Interview: Benedito Machava

Interview by Zadie Winthrop

Introduction

In this interview, I spoke with Professor Benedito Machava, a historian of colonial and post-colonial Africa and the politics of decolonization in his home country, Mozambique. We discuss Mozambique’s transition from the Portuguese colonial government to the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), the tenets of FRELIMO’s socialism, their attempt to construct a decolonized “new man” through “re-education camps,” and the similarities between the mechanisms of social control employed by the Portuguese colonial government and FRELIMO’s post-colonial government. The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.