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Comrades,

Orlando Cristina. A man who rejected post-colonial politics whilst in the jaw of the ravenous beast that was, not out for dominance, but survived off of the status-quo. A man who stared into the eyes of a colossus and proclaimed that he saw the rightful path towards a better country. Cristina wasn't just a man, he was a mouthpiece for the disenfranchised, a bastion of an old-guard of leaders that did things because they were good and not because they were things, and a soldier that asked 'why?' before shooting his enemies. Cristina fought for years and had to die before his ideals were dismantled, and so was shot by the people that told him they would listen to him instead of from his enemies.

The eUK compares very closely to the history of Mozambique in the late twentieth century. On one side, a group that said they want to listen to the population until they took power and enforced their will on the population (Frelimo). On the other side, a group that only cared about their own interests and the continuation of a status quo of their own design, to which they would do anything to gain; propagandise, manipulate, adopt extreme contradictory ideologies(Rhodesia).In the middle, two men that stood firm on their principles of representation and defence for the population (Matsangaissa and Cristina).

Now, these men lived short lives due to their beliefs but their actions at least had an impact on the situation. This impact was in the form of a change in the internal structuring of the MNR, they were able to turn the Rhodesians into the very thing the Rhodesians refused to be. Through the exploitation of the Rhodesian leadership's mental capacity for wanting to control situations, the pair would turn the Rhodesians into the supplier of the MNR organisation. Without Matsangaissa and Cristina, Rhodesia would continue to sit within their own borders and throw disruption tactics towards the Frelimo government.

Moving onto the Frelimo government. Their strategy in the face of a strong Rhodesian military was to mirror the Rhodesian tactics, pretending to be gracious in the eye of an international adjudicator. Frelimo would have backed the pair of rebels for dividing the attention of the Rhodesians for even a second, but instead follow Rhodesia into being deliberately defensive (yet aggressive) towards any change to the status quo under Rhodesia's terms. It is crazy to think that instead of letting two enemies duke it out, they would also get involved but that is not to acknowledge that the thing Cristina and Matsangaissa were fighting for was not of Frelimo interest either.

Now you are probably wondering what the Mozambican population wanted. Well it didn't matter. Whilst Rhodesia was dictated their opinion on the masses through aggressive recruitment as well as other ways of forcing local support, Frelimo was happy to maintain its control through the exploitation of a repetitive hegemony. Rhodesia said they cared about free enterprise based on an international ideology, and Frelimo cared about the masses as long as they supported them. In short, the pair would fight within both systems and fail to gain any traction purely based on the interests on the large parties.

That is what I love about Matsangaissa and Cristina. An example of a strong will, that did not change anything from the down upwards, but saw a weakness in both national influences and used it to make a small change (if not for just a small amount of time). If you will humour me, the pair stared into the abyss and made the abyss stare back.

So when the abyss stares at you, stand up tall, square your shoulders, and stare back. Because whatever stares back at you from the silent darkness might be big enough to take down everything you hold dear, everything that you will ever cherish, and anything that still clings to you. But that backlash and the image of you standing in front of an immovable object, will be your gift to an ever-increasing, cynical world.







And maybe you might not win the fight you were hoping to beat but, if you are lucky, some others might see your idea and make it their own.




Because the will to fight for a better world, can become more important than a fight for the best one...