was a form of fascism and, as such, the terrorist defense of the capitalist government against the revolutionary working classes, with its cult of violence, ultranationalism, aestheticization of politics, and charismatic leadership of biological racism and genocide campaign in Nazi Germany.

In Mozambique, political violence, persecution, and fear disguised as discipline demonstrate that Mozambican democracy is surrounded by wolves in suits and ties. And it is in this swampy terrain that democracy dissolves: when those who should guarantee the right to life become its main violators. The line between the protective state and the predatory state becomes increasingly tenuous, and amidst this fog, ordinary citizens learn to remain silent in order to survive.The recent attack on opposition leader David Bandeira reveals what many prefer to deny: political freedom has become a dangerous pursuit. And when fear replaces dialogue, democracy ceases to be a space for encounter and becomes a survival camp.

What kind of democracy is this that fears the voice of its own people?

Mozambique is living in a strange time, in which the word "democracy" is still spoken with pride but practiced with fear. A silence weighs heavily on the public sphere, an invisible discomfort that transforms the simple act of thinking differently into a courageous gesture. A strange normalcy takes hold when fear becomes state policy. In a country where the word "democracy" is frequently used as a slogan, reality reveals an environment of political intimidation and fear disguised as stability. Mozambique continues to wear the guise of a formal democracy, but the very fabric of its political system seems to suffer from the wounds of a silent, treacherous internal cold war. With each new party that emerges with ambitions to challenge the status quo, the same storyline repeats itself: threats, persecution, physical attacks, and media sabotage.

Democracy is enshrined in the Constitution, but remains imprisoned in the hands of those who interpret it as an instrument of political survival, rather than as a commitment to freedom and the common good. Pluralism, which should be the strength of democracy, is now treated as a threat. Politics has ceased to be a field of debate and has become a hunting ground, where survival depends on blind allegiance and convenient silence in a society that devours itself, in the name of party loyalty or fear. It no longer needs external enemies; its own indifference suffices. The opposition is monitored, critics are discredited, and emerging parties face the shadow of repression disguised as "national security." Official discourse speaks of peace and reconciliation, but political practice reveals a minefield of intolerance and exclusion. Mozambique, as long as society is conditioned to fear those who think differently, will continue to be a formally democratic country, but essentially at cold war with real, invisible, and silenced victims. There, the State loses its human face and gains that of a predator. When democracy fears itself, it becomes suspicious of its own citizens: it monitors them, silences them, punishes them. Those who obey are rewarded, those who question are silenced. The common citizen learns to remain silent so as not to disappear, and the State grows accustomed to governing without being questioned. Thus, democracy lives on, but survives at the expense of its very essence: the right to be different.

2025/12/3