In the second of three essays to mark the fiftieth anniversary of national revolutionary leader Amilcar Cabral’s murder in 1973, first published in the ROAPE journal thirty years ago, Shubi Ishemo celebrates Cabral’s original contributions to revolutionary theory and practice. He argues that Cabral importance as a thinker is found in his creative application of Marx’s method to understand the local and international economic, social, and cultural realities of imperialism while stressing the importance of building solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles across the world. His ingenious approach to understanding and mobilising against imperialism remains relevant in the neo-liberal era.
By Shubi Ishemo
Recent issues of ROAPE have carried timely articles on the post-cold war developments and their effect on the economic and political processes in Africa, on the debt crisis, on the so-called structural adjustment programmes, the consequent crisis manifest in the fall in the living standards of the popular masses and the erosion of achievements in health, education etc. The gap between the rich and poor, the gap between the South and the North are ever widening. Dependence on external handouts has increased and external agencies — the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and some NGOs — and western governments are increasingly setting the agenda for Africa. Pessimism in the West on the future of Africa is all pervasive. The sovereignty of African states has been gravely eroded (Hanlon, 1991,Tandon, 1991). Already in the advanced capitalist countries, particularly the US, imperial arrogance has reached an all-time high. D G Dubois (1993) cites examples in The New York Times Magazine. It asks whether Africa is fit to govern itself — whether it is not yet opportune to recolonise:
Colonialism’s Back — And Not a Moment Too Soon … [and] Let’s Face It: Some Countries Are Just Not Fit To Govern Themselves.
In light of the current crisis, this brief article seeks to reflect on some aspects of Amilcar Cabral’s thought. It proposes that Africa, and indeed the third world, are not devoid of ideas or the dynamism to rethink and work out solutions to their current problems. Models developed elsewhere, with little or no relevance to the social and economic realities of Africa are being imposed on Africa. Far from stifling debate on these issues, the changing global balance of forces and western pressures have stimulated a very healthy intellectual and political debate. Shivji (1991:83-84) has correctly noted that this debate is not new. It ‘was always on the agenda so far as the popular forces are concerned … our debate’, he continues,
should not be diverted. It should focus on the larger question of democracy and should be rooted in our own historical experience —frankly owning up to our past ‘mistakes’; drawing lessons for the future and being courageous enough to propose what may have been unthinkable only a few years ago. This is not to say that other experiences can or should be ignored. But their relevance has to be established. We must approach other experiences honestly with a view to understanding and examining our own situation rather than rationalise and justify some preconceived prejudices. Ultimately though, our point of departure and reference should be our own political practices over the last three decades of independence, not only in eventually arriving at any specific decision, but in forging the methods of making that decision.
This approach has also been carried in new journals such as Africa World Review and publications of new political parties of the left in Africa (see, for example, Foroyaa and other publications of the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) of The Gambia). Elsewhere in the South, particularly in Latin America, a similar debate is taking place. Tomas Borge (1992:98-99), a Sandinista leader, poses the same question.
Instead of looking at ourselves, instead of analysing our own reality, our thinking, our myths, we are intent on testing to see if what we do is in accordance with European values. Just like nineteenth-century liberals who totally denied colonial culture, we have in general tended to be textbook Marxists, seeking to fit concepts derived from manuals into our disproportionate view of reality … [we adopt] new schemes and ideologies when we have not yet finished absorbing previous ones.
These issues were being debated by the left in Latin America in the 1980s (Bollinger, 1985) and of late by the recent Conference of Parties of the Latin American Left held in Havana, Cuba. The Latin American left has also turned to history, to recoup the most positive ideas and practice. This is more so in Cuba where, since the beginning of the rectification process of the 1980s, lessons drawn from the ideas and practice of Che Guevara have energised the revolutionary process. President Fidel Castro (1987, in Tablada 1990:45) has defined rectification as a way of
looking for new solutions to old problems, rectifying many negative tendencies that have been developing … we’re rectifying all the shoddiness and mediocrity that is precisely the negation of Che’s ideas, his revolutionary thought, his style,his spirit, and his example.
Africa is not short of such positive ideas and practice. Amilcar Cabral’s ideas and political practice, formulated during the concrete experience of national liberation struggle, hold relevance to understanding the current situation in Africa. Cabral’s stature as an agronomist, as a revolutionary theoretician, and as a political strategist and historian is well known in Africa, the rest of the third world and among progressive humanity elsewhere. In 1983, an International Symposium on Amilcar Cabral, attended by intellectuals and activists from Africa, Western Europe, the Soviet Union, Cuba and North America was held in Praia, Cape Verde. At that symposium, Basil Davidson (1984:29) posed a set of fundamental questions
What will be the further impact, generally in Africa or elsewhere, of the practice and theory of Lusophone liberation movements? Can they be seen to have introduced a new trend toward effective self-development? Do they indicate a qualitative advance on the road to progressive change? Will they appear, in twenty years’ time or so, to lie at the start of new African modalities of struggle, organisation, understanding of sociocultural and economic needs and possibilities?
He noted that even then ‘there seemed to be reasons for thinking so’. Indeed all the contributors to that symposium were in no doubt (PAICV,’1984).
On Class
In his revolutionary practice, Cabral started from the position of understanding the social, economic, cultural and political realities of Guinea and Cape Verde, and how these were situated in the wider realities of the world. His Agricultural Census of Guinea detailing the material conditions of the various ethnic groups has been compared with Lenin’s Development of Capitalism in Russia. He worked from the premise that knowledge was crucial to under- standing the complexity of the ethnic composition of the Guinean people, the precapitalist formations, and the role of chiefs. This was essential for preparing the ground for popular mobilisation and raising the consciousness of the popular masses.
Cabral’s main point of reference was history. It was important to understand the history of the people in order to develop an effective strategy against imperialism. To him,
the ideological deficiency, not to say the total lack of ideology, on the part of the national liberation movements — which is explained by the ignorance of the historical reality which these movements aspire to transform — constitutes one of the greatest weaknesses if not the greatest weakness, of our struggle against imperialism (1980:122; see also Aquino de Branganca, 1976).
It was his formulation on classes that aroused controversy. He used historical method: ‘Does history begin only with the appearance of classes and consequently class struggle?’
While agreeing with this in broad terms, he cautioned against it because it placed certain societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America outside history. For him, the basis for understanding the specificity of class in Africa must be the concrete reality of Africa. ‘Our refusal’, he argued.
based as it is on detailed knowledge of the socio-economic reality of our countries and on analysis of the process of development of the phenomenon of class… leads us to conclude that if class struggle is the motive force of history, it is so in a specific historical period.
He stressed that the motive force of history in each human society is the mode of production. To him, ‘the level of productive forces, the essential determinant of the content and form of class struggle, is the true and permanent motive force in history’.
The historical and social context of Cabral’s formulation has been misinterpreted. In his ‘Social Structure’ he sets out to examine the social formation of different ethnic groups in Guinea. For example, he made a distinction between the social structure of the Balanta and the Fula. Whereas the former had a horizontal (stateless) structure, the latter had a vertical structure dominated by chiefs. From this he extrapolated the political potential of each group in the course of national liberation. Equally important, Cabral was addressing not only the purveyors of colonial racist historiography, but also those on the left who held the view ‘that imperialism made us enter into history at the moment when it began its adventure in our countries. This preconception must be denounced: for somebody on the left, and for Marxists in particular, history obviously means class struggle (1980:56). But Cabral was not contending against Marxism. Rather, he was seeking to apply it to the concrete realities of the colonial situation. He urged a deeper knowledge of the ‘essential characteristics of the colonized peoples’ (1980:123) based on ‘a rigorous historical approach’ (1974:56).
Imperialism, to Cabral, had not fulfilled its historical mission. It had not developed the productive forces towards the ‘sharpening of class differentiation with the development of the bourgeoisie and the intensification of class struggle’ (1980:127). Thus in the case of Guinea and other African countries, it was only the petty bourgeoisie who were ‘the only stratum capable both of having consciousness’ of imperialist domination and of handling the state apparatus inherited from imperialist domination (1980:134). The petty bourgeoisie were an unpredictable class. It contained two sectors of what he referred to as a revolutionary petty bourgeoisie and those who vacillate or are hesitant in the national liberation struggle. Cabral demonstrated a profound knowledge of the petty bourgeoisie in neo-colonial situations. They had the tendency of becoming ‘bourgeois’ of ‘[allowing] the development of a bourgeoisie of bureaucrats and intermediaries in the trading system, to transform itself into a national pseudo-bourgeoisie, that is to deny the revolution and necessarily subject itself to imperialist capital’. In this situation, they constituted a ‘betrayal of the objectives of national liberation’ (1980:136).
In order to strengthen its revolutionary consciousness and the liberation struggle, Cabral argued that the petty bourgeoisie had to ‘commit suicide as a class’. Jean Copans (1985:36) has taken issue with this. He doubts that African political leaders are Gramscian organic intellectuals. ‘The a-patriate, “floating” intellectual who may commit suicide, whom Cabral dreamed of, is an historical nonsense. It is not possible to transcend by any means whatsoever one’s origins and class barriers.’ Copans continues,
Without — in the case of the political leader — a definition of the relationship between the intellectual and masses and … a definition of the relationship between the exteriority of theoretical consciousness and social processes, class analysis will remain a victim of dogmatism, voluntarism and idealism.
Copans grossly misrepresents Cabral. Cabral was neither idealist, nor dogmatic. Far from being ‘historical nonsense’, Cabral’s formulation of the petty bourgeoisie was Gramscian. What he refers to as the petty bourgeoisie who ‘commit suicide as a class’ are in reality the ‘organic intellectuals’ or in Cabral’s terms, the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie who, in the colonial and neo-colonial situation, show ‘the capacity for faithfully expressing the aspirations of the masses in each phase of the struggle and for identifying with them more and more’ (1980:125). Cabral would have agreed with Copans suggestion that Marxism ‘must be appropriated theoretically and practically, and this can only result from a process of reflection linked to the social practice of
the exploited classes’ and ‘the reading of Marx in the context of specific historical situations’ (Copans, 1985:37). This is what Cabral set out to do. In all his work, there is a richness of originality. His ‘Social Structure’, ‘Party Principles and Political Practice’, ‘Weapon of Theory’, etc., reflect his engaging questioning of every situation and his rejection of ready-made models.
The subsequent neo-colonial situation clearly bears out Cabral’s analysis. We have in the past decade, seen the defection of some of the ‘organic intellectuals’ of the 1960s and 1970s. These are what Petras (1993:107-109; see also Petras and Morely, 1992) has characterised as ‘institutional’ or ‘memo writing’ intellectuals. Here, Petras is referring to intellectuals like Che Guevara who were involved in theoretical, analytical work and political practice. They formulated their politics, as did Gramsi, by breaking from their class back- ground, immersing themselves in mass struggles’. Cabral was such an organic intellectual. He foresaw, in the neo-colonial situation, the contention between two groups of intellectuals under conditions dictated by agencies of imperialism (the IMF, World Bank, etc). It is those third world and western intellectuals who since the 1980s have retreated to serve imperialism that Cabral referred to as ‘a service class’.
Today, the ‘organic intellectuals’ in Africa, as in Latin America, are challenging the neo-liberal agenda. Political parties based among the popular classes have emerged. Such parties are, in a Cabralian way, basing their political practice on an ongoing study of the internal and external realities. Cabral’s method is as relevant in the 1990s as it was in the 1960s and early 1970s. Today, the neoliberal triumphalist make hollow promises to the popular classes. Cabral always emphasised honesty. He never made extravagant promises. In his discussion with combatants, he demonstrated profound knowledge of the concerns of the people, their beliefs and aspirations. ‘Always bear in mind’, he urged PAIGC cadres,
that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children … (1980:131).
He suggested that ‘tribalism’ was not an invention of the people. Rather, it served the interests of frustrated petty-bourgeois opportunists who strove for political office as a means to accumulate wealth and exploit the popular classes (1980:61-62). These, he suggested, constitute an internal enemy mat is ‘all the social strata of our land, of classes of our land who do not want progress for our people, but merely want progress for themselves’. For Party cadres, he strongly advised against the tendency of feeling indispensable to the struggle, against bigmanship and the fear of losing power. He foresaw and educated PAIGC cadres to draw lessons from the experience) of others: ‘Many countries have come to ruin because the rulers were afraid of losing the lead’ (1980:97).
On Culture
Cabral’s analysis on the role of culture in national liberation enlarges on his earlier work: ‘Social Structure’ and ‘Weapon of Theory’. ‘Our struggle’, he wrote, ‘is based on our culture, because culture is the fruit of history’ (1980:58). It is also ‘a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influences which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between [humanity] and [the] environment’ (1973:41). Culture has its material base at the level of the productive forces and the mode of production. Culture was a valuable instrument in the resistance against foreign domination. In discussions with combatants, he enthused about culture. ‘We must enjoy our African culture, we must cherish it, our dances, our songs, our style of making statues, canoes, our cloths’ (1980:57).
The colonial forces, he noted, create a pliant indigenous petty bourgeoisie which take on the cultural values of the colonisers. This group becomes alienated from the popular masses. In the liberation struggle, this group had to undergo what he called a ‘reconversion of the minds’, a ‘re-Africanisation’ (1973:45,47,64). But this ‘re-Africanisation should not be confused with ‘Negritude’, the ‘uniqueness of the African soul’. If he opposed the racist underestimation of African cultural values, he equally opposed the ‘absurd linking of artistic creations, whether good or not, with supposed racial characteristics (1973:51). ‘It is important’, he argued,
To be conscious of the value of African culture in the framework of universal civilization, but to compare this value with that of other cultures, not with a view of deciding its superiority or inferiority, but in order to determine, in the general framework of the struggle for progress, what contribution African culture has made and can make, and what are the contributions it can or must receive from elsewhere (1973:52).
There is, therefore, no absolute or closed culture. All cultures evolve historically. Doors must be opened for other positive influences. These would, in turn, enrich the positive elements in African culture. In this respect, Cabral spoke of a scientific culture, of a universal culture, free from domination (1973:55). Cabral’s interpretation of people’s beliefs reflect his deep insight into the relationship between society and nature. ‘Certain of our dances’, he wrote,
Represent [a] relationship of [humanity] to the forest; folk appear clothed in straw, in the shape of birds, and others like great birds, with a huge beak, and folk run in fear .We can do many such dances, but we have to go beyond this, we cannot stop there (1980:59).
Humanity had to take charge of nature. It was counterproductive to talk down on the peasantry. Beliefs that instil fear had to be interpreted and transformed to heighten the people’s political consciousness. Culture, was, therefore, a dynamic force. But when manifested in passive resistance, it constituted wasted energy. Passive resistance could not challenge the enemy. This could only be effectively done through the creation of a Party.
Since the 1970s, the debate between the advanced capitalist countries and the third world countries on the ‘new international economic order’ and the ‘new world information and communication order’ has shown the inseparable link between economy and culture. The widening economic imbalances between North and South, the commoditisation of culture in the advanced capitalist countries and the use of advanced communication technology to disseminate these across the globe are a manifestation of the supranationalisation of capital. The imperialist countries’ relentless pressure to have unlimited access to the markets of the South have had consequences on the culture of peoples. Cabral’s formulation on the relationship between culture and social structure has been clearly borne out by the consumption pattern of such cultural commodities disseminated from the North. They are class specific, and they serve the petty bourgeoisie and other privileged strata. In this connection, some ‘institutional’ intellectuals no longer refer to imperialism. They have replaced it with ‘globalisation’, ‘interconnection and interdependency’ — that is ‘the end of capitalism’. The implication of these hollow formulations is to dehistoricise the people’s experience, to make them ashamed of their history, individualise their consciousness and to blunt their potential for political mobilisation. Cabral’s view of history and of culture is as relevant today as it was in the earlier phase of national liberation struggle.
On Internationalism
Cabral always emphasised the interconnectedness of the struggles of African Asian and Latin American peoples against imperialism. He was an uncompromising fighter for African unity. He strongly advocated solidarity with ‘the people of Cuba who were able to overcome reaction and imperialism in their land, to establish a just system which is encircled and threatened by im- perialists’. This call for solidarity with the Cuban Revolution is a relevant in the 1990s as it has been since 1959. Cabral was a fighter against racism. He urged the African people to show ‘solidarity, real solidarity’ with the African diaspora. ‘We have to give courageous support to their struggle, without pretending that we are going to wage the struggle for them’ (1980:81).
Conclusion
In commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the death of Amilcar Cabral, it is important to recognise his contribution to revolutionary theory and political practice. The world balance of forces has changed since his time. But the principal contradictions which he so eloquently analysed have never been resolved. If anything, they are as sharp as they were. That is where, despite the changing terrain for political practice, his ideas and practice hold great relevance. His understanding of the historical, social, economic, political and cultural realities in a given struggle, his rejection of ready-made models, but his readiness to learn from other experiences provide a sound methodology for political struggles in the 1990s. We should not be ashamed of our history. It has strengths which inform and enrich current and future practice.
Bibliographic Notes
Amilcar Cabral, Unity and Struggle, London, Heinemann, 1980; Cabral, Revolution in Guinea, London, Stage 1,1974; Cabral, Return to the Source, New York, Africa Information Service, 1973; Cabral, Analise de Alguns tipos de resistencia, Lisbon, Seara Nova, 1975. William Bollinger, ‘Learn from Others, Think for Ourselves: Central American Revolutionary Strategy in the 1980s’, Review of African Political Economy 32,1985; Tomas Borge, ‘The Reality of Latin America’, Race and Class, 33, 3,1992. Luis Cabral, Cronica da Libertacao, Lisbon, Edicoes O Jomal, 1984; Fidel Castro, ‘Che’s Ideas are Absolutely Relevant Today’ in Carlos Tablada, 1990 (below); Ronald H Chilcote, Amilcar Cabral’s Revolutionary Theory and Practice: A Critical Guide, Boulder &London: Lynne Rienner, 1991; Jean Copans, ‘the Marxists Conception of Class: Political and Theoretical Elaboration in the African and Africanist Context’, Review of African Political Economy 32,1985; Basil Davidson, ‘Revolutionary Nationalism’, Latin American Perspectives, 11,1 (1984). This issue of LAPs was dedicated to the work of Amilcar Cabral — see other contributions. Aquino de Branganca, Amilcar Cabral, Lisbon, Iniciativas Editorials, 1976; D G Dubois, ‘Erasing the Color Line’, Essence (New York) 24,6,1993; Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots, London, James Currey, 1991; Carlos Lopes, Guinea Bissau: From Liberation Struggle to Independent Statehood, London, Zed, 1987. PAIGC, Continua Cabral, Simposio Internacional Amilcar Cabral. Cabo Verde, Grafedito/Prelo — Estampa, 1984. This is a comprehensive collection of articles in Portuguese some of which were translated and published in LAPs (see above); James Petras, ‘Reply to Carlos Vilas, “The • Defection of the Critical Intellectuals'”, Latin American Perspectives, 20,2,1993; James Petras & Morris Morley, Latin America in the time of Cholera, London, Routledge, 1992; Issa Shivji, The Democracy Debate in Africa:`Tanzania’, Review of African Political Economy 50,1991. Carlos Tablada, Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism, New York, Pathfinder, 1990; Yash Tandon, ‘Political Economy and the Struggle for Democracy and Human Rights in Africa’, Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), XXVI, 25,22 June 1991.
Mike Powell, Editor of the Original Special Issue
Featured Photograph: A stamp of Amílcar Cabral from the German Democratic Republic, produced in 1978 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death (12 February 2011).
