If Campo de Trânsito offers us an archetypal scheme of the State as
a discursive actualization taking place in the space-time of entanglement of
the postcolonial present, Tiara, 2001, by the Angola-born Guinean
Filomena Embaló gives a more personal and historical account of the
juxtaposition of times and practices in post-independence Africa. Similarly
to its Mozambican counterpart, Tiara is also a novel suspended in time and
space. An important difference, however, is the resources adopted to operate
what seems to be a calculated distancing from reality. Tiara is set among
fictional countries on an exclusively internal linear temporality whose
progress is determined relationally in its self-contained fictional structure.
Time in this novel is never marked by any mention of which year, but
always in a relational manner that marks the amount of years between the
fictional happenings. Through that, we witness twenty-four years of Tiara’s
life trajectory, starting, when she was eighteen years old, with her forced
escape from her country at the brink of a civil war. She graduates, falls in
love and marries. In her husband’s country, she joins the liberation struggle.
protagonist’s journey and to her country’s progress from struggle to
independence. This feature that substantially differs from the focus on a
timeless present in Campo de Trânsito, also differs – although to a lesser
extent – from Aurélia de Vento’s internal temporality. The Santomean
narrative focuses on the five-year present trajectory in the life of the
protagonist rather than on her country’s progress in historical time. Instead,
Tiara’s twenty-four-year trajectory runs parallel with her husband’s country
– Muriti – developing from its struggle for independence to its postcolonial
consolidation.
Due to its structure, Tiara offers a much more historical account of
the juxtaposed practices of the postcolonial state, articulating a critical
approach to the pervasiveness of colonial racial logic in the anticolonial
movement, its lingering in post-independent state apparatus as well as the
betrayal of the national ideals that such practices entangles. Tiara’s mixed
racial condition, daughter of a white man and a black woman, was the
reason why her family had to flee to exile. It remains an obstacle for her
acceptance in her husband’s country from the moment she arrives to join
them on their struggle for independence:
– Kenum, porque é que as pessoas quando me vêem têm uma
reacção... estranha?
– Por duas razões: A primeira é que não contavam ver-me
casado tão de repente a segunda é, certamente, a tua cor.
mestiços. Aliás, há muito pouca mestiçagem no Muriti. Em
geral, ou se é preto ou se é branco... os mestiços são quase
considerados acidentes de percurso... – disse, espicaçando a
mulher.28 (Emabló Tiara 139-140)
The argument of Kenun – Tiara’s husband – is confirmed in the following pages, as the next scene shows his conversation with the general secretary of the liberation movement:
– Tenho notado uma certa... animosidade da tua parte, desde
que regressei de Terra Branca. O que se passa?
. . .
– Queres realmente saber o que tenho contra ti? Gostaria de
saber se no Muriti não havia mulheres suficientes para que tu
fosses buscar uma lá fora!
– Ah! Então era isso?! Bem que eu devia ter desconfiado! A
tua xenofobia não é segredo pra ninguém! Voltou-lhe as
costas e encaminhou-se para a porta. Não iria perder tempo a
discutir quinhas. . . . Apenas disse antes de sair:
– Um homem como tu não mereces o lugar que ocupas!
– Saiu, ciente de que tinha arranjado um inimigo na guerra,
mas também para a paz.29 (141-142)
28
– Kenum, why is it that when people see me they have a reaction that is… strange? / – For two reasons: The first is that they did not count on seeing me married so suddenly and the second is, certainly, your color. Here, in the camp, they are not very used to seeing mestizos. By the way, there is very few mixing in Muriti. In general, one is either black or white… mestizos are almost considered a mishap… – he said, teasing his wife.
29
– I have noticed a certain… animosity from you, since my return from Terra Branca. What is going on? / . . . / – Do you really want to know what I have against you? I would
And as we see throughout the novel, the animosity towards Tiara expressed
by the adjunct general secretary Kito does not diminish. This animosity
perpetrates the state apparatus of the postcolonial Murity as the members of
the liberation movement form the political party that rules the fictional
country for its first five years through a single-party State period. As a result
of that, despite Tiara’s clear professional capabilities, she is denied positions
and intimidated within the state company she finally manages to work for.
With the State in the hands of the Party – “Ele tem a maioria absoluta e dita
as ordens que entender!”30 (206) –, justice is not a possibility. Besides being
a lawyer herself, Tiara knows she cannot fight such a powerful enemy –
“Kenum tinha razão, seria uma guerra perdida de antemão.”31 (206) – and as
the story proceeds to its end, the tone openly changes from hope to
disillusionment. As the narrator puts it:
Os anos foram passando iguais uns aos outros. O país tinha
feito muitos progressos, mas, como o decorrer do tempo, os
ânimos foram-se acalmando. Já lá ia longe o tempo do
trabalho militante, voluntário, dos primeiros anos de
independência. Talvez por um certo desencanto de não se ter
obtido o que se esperava com a independência. Sonho muito
like to know whether Muriti did not have enough women for you to make you go get one abroad! / – Ah! So that was it?! I should have known! Your xenophobia is not a secret! He turned his back and walked towards the door. He was not going to spend his time discussing that kind of thing . . . He only said before he left: / – A man like you does not deserve the position you have! / – He left, knowing that he had found himself an enemy for times of war and peace.
30
“He has the absolute majority and dictates the orders he wills!” 31 “Kenum was right, the war would be lost before it even started”
altos tinham-se tornado inatingíveis. Talvez por serem
utópicos ou talvez por não estarem a altura de consegui-los.
O MLM [Movimento de Libertação do Muriti] acusava uma
decadência. A corrupção tinha-se tornado prática corrente no
seio dos seus dirigentes e os ideais revolucionários tinham
dado lugar à luta pelos interesses pessoais. O aparelho do
Estado também reflectia essa crise. Os partidos da oposição
tinham dificuldade em afirmarem-se como forças
catalisadoras para uma mudança, cada vez mais inelutável,
por falta de uma estratégia adequada.32 (208)
Tiara’s closing, marked by the protagonist’s divorce – as she finds
out her husband is lured by his mother into holding a traditional wife hidden
in the village he came from – indicates her rupture with the present of the
country she fought for and her retreat from public service to the interior –
“Tenciono ir viver para a aldeia onde estive durante a Luta, quando cá
cheguei.”33 (259). An ending harboring another beginning, in which Tiara’s
32 The years passed all alike. The country made much progress, but, with time, the spirits calmed down. The time of militant, volunteer work of the first years after independence was long past. Maybe because of a certain disillusionment due to not obtaining what was hoped for with independence. Big dreams had become unreachable. Maybe because of being too utopic or being too early in achieving them. The MLM [Movement for the Liberation of Muriti] shows signs of decay. Corruption had become an ordinary practice amongst its leaders and the revolutionary ideals had given place to personal interests. The State apparatus also reflected this crisis. The opposition parties had difficulty establishing themselves as means for change, every day more distant, due to the lack of adequate strategy.
33
“I intend to come and live in the village where I have been during the Struggle, when I first arrived.”
life is no longer connected with the history of the country, leaving space for
a pursuit of personal happiness suggested by the resurgence of her lover
from adolescence in the last pages of the novel. A future with no resolution,
no justice, no promise, in which the opportunity of a restart lies on the act of
disengagement with the state; in which happiness can only be found in the
individual, private sphere. A postcolonial novel pointing to the abandoning
of the grand narrative?