Angola, o 27 de maio e os complôs memórias à luz de conspirações

This essay is the result of reflections that border notes from fieldwork notebooks and footnotes and addresses the historical and political context of May 27, 1977 in Angola, when there was an attempted coup d’état led by a former guerrilla appointed minister in the government of Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola in the post-independence, Nito Alves. The relevance of the work lies in its search for dynamics of conspiracy and construction of enemies, proposing an analysis that goes beyond suspicion and delegitimization, and perceives them as evidence of disputes between narratives that destabilize collective political memories constructed as historical. Taking documents as ethnographic field, the research focused on ethnographic materials, which include published official speeches, reports from period, propaganda and journalistic and (auto)biographical publications of survivors and family; documents from the post-independence and more recent, when the topic reemerged, from mid-2007 to the present day, were considered. My aim is to discuss how we can think about liminal themes that emerge as conspiracies and plots from an anthropological perspective on accusations and the production of history, taking as ethnographic fact discursive disputes that served to consolidate the power of Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, especially in the legitimization of its leadership and repression. The results indicate that the production of an internal enemy, with the strategic use of accusations such as factionalism, was essential to sustain Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola’s dominance and construct an official narrative, which aligned national identity and party-state. In the conclusion, I reflect on the impact of May 27 on Angolan memory, highlighting tensions between the oblivion desired by Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola in contrast to demands for recognition of victims. The study contributes to understanding how historical events can be instrumentalized to consolidate political power and to reflect on the interconnection between memory, history and power.