“A Community Without Education Is an Invisible Community”: Interview With Dago Nível Intelecto

Abstract

Francisco Mapanda (b. 1989), better known as Dago Nível Intelecto, is a student, social activist, and organic intellectual in the Gramscian sense (1971) from Luanda, Angola, where he was born and raised. Inspired by the Arab Spring (2010–2012), which he followed from afar, he and other young activists began to challenge the regime of President José Eduardo dos Santos (1979–2017). During this initial phase of his activism (2010–2020), Dago reached an audience through the critical texts he published on his Facebook page. His activism, however, earned him a summary prison sentence of eight months in 2015, due to his involvement in the arrest of the activist reading group 15 mais 2. The imprisonment of Dago and other social activists attracted international attention (https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-angola-15; https://www.dw.com/en/meet-dago-nivel-an-angolan-who-took-on-the-system/video-60060627; https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr12/5205/2016/es/).
Following his release, Dago became involved in various social movements, such as the Movimento contra o Desemprego (Movement against Unemployment) and the Associação Mudar Viana (Mudar Viana Association; https://www.facebook.com/mudarviana). In 2020, in the context of the pandemic, he co-founded with Arante Kivuvu (b. 1993) the community project Biblioteca 10padronizada [10padronizada Library (a pun on “dez padronizada”, which translates as “unstandardised”)], located in one of Luanda’s peripheral neighbourhoods, near the Robaldina bus stop.