The various opinions on racism in colonial times. In Mozambique opinions about racism and the marks of colonial times can change according to the generation, according to who lived through apartheid and who was born after independence. "We can say that we were colonised by a peripheral country - and that gives a peripheral mentality"
On the Quelhas family dinner table, there are dishes of various origins: bebinca (a Goan dessert), cassava and coconut candy and matapa (typical Mozambican dishes), chamuças (an Indian speciality). There is also fried cassava, aubergine, mangoes and papayas.
Celisa Quelhas (b. 1953) is an auditor and was born in Goa; her husband, António (b. 1947), is an engineer and Portuguese; their children are Mozambican and so is their daughter-in-law Tasia.
In the living room there are various snacks, a bowl with drawings by the Mozambican painter Malangatana stands out for its bright colours. "We make a great mix of Goan, Portuguese, Mozambican dishes," explains Celisa, pointing to the table.
Normally, the family get-together takes place at their house on Sundays. But tonight, on a May evening, the gathering is at the home of her son, Nuno (b. 1978), the manager of an investment company and father of a baby just months old.
It is a house in Bairro do Triunfo, on the Costa do Sol, a little way from the famous Fish Market, where Mozambicans and foreigners eat fresh fish and seafood. Situated in the southern part of the city, it is considered one of the wealthiest areas in the city. You often see security guards at the doors of houses that follow one another in a straight line, and Nuno Quelhas' house is no exception.
Celisa and her siblings were born in Goa, from where they left in 1962, after the territory was annexed by India. Their parents were nurses, they went to Portugal and then to Mozambique. Following independence on 25 June 1975, Celisa and António's families returned to Portugal but the two would end up staying and marrying a couple of years after they met in 1973.
"My father's family is already very culturally diverse, of Jewish and other origins", Nuno describes, looking at his father: "In Mozambique, you find a lot of people with this multiracial influence, it comes from the time before Portugal arrived in Mozambique. The Arab component had already prevailed."
In 1973, the white population of Mozambique was 190,000 (2.3% of the population), according to a graph reproduced by researcher Cláudia Castelo in Passagens para África - the 1970 Census indicated a total of 8 million inhabitants in Mozambique. Currently, 99% of the Mozambican population is black, says the 2007 Census, 0.4% of mixed race and 0.6% of other races.
Celisa and António have never suffered social pressure for being a couple of different origins, because in Mozambique "there were many mixed families" - whites with blacks, whites of various origins with Africans, Asians. "I never felt racism and I can even say that I never heard of race in my family. People of all classes came into my house," Celisa stresses. She also remembers, in 1963, looking at the sign of the office where her father worked, seeing "external indigenous consultation" and realising "that in that consultation there were only black people".
António Quelhas also never felt that there was racial differentiation. He belonged to the local army, where there was "a mix of Africans, Goans, blacks, Hindus, Muslims" and "one chief, who was me, had a higher education". "In jobs, there was some discrimination but they were rules imposed by the government; up to a certain point, it was said that whites who were here were second-class whites."
From the older generation to the younger, in the Quelhas family home, the perception is that in the country there is and was racial harmony. Nuno has studied in South Africa, Swaziland, England and doesn't hesitate to say that "Mozambique is the most multiracial country" he knows. "I have lived in London, and there are laws that create racial integration. In Mozambique people live together without having to have any rules. A party like Frelimo [Frente de Libertação de Moçambique], which took power after 1975, would not have achieved a multiracial government if that was not intrinsic. The Lusophone countries are among those with the most mixed baggage and Mozambique is where it happens organically," he argues.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)