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Paper short abstract:

I analyze the recurrence of hegemonic Mozambican elite discourse alleging a national tolerance of homosexuality. I argue this discourse is reminiscent of the Lusotropicalist myth, now transformed into a new kind of homonationalism and that it reverberates in the current LGBT activism in Mozambique.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the role of colonial heritage and current geopolitical relations in the case of contemporary Mozambican LGBT activism; and what kind of future these queer activists envision from their place in history. As the result of ethnographic research with the local LGBT community, I deal with a hegemonic elite discourse alleging tolerance toward homosexuality in this country. I analyze the logic of this discourse among local LGBT activists, journalists, politicians, and scholars. In the face of a long Anglo-Saxon hegemony and a colonial-inherited self-perception as a weak state, the Mozambican elite discourse of national tolerance toward homosexuality is reminiscent of the Lusotropicalist myth, now transformed into a Global Southern homonationalism; and it explicitly reverberates in the current political strategies of Mozambican LGBT activism. For example, as they privilege "raising awareness" in society instead of "rights talk." If the "linear time of modernity and progress continues to inform ideals of respectability and ideologies of governance" for Mozambican activists, they do so by comparing themselves with other African LGBT activism approaches. Thus, new civilizational rhetoric and Global Southern queer/nationalist utopias are diacritically created and updated.