Patrícia Jerónimo remaining 2% being made up of groups of European (mostly Portuguese) and Asian (mostly Indian and Chinese) descent, Arab Mozambicans, and multiracial groups.3 In the first years after independence, the ruling FRELIMO4, following a Marxist blueprint, took it upon itself to create a ‘New Man’ (Homem Novo), free from the constraints of ethnicity and tradition (Sumich 2013: 103, 106), and to build a modern postcolonial nation-state that would accommodate all ethnic, racial, regional and religious groups (Chabal 2002: 56, 69). Consistent with its purpose of ‘killing the tribe in order to build the nation’ – famously stated by President Samora Machel (Pinto 2012: 88) –, FRELIMO paid no attention to pre-colonial traditions of belonging when establishing the citizenship regime at independence, opting instead to replicate the European model of citizenship as attached to the state system (Manby 2018b: 37-41). The country’s ethno-linguistic diversity was eventually acknowledged by the 1990 Constitution – albeit with no implications for the citizenship regime – and, as elsewhere in Africa, remains politically visible and socially relevant in people’s daily lives. As a retort to RENAMO’s5 claim to be the sole defender of tradition, FRELIMO has in recent years been more careful not to come across as an out-of-touch mixed elite and therefore has appointed mostly black Mozambicans as cabinet members and has taken on the goal of creating a black bourgeoisie (Sumich 2013: 109). This attention to race and ethnicity is not without nefarious consequences, of course. The internal cleavages based on race, ethnicity or region, which were taboo in the official discourse during socialism, have resurfaced and open expressions of hostility towards minority groups are increasingly common. In particular, popular resentment against the privileges and wealth enjoyed by Mozambican whites and Indians has fuelled the perception that they do not belong to the Mozambican nation, even if they are Mozambican citizens under the law (Sumich 2013: 102113). Although Mozambique has consistently adopted ius soli as the main criterion for citizenship attribution throughout its history as an independent state, it becomes apparent that ‘simply being born in Mozambique does not necessarily make one a full citizen in the popular imagination’ (Sumich 2013: 113). Irrespective of whether or not there is a gap between the statutory provisions on citizenship and the ‘popular imagination’, there is certainly a gap between those provisions as they are set in the Constitution and in ordinary legislation and the way in which they are being applied in practice by public authorities throughout the country and used by (prospective) citizens in Mozambique and abroad. Being modelled after European citizenship standards, these provisions were from the start predicated on the existence of a comprehensive network of civil registries able to ensure universal birth registration and the issuance of identity documents. Instead, what Mozambique was left with at independence was a meagre administrative infrastructure barely present outside the capital, and much of it would, in any case, be destroyed during the 16 years of civil war. With the loss of public records and the massive displacement of Mozambicans to urban centres in Mozambique or across the border, the determination of who is entitled to Mozambican citizenship becomes a problem. As reported by UNHCR, in 2011, Mozambique has a significant potential to have among its original population ‘persons with citizenship problems’, i.e. who are stateless or at risk of statelessness, due to the lack of primary documents (e.g. birth certificates) that would enable them to prove their Mozambican citizenship, something which affects mostly those 3 Information available at https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/ethnic-groups-of-mozambique.html [22.03.2019]. Mozambique Liberation Front (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique). 5 Mozambique’s National Resistence (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana), the rebel force created by the Rhodesian security forces to destabilise Mozambique and later supported by the South African government during the civil war that RENAMO fought with FRELIMO from 1977 until 1992 (Chabal 2002: 76-86; Newitt 2002: 209-210). 4 2 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2019/6 - © 2019 Author