| Popis: |
In the summer of 2007, I went to Angola for the first time. It was a crucial juncture for me and a critical point for the nation of Angola. I planned to spend four months in the country, studying the Kimbundu language at the Universidade Agostinho Neto and conducting preliminary dissertation research on the intellectual history of identity in Kisama, a region south of Luanda and the Kwanza River. While I hoped to spend some time in Kisama, the bulk of my work would take place in Luanda, and I was quickly—very quickly—thrown into the deepend of the vida luandense (life in Luanda). Inadvertently, I arrived on the thirtieth anniversary of the 1977 coup attempt against the ruling MPLA government and the unchecked violent repression and strife that followed, lucidly described by historian David Birmingham as, “the day when the Angolan dream began to unravel.”1 On this particular anniversary of the unraveling, the nation was deep in a public relations campaign, aimed duly at its own increasingly aggrieved citizens and an amorphous “international community.” |
