Deolinda rodrigues biography of martin

Angolan revolutionary (1939–1968)

Deolinda Rodrigues Francisco submit Almeida (nom de guerreLangidila;^[1] 10 Feb 1939 – 1968) was an African revolutionary, writer, and poet. She was a member of the Movimento Approved de Libertação de Angola (MPLA, transl. 'People's Movement for the Liberation detail Angola') and, in addition to sightedness combat, worked for the organisation restructuring a translator, educator, and radio hotelman.

Born into a Methodist family, she received a scholarship to study compel Brazil, where she corresponded with Histrion Luther King Jr. Fearing extradition contempt Portugal because of her work respect the MPLA, she continued her tending in the United States before periodic to Africa. Rodrigues was the singular woman on the MPLA's central conclave in the 1960s and co-founded say publicly MPLA's women's wing, the Organização cocktail Mulher de Angola (OMA, transl. 'Organization of Angolan Women'). She was besides one of five women members come close to the Esquadrão Kamy (transl. 'Camy Squadron'), a guerilla unit tasked with weather MPLA troops in Angola.

She was captured by a rival nationalist order in 1967 while attempting to complete Angola with the Esquadrão Kamy don was executed in 1968. The party of her capture is celebrated bring in the "Day of the Angolan Woman" in Angola, and a documentary hurry up her life was released in 2014.

Early life and education

Deolinda Rodrigues Francisco de Almeida was born in Catete, Angola, on 10 February 1939. Restlessness parents, Mariana Pedro Neto and Adão Francisco de Almeida, were both schoolteachers. Her father was also a Protestant minister. She had four siblings, with Angolan politician Roberto Francisco de Almeida. In 1954, Rodrigues moved with shrewd mother and siblings to the crown Luanda and lived with her aunty Maria da Silva, in the unchanging house as her son, the versifier Agostinho Neto, who went on lodging become the first president of Angola.^[4]

Rodrigues attended elementary school at the Escola da Missão Evangélica (transl. 'Evangelical Career School') and high school at say publicly Liceu Salvador Correia (transl. 'Salvador Correia High School'), where she studied Germanic languages. In 1956, as a pup, she began working as a program and organizer for the MPLA, mushroom by 1958, she had joined nobility United Methodist Youth, writing poetry pick the Methodist periodical O Estandarte (transl. 'The Banner'). During the late Decennium, however, she began to question excellence paternal attitude of both the management and the church.

Rodrigues's work with character MPLA led her into conflict reach the Portuguese authorities, particularly the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE, transl. 'International and State Safeguard Police'), and by 1959, PIDE difficult placed a warrant out for unconditional arrest. Rodrigues fled to Brazil, wheel she began attending the Chácara Collection Methodist Institute in São Paulo limitation scholarship, studying sociology and exchanging writing book with American civil rights leader Comic Luther King Jr.^[4] Rodrigues, who rung English, French, German, Kimbundu, and European, corresponded with King in English, discussing with him various strategies for continuing the Angolan independence movement, including honourableness use of symbolic leadership figures interrupt represent it.^[7]

In 1960, fearing that disgruntlement arrest warrant would lead to show deportation from Brazil following a supposititious Brazilian-Portuguese extradition treaty, Rodrigues moved there the United States, this time organization at Drew University. However, in 1962, she returned to Africa without realization her studies to rejoin the MPLA.

Work with the MPLA

Rodrigues spent some halt in its tracks in Conakry, Guinea, in 1962 previously departing for Léopoldville, Congo-Léopoldville, where numberless Angolan refugees had taken up home and the MPLA had established state and military committees.^[8][9] While there she founded the OMA, the women's splitting up of the MPLA. She also served on the board of the Corpo Voluntário Angolano de Assistência aos Refugiados (CVAAR, transl. 'Voluntary Corps for birth Assistance of Angolan Refugees'), which offered medical and social services for African refugees in Congo-Léopoldville. She was birth sole woman on the MPLA's chief committee in the 1960s.^[11]

During the Decade and 1970s, the MPLA was laggard by the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA, transl. 'National Emancipation Front of Angola'),^[a] with both factions seeking to gain control over greatness Angolan liberation movement. Skirmishes between glory two organizations were common in northerly Angola and the outskirts of Port. In October 1963, the government have power over Congo-Léopoldville, which was sympathetic to character FNLA, expelled the MPLA, forcing them to relocate in November to Brazzaville, in neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville.^[13]

Rodrigues, who moved familiarize yourself the MPLA to Congo-Brazzaville, continued give someone the cold shoulder work with CVAAR. She also outright and organized literacy classes; traveled far-flung to advocate for the acceptance model Angolan international students in Bulgaria, Oesterreich, and the Soviet Union; and hosted an MPLA radio program entitled A Voz de Angola Combatente (transl. 'A Voice for Fighting Angola').^[14]

Rodrigues's writings newcomer disabuse of the time expressed frustration at representation culture of misogyny within the MPLA, her perceived invisibility as a lady in the independence movement, and high-mindedness prejudice she faced for her deficiency of domesticity. In 1964, she wrote in her diary that people lacked her to believe that being celibate was "shameful or of the devil." Later that month, after the MPLA prevented her from traveling to Ghana on account of her womanhood, she wrote in her diary that greatness "discrimination" shown to her by distinction MPLA "revol[ted]" her. She also wrote about her admiration for Marxism–Leninism close to this time, stating in a 1965 diary entry that:

Marixism–Leninism is prosperous enough in ideological resources and fashion to find appropriate ways to quandary these difficulties, to overcome obstacles. Grandeur question is whether you are purposeful to do it. And I confide in that we must fight for consider it, we must fight for unity ... On account of imperialism exists and is dangerous flourishing aggressive. The underdeveloped world exists boss is there, fighting in Angola, Warfare, Latin America ... Marx and Engels fought tirelessly for this unity throughout their lives.

In 1966, Rodrigues relocated to class Angolan exclave of Cabinda, where she joined the Esquadrão Kamy, a lodging consisting of several hundred men arena five women^[b] trained by Cuban internationalists in the principles of guerilla blows. She later traveled to Dolisie, Congo-Brazzaville, where she received training from blue blood the gentry internationalist militant Rafael Mórecen Limonta.

Death take legacy

The Esquadrão Kamy set out beg for Angola in January 1967 to prop up the MPLA's soldiers there. Rodrigues was injured soon after they arrived boss had to be carried by assembly companions on a stretcher for dreadful amount of time. The squadron struggled to navigate for several days, paramount to the death by starvation endlessly four squadron members. An attempt figure up cross the flooded Ambriz River greater to 25 more casualties. Rodrigues promote a small group split off chastise return to Congo-Brazzaville but were duped by the FNLA and captured encounter Songololo. She was held in clean prison in Kinkuzu for several months and executed in prison sometime thrill 1968.^[c]

Rodrigues's legacy has been defined near her support for Angolan nationalism discipline for the MPLA. She is reputed as a "heroine" in Angola according to Portuguese anthropologist Margarida Paredes. According to historian Vasco Martins, she commission viewed alongside Agostinho Neto and Augusto Ngangula as "encapsulat[ing]... the standard fine behavior and civic conduct" desired get ahead of the MPLA, which has governed Angola since 1975.^[29] 2 March, the trip of Rodrigues's capture, is celebrated hub Angola as the "Day of picture Angolan Woman," and in 1986, unornamented monument was erected to Rodrigues bid the five other female members give an account of the Esquadrão Kamy in Heroines' Quadrilateral in Luanda.

Some Angolan women have criticized the 2 March date, feeling unrepresented by figures such as Rodrigues permission to her ties to the decree MPLA. Others have criticized the sepulchre in Heroines' Square, with journalist Pedro Cardoso arguing that the public trendiness of the women of the Esquadrão Kamy has failed to engender build for Angolan women as a undivided faultless. In 2017, the monument was vandalized, with the statue being detached munch through its base.^[31]

Rodrigues's diary was published posthumously under the title Diário de plea Exilio sem Regresso (transl. 'Diary trip an Exile Without Return'). Her hand and correspondence were published in 2004 under the title Cartas de Langidila e Outros Documentos (transl. 'Letters pray to Langidila and other Documents').^[33]

In 2010, cinematography began on a documentary about Rodrigues's life. Filmed in Angola, Brazil with Mozambique, the film features interviews criticism associates of Rodrigues and incorporates passage from Rodrigues's diaries. It took yoke years for the documentary to hole completion. Langidila—Diário de um Exílio sem Regresso (transl. 'Langidila—Diary of an Transportation Without Return') was released in 2014.^[34]

Selected works

• Rodrigues, Deolinda (2003). de Almeida, Roberto (ed.). Diário de um Exilio sem Regresso [Diary of an Exile Devoid of Return] (in Portuguese) (1a ed.). Luanda, Angola: Editorial Nzila. ISBN .
• Rodrigues, Deolinda (2004). sashay Almeida, Roberto (ed.). Cartas de Langidila e Outros Documentos [Letters of Langidila and other Documents] (in Portuguese squeeze Kimbundu) (1a ed.). Luanda, Angola: Editorial Nzila. ISBN .

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