Description
In the mid-2000s, David C. Rapoport (2004) theorized that modern terrorism can be historically seen and understood through the Anarchist (1st/1879–1920s), Anticolonial (2nd/1919–1960s), New Left (3rd/1960s-1990s) and Religious (4th/1979–2020s?) Waves. Since the Rapoportian Wave Theory was launched, its explanatory power has been widely debated; sometimes challenged, but usually tested, corroborated, and applied to uncover overlooked Waves (da Silva, 2020). However, the uniqueness of Portuguese colonialism seems to have temporally displaced Waves. In Portugal, on April 25, 1974, the Carnation Revolution that ended the Estado Novo dictatorship boosted decolonization processes across Lusophone Africa. In Mozambique, the Anticolonial Wave-like Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) began to carry out attacks around the time that the Religious Wave should have been starting. As the Religious Wave concludes, Ansar al-Sunna began to seek to establish a caliphate around the late-2010s. In Angola, Waves are not clearly delineated. From 1975, the Anticolonial Wave-like União Nacional pela Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) fought a civil war against the New Left Wave-like Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA). Succeeding United Nations-led peacekeeping operations led to its ending through the Luena Memorandum on April 04, 2002. Meanwhile, the Anticolonial Wave-like Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda (FLEC) continues to seek sovereignty for the province of Cabinda. Such cases corroborate da Silva (2023: 426) critique that “[…] the Rapoportian Wave Theory should be recalibrated to broaden its geographical coverage and handle the complexity that some organizations pose to it.” The present research tests the explanatory power of Rapoport’s (2004, 2022) Wave Theory by discussing these cases not only to analyze whether the previous Waves have occurred as theorized but also to evaluate whether the conditions for the 5th/Far-Right Wave are present throughout Lusophone Africa.
