A manifesto for Mozambique: the third way of Ngoenha and Castiano

Abstract

Plunged into a great crisis of values, with a political class highly corrupted and unable to offer credible perspectives for its future, Mozambique saw the philosophers Ngoenha and Castiano tried to open an innovative debate, through the proposal of an ethical-political Manifesto. The Manifesto proposes a “third way” alternative to the first one (the socialist, without freedoms but with social justice), as well as to the second (the liberal, with individual freedoms formally guaranteed, but without solidarity, nor social justice), with the aim to re-build the sense of a collective national identity shaken up by the loss of a common project for the young Mozambican nation. The current article seeks to give an interpretation to the Manifesto, besides to compel its meaning, emphasizing its merits as well as pointing out its limitations, in a permanent dialogue with the Mozambican and African philosophical tradition at all. As a conclusion, the Manifesto represents one of the rare contributions, based on “historicity”, directed to think again of Mozambique, in its ethical, political and identity aspects, in an era of generalized crisis of this country.