Published in Peace Newsletter, November-December 2012 PNL #819, Syracuse Peace Council
http://www.peacecouncil.net/pnl/12/819/819eduardo.htm
The following are only extracts of the article:
Eduardo Mondlane was born and raised in 1920 in Nwajahani, district of
Mandlakazi in the province of Gaza, in Mozambique. Through the help of
Swiss Presbyterian missionaries, working under harsh circumstances, and
with his mother’s encouragement and support, he attended schooling in
Mozambique, South Africa, Portugal, and the United States. His
multi-country education afforded him first-hand experience with the
injustice perpetrated by the respective regimes against black people, in
particular; on the other hand, this experience along with his
interactions with politically conscious individuals in the
aforementioned counties contributed to Mondlane’s embarking on a quest
to liberate Mozambique from Portuguese colonialism through the founding
of Mozambique’s Liberation Front (FRELIMO) in 1962 and the beginning
of the liberation struggle in 1964.
(...)
A university can serve as a birthplace of ideas that feed its
surrounding community by nurturing the flames of activism or by
transferring knowledge that breeds apathy towards the status quo.
Today, it is very fashionable in academia to claim militancy for
social justice. Yet, claiming social justice does not imply living a
social justice lifestyle and, consequently, impacting our community
with such lifestyle. We are comfortable talking about social justice
and liberation, to some extent and within comfortable philosophical
settings, yet we are not bold enough to confront ourselves about how
our humane core has been tempered with misconceptions of the essence of
justice and, therefore, of liberation. The link between Mondlane,
Syracuse University, and the Syracuse community ought to remind us that
reclaiming our humane core as educators and citizens is critical in our
pursuit of justice.
(...)
My intention in this article is not to downplay the work of the
university and civil society to foster justice in Syracuse, but to
reiterate the significance of the connection between Syracuse and a
larger spectrum of the struggle for justice that results from
Mondlane’s sharing of his life with this community and the community’s
sharing of its life with this child of the human race who sacrificed
his life for the liberation of the oppressed in a continent that
continues to be a victim of neo-imperial expeditions. The success of
such a unique connection can only be sustained through continuous
efforts by the university, in partnership with the city’s leadership,
to engage the overall Syracuse community in teachings about this
citizen of the world that constitute an unfathomable gift to the
community. Perhaps, unlike most small cities, Syracuse has the
advantage of being one with ties to this globally impactful figure.
Ultimately, I am inspired by the fact that we are a community blessed
with Mondlane as a model of activism, the fact that he was flesh and
blood, and the fact that he was an individual subjected to the same
human limitations as we are.
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