“Mamma Angola: Sociedade e Economia de um País Nascente” (ISBN 8531405289) (free translation from Portuguese: “Mamma Angola: Society and Economy of a Nascent Country”) is a book by Solival Menezes, with a preface by Paul Israel Singer, originally edited in Portuguese by EDUSP Editora da Universidade de São Paulo (University of São Paulo’s Publishing), in 2000, with support from FAPESP Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo State’s Research Support Foundation).
The book is one of the few that portrays the society and economy of Angola from a historical and theoretical perspective when applying, for the first time, the Teoria da DependênciaorDependency Theory in the analysis of a reality outside Latin America, offering a unique interpretation of the Angolan economy's transition from a colonial economy, going through a period of centrally planned ("Socialist") economy, until reaching the current stage, of market economy. The book serves not only for analyze the economic and social evolution of this country, but also serving as a parameter for studies of the reality of other similar countries, especially from África, who have historically suffered the same trajectory, subjected to a long process of colonization, exploiting its natural and human resources - including with intense use of slave labor and slave traffic, for centuries, towards the Americas and Europe -, facing tribal and fratricides wars and struggling for independence, resulting in the inheritance of borders dictated by the colonizers, which has required a long period for settlement and adaptation, still in progress.
The book, released in 2000, has since become a hit among masters and doctoral students, as well as undergraduates, in various parts of the world, interested in studying the reality of Africa and Angola in particular, having been acquired in conventional sources or even reproduced by xerography among students, being available in several libraries in different countries, such as the Toronto Public Library [1], in Canada, and the Library of Congress [2], in Washington , DC, in the United States.
The historical period known as the “great colonization” started in the 15th century, with the expansion of European maritime navigation and the discovery of new continents. The Africa’s colonization by the modern European states, however, especially by Portugal, began in the 14th and 15th centuries, preceding the discovery of the Americas (1492) and the discovery of the alternative sea route from Europe to India, by the Portuguese, through the Atlantic Ocean (1497), and was accentuated, especially from the 16th century, by the intensive demand for slave labor from the various African regions, today divided into countries, inhabited at the time by tribal organizations little understood by the European colonizers [3].
The European colonizers often resorted to African tribal and regional disputes to obtain prisoners who were turned into slaves and taken, mainly, to the various regions of the American continent, such as Brazil, the Caribbean islands, to the countries of Spanish colonization and to the territory of the present United States of America.
It was practiced in Africa, especially in the early period of European domination, the “colonization of exploitation”, with intensive extraction of autochthonous resources - material and human, especially slaves. The “settlement colonization” would only occur years later, when the territorial dispute over the colonized regions by European countries intensified, leading to the foundation of cities like Luanda (1576), in Angola, Cape Town (1652), in the current South Africa, Khartoum (1821), in Sudan, and Nairobi (1899), in Kenya [4].
In this modern stage of African colonization, from the 14th century onwards, the Portuguese were the pioneer colonizers and established resource extraction points in various locations on the western and eastern coast of Africa, and for a long time until the Berlin Conference, in 1885, Portugal dominated more than half of the territories of the sub-Saharan Africa, with the territories of present-day Mozambique and Angola, for example, being continuously connected with one another, within the African continent, as shown on the Pink Map[5].
The colonization of the Angola’s territorybyPortugal begins with the discovery, by the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão’s expedition, of the mouth of the Congo River (1484), also known as Zaire River, in the Atlantic Ocean, and by the founding of the Kingdom of Angola (c.1559) after a alliance of the Portuguese with the Kingdom of Congo and with two other kingdoms, further south, the Kingdom of Ndongo, whose leader had the title of ''Ngola a Kiluanje'', from which the country's name derives (Ngola; Angola), and the Kingdom of Matamba.
Portugal fought the Dutch invasions of its colonial territories during the Iberian Union (1580-1640) and consolidated its colonial extractive system, which included the colony of Brazil, where the Portuguese court moved to, in the period from 1808 to 1821, after the invasion of Portugal by the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Over the centuries, however, the Kingdom of Portugal lost territories to its European competitors, while maintaining its presence on the Africa’s east coast, with Mozambique, and on the west coast, with Angola, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea-Bissau, which lasted until the second half of the 20th century.
After the 1885’s Berlin Conference, when territorial division and trade and navigation agreements were established in Africa by the European and Western colonists countries, and with slavery prohibited in most parts of the globe, Portugal turned to occupation and interior exploration of Angola’s territory, which is even more effective after the start of the Portuguese Republic, in 1910, and, especially, with the Estado Novo (1932-1974), the “New State”, the period of authoritarian corporatist government led by António de Oliveira Salazar, when colonial rules are tightened, the presence of Portuguese in the Angolan territory increases and the Angolan production for export experiences a great boom[6].
However, schools are founded in this period of colonial intensification, which, despite practicing discrimination (the “liceus” for whites, browns and few blacks; and the “indigenous schools” for blacks and the poor), a process of raising knowledge begins that would be one of the elements to contribute to the future fight for the independence of Angola. There was a dizzying business cycle that causes a jump in the production of coffee, sisal, sugar cane, corn, iron ore and other products for export, a cycle that would only be changed in 1972 when the oil exploration in the provincial enclave of Cabinda, started in 1968, begins to give results.
During this cycle, there was an incentived flow of emigrants leaving Portugal to what remained of the great Portuguese colonial empire (Angola, Mozambique, Timor-Leste, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea-Bissau), especially for Angola, when the issue of decolonization of the various regions of the world and Africa in particular has already started. In 1956 the first manifesto of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) is published.
With the independence of Belgian Congo, Angola's neighboring country, in 1960, Angolan political groups, including MPLA, UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola and the FNLA National Liberation Front of Angola feel encouraged to intensify the armed fight against Portuguese colonialism. The government of Portugal, however, insists on defending to the limit of what would be the last great European colonial empire and mobilizes thousands of soldiers to fight the insurgents, while consolidating its presence in Angola promoting the industrial development, agricultural expansion and the construction of public works. The dependence of the petroleum, however, began to show its first signs, and in 1973, about 30% of the colony's export earnings came from this product.
With the increasing military spending and the excessive focus on the administration of the colonies, the Portuguese dictatorial state was having weakened the legitimacy that it enjoyed before the Portuguese public opinion, which only worsened with the death of Salazar, in 1970, after four decades in charge of the country.
Factors like these and the strengthening of opposition forces in Portugal led to the overthrow of the regime in 1974.
OnApril 25th, 1974, the right-wing regime in Portugal fell with the Carnation Revolution, assuming in its place a leftist government frankly sympathetic to the liberation groups, especially the MPLA, which had support from the then Soviet Union (USSR) and Cuba and militarily dominated the region of the country's capital, Luanda. The FNLA had support from China and especially from neighboring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and its operations were further north of the colony. UNITA, which occupied the southern center of the country, was supported by South Africa, which carried resources from the “capitalist side” to the guerrilla group, clearly establishing the presence of the Cold WarinAngolan territory[8].
OnJanuary 15th, 1975, the Alvor Agreement[9] was signed, where the Portuguese State, together with the three liberation groups, MPLA, UNITA and FNLA, proposed a transitional government that would proclaim the Independence of AngolaonNovember 11th, 1975. The guerrilla groups, however, were suspicious of each other and represented very opposite interests, with Zaire, associated with the FNLA, invading the territory of Angola in June; South Africa, which supported UNITA, in August; and the MPLA, in October, the latter receiving support from USSR and Cuba, starting a fratricidal war that would only end in 2002.
The support received from abroad by the MPLA, however, was massive, in military resources, with the arrival of Cuban soldiers to fight alongside the Angolans, and with Soviet technical, financial and operational support, which led to the expulsion of other foreign forces, with MPLA starting a one-party socialist government, based on the Soviet central planning system.
The assets and contracts held by the Portuguese State in relation to Angola were transferred to this hegemonic group (MPLA), whose leader was Agostinho Neto, who became the first president of Angola. Thousands of Portuguese and Angolans who felt insecure or oppressed by the new regime fled the country, the majority towards Portugal, but many to Brazil and other countries.
The Dependency Theory (in its original Portuguese, Teoria da Dependência) has its origins in the 1960s as an alternative to the national-developmentalist theoretical model created by the economists from ECLAC, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, also known as UNECLAC or, in Spanish and Portuguese,CEPAL Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e Caribe, and seeks to offer what is considered an interpretation of the social dynamics of Latin America[10].
With the Keynesian macroeconomics “allowing” corrective State interventions as a solution to the problems of the economy, as happened during the Great Depression in the United States and was happening with the reconstructionofEurope and Japan in the post-World War II, ECLAC economists, based on its headquarters in Santiago, Chile, from the second half of the 20th century onwards, felt free to recommend that the industrialization process of Latin America’s countries should not obey the sterile models of development proposed by the economists of the “Laissez-faire” and recommended the intervention of the State to promote industrialization, the only way to keep the surplus value in the country or region.
The creators of the Dependency Theory, however, although they identified a certain success in the industrialization process of what they called “periphery countries” in Latin America (said “underdeveloped” by the ECLAC economists), they found that this industrialization had occurred in connection with, in symbiosis, or in dependence of the production system controlled by the “central” or “hegemonic” countries (called “developed countries” by the ECLAC economists). More than that, the entire productive system of the “periphery countries”, including the production of primary products, fits into this process of subordination to the dictates of the “central countries” identified by the Dependency Theory.
The Dependency Theory deals with the relationship between the economies of "periphery countries" and the economies of "central" or "hegemonic countries", which often hold, directly or indirectly, the command of the productive forces. Many industrial companies located in the "periphery countries" are, in fact, subsidiariesofmultinational corporations based in the "central countries", which establish "dependent" economic relations with the "periphery countries”, which, in turn, create, within them, networks of political and ideological relations that shape determined forms of political and social development according to the interests of the "central countries” (and of course according to the interests of the agents who reside or operate from within the “periphery countries”).
An illustrative example, without factual basis, would be that of a “periphery country” producing a certain primary product, which could be soy, or coffee or even oil, which has one or more “central countries” that buy these products in a preferential way, establishing political and ideological relations between the controllers of the productive forces residing within the “periphery country” (the companies and families of producers, transporters, exporters) and buyers abroad, in such a way that the decisions that they make “within” the “periphery country”, apparently made by the “local elites”, in fact are influenced or dependent on the interests dictated by the “central countries”. In other words, decisions about what happens within the “periphery country” are dictated by the “hegemonic” or “central countries”. And these decisions are not limited to the field of production, but affect the political context and determine the destinies of the “periphery country” according to the interest of the “central”, dominant country. The process of domination or dependence, although it occurs in practice and can be studied from several angles, is not always explicit, and can be tacit and concealed.
This set of interests, which involves agents from the “periphery” and “central” countries, ends up ultimately promoting the transfer of surpluses from the “periphery” to the “central” countries, allowing, among other factors, the overexploitation of labour and the adjustment of the local institutional system in favor of one or more national hegemonic groups, ie within the “periphery country”, which dialogues and contracts with the agents of the “central countries”, allowing the exploitation of local resources at the same time that these internal groups also benefit from the process, appropriating part of the surplus to them. The result are “periphery countries” where a small number of dominant groups control the local production process, connected with the outside, and adhering to its values, while the majority of the population participates only by selling their labor force and receiving enough for their self-reproduction, leaving a good part of the surplus with this elite and with its foreign partners.
With a strong influence from neo-Marxist ideas and from thinkers from the American leftist establishment, such as Paul A. Baran and Paul Sweezy, the Dependency Theory’s analytical method became a criticism of the “authoritarian development”, to which countries like Brazil, from 1964, with the seizure of power by the military, started to join[11].
Its authors did not see the possibility of autonomous and full capitalist economic development in countries like Brazil or Latin America in general, but only a perennial underdevelopment to which these countries would be condemned, despite the industrialization process, unless there is a socialist revolution [12].
One of the strongest exponents of the Dependency TheoryisFernando Henrique Cardoso, sociologist, professor at the University of São Paulo, who was president of Brazil (1995-2002), who published, together with Enzo Faletto, in Chile, in 1967, the work entitled "Dependence and Development in Latin America" (in Portuguese, "Dependência e Desenvolvimento na América Latina") (ISBN 0-520-03193-8)[13][14]. Despite the prestige obtained with the work, Cardoso never spared criticism and adjustments to the theory, adapting, in a certain way, its concepts to the new dynamics that characterize the capitalist mode of production today.
The book “Mamma Angola: Sociedade e Economia de um País Nascente” (free translation from Portuguese: “Mamma Angola: Society and Economy of a Nascent Country”) offers a rare opportunity to connect with the historical and present reality of Angola from the perspective of a Brazilian author who visited and knew the country, both geographically and in terms of social, political and economic relations[15].
The author worked, in the periods when he visited Angola, independently, according to his reports, as a professor at the Agostinho Neto University, as a consultant for public companies, such as Cimangola, Pescangola and Sonangol, and for some private companies that emerged in Angola in the process of transition to the market economy, having also been a consultant to ministries and to the central government, such as the Ministry of Commerce of Angola, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Fisheries, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Economy and Planning and the Presidency of the Republic, in addition to serving public entities, such as the National Statistics Institute, and schools and colleges, having also been a columnist for newspapers and magazines, coach for businessmen, for ministers and public authorities, and conferencist, granting interviews to radio, newspapers and television in the opportunities he had to visit and work in Angola.
The book, in addition to providing a description and a detailed historical account of Angola, traces a theoretical panorama on which illuminates the complex relations of colonial exploitation between the small European metropolis, Portugal, the great powers and the Angolan tribal and primitive society, this last in its suffering process of evolution that would lead to the war for the independence in the middle of 20th Century. This relationship becomes even more intricate when Angola, still a colony, is launched in the Cold War. The liberation movements themselves are sponsored and supported, some by the “Free World”, others by the “Socialist Bloc”. When the dependenceonPortugal was broken, with the independence in 1975, the tribal antagonism coated with ideological conflict – Capitalism x “Socialism” - explodes in a civil war that would last for almost three decades.
The author submits all of this to the analysis of whom have mastered the few secondary sources available and, above all, have direct knowledge of the Angolan reality, as well as experience and a solid, unique, intellectual and academic background, which allows him a critical view of this reality. Much reading material, statistical data and documents were copied, smuggled and given to the author by students and members of the Angolan state bureaucracy, at a time when Angola was still surrounded by prohibitions and, above all, punishments, by the “Socialist” regime , very present especially in the first period in which the author was on a cooperation visit with Angola, in the early and mid-1990. His reports allow us to infer that certain people were at risk by providing copies of materials, which would prove to be valuable for the preparation of the book. These people, however, asked and even begged for something to be written or reported about Angola from that period, and this, undoubtedly, according to the author, was one of the main motivating factors for the realization of this and other works that he did and that has as its theme Angola and the Angolans [16].
The book is particularly precious for the portrait it offers of the “African Socialism” or, better, an African version of “Socialism that really exists”. The central theme of the book is this: the reconstruction of Angola as an independent country, under a “Socialist” government, part of the “Socialist Bloc”, permanently challenged by the insurgents' weapons, helped directly by South Africa of the Apartheid, neighboring country through which resources from "Capitalist" countries were channeled to combat the "Socialist" regime that dominated power in the new country. At the same time, although “Socialist”, Angola proved to be a country dependent on relations with the capitalist countries, since its main export product, oil, was exploited, under contract, by the main oil companies in the world, the majority of which is based in the Western capitalists countries. And in this same period, economic and political relations were so intense with the Soviet Union and with the countries of the “Socialist Bloc”, such as the former East Germany and Cuba, to the point that Angola’s defense and combat system in the guerrilla war movement that prevailed in the post-independence period of Portugal was carried out with resources and direct advice from the Soviets and by soldiers from the Cuban armed forces, with intense collaboration with Fidel Castro. And the inflection of the Angolan economy towards the neoliberal capitalism started in the mid-1980s - as it probably happened with several countries aligned with the Soviet Union at the time – which was well before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The book contains an original application of the Dependency Theory, which until before this work has almost always been applied to Latin America. Solival Menezes inserts Angola into the world economy, from the beginning of Portuguese colonization to the present day. In this sense, his work is also an oblique view, due to his special angle, on how the Capitalist world economy was constituted as well as its opposite, the “Real socialism” – “socialism” mentioned, throughout the book, in quotation marks to characterize its both geopolitical and ideological specificity.
Portugal, which throughout the book, as in the history, appears as the pioneer of the seas and consolidates itself as a colonialist empire, already in the 20th century radicalized its colonial exploitation in the colonial territories still under its control (especially Angola) and intensified its relationship of dependency with the “central countries” that import the products from its colonies, which is even more evident when the petroleum becomes one of those products. It is very interesting the author's critical account of how the Soviet modelofcentrally planned economy was implanted in Angola and how, with the “help” of intergovernmental agencies and European and American foundations, the economy ended up being inflected into a model based on the Washington consensus and where economic dependency is transferred and endures.
In today's globalized world, imperialist intervention takes on new and sophisticated forms. Angola was being torn apart by a civil war that lasted more than a quarter of a century. There were several peace agreements, always with international sponsorship, one of which even required the sending of Brazilian troops to guarantee it[17]. Unfortunately, it was not always possible to establish peace permanently.
InAngola, especially after the inflection to the market economy, the presence not only of troops but of financial-diplomatic missions, firms, consultants and the like proved overwhelming. Angola is a representative case of countries apparently unfeasible or unfeasible due to the shattering intervention of particular forces and interests, internal and external, and it is an example that is not unique or isolated, since there are a few “angolas” spread throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa. Just think of Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. Their uncertain destiny illuminates the controversial process of globalization from another angle, which cannot be ignored.
Above all, the book allows us to broaden our horizons and, according to news, through citations and published works, it has led to the emergence of many other works, especially theses and dissertations by master's and doctoral students, and also by undergraduate students, from various African countries, including the many Portuguese-speaking countries, all of which are now independent[18].
MAMMA ANGOLA: SOCIEDADE E ECONOMIA DE UM PAÍS NASCENTE[19]
Free translation from Portuguese: MAMMA ANGOLA: SOCIETY AND ECONOMY OF A NASCENT COUNTRY
Lista de Tabela e Figuras (List of Tables and Figures)
Agradecimentos (Acknowledgment)
Prefácio, por Paul Israel Singer (Foreword, by Paul Israel Singer)
Capítulo 1: MAMMA ANGOLA
1.1. Desenvolvimento Econômico, Dependência e o Plano da Obra (Economic Development, Dependency and Plan of the Book)
Capítulo 2: DESENVOLVIMENTO ECONÔMICO E DEPENDÊNCIA (ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND DEPENDENCY)
2.1. Matrizes do Desenvolvimento Econômico (Theoretical Sources of Economic Development)
2.2. O Desenvolvimento da “Dependência Econômica” (The Development of “Economic Dependency”)
2.3. Contrapontos à “Dependência Econômica”( Counterpoints to “Economic Dependency”)
2.4. Dependência Contemporânea (Contemporary Dependency)
Capítulo 3: ECONOMIA DEPENDENTE COLONIAL E TRANSIÇÃO PARA ESTADO NACIONAL (COLONIAL DEPENDENT ECONOMY AND TRANSITION TO NATIONAL STATE)
3.1. Situação Geográfica, Recursos Naturais e Humanos (Geographic Situation, Natural and Human Resources)
3.2. Composição Étnica (Ethnic Composition)
3.3. Delimitação de Fronteiras (Boundary Delimitation)
3.4. Especificidades do Colonialismo Português (Portuguese Colonialism Specificities)
Capítulo 4: LIBERTAÇÃO COLONIAL (LIBERATION FROM COLONIALISM)
4.1. Independência: Conquista ou Consentimento (Independence: Achievement or Consent)
4.2. Herança da Dependência Econômica Metropolitana (Inheritance of the Metropolitan Economic Dependency)
Capítulo 5: CONSOLIDAÇÃO DO ESTADO NACIONAL (CONSOLIDATION OF THE NATIONAL STATE)
5.1. Estrutura em Transformação (Transforming Structure)
5.2. Dinâmica da Economia (Dynamics of the Economy)
5.3. Avaliação do Modelo de Economia Centralmente Planejada (Evaluation of the Centrally Planned Economy Model)
Capítulo 6: REORIENTAÇÃO ECONÔMICA, ESPECIFICIDADES E PERSPECTIVAS (ECONOMIC REORIENTATION, SPECIFICITIES AND PERSPECTIVES)
6.1. Inflexão Econômica (Economic Inflection)
6.2. Trajetória das Reformas (Reform Trajectory)
6.3. Transformações Econômicas (Economic Transformations)
6.4. Dificuldades Políticas (Political Difficulties)
6.5. Sociedade (Society)
6.6. Realidade e Teoria (Reality and Theory)
6.7. Economia de Mercado e a Nova Dependência (Market Economy and the New Dependency)
6.8. Iniciando o Século XXI (Starting the 21st Century)
Bibliografia (Bibliography)
Anexo: Apêndice Estatístico (Attachments: Statistical Appendix)
Abstract (Short Summary in English)
The preparation of the book “Mamma Angola: Sociedade e Economia de um País Nascente” (free translation from Portuguese: "Mamma Angola: Society and Economy of a Nascent Country") is closely associated with the personal and academic trajectory of its author[21].
Solival Menezes is a Brazilian, and although one of his ancestors, Jorge de Menezes, arrived in Brazil in the 16th century[22] and his family's paternal branch enjoyed prosperity, especially in the south of the State of Bahia, as cocoa planters, Solival Menezes, due to different circumstances, was born very poor, in a small rented room, at the back of a house on the far east periphery of the city of São Paulo. Victim of a broken home when he was still a little child, and oppressed by a cruel stepmother, he started to work at the age of 8 as a seller of Rapadura, a shoeshine boy, a seller assistant at a street market, and a sugar cane cutter (“bóia fria”) on farms in the Paraíba Valley, where he lived for a few years as a child.
Still a teenager, and back in the Capital, he started living alone, working during the day and studying at night, even going hungry and cold and living on the streets of São Paulo for some periods. Dedicated worker, however, he managed alone to afford to pay for boarding houses and rented rooms to live. At the age of 14, he got a formal job as an “office-boy” (an office assistant for outside services), after venturing into general services, in factories, and cleaning. Living on the periphery of São Paulo, he spent hours on daily public transportation to go to work and to arrive at the school, which was halfway home, an experience certainly lived by many poor young people in large cities.
Using a few minutes at the end of the workday at the company where he worked, he taught himself to type and became an office worker, which allowed him, above all, to work cleaner and to continue studying at night. After experiencing progress at work, over the years, he became a Human Resources manager, and a Auditor and Consultant, deciding to take advantage of the entrance exam system to go to study in the best universities of the country (the system, called "Vestibular exam”, requires in-depth knowledge, but is not based on reference letters, as in the USA, which he certainly would not have). He was admitted simultaneously to the School of Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of São Paulo, a free public university and considered the best in Latin America[23], for the Undergraduate course in Economics, and at the Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (FGV School of Business Administration in São Paulo), considered the best business school in Brazil[24][25], a private institution of higher education, but which maintained a very competitive course of Administration for 50 excellent student newcomers paid with funds of the Government of the State of São Paulo.
Before entering university, he read, in a xerographic copy that he won from a friend, the autobiography[26] of the American executive Lee Iacocca and decided (after observing Iacocca's destiny as an employee and his subsequent success as an entrepreneur) that he would no longer work for no one, but only for himself or the public service, if he had the opportunity. As he started to study during the day and also at night, he had to resign from his job at a consulting company where he worked for three years and, in order to survive, he started selling brooches on the streets of downtown São Paulo in the few spare hours he had between courses, never talking about this with his university colleagues to avoid bullying, which he often suffered, especially because he was a different person, ultra dedicated to his studies, and visibly poor, with only one or two changes of clothes to wear - which, however, did not prevent him from always getting good grades in all subjects, further increasing bullying for being one of the first students in the class.
During the time he sold brooches in the streets, he was arrested for one afternoon by the São Paulo Civil Police (after complaints from store managers who did not understand his peculiar approach to making sales), having been released by the intervention of a directorofFundação Getúlio Vargas. He was, for a long time, a friend of the playwright Plínio Marcos, who met him on the streets, when Marcos also was selling his books, and both crossed paths later in the colleges, with him receiving the verbal support from Marcos to continue his struggle .
To help him survive, once he joined the university he became an academic monitor (a specie of teacher assistant) at the University of São Paulo, where he was always guided by Professor Paul Israel Singer throughout the Undergraduate Course in Economics, receiving about one third of the minimum salary monthly, but only during the months he had classes. He was also an academic monitor at the Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (FGV School of Business Administration in São Paulo), from the second semester of the Undergraduate Course in Administration until the conclusion of his academic Master's in Business Administration in the same school, having also become an TA (teacher assistant) at this institution. As a monitor, he served several courses at Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo, mainly in the departments of Quantitative Methods, Accounting and Finance and Marketing and Strategic Management. In both institutions, FGV and USP, he had “food help”, being able to eat for free during the period when he had classes. After a verbal incentive received from the future Rector of USP, João Grandino Rodas, who did not know him, but who, as his professor, admired his dedication to learning Law at the School of Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of São Paulo, he also decided to study at USP's traditional Law School, located in Largo de São Francisco, in São Paulo, having passed among the first in the entrance exam.
During his activities as a monitor and Teacher Assistant, especially at Fundação Getulio Vargas, where he taught and corrected exercises and exams, he realized his aptitude and vocation to be a teacher (in the sense of Max Weber [27]), as he was well liked and praised by the students, who achieved good progress in the courses they took with his help. This led him to prepare to i) enter the master's; ii) to specialize more and more in the activities of coaching and tutor; and iii), from 1984 onwards, to also dedicate himself as a consultant for companies, public entities and families, using the experience he gained before entering university.
The consulting activities started intriguingly, when he was stopped by chance in a corridor of the Fundação Getulio Vargas,, in São Paulo, by a young businesswoman who was looking for “Solival” to help her “to solve some problems in her network of stores." At the same time, he decided to offer his expertise in tax and accounting matters to client companies of his former employer, working in his spare time and on weekends. Since then, he has never ceased his activities as a teacher, coach and consultant, which evolved thanks to “word of mouth marketing” (by recommendation).
Before completing his Undergraduate courses of Economics (atUSP) and of Business Administration (atFGV), and already in his second year of School of LawatUSP, he was approved in separate and very competitive contests for the Master's in Economics, at USP, for the Master's in Business Administration (Finance), at FGV, and for the Master's in Accounting and Controllership, at USP, which he started simultaneously in the year following the completion of the courses of Economics and Administration. In the same year in which he began his master's degrees, he began his formal teaching career, having been admitted, by public tender, to the University of São Paulo, teaching Economics, Finance, Costs, Marketing and Law at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo and the at the USP’s School of Engineering at the campus of São Carlos.
As a professor at USP, Solival Menezes has always been recognized for his competence and excellent didactics and honored by his students[28]. His Master's in Economics was completed quickly, in just under two years, in 1988, and he was then approved for a PhD in Economics, also at University of São Paulo, with the credits of the program being completed by the end of 1989. His doctoral thesis, however, would only be defended in 1996[29]. While studying for his doctorate, he became Bacharel in Law (JD) at the USP’s Law School[30] and became a Lawyer with registration at the Brazilian Bar Association (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil – seção de São Paulo OAB/SP) [31].
Later, he also completed the other two master's degrees, in Business AdministrationatFundação Getúlio Vargas[32] and in Accounting and ControllershipatUSP [33]. When he joined the master's degrees, his advisor for the Master's in Economics continued to be Professor Paul Israel Singer, who had already supervised him during his undergraduate course, as a monitor, and later also as an advisor in the Doctorate in Economics. Professor Paul Singer generously invited him to join a Group of Studies in Politics and Economics at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo (IEA/USP) [34], where he would live unique experiences, working with the best minds in the country, while they thought of solutions for the redemocratizationofBrazil and solutions for its economic dilemmas, among them the rampant inflation that lasted in the country for more than a decade. Thinkers and interested in the theme, such as Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Antonio Kandir, Celso Furtado, Paulo Freire, Ambassador Rego Barros, José Roberto Mendonça de Barros, Celso Daniel, Lourdes Sola, Leda Maria Paulani, Darcy Ribeiro, Pérsio Arida, Fernando Homem de Mello, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, José Serra, Mario Covas, the lawyer José Martins Pinheiro Neto and many others met weekly to discuss the country's problems and formulate policies even if only in the field of ideas. Many of the members of this group - several with opposite views, which was great for the group - would come to integrate, in the next two decades in the country, as ministers, advisers and leaders, the governments of presidents Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), Itamar Franco (1992-1994), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), putting into practice many of the projects and ideas born in this group of studies from IEA/USP. Foreign guests also participated in this group, such as some future members of governments in Argentina and other countries and, most importantly, a group of economists from the then Soviet Union (USSR), led by Abel Aganbegyan[35], who saw similarities between the Brazilian problems and the problems of the former USSR, and who met several times with Brazilian thinkers in search of opinions and orientations
It was through the ideas discussed in this group that the author would come to participate in the transition process from "socialist economies" to "market economies", integrating groups of professors from USP who visited and cooperated with the transition of several "socialist" countries, in Africa, Europe and the USSR itself, being received more than once by the then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. This "transition process" was a gigantic movement that, in a way, began in the mid-1980s, when the Soviet Union was diagnosed with a continuous and growing weakening[36] - and the USSR itself revealed its weaknesses over time, as it happened when approaching the group of studies at IEA/ USP in Brazil mentioned above - and had the participation of many collaborators, professors, researchers from universities and institutions from different countries, with funds from the World Bank, private foundations and the institutions themselves, culminating, finally with the creation of instruments (legal, institutional, financial) that gave support to the dismemberment of the USSR and the birth or rebirth of countries that belonged to the Warsaw Pact now as members of the “democratic”and "capitalist side" of the planet[37].
At this time, Solival Menezes, in addition to writing his doctoral thesis and his master’s dissertations, conducted research as a professor at USP, lectured to his students on regular courses at the university, wrote books and compendiums for the use of his students and also contributed with articles to periodicals[38][39]. It was in the context of this academic involvement that he officially was invited and participated in Brazil's cooperation with Angola, in the process of transition from “socialism” to “market economy”, as a professor at the University of São Paulo, having traveled to Angola in 1990 and 1992. [40]
The first trip to Angola was permeated with negative impacts when finding a country that, despite already moving towards the second decade of independence and enjoying abundant oil revenues, was completely destroyed, including the urban infrastructure in Luanda. At Universidade Agostinho Neto, headquarter of the cooperation activities of USP’s professors traveling to Angola, there were unused resources, such as computer rooms donated by foreign institutions, which would only be put into operation at the author's initiative - on his second trip. For the author, such abandonment apparently was not justified, especially when looking at the national revenue accounts, even though the country was under a fratricidal and persistent war. Even more amazing was the current and visible cult of personality of the country's leaders (with whom, however, the author was in contact to work and was always received with cordiality), with prohibition rules and norms that made no sense – which, in the author perspective, were used only to humiliate and demonstrate power and oppression over the people. On this first trip, however, the author would discover the “Angolan people”, the government officials, teachers and students, with whom he had the most contact, and the people he met in the street markets or on the beaches of Ilha de Luanda (Luanda’s Island). Cordial and charming, that experience of contact spoke loudly about the culture of Brazil, revealing to the author, in a surprising way, how much Brazil has from Angola, in terms of cultural influences, habits and customs. It was really impressive. And this finding was the bit of motivation that would make the author return to his second trip, almost two years later.
However, yet in this first trip, even though he was always treated with respect for all, having been interviewed about the country's problems by Radio Nacional de Angola (Angola's National Broadcasting) and by TPA (Televisão Popular de AngolaorPopular Television of Angola), always showing genuine interest in helping in this "transition process" (as did all professors from USP who were in Angola), something would mark this first stay, when copies of a set of articles he wrote for Jornal de Angola (Angola’s only official newspaper at the time) was almost confiscated by a bureaucrat on duty who was assigned to accompany the author throughout his stay in Angola. This terrified him, because the author of an article likes (and has obligation) to own and keep a copy of what he produces and is published. The bureaucrat's justification that those mere articles would jeopardize Angola's national security was too childish and offensive to the author, who luckily had the articles hidden in the back of his suitcase, which were not found in the bureaucrat's search.
The second trip, however, was made with the author's decisive interest in deepening his observations, do research, deepening the relationship with the country and its people, at the same time that the author served the country as a scholar, a consultant, as a coach and contributor to TV, radio and newspapers, both in Angola and Portugal, holding conferences in different parts of the country, such as in schools, colleges, companies and at the Clube dos Empresários (Club of Entrepreneurs) in Luanda). The interaction with students and government officials was intense and the suggestion that something be written about Angola, made by these people genuinely interested in something being done to improve their country, stirred the author's emotions, so that, after a few months of his return to Brazil, he had the book almost completely outlined.
After the author return to Brazil and the writing of the book Mamma Angola, which, initially, was used in debates, before leaving the publisher, Solival Menezes, through SoliConsulting International, was invited to participate in various adjustment programs of governments in African, European, American and Middle Eastern countries, becoming also an advisor and coach of entrepreneurs and families in succession processes in some of these countries. Working from Brazil and also from the North American consultancy office, he participated in confidential negotiations for conflict reduction and for the peaceful transition of some Arab Spring countries - and also for Cuba -, including the solution of specific economic problems, reduction of debt and inflation control. At the same time, he has worked as a coach, serving entrepreneurs, families and successors, owners of large business groups, preparing them for the decision-making process, for strategic decisions at their business and guiding them (in a personal level) in their careers. Many of these works and projects are confidential and pro-profit.
Even after deciding to leave the position of Professor and Researcher at USP, Professor Solival Menezes continued his contribution with the University of São Paulo, especially with the Group of Studies of Economics and PoliticsatUSP’s Institute for Advanced Studies (IEA/USP), which lasted until 2007. More recently, Solival Menezes has worked for SoliConsulting as economics and business consultant, coach and conferencist (email: solival@soliconsulting.com. More information about the book Mamma Angola, please, search at http://www.usp.br/edusp/livros/livro220.htm [29] and in Google Books, Mamma Angola: society and economy of a nascent country. https://books.google.ca/books/ about / Mamma_Angola.html? id = oniHYgivYeIC & redir_esc = y [30]).
“Mamma Angola: Sociedade e Economia de um País Nascente” (free translation from Portuguese: “Mamma Angola: Society and Economy of a Nascent Country”) was initially released by EDUSP on the University of São Paulo’s campus of São Paulo (University City), in the beginning of the year 2000. However, the work aroused the interest of several scholars on African issues and soon EDUSP expanded its release to take place together with a seminar at the Centro Universitário Maria Antônia da Universidade de São Paulo, a historic site, marked by student protests in 1968, preceded by an intense debate on racial issues in Brazil, coordinated by USP sociologist and professor, Dr. Reginaldo Prandi, with the presence of Brazilians, Africans and stakeholders from other nationalities.
Then, there was the release in the National Congress of Brazil, in Brasilia, in an event room of the Chamber of Deputies (Brazil), with television coverage, attracting the attention and the presence of important politicians, senators and federal deputies, from different parties, many of them related to the racial issue and others interested in the presence of the author, known for his academic and in the private sector activities. Many civil servants interested in the racial and African issue attended the event. In the evening the launch continued at the Restaurante Piantella, also in Brasília.
Rio de Janeiro was the next location, with the release taking place at the Paço Imperial, former headquarters of the Portuguese EmpireinBrazil (1808-1821), located in front of the port where thousands of slaves from Africa and Angola disembarked during the time of slavery in Brazil. The event was attended by the academic and member of the Brazilian Academy of LettersorAcademia Brasileira de Letras, Candido Mendes de Almeida (writer) and several authorities interested in the theme.
Salvador, Capital of the Brazilian State of Bahia, held, for the book release, an authentic Bahian party, with the presence of hundreds of people, at the Casa de Angola Cultural Center in Bahia, with the support of the Federal University of Bahia, with the coordination of Professor Valdemir Donizette Zamparoni. The book soon gained repercussion in Brazil, in African countries, in Europe and in North America, soon being the subject of debates and, most importantly, of intense use by students from Angola and Africa in general. EDUSP has kept the book in its catalog for more than two decades and it can be found in many libraries around the world, such as the Library of CongressinWashington, DC, in the United States.
