“The repression has increased, we have comrades arrested until now, we have the situation with Neth Nahara [‘tiktoker’] and we know that all these actions that the Government takes are really to silence voices and attempts at some street demonstration”, said activist Laurinda Gouveia.
Speaking to Lusa, Laurinda Gouveia, one of the protagonists of the case that became known as “15+2”, in 2016, said that many activists in Angola embraced other forms of struggle at the community level, noting, however, that some laws, such as the one that criminalizes vandalism, fuel fear among citizens.
“All of this ends up, in some way, bringing some fear, some lack of confidence in people being able to speak out, despite the fact that hunger could be one of the factors that could make us stand up”, he said.
“The cost of living is increasing every day, people have to 'partner' [an act that consists of pooling money between several people to purchase a certain good] of everything to survive, but still we, as social actors, we remain silent”, he lamented.
For Luaty Beirão, an activist in the same process in which Laurinda Gouveia was included, State repression is among the factors that stop the intention of street demonstrations by citizens, who, in his view, allow themselves to die of suffocation.
“At this point, I’m tired of trying to understand or theorize this apathy of those who let themselves die of asphyxiation, without making a gesture that signals their will to survive,” he told Lusa.
He considered, on the other hand, that there is a combination of factors, which contribute to the current “citizen apathy”, such as, he stressed, the “binomial repression of the State and churches”.
“However, as human beings, everyone has a threshold at which a reaction occurs. The mark where I thought this threshold was was already crossed a long time ago, so I no longer have theories”, he said.
Laurinda highlighted, on the other hand, that she has the perception that the struggle previously carried out by dozens of activists, especially in the era of former president José Eduardo dos Santos, has today fallen into the “back burner” due to the current “conformity” of citizens .
“Because people should be more awakened today”, he observed, adding that many young people infiltrate the activists, allegedly from the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
“Many young people infiltrated our midst, pretending to be activists, but now they are people who are being used directly by people from the MPLA to completely discredit the fight we started”, he pointed out.
He also insisted that the arrest of activists Adolfo Campos, Gilson da Silva Moreira “Tanaice Neutro”, Hermenegildo André “Gildo das Ruas” de Abraão dos Santos, since September 2023, and the ‘tiktoker’ Ana da Silva Miguel “Neth Nahara”, arrested for almost a year for insults, on social media, against President João Lourenço, are reflections of a “much more fortified dictatorship” of the current government.
“It's really fear, but it's an almost collective fear, because I know that if I go out on the street for a demonstration, a tiny number of people will show up, because people are going through this sense of collectivization, of fear that is being implanted. by the party in power”, concluded Laurinda Gouveia.
