Cooperación para el desarrollo en tiempos de internacionalismo: los hombres nuevos de Machel

Between 1979 and the disappearance of the GDR, in 1990, the government of Mozambique promoted the migration of thousands of Mozambicans to East Germany. Some German authors argue that the main purpose of the Mozambican elite was to amortize the debt charges owed to the GDR. Beyond appeasing or disagreeing with this economistic thesis on the motivations for sending Mozambican labor to German factories, I propose to reflect on the subjective impact that resulted from this asymmetric contractual relationship, in training of these young Mozambicans, known today as "Magermane", especially in order to understand various aspects of their practices and political representations at present. The paper outlines a process of individuation - peculiar and contradictory - in these ex-Mozambican workers resulting from their experience in Germany. These new men, idealized by Samora Machel as social subjects essential to the development of socialism in Mozambique "filhos de Machel", as they often call themselves today, are now an unwanted remnant of the socialist past, especially uncomfortable for the ruling elite, because they act as a memory device that reminds them of a time of well-intentioned speeches and triumphant development utopias, which ultimately benefited only a few. But at the same time, from the point of view of the population as a whole, they appear as self-referential subjects, claiming specific citizenship, rights and justice.

Mozambique; GDR; cooperation; development; subjectiveness