THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONALISM IN MOZAMBIQUE - Page 10.
liberation of all the peoples of Africa;
3) FRELIMO is a part and parcel of Africa, therefore, it
adheres to all the programmes and policies of the
Organisation of African Unity;  therefore, being the only
Mozambican nationalist movement supported by the OaU
through the African Liberation Committee, it cooperates
with this body and all other African nationalist movements
for the liberation of all of Africa;
4) FRELIMO is part of all the progressive forces now guiding
the revolutionary programmes of southern Africa.  In this
connexion, it must be pointed out that FRELIMO is now in
the vanguard of all the southern African revolutionary
forces now engaged in actually driving out the last
vestiges of colonialism and imperialism in Africa.
At this stage one might ask:  V/hat is the reason for the present
unity among the Mozambican people?  Is this unity a durable one?  In
order to answer these questions we have to return to the definitions
presented earlier in this paper and affirm that there is a Mozambican
nationalism which unites all the various peoples of the vast territory
from north to south, regardless of their languages, religions, races
and cultures.  In other words, there is now a consciousness on the
part of the people of our country of belonging to a nation -
Mozambique, and a desire to develop the strength, liberty and prosperity of that nation.  The Mozambican peoples, after many years of
facing a common enemy, have coalesced into one solid people, ready to
free themselves from bondage.  The Mozambican people have come to
consider themselves a nation in the same way that the peoples of
India, China, the Soviet Union and other multi-linguistic and multi-
religious societies now consider themselves one nation.
It was mainly in the last 75 years that the Mozambican peoples
learned their lesson in unity.  Immediately after destroying our
traditional rulers, the Portuguese confiscated our land and natural
resources, putting them under the control and direct use of large
European economic interests,and harnessed our man-power for the
benefit of these interests and the European settlers.  The Mozambican
national unity was born out of common experience in suffering together while working as forced labour on the large sisal plantations,
while clearing thick forests for planting cotton, while picking
cotton together, baling it, carrying heavy loads of it for hundreds
of miles to the market centres monopolised by Portuguese and foreign
concessionary companies, while sweating together, some v/ith blood,
cultivating peanuts, sugar cane and tea, or loading and unloading
cargoes of these products and of heavy machinery from transoceanic
liners to trains or vice-versa for the benefit of Portuguese, South