I am N'makhuwa, a Mozambican, African and a citizen of the world. Among these multiple identities, the Makhuwa identity stands out when I mention it. Whenever I introduce myself as N’makhuwa, I often notice suspicion on my interlocutors’ faces. Their facial expression reveals discomfort, given that the Mozambican nation building is based on a narrative of a singular history, identity, language, judicial system, and everything else. Anyone who asserts his or her differences can seem like someone who is against our nation’s project.
The idea of a nation has a long tradition and history. In Latin, natio means to be born. In the Roman Empire the concept referred to a group of people who were linked by their place of birth. Citizens belonging to the nation were distinguished from foreigners who, despite the fact that they lived together in large cities, were treated differently and identified by their language, customs and traditions (Kočovska-Stevović, 2016). From the French revolution and German romanticism onwards —especially from the works of Herder and Fichte—the concept of nation entered political discourse to signify a political community (Rossolilo, 1998).
The idea of nation is essentially a cultural construct, carrying with it an emotional force that is mobilised politically to attract citizens' loyalty to political projects. In this sense, the liberation movements that led anti-colonial struggles between the 1950s and 1960s on the African continent used the concept of nation to mobilise (future) citizens, encouraging them to prefer their political projects over those by European imperialist and colonialist powers.
Colonial projects accentuated the hierarchical dichotomy between ‘self’ and the ‘other,’ obscuring the possibility of translation and coexistence among diverse ways of being and existing. Anti-colonial projects inherited this dichotomy: here, ‘us’ and ‘others’ were no longer defined by their relationship with the former colonisers, but were applied to the nation itself, distinguishing whether individuals subscribed to the new political project or not. In other words, they continued to look to the former coloniser as a reference point for almost everything they had to consider. Thus, those erased during the ‘long colonial night’ (Frantz Fanon, 1961) remained in the shadows.
It is in order to fight this trend of erasure, and to promote a more inclusive history, thought, and culture, that a series of organisations and initiatives have begun to emerge—aiming to bring together the knowledge of the various peoples of African origin. This spirit has motivated my professional journey, which began in 2010 as a cultural journalist at Rádio Moçambique. There, I interviewed artists, scholars, and other figures who contributed to the development of Mozambican culture in general, and Makhuwa culture in particular. I continued this work with the founding of Ethale Publishing, between 2016 and 2017, where, alongside other colleagues and partners, we began to include content in the Emakhuwa language in the Wikipedia Incubator, as a way to contribute to the inclusion of Mozambique’s most widely spoken mother tongue in this digital and open-access encyclopaedia.
In 2023, the Zanzibari Community Trust—an organisation based in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa—invited me to take part in their conference commemorating the arrival of the first generation of Makhuwas in South Africa. They asked me to give a speech on the philosophy of altruism and solidarity among the Makhuwa people. This transformative event gave me the opportunity to realize that the issue of restitution goes beyond simply returning objects looted and relocated during the colonial occupation of the African continent. It has become a process of healing—one that addresses the long-standing consequences of banishment, oppression, and historical erasure.
The Amakhuwa Diaspora in South Africa
The Makhuwa people1 are the largest ethnic group living in Mozambique and are among the largest regional diaspora groups in southern Africa. According to Rita-Ferreira (1959) there are strong traditions and clear evidence in ancient documents to suggest that during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries they were dominated and unified by Marawi invaders and ruled by monarchs or paramount chiefs known by the royal titles of Lundo and Caronga.
Today, Emakhuwa2 has around eight million speakers in Mozambique alone. It is a lingua franca in the provinces of Nampula, Cabo Delgado and Niassa, and also has speakers in Zambezia province. Its speakers are spread out in small communities in Maputo City, as well as in countries such as Tanzania and Malawi —which were the first destinations for Makhuwa migration to the diaspora—and in the Comoros Islands, Madagascar and South Africa as a result of the slave trade.
In South Africa, the story of the Amakhuwa-Zanzibari begins in 1870, when the British decided to put an end to the slave trade. According to documentation from the Amakhuwa Research Group—part of the Zanzibari Community Trust of KwaZulu-Natal—the then British consul in Zanzibar, John Kirk, urged the ruling sultans to take action against the Arab and Portuguese slave traders. However, they refused, given the enormity of their profits. It was then that British naval frigates started intercepting slave ships and relocating their occupants far from the reach of the slave traders.
According to Sheriff (2008), on 4 August 1873, the HMS Briton arrived at the port of Durban, Natal, carrying 113 freed slaves who had been captured from a dhow in the Mozambique Channel. Although these individuals had never passed through Zanzibar, the Natal government identified them as freed Africans from Zanzibar.
Mohamed (1998) points out that the struggle for their recognition began a long ago, when the South African Population Registration Act of 1950 had difficulty integrating the community into one of the apartheid regime's population division categories. First, they were classified as “Bantu”, then as “Coloured” and finally as “Other Asians”, due to their presumed Islamic religiosity—which influenced their expulsion in 1962 from Kingsrest to Chatsworth, a township reserved only for “Indians”. Because of their distinctive dress, their isolated existence and their religion, the community came to be known as the "lost tribe".
In the post-apartheid period, the Zanzibar community has raised its voices to claim its Makhuwa identity and its Mozambican roots, continuing its struggle for recognition and redress. Kaarsholm (2014) explains that the Makhuwa language, traditions and Islamic religion have played a prominent role in Zanzibari cultural entrepreneurship projects, becoming a fundamental marker of their identity.
Reparations and Multiplicity of Identity
Colonialism was a power relationship and the forced colonial encounter produced lasting effects in other domains, including culture and knowledge (Seth, 2021). The practice of imposing identities from above, however eloquent the argument, ultimately constitutes a continuation of colonially imposed models. Restitution, therefore, is primarily about recognizing the agency of the peoples themselves (Assante, 1999), giving them a stage to speak for themselves (Spivak, 1988) and to shape their own narrative (Ricoeur, 1984). This process is a form of reparation and restitution for a community that has suffered historical injustices. The story of the cultural and linguistic maintenance among the Amakhuwa in South Africa is a story of resistance, as they continually refused to be erased from the annals of history.
Between 3 and 5 August 2023, the Amakhuwa-Zanzibari community in South Africa hosted a conference to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival—in 1873—of the first generation in conditions of slavery at the then Port of Natal (now Durban), in KwaZulu-Natal. The conference brought together members of the Amakhuwa community, as well as guests from Mozambique, and academics and activists from different corners of the world. The event released a declaration calling for the need to recognise and promote the history, rights, cultural heritage and language of the Amakuwa-Zanzibari community, as well as their contribution to the rainbow nation of South Africa.
The event was structured into three components: the first concerned religious manifestations; the second on academic conferences; and the third on cultural activities. The final declaration published after the event emphasised the need for the Amakhuwa-Zanzibari to be recognised as one of the ethnic and linguistic groups that shape South Africa.
The declaration refers to the objectives and principles contained in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, particularly its preamble, which reads:
We, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of our past; honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
In this sense, the Amakhuwa-Zanzibari community considers its recognition as an honour for those who suffered injustices when they were uprooted from their land.
There are several issues raised by this declaration, but for the purposes of this analysis, I have selected three: 1) History and Research; 2) Identity, Culture, and Heritage; and 3) the Emakhuwa Language.
1. History and research
To gain recognition, the Amakhuwa-Zanzibari community seeks to promote research and publish works about its history. Furthermore, it aims to secure the effective dissemination and remembrance of this history by creating its own archives and collaborating in the academic production of knowledge about the community. Supporting such initiatives constitutes a form of historical reparation, helping to prevent future generations of this community from continuing to grow up on the margins of South African society.
2. Identity, Culture and Heritage
The community is dedicated to preserving, protecting, promoting, and publicizing Makhuwa culture within the broader South African society. Toward this goal, efforts are underway to create a heritage museum in Kings Rest and to foster unity and solidarity among Amakhuwa communities. This museum could serve as a foundation for rethinking the experiences of diasporic communities, which need not be repatriated along with their artefacts to ancestral homelands, but should be empowered to express their multiple identities.
3. The Emakhuwa language
The community is also committed, as outlined in the Durban Declaration, to promoting research and developing strategies for the revitalization of the Makhuwa language within both the community and local governance structures in South Africa. This effort entails advocating for Emakhuwa to be officially included among the country's recognized languages by the South African Language Board. In this perspective, the community aspires for its language to be promoted on equal terms with other South African languages. To achieve these goals, ongoing collaboration will continue with Mozambican institutions responsible for documenting and teaching Emakhuwa in schools.
Concluding note
This brief essay leads us to conclude that the Amakhuwa of South Africa seek to live out their multiple identities; that is, they want to be simultaneously Amakhuwa, Zanzibari, Muslim, South African, and citizens of the world. Their recognition as possessing this right—being what they perceive themselves to be—constitutes, above all, a restitution of their agency.
This text also intends to contribute practically to the restitution debate by showing that the organisation of the Amakhuwa of South Africa qualifies them to be recognised as a legitimate destination for cultural works and objects, which they seek to reclaim as elements of their culture and thus desired for return. Much of the loot taken during colonial plunder cannot be automatically considered the property of today’s African states, since these states are merely continuations of colonial boundaries. Consequently, cultural property belonging to the Makhuwa may be found in Mozambique, or anywhere across the world where individuals claim this heritage and organise themselves to create cultural initiatives based on it.
Finally, the aspiration of the Amakhuwa-Zanzibari community in South Africa to establish their own museum, through the Zanzibari Community Trust, demonstrates their readiness to receive and curate works and collections that are intrinsically connected to them as a people.
Nota bene: This article has been originally written in Portuguese.