Maputo — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Thursday declared that "self-esteem is at the centre of the life of Mozambicans", and although almost 50 years had passed since the launch of the national liberation struggle it remained crucial to consolidate self-esteem.

Opening the Second National Conference on Culture, Guebuza said that the liberation war had been waged essentially to liberate the minds of Mozambicans. From that struggle "we knew that there would emerge in each of us the awareness of our Mozambican identity", as well as "pride in the richness of our cultural diversity".

"We have heard some of our fellow countrymen questioning Mozambican culture, because of a specific aspect, or isolated behaviour of another Mozambican", he added. "They forget that in doing so, they are questioning their own existence, because they are the product of this culture".

Guebuza objected to the way that some Mozambican still dismiss Mozambican languages as "dialects", whereas in fact "these languages have the same capacity as any other language to express knowledge, concepts, feelings and values".

There were also Mozambicans, though fewer than in the past, who put conditions on working outside of the cities, in the rural districts, "reminding us of the times when only those who cut themselves off from their roots were valued".

Colonial domination, Guebuza said, had not only appropriated the country's resources, but had spread the idea that the culture of the colonizer was superior to that of Mozambicans. It had preached the inferiority of Mozambican culture and had corroded Mozambican self-esteem.

"It was by making a correct analysis of these policies and strategies of foreign domination that we concluded that our nationalist movement must take the liberation of the minds of Mozambicans, the producers and at the same time the product of our culture, as its great priority", he stressed.

The current conference, he added, was a stage in the struggle to consolidate self-esteem, and to value Mozambique's vast and diverse artistic and cultural heritage.

The conference is taking place during the year which the government has named "Eduardo Mondlane Year", in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the founder of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), and the man regarded as the architect of Mozambican national unity.

Mondlane, Guebuza recalled, had "the wisdom and the tact to unite Mozambicans of different ethnic groups, races and regions, who not only did not know each other, but also might harbour prejudices towards each other, stigmas which foreign domination had implanted".

Mondlane's work had created the Mozambican nation, and he had sacrificed his life for it. "He transformed our culture into a crucial factor for rapid and profound mutual understanding", said Guebuza.