Malundo Kudiqueba
In 1975, thousands of Portuguese fled Angola in a chaotic and painful exodus. They were called “retornados,” yet few felt they truly had a home to return to. It was the mass departure from a poorly digested colonial war, marked by fear, uncertainty, and abandonment. Today, almost 50 years later, if those same men and women—or their children and grandchildren—decided to return, it is likely they would catch the first flight back and barely land in Luanda. The country has changed hands, but not its spirit. Colonialism did not vanish—it merely exchanged its accent.
The generation of returnees did not flee solely from independence. They escaped the collapse of the state, insecurity, hunger, and rampant nationalization. Nearly half a century on, the country remains in the hands of predatory elites, and its citizens—even the native ones—continue to live as exiles in their own land.
Angola exports oil but imports dignity.
It produces millionaires in real time and plunges people into lifelong poverty.
If the returnees came back today, they would not find a free, just, and developed Angola. They would find a country rich beneath a poor people, where corruption is the official language of business and justice is blind… but only to those without friends in power.
They would encounter universities that churn out the unemployed, hospitals where the patient becomes the disease, and schools where the teacher is the pupil of hunger.
One need not long for the past in order to be ashamed of the present.
Perhaps they would stay a few days, trying to revisit the neighborhoods where they grew up, childhood friends, and the old familiar scents. But once they left the airport, they would see children begging on the streets, youth without a future, the elderly without pensions, and politicians with luxury cars and houses in Lisbon. They would witness democracy as a façade, the state as mere spoils, and the people as tools for propaganda.
Angola ceased to be a colony of Portugal only to become a hostage of itself.
Independence is not merely political—it is also moral, ethical, and social. And that, Angola has yet to achieve.
If the returnees came back today, they might ask:
— Is this why everything happened?
— Is it for this Angola that people were killed, exiled, and fought for?
And the answer, sad and brutal, would be: NO.
Birmingham, 19/07/2025.
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