The multiple lives of Batepá: memories of a colonial massacre in São Tomé and Príncipe (1953-2018)

Abstract

Public holidays represent key moments in the biography of a nation. In this regard, the 3rd of February enjoys a particular status in the festive calendar of São Tomé and Príncipe, as it evokes the Batepá Massacre, held as the ultimate incident of violence in the islands and registered as the founding event of the Santomean nationalism. Deriving out from this framework, my aim is to show, through distinctive moments in time, and thus, different sociopolitical contexts, that the 3rd of February is, on the one hand, a date that serves to legitimate the nation-state and that gives rise to a dominant national narrative; and, on the other hand, a public holiday that, at the same time, provides emergent discursive, symbolic and political spaces where to articulate non-dominant memories of this episode. What I hereby try to demonstrate is that although there are politics of memory ritualized and imposed by the State pertaining this historical episode and that naturally leave echoes along decades and across generations, there are a plurality of mnemonic, social and political processes in motion in the interpretation and discussion of this past. In fact, through the multiple lives of Batepá, different narrations and symbolic dimensions have been emerging by means of which the Santomean have been trying to inscribe themselves in this history.