Unpacking the "why" behind the norm of "decency" in Mozambican public administra

It was one of those 36-39 degrees Celsius days in January and we were walking to the library. When we finally got there, we started talking to a woman who was working at the entrance and as we asked for information about how the library worked she looked at us and said “you are not allowed to be here in shorts and flip-flops”. Julia was wearing the flip-flops and Anselmo was wearing the shorts.

“Why?”, Anselmo asked.

“It is against the norms of the institution” she replied with a smile.

“But it doesn’t make sense”, Anselmo commented, “why are shorts and flip flops a problem in a library?”

“These are just the norms”, she concluded “but you can stay”.

Shortly after, a security guard entered the conversation.

“You are not allowed to come here with shorts and flip-flops”, he stated with a strong and authoritative voice.

“Why not?” Anselmo inquired once again.

“Because these are the norms.” He repeated the same answer we were given before.

“Well, can you show us where these norms are written?” Anselmo asked.

“I can call my boss to explain this if you want, I just follow orders”, he suggested.

After a while a woman, between the age of 30-35, showed up and walked towards us.

“So you are the ones who are looking for me” She commented.

“Not necessarily, we are just looking for answers” Anselmo replied.

“I am the one who the security guy went to call”, she said.

“Why can’t we be here in shorts and flip-flops?”

“Well, it’s not like you cannot be here in those outfits, the problem is that we have norms and regulations to comply with”.

“But where are these written?”

“You can find them on our website. I wanted to come with a printed document but I could not find it”, she continued.

“Well, but how are shorts and flip-flops a problem to a library? Will they destroy the books? The reading environment? Offend anybody?

“I am a trained librarian myself, and I know these regulations are outdated. Libraries are supposed to be a place in which people should feel comfortable, but norms are norms.”

“We live in a country in which people don’t have access to books, and close to half of the population cannot read or write and instead of you creating measures to attract people you are sending them away. We want to read, we don’t feel our clothes offend anyone, we did not leave home with that intention.”

“You are right.” She then left and later came back with a legislation in which one of the requirements for people to present themselves in public institutions is that they should be “decent”. She pointed at the document with a feeling of triumph.

“What’s decency according to you?” Anselmo asked.

“Well, decency is not wearing fancy clothes but decency is… you know what decency is”, she says conflicted. “You know, but she (meaning Julia) doesn’t know”.

Why didn’t they just go home and change their clothes, you might ask? As you can imagine, this is far from being an isolated case in Mozambique. Rather, there have been multiple cases in which people have been denied access to public facilities like schools and hospitals and name called simply because they “did not look decent” which is a clear violation of human rights. This situation within public administration in Mozambique has already created criticism regarding the lack of critical thought among Mozambican public servants stating that they just follow orders and when these are orientações superiores* – orders from above – then they possess a power that most of the times is not questioned even if the orders conflict with public administration procedures and laws. Therefore, instead of complying, we realized that this moment could be a good place to start a critical discussion on what effects norms like "decency" within the public administration in Mozambique create, what they mean and where they stem from. In the end, it turned out that our intuition was right.

In order to show what effects norms like "decency" create, one needs to unbox the conversation above. What did our interlocutor mean when she said “you know what 'decency' means but she doesn’t”? It was obvious that “you” meaning Anselmo, as a black Mozambican, know that there are agreed norms of what it means to be "decent". Moreover, it was obvious that “she” meaning Julia, as a western white woman, doesn’t have access to this knowledge and her non-conformity is tolerable because of this. Furthermore, it was clear that Mozambican "decency" is not gender-blind. In the conversation she tried to show how long a woman’s skirt should be and how long the pants of a man should be. As she explained "decency", the body hierarchy inside the Mozambican nation state alongside its body politics in which in- and exclusions are created could be mapped out.

Now that we begin to understand what effects "decency" creates, we can look for possible answers to where this nearly “obsessive” control over bodies in the Mozambican public administration stems from.

The Portuguese took on their "mission" of civilizing the "savages" and their cultural system was established as the basis from which to define what behavior and norms should be considered decent. In Mozambique this created a new category in the social hierarchy, that of the assimilados, which were black or colored individuals who spoke Portuguese, knew how to sit at a table, use a fork and a knife, didn’t walk barefoot and “naked” and lived in houses made of wood and metal. It is clear that "decency" during the colonial period meant denying oneself of their identity in order to conform to those alienating norms.

This way of framing "decency", at least in terms of body control, was also very strong during the socialist period in Mozambique. Samora Machel, the first president of independent Mozambique, was very much observant in terms of how public servants and Mozambicans in general should look. His speech about the workers of a beer factory, for example, is still circulating in today’s Mozambique where the dirty beard and nails of the workers etc., are mentioned to the delight of the listeners, including black ones. Anyone familiar with the history of Mozambique knows that Samora Machel aimed at getting rid of obscurantism, tribalism, superstition, misery, pés-descalsos (which literally means barefoot) and famine towards the production of a Homem Novo - "New Man", through values of Modernity, in which science and education would be used as the main vectors of development.** The colonial period constructed the category of pé-descalço and the socialist period solidified it. This was an effect of putting different individuals and cultures on a scale of modernization and wealth which could be one of the reasons why flip-flops are not regarded as "decent" and therefore not allowed in schools, hospitals, libraries, local state bodies etc.

As we were standing in front of this young educated black woman from a postcolonial period and we see this history being recycled in each word she says about how, Anselmo as Mozambican should know about these norms and Julia, as a white westerner doesn’t. It becomes apparent that traces of this way of differentiating bodies is still very much solidified in post-colonial and post-socialist Mozambique. But the discussion can’t end there. Instead, such a politics of in- and exclusion and its accompanying power differentials needs to be revisited. Norms—good and bad—need to be questioned and only then complied to, not the other way around, and in this way change might be possible.

This is not an invitation to an anarchist and liberal stance but to a critical stance on what the roots of the current control over bodies in the Mozambican public administration are and open room for a more inclusive public administration. Moreover, this is not to suggest a revolution but rather suggest a way to materialize one of the fundamental constitutional objectives of Mozambique: to “promote a pluralistic society, tolerance and peace” in which one of the principles is: “all citizens are equal in the eyes of the law, they possess the same rights and are subject to the same duties, independent of the color, sex, origin, place of birth, religion, academic level, social status, marital status of the parents, profession or political option”***.

This means that the law recognizes that Mozambique is a country built around the amalgamation of different cultures and peoples. Therefore, having to comply to the specific norms of a dominant culture, inevitably becomes an embodied experience that, depending on where in the hierarchization of bodies you are categorized at, will have certain effects regarding your access to education, employment, public administration and personal relationships, but can also lead to victimization and abuse****.

In another visit to same institution Anselmo was told that from the day we went to library and argued against this norm, people were allowed to have access to the library and the books in outfits they felt comfortable wearing as long as these were not offensive to others. This is indeed a small gain since a public library is a place of exploration and expansion. A country like Mozambique, in which illiteracy is still widespread, we cannot afford to send people away simply because they are wearing flip flops, shorts or short skirts.

Unboxing decency in Mozambique highlights the need to rethink both the concept of "decency" and the public administration’s power to uphold an idea of a Mozambican national identity strongly rooted in colonialist legacy as it inevitably will marginalize bodies that do not or cannot conform to it and thus creates social exclusion. We do not to argue for a total disregard of how people should look in public but when these issues further inhibit people from their right to education or health care then a deeper thinking needs to be carried out. Similar changes need to be made in other sectors and institutions towards a more inclusive and egalitarian society. We are aware that one's level of education, class, gender, age, sexuality, religion, (dis)ablility and race etc., does matter in terms of which bodies are "allowed" to question certain norms in a given context. We therefore believe that when one has the privilege to question certain norms, one could start by asking "why?"

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* Gonçalves, Euclides. 2013. Orientações Superiores: Time and bureaucratic authority in Mozambique. Afr. Aff. 112(449): 602-622

** a name the men from Renamo were given in the south of Mozambique deriving from Renamo’s first leader’s name André Matsangaíssa.

*** The Constitution of the People's Republic of Mozambique 1975

**** Meekosha, Helen (2006) “What the Hell are You? An Intercategorical Analysis of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Disability in the Austrailian Body Politic” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 8:2-3. 161-176