Historical controversies, Netoscapes and public memory in Luanda

Abstract

One of the initial concerns that erupted in Angola during the very last days before independence in 1975 had to do with the replacement and destiny of a series of colonial monuments that populated the mnemonic landscape of Luanda. A new mnemonic order was to be erected, one that truly represented and celebrated the Angolan liberation war and the country's independence, a process led by the governing party, the MPLA. However, the many conflicts and unresolved controversies the MPLA had already experienced during the liberation period meant that only specific strains of memory were available for political use. Resorting to the concept of memoryscapes to read three monuments in the city of Luanda, this chapter shows that these monuments were constituted as sites that interpret and communicate the memory of the liberation war through the figure of Agostinho Neto, a process I call Netoscapes. It then reads oppositional positions from all Angolan society to denote that, rather than demanding the substitution of the Netoscapes, most oppositional politics demand the inclusion of other historical figures. In a twist of irony, the only segment of Angolan society that truly opposes the funnelling of the memory of the liberation war through Agostinho Neto comes from the MPLA itself.