Cape Verde and the four decades of independence: dissonances, multiple narratives, reverberations and struggles for imposition of meaning to their recent history

Abstract

The fortieth anniversary of Independence of Cape Verde, celebrated on July 5th 2015, earned dissonant official celebrations, with some tension between the government and the presidency of the Republic. This tension is nothing more than the expression, at a specific time and with special players, of a winding and tense process, which was seen, experienced and interpreted in different ways, either in terms of historical and political contexts and circumstances, or on the presence of private actors (institutional or otherwise) that produced and/or backed the narratives that seeks to inscribe at the national historical memory the senses and the meanings of the act (independence) and the process (state building) that followed it. This paper aims at seizing and visualizing the actors, the narratives, the disputes and the silences that marked these short and fast four decades of independence as well as its achievements and, also, at unveiling the tensions, the vicissitudes and the setbacks that have marked the visions and speeches on the independence and eventual gains, giving rise to the worldviews that support such views and speeches. It intends to sustain that the contradictions between the projects of society present in the Cape Verdean society between May 1974 and June 1975, following a recurrent and sinuous shape, will mark the entire recent history of Cape Verde, contextually enhanced by the injunctions arising from several insertions, nuancées and even contrasting, in the field of the country's international integration.