Marissa Moorman talks about the formation of an Angolan culture through music, and the history of music and political struggle in Angola, and their interconnection. She also talks about the issue of Angolan oil and the state of this African nation today.
Sue Supriano's Steppin' Out of Babylon is a radio interview series covering a broad range of important issues in today's world: peace and war, human and civil rights, communication, the media, the environment, food security, racism, globalization, immigration and matters of the spirit.
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Marissa Moorman is Assistant Professor of African History at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana. Her particular area of expertise is Angola and the formation of an Angolan culture during the end of Portuguese control of this African country. She pursued this subject in Angola where she has lived because there was so much happening with music during the struggle for independence from Portugal. Little had been written in English about this phenomenon of music and political struggle. Moorman talks about the history of the long and violent struggle for independence and how the country is, since the Peace Accords in 2002, finally free of war and able to focus on re-building and healing. She also mentions how she thinks that-- even though it has that much desired resource of oil -- Angola will not be attacked by the countries that need oil since, unlike in Nigeria, the oil sources are very difficult for protestors to reach since they are far off shore and technologically difficult to bring up the oil from the very very deep water where it's found. Also, the Angolan national oil company and other oil companies already control the oil and the government is insisting on the nationalization of the employee base. She talks about the presence in Africa of China and India as they are looking for oil. The second half of the interview is focused on the development of Angolan culture, particularly their own music, where people could put forth their feelings and opinions about politics as they went about their daily life. The the music that Moorman focuses on was written mostly between 1961-'65 and was later repressed from '75-'80 and has been brought back more recently as well as many more new types of popular music in which political and social comments are included. She finds that the connections between people and the good that has come out of this truly Angolan music that has been created in the wake of repression is even more important than the repression itself as it leads to the further formation of community.
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