Cabral and the Erasure of the Colonial Elite
by
Charles Peterson

On the surface anti-colonial and independence struggles within continental Africa and its Diaspora benefit(ed) from the participation of colonized elites. Akin to western bourgeois classes that strove to overturn western European monarchical regimes in order to establish national dominance and liberate their productive powers, western educated and trained colonized petit bourgeois classes marshal(led) their energies and join(ed) with mass popular movements to liberate themselves from colonial subjugation.⁴ Highly articulate and passionate leaders travelled the globe speaking for the right of the African masses to live self- determined lives, free of colonial imposition and domination. Yet, upon the realization of nominal political independence (and in the case of African Americans the implementation and enforcement of Civil Rights legislation), the limits of freedom and the meaning of liberation took on different tones under the auspices of colonized elite predominance. The central questions of this line of thought are: what was/is the resulting form taken by post-colonial regimes in particular, and black liberation movements in general, under the rule/influence of the former colonized elite? How can the resulting political-economic and social formations be explained? What are the causes of these residual social, political and economic formations? And how can these formations, given what we now know as their untoward consequences on the lives of the previously colonized masses, be avoided? These questions are raised and spoken directly to by the Guinean thinker and revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral. Cabral’s responses to these questions will be the focus of this paper and they will provide insight into the questions raised. This will be done via a presentation of Cabral’s analysis of class, culture, anti-colonial organization and its relationship to elite liminal identification.

Tsenay Serequerberhan, in his work, The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy: Horizon and Discourse,⁵ discusses, from a hermeneutic perspective, the ground and circumstances of post-colonial African philosophy in neo-colonial times. Serequerberhan enlists the aid of Michel Foucault in his attempt to understand the failure of post-colonial governments to establish self- determination beyond mere nominal independence. Taking up Foucault’s idea of the “practice of freedom,” Serequerberhan looks to Amilcar Cabral’s theory and practice to understand the genesis of the problems in post-colonial societies. For Foucault, the practice of freedom is the series of behaviors, activities and beliefs among communities that demonstrably establish the pattern of democratic relationships that should follow in the wake of liberation movements. Serequerberhan sees an absence of the practice of freedom ethos as the origin of the undemocratic nature of post-colonial regimes (i.e. neo-colonial states). As Serequerberhan puts it, “‘The practice of freedom’ or liberty is grounded on the . . . self-formative ethos of a people. . This presupposes the liberation struggle as it unfolds within the context of specific and particular histories, and with it the concrete implementation—the practice—of liberty.”⁶ The absence of such an ethos is the result of the failure of anti-colonial movements to resolve the ethnic, class, cultural, and economic tensions of the pre-colonial and colonial era. Sadly, at the attainment of independence from the colonizers, the possibility of real, concrete liberation has passed as the circumstances of the anti-colonial struggle remained within the colonial model. This prepares the ground for post-colonial disparities that trickle down from the new state’s leadership. Quoting historian Basil Davidson, Serequerberhan states, “old inequalities from the pre- colonial heritage . were enlarged by new inequalities from the colonial heritage, and to this extent the regimes of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s were, ‘the oppressors and the exploiters of the many by the few’ in African guise.”⁷ However, Amilcar Cabral and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), having the benefit of observing the evolution of the early regimes of the African independence movement, had taken steps to create a truly new democratic state for Guineans and Cape Verdeans as opposed to an elaborate ceremonial transfer of colonial powers from Portuguese hands to Cape Verdean or Guinean hands.

Guinea Bissau, or Portuguese Guinea as it was once called, under PAIGC organizing became a unique experiment in revolutionary struggle, as early in its life, the PAIGC came to the conclusion that external anti-colonial (revolutionary) theories and practices were unfit for the Guinean struggle. After the Pijiguiti Massacre of August 3,1959,⁸ Amilcar Cabral and the PAIGC determined that any theory and practice of struggle must be borne of a strict analysis of the material conditions of the people and land in question, as opposed to abstract theoretical speculation. A central tenet of Cabral’s theorizing was that revolutions can neither be imported nor exported and thus must be home grown. Cabral, an agronomist by training, utilized the research on the topography and geography of Portuguese Guinea done by he and his wife⁹ for the Portuguese colonial government. Utilizing his familiarity with the land and contact with the various ethnic groups,¹⁰ Cabral was able to formulate a class analysis of the indigenous population of Guinea that did not rely on irrelevant Marxist categories but was an original reflection on Guinea Bissau’s class structure. In “Brief Analysis of the Social Structure in Guinea,”¹¹ Cabral thoroughly examined the intricate arrangement of Guinean society under Portuguese colonialism. The specificity of Cabral and the PAIGC’s analysis revealed that the case of Guinea Bissau demanded particular theorizing and practice. The comparatively small population of Guinea Bissau (in comparison with other Portuguese holdings in Africa, especially Angola and Mozambique) without a notable settler population meant that it was a colonial territory that remained almost exclusively indigenous in its social and cultural orientation. Cognizant of the weak Portuguese Assimilado¹² colonial system, the PAIGC found native Guinea to be a society which maintained much of its indigenous cultural structures; one that evinced little or no Portuguese influence beyond the urban centers, various degrees of social cultural influence among its urbanized populations and a colonial system with little contact with the rural populations beyond the economic exploitation of the Portuguese indigena tax system. Under these circumstances, the PAIGC and the Guinean people were able to recognize the need for and possibility of national liberation. “It was the actual internal conditions,” Cabral affirmed, “the realities of their daily life, which decided the people of Guinea to undertake the struggle for national liberation and for the speedy and total liquidation of Portuguese colonialism.”¹³

Cabral’s view toward Guinean liberation stressed the contemporary relations within indigenous Guinean society for the purposes of transformation and its mechanics. The question of organization and leadership became most apparent after the Pijiguiti Massacre. Having focused their activities among the minuscule urban working class, the PAIGC realized the limited scope of their organizational membership and influence. Despite the limited impression that Portuguese colonialism had made upon Guinean culture and society, the colonial authorities maintained sufficient ideological and physical control in the cities to nearly destroy the PAIGC. It was outside the urban centers and in the rural body of Guinea that Cabral would find a larger field of support and a place virtually untouched by colonial culture and ideology. As Cabral pointed out: “repressed, persecuted, betrayed, . . . African culture survived all the storms, taking refuge in the villages, in the forests and in the spirit of the generations who were victims of colonialism.”¹⁴ For Cabral, this “African culture” is the retained collective identity of the colonized masses, further strengthened over and against colonial domination and ripe as a base of resistance in anti-colonial struggle.¹⁵ Cabral asserted that “in the face of destructive action by imperialist domination, the masses retain their identity . . . it becomes necessary to assert or reassert in the framework of the pre- independence movement a separate and distinct identity from that of the colonial power.”¹⁶ Observing the liberatory possibilities within the autonomy of Guinean rural populations versus the limitations of liberation from within a colonialist framework (i.e. colonialist based ideology and practice), Cabral anticipated Audre Lorde’s understanding that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”¹⁷

The question of colonial influence in Portuguese Guinea loomed large, as it was an indicator of the relative strength or weakness of the colonial regime, a clear line of demarcation in Guinean political, economic and social life and the ground upon which the anti-colonial struggle could be launched. A weak Portuguese colonial system or, rather, one unable to bring under control the various aspects of Guinean mass popular life, allowed for the continued existence of what Cabral considered the most fundamental aspect of human life and resistance to all forms of domination of that life: culture.

In a February 1970 speech at the Eduardo Mondlane Memorial Lecture Series at Syracuse University, in Syracuse, New York, Cabral delivered his most definitive statements on the role of culture in anti-colonial struggle. Abridging the Marxist definitions of the place and role of culture in human social and economic life, Cabral postulated that culture is “the more or less dynamic expression of the economic and political activities of [a] society . the dynamic expression of the kinds of relationships which prevail in that society . between man . and nature, and . among individuals, groups of individuals, social strata or classes.”¹⁸ Culture’s development, for Cabral, is a manifestation of human material life, but he sidesteps the strict base/superstructure determinism of Marxist orthodoxy by formulating a dialogical exchange between material conditions, consciousness, and its subsequent expression. Culture is the relationship between the means and mode of production (material conditions) and human consciousness, which results in a historical process and entity that is “simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history ..”¹⁹

For Cabral, a people’s culture serves as the touchstone of their identity. Historical attempts at foreign domination have the single goal of the suppression and exploitation of indigenous peoples. Through its relation to material conditions, culture is an indicator of the degree of control over a society; the maintenance or diminution of indigenous culture under colonial oppression is an indicator of the relative effectiveness or weakness of the colonial enterprise. According to Cabral, the destruction of culture is an indicator of the degree of control of the colonial effort, thus, cultural decimation is a necessary part of colonial domination. This attempt at control can be carried out through the erasure of a people’s national identity (culture), which effectively takes place by (a) exterminating the people (which undermines a central mechanism of foreign domination, the exploitation of labor) and (b) various attempts at acculturation and assimilation (i.e. the disruption of the social, cultural and material organization of a people thus erasing the foundation and expressions of their culture (the capacity for self determination)). If foreign domination must necessarily suppress national culture, then, “national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.”²⁰ In this light, national culture takes on eminent importance, as it becomes a repository of resistance in the face of foreign domination. Cabral concluded that culture is a singularly dangerous tool in the hands of an oppressed people.

Having defined culture and its role in colonized life, Cabral explored the ambivalent spaces of culture and class in anti-colonial struggle. Cabral offered a complicated analysis of the variegated dispersion of culture and cultures across colonized peoples. He wrote: “the cultural characteristics of each group in society have a place of prime importance. For, while culture has a mass character, it is not uniform, it is not equally developed in all sectors of society. The attitude of each social group toward the liberation struggle is dictated by its economic interests, but is also influenced profoundly by its culture.”²¹ Cabral and the PAIGC realized the cultural and revolutionary strength gained by the rural masses (mass popular forces) through their limited contact with Portuguese colonialism. Conversely, they realized that the interaction and engagement of colonized elites with colonial ideology and structures greatly limits, if not completely eliminates, their cultural and revolutionary potential. In geometric terms, we can imagine the relations between the rural masses and the colonial authorities on the one hand, and those between the colonized elite and the colonial authorities, on the other, as a set of concentric circles. At the center of circle A is colonial cultural influence and each expanding circle represents the diminishing level of that influence. The center of circle B is colonized culture. Each expanding circle represents the diminishing level of that influence. Within the interstice of the outer levels of circles A and B lay the colonized elite. Akin to the DuBoisian subject²² trapped between existing as Negro and as American, the Cabralian colonized elite is a liminally identified social- cultural and political being. Enmeshed in and excluded from the structures of colonial dominance, the elite, at the same moment, is relegated to colonized status and locked out of mass popular culture. “[The elite are] prisoners of the cultural and social contradictions of their lives,” Cabral stated. I quote Cabral at length:

[The colonizer] provokes and develops the cultural alienation of a part of the population, either by so-called assimilation, or by creating a social gap between the indigenous elites and the popular masses. As a result of this process of dividing or of deepening the divisions in the society it happens that a considerable part of the population, notably the urban or peasant petit bourgeoisie, assimilates the colonizer’s mentality, considers itself culturally superior to its own people and ignores or looks down upon their cultural values.²³

Cabral recognized the colonizer-created social, political and cultural split within colonized society. Through programs of assimilation and “acculturation” (i.e. educational and employment systems) the colonizer detaches a segment of colonized society from its mass popular base, thus creating a social stratum that is impotent in the political arena, socially derivative and culturally marginal to the two primary factions within colonial society: the mass of the colonized and the colonizer. Paradoxically, despite the intimacy with colonialism, this elite position is one seeded with reactionary or revolutionary potential as a result of this same position. The everyday contact of the elite with the colonizer, the suffering of insult and derision topped off by the recognition of their limited space within colonial society leads to a “frustration complex” that can potentially lead to a critical view of colonial domination. The elite position, unlike that of the colonizer (who must by definition maintain control) or that of the colonized masses (who must find ways to remedy the conditions of their lives), is one of choice. At the doorway to either side of the anti- colonial struggle, the elite must determine where their allegiances lie. For Cabral, this determination, if done out of a sincere desire to liberate the nation from colonial domination, must arise out of a reorientation of the elite’s social, cultural and political identity and identification.

Reflecting on his experiences as a student in Lisbon, Portugal, Cabral recalled the steps which led him and his companions (among whom were future leaders of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Augustin Neto and Front for the Liberation and Independence of Mozambique (FRELIMO), Eduardo Mondlane ²⁴ ) to fight Portuguese colonialism in Africa. States Cabral, “I remember well how some of us, still students, got together in Lisbon, influenced by the currents which were shaking the world, and began to discuss one day what could today be called the re-Africanization of our minds.”²⁵ Cabral’s reflection indicates important components of his theory and practice, that is, (a) the intensely specific nature of his formulations and (b) his use of grounded experience to postulate general theorems. As Cabral analyzed the movement of the colonized elite through the colonial terrain, he centered himself and his experiences as the subject of discussion.

Cabral, born in Bafata, Guinea Bissau in 1924, was raised in Cape Verde where he had to contend with a dual liminality of Guinean mass popular culture. The son of a schoolteacher and shopkeeper, Cabral was beneficiary of the fact that his parents were, in the conditions of Guinea, socially privileged. As well, his Cape Verdean background fed into the historic tensions between mainland Guineans and the island-based Cape Verdeans. Migrant workers from Portugal and mainland African slaves initially settled an originally uninhabited string of islands, Cape Verde. The occurrence of miscegenation between the two groups led to later privileges for their descendants and was the basis of the Portuguese colonial fiction known as “Lusotropicology.”²⁶ As Ronald Chilcote puts it,

Miscegenation between immigrants from southern Portugal and recruited black African workers from the continent resulted, according to the official view, in . culture different from and superior to the rest of Africa. As a result, Cape Verdians were considered ‘civilised’ and Portuguese citizens. Speaking a creole Portuguese and proud of an indigenous literature, they had access to education. Mulatto Cape Verdeans served as administrators in the lower echelons of the African colonial service. ²⁷

Based on his effort to rid himself of colonial influence and re-unite with mass popular culture, Cabral’s idea of “re-Africanization” speaks from personal experience as to the possibility of colonized elite social, political and cultural transformation.

Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth²⁸ and Black Skin, White Masks²⁹ described the attempt of the colonized elite to regain a positive identification by embracing pre-colonial and mass popular cultural and historical identities. In Black Skin, White Masks, the immersion in histories describing the glories of ancient African civilizations or Negro achievements are attempts, on the part of the elite, to affirm a Black selfhood in reaction to the negation of self within the colonial system. Fanon remarked, “I rummaged frantically through the antiquity of the Black man. . All of that [African history], exhumed from the past, spread with its insides out, made it possible for me to find a valid historic place.”³⁰ The quest for a Negro past serves as a salve to the wound of European rejection. For the Fanon of 1952, this cultural renaissance was the colonized man’s attempt at self-affirmation in the face of being rendered Black by colonialism. Coming to grips with him or herself within colonial society, the colonized fought a psycho-discursive battle to negate the negation of Black being. Writing as a man transformed in 1961, Frantz Fanon again visited the colonized man in search of his history. Responding to the denial of his humanity by the colonial power, the “native intellectual” wages retaliation on the same scale that colonialism does. As colonialism does not degrade and exploit particular nations, rather it generalizes across the colonized world, the native intellectual does not celebrate his or her own land. Seeing a continent, a race demeaned, Fanon’s native intellectual takes up cultural arms to embrace and defend a racial nation. In Fanon’s view, “the Negro, never so much a Negro as since he has been dominated by whites, when he decides to prove that he has a culture . never does so in the name of Angola or of Dahomey . comes to realize that history points out a well defined path to him: he must demonstrate that a Negro culture exists.”³¹ This racialization of knowledge stands to combat the racialism of colonial domination. Recognizing the use of racial chauvinism as a psychological support to replace the lost colonial chauvinism, Fanon observed, “the unconditional affirmation of African culture has succeeded the unconditional affirmation of European culture.”³² Fanon’s concern is with the romantic and uncritical appropriation of pre- colonial history and the discursive and political lull that it can create among the colonized. In light of Fanon’s insights into the role of cultural nationalism as a step in the development of anti- colonial consciousness we must interrogate Cabral’s notion of the “Re- Africanization of the mind.”

“Re-Africanization” is a movement indicative of a removal, by the elite, from colonial domination and their re-alignment with mass popular culture. Existing at the margins of mass culture, the elite can re-reinvent themselves through a divestiture of colonial ideology. Returning to the analogy of the concentric circles, “Re- Africanization” is a social, cultural and (inherently) political movement away from the colonial center towards the mass popular core. Through a systematic critique of the colonial framework, this critique which serves as a foundation for an anti-colonial consciousness, the elite comes to gain an understanding of the nature of colonial domination and its effect on the indigenous nation. This inward turning is a beginning process in the elite disassociation from the colonizer and a regaining of a new liberatory identity (i.e., re-association with the mass populace). For unlike the masses who “have no need to assert or reassert their identity, which they have never confused,” the elites as a result of their investment in the colonizer’s culture, “find [themselves] obliged to take up a position in the struggle which opposes the masses to the colonial power.”³³ Cabral’s thesis moves toward resolving the DuBoisian existential quandary of “Double Consciousness” and responding to Fanon’s critique of the “racialization of knowledge.” Once “Re-Africanization” begins the realignment and re-discovery of a consciousness beyond colonial frameworks, the question, “Am I Assimilado or am I Guinean?” is potentially resolved. However, there are questions to be asked and answered. What is the connection/difference/relationship between Fanon’s “racialization of culture” and Cabral’s “Re- Africanization of the mind”? Is Cabral participating in an essentializing view of “African culture” as represented by mass popular forces?

For Fanon, the intellectual’s embrace of pre-colonial culture leads up a “blind alley” of romanticization, exoticism (as the intellectual attempts to transform mass popular culture into the antithesis of colonial culture transforming him or her self into, “. a nigger, not a nigger like all other niggers but a real nigger, a Negro cur, just the sort of nigger that the white man wants you to be.”³⁴ ) and finally a disconnectedness from the living breathing mass popular culture staring the intellectual in the face. Though attempting to divest themselves of the influence of colonialism, the elite’s cultural and historic explorations seek comfort in a life and time which can no longer exist as a result of colonial contact and are rendered irrelevant to contemporary mass popular concerns. “I admit,” Fanon wrote, “that all the proofs of a wonderful Songhai civilization will not change the fact that today the Songhais are underfed and illiterate, thrown between sky and water with empty heads and empty eyes.”³⁵ Like the intelligentsia itself, the perspectives of “national culture” are disconnected from the everyday existence of mass popular life and serve only the intellectuals as a means to regain the lost sense of self. “This stated belief in a national culture is in fact an ardent, despairing turning towards anything that will afford him secure anchorage.”³⁶

Cabral’s social and cultural position in relation to the masses of Guineans fits the description of Fanon’s “native intellectual” who, struggling within colonialism’s bosom (“as students in Lisbon”), begins to explore and assert a self-consciousness beyond that of “reformed Guinean.” Cabral’s student organizing³⁷ around issues of Portuguese colonialism involved efforts to explore various aspects of African culture, history and language. Despite the similarities to the Fanonian intellectual, Cabral’s subject takes different turns. Whether it was the weakness of the Portuguese colonial structure and its inability to create a Guinean educated class that was able to create self-perpetuating structures of cultural exploration, Cabral’s direct exposure to Guinean mass popular life through his work as an agronomist for the Portuguese state, or his concrete manner of framing theoretical questions resulting from his professional training or the shock of the Pijiguiti Massacre, Cabral’s subject diverges from the Fanonian construct in that “re- Africanization” expands beyond discursive circles and necessarily manifests itself in lived experience and contact with mass popular forces. Returning to our invocation of Foucault’s statements on the “practice of freedom,” we turn to the way in which Cabral extended the process of elite cultural and social transformation into the sphere of practical grassroots life and politics.

A question to be asked is, once the elite process of critique and realization begins, how does it continue and what is its conclusion or goal? Cabral based elite movement toward the mass populace upon the “frustration complex” developed through a sense of “marginality” held by the elite in the face of “the daily drama . of the usually violent confrontation between the mass of the people and the ruling colonial class [emphasis mine].”³⁸ This feeling of marginality in relation to the major participants and events in colonial society creates a need for an affirmation of identity and a confirmation of subjectivity. This need turns the elite’s sights to the ground or group perceived to be at the other end of the social-cultural and identification spectrum, the popular masses. Here, in the conscious effort to transform themselves through historic actions, Cabral saw the second and most important step in the re- creation of the elite, the “return to the source.”

The “return to the source” is the social-cultural and political step of the colonized elite’s denial of the fundamental premise of colonial domination: its purported inherent superiority. The basis of elite identification with colonial structures and ideologies is the belief in the supremacy of the colonizers and their worldview. From the awe- inspiring sight of the colonizer’s techno-military power to the belief that a Ford automobile built in the United Kingdom is superior in quality to one built in the United States. because it was built by the British,³⁹ the issue of colonial supremacy is not an issue at all. For Cabral, the “return to the source” is “the denial, by the petit bourgeoisie, of the pretended supremacy of the culture of the dominant power over that of the dominated people with which it must identify itself.”⁴⁰ In his view, speaking in regard to a diasporic dynamic, the “return” is a need based upon the degree of spatial-cultural separation from the perceived social-cultural source (i.e., traditional, originary, mass popular culture). Within Cabral’s formulation, the greater the separation from the source, the greater the need for the source, regardless of geographic or historic circumstances. “It comes as no surprise that the theories or ‘movements’ such as Pan-Africanism or Negritude (two pertinent expressions arising mainly from the assumption that all black Africans have a cultural identity) were propounded outside black Africa.”⁴¹ This “return” is more than a mere denial of the colonizer’s power or a desire for psycho-cultural affirmation. The acknowledgment that the elite “must identify itself” with the mass populace signals that the “return to the source” has its true power in elite commitment to concrete involvement in mass popular life.

Concurring with Fanon, Cabral took note of the rise in cultural nationalism prior to national political struggle and determined that the “return to the source” demands more than the acknowledgment of pre-colonial native history or culture while “one part of the middle class minority . . . uses the foreign cultural norms, calling on literature and art to express the discovery of its identity, rather than to express the hopes and sufferings of the masses.”⁴² The return to the source can take on many forms as the elite wrestles with various levels of immersion in colonial culture. Jay O”Brien argues that “the [elite] growth of awareness of and opposition to foreign domination was slow, fragmented and uneven, and its development depended on the . . . degree of acculturation, the standard of living, the nature of the individual associations with other social groups, the formation of ideas about one’s own and other’s experiences, etc.”⁴³ Yet the most expressive, concrete, and, for Cabral, dignified, example of the return to the source lay in its connection to organized mass popular struggle. For Cabral, critical colonized elites merely think or believe that the colonizer is not superior; the point is to prove it. In the context of the Guinean revolution, this return takes on a decidedly social-cultural and, equally important, geographical turn. When Cabral spoke of a return to mass popular life, he meant a physical return to the areas inhabited by the mass of people. For him, writing and organizing in predominantly rural Guinea Bissau and Guinea⁴⁴ from the early 1960’s to the early 1970’s, this move symbolically and concretely signals “a step beyond colonial influence and power.”⁴⁵ The elite return to the areas where African culture “took refuge in the villages, in the forests,” underlines Cabral’s emphasis on material conditions and their relationship to consciousness and identity.

Culture, the linchpin that maintains and manifests the relationship between material life and consciousness, serves as the transformative ground for the returning elite. The elite’s return to and participation in the lived experience of the national liberation struggle serves as a process of transformation through which the elite, by altering the material circumstances of colonial domination (i.e. the building of medical clinics, conducting educational programs, armed militancy,) slowly alter their cultural and political consciousness. These perspectives intertwine as the political question of anti-colonial militancy, through its changing of material conditions, sets in motion the process of a change in cultural life. This politicized and critical culture becomes a revolutionary culture where the vestiges of colonialism’s contradictions and pre-colonial contradictions are transformed in light of revolutionary praxis and self-critique. The primacy of this critical change is vital to the transformation of the elite and the success of the struggle and the post- colonial nation. According to Cabral, “one form of struggle which we consider to be fundamental . the struggle against our own weaknesses ..This battle is the expression of the internal contradictions in the economic, social, cultural (and therefore historical) reality of each of our countries.”⁴⁶ This battle against internal contradictions affects not only the returning elite but also members of the mass popular forces and the larger traditions under which they live.

In “Brief Analysis of the Social Structure in Guinea,” Cabral analyzed the property relations within Fula culture and their effect on social/gender relations. He found that apart from the question of ownership and property, “the Fulas women have no rights”. They “are to a certain degree considered the property of their husbands.”⁴⁷ Cabral’s statements on the “internal contradictions” of indigenous culture acknowledge complications that, on one hand, distinguish continental African anti-colonial struggle from diasporic movements and, on the other hand, reveal a deep commonality.

Cabral’s reference to the Fula social structure and its sexual inequalities, spotlights the manner in which, for continental African anti-colonial struggle, the categories of “native” and “elite” overlap and create greater levels of complication within the agenda of decolonization. The contradictions of gender relations within Fula society are more than an example of pre-colonial indigenous/mass popular practices that must be addressed and resolved in the course of the anti-colonial struggle. These contradictions also reveal the dynamics of power that exist; internal to mass popular culture, alongside the colonizer’s hegemony and which compete with the anti-colonial struggle toward the end of its own goals.

The stratification within Fula culture and society indicates power relations organized around the interests of the dominant group within that specific society. These dominant groups present a challenge to the understanding of elite classes. Unlike those classes that attain status and privilege through the mechanisms of colonial control, “indigenous elites”, derive their positioning from the history, traditions and social organization of groups that maintained their pre-colonial identity in the face of colonial imposition. Unlike the theoretical formulation of the elite that has been the subject of this discussion, continental African societies present their own “elites” that jockey and vie for power within the confines of the colonial space and the anti-colonial struggle. Unlike diasporic African groups that reconstituted themselves in the shadow of colonial domination (i.e. marginal to formalized political, social and religious institutions), elite formations within continental African groups sustain an identity and particular interests not exclusively based on colonialism for definition or perpetuation. For example, the Ashante of Ghana, under the British colonial policy of “indirect rule”, maintained internal social, political, cultural and religious institutions that predated British imperial disruption. These pre-colonial formations continue to maintain particular intra- national prerogatives and agendas that may or may not coincide with the goals of the mass popular anti-colonial struggle undertaken by the leadership and the grassroots activists. The question at hand is, what relation do these extra-colonial elite formations have within the colonial schema? What is their relationship to the anti-colonial struggle? How does Cabral read this formation vis a vis his theories about class and leadership and how does he address the relationship of these formations to the overall goals of the mass popular struggle?

Unlike many leaders in continental African anti colonial struggle, Cabral recognized the existence of class tension and struggle within African societies. The claims that class is not an applicable category to African societies stands as a means by which to stave off colonialism’s efforts to exploit weaknesses in the anti-colonial struggle and forge a unified national identity in the midst of a multi-ethnic society. This denial of class reveals a class-based prerogative, as stated by Kenneth W. Grundy. He averred: “It has been argued by African nationalists and others that African societies are ‘classless’.... This ideological position is characteristic of the elite in many regimes (capitalist, socialist, and under-developed alike), who seek to rationalise, justify, and consolidate their dominant positions.”⁴⁸ Cabral’s analysis of Fula society elaborates on the traditional/pre-colonial division of resources, social positions and privilege that are indicators of pre-colonial class positions in African states. Along with those rare leaders in the early to mid 1960’s, Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (C. P. P.) in Ghana or Nigeria’s Northern Elements Progressive Union (N. E. P. U.) and the Action Group, Cabral theorized colonial and extra- colonial classes and was “willing to base their [incl. the PAIGC] policies and political strategies and tactics on class analyses of social forces.”⁴⁹

Within the sphere of Guinean organizing and politics, the question of extra- colonial elites is linked to ethnicity in the colonized state. The PAIGC’s early organizing attracted leadership from across ethnic lines but its hold began to deteriorate as Cabral’s “return to the source” demanded an erasure of privileged identities/class positions whether they were based within colonial systems or pre-colonial systems and their submergence in mass popular culture and struggle. This purging of privileged identity also clears space for the establishment of the new Guinean identity within the new Guinean state. This more radical vision would alter the social-political position of those who derived their status from colonial and pre-colonial institutions. In an interview the PAIGC representative in Cairo, Gil Fernandez, contended that “these Fulani have a kind of vertical society, with a chief at the top, then a blacksmith or a worker, then the peasant, and so on. They have been in a better position than any other tribe in Guinea, and they resent change.”⁵⁰ In “Marxism and ethno-nationalism in Guinea-Bissau, 1956-76”, Judson M. Lyon observed that Cabral’s prescription for a “return to the source” “was an unattractive option to many members of the commercial-civil service elite and to the traditional ethnic leadership. For reasons both traditional and personal, therefore, these other members of the Guinean elite felt unable to accept such strictures.”⁵¹ Tensions with the pre- colonial elites centered on the maintenance of traditional identities and privileges which were derived from or supported by colonial institutions. The refusal of these elites to give up their status and privilege caused a rift in the PAIGC and led to the creation of ethnically based nationalist parties which finally led to the consolidation of these various interests in the form of the Frente de Luta Pela Independencia Nacional de Guinea-Bissau (FLING). The creation of FLING also created a space for the Fula-based elites to pursue the preservation of their class positions in the face of possible change in the colonial arena. The Fula, recent historical residents to the area known as Guinea Bissau, maintained long- standing tensions with the other groups in the area. The Portuguese exploited these tensions, as the Fula chiefs were able to acquire economic and political privilege through their close association with the Portuguese in their efforts to pacify and gain control over the region. “The colonial regime recognized and even strengthened the political position of the Fula chiefs in return for their close cooperation with the colonial administration. In fact, the Portuguese used the Fula leaders as chiefs (‘warrant chiefs’ so called) to rule over those stateless peoples like the Balanta who had no such formal leadership.”⁵² This privilege affected the possibility of Fula participation in the anti-colonial struggle. Cabral insisted that the Fula hierarchy limited the PAIGC’s organizing, as opposed to the Balanta who maintain a horizontal societal structure and were more open to the PAIGC’s organizing efforts.⁵³ These social and historic tensions further complicate the issues of ethnicity and class, as in order to preserve their class positions under the guise of preserving ethnic identity, the Fula, for the most part, supported the Portuguese efforts by supplying information and bodies to the Portuguese colonial war machine.

Like the construction of the elite within colonial institutions, the pre- colonial elite existed solely through the continuation of specific identifications and practices within the traditional society. For the pre-colonial elite, the drive to maintain their status superseded any efforts to create a new nation-state liberated from the social, political and economic contradictions of the colonial and pre-colonial period. For the Fula masses, the primacy of an ethnic identity (pre-colonial) over a national identity (post-colonial) was related to the historic tensions between the Fula and other groups in Portuguese Guinea. “Cabral at first argued that the problem revolved around the resistance of the Fula chiefs.. However, by the early 1970’s, Cabral was forced to admit that this attempt [recruitment among the Fula] had largely failed and that the tie between the Fula people and their chiefs proved to be much tighter than he had expected.”⁵⁴

Attempts by the PAIGC to organize among ethnic groups with strict social hierarchies failed in comparison to FLING, which created a space where the preservation of an ethnic identity and privilege was part and parcel of the organizational efforts. Lyon writes, “FLING was more successful because it allowed Fula chiefs to continue their leadership positions, and because one joined the party as a Fula through a Fula organization, rather than as a Guinean.”⁵⁵ The competition for power in the colonial state among pre-colonial/ traditional elites mirrored the resistance of the colonized elite whereby status and privilege were acquired through both the pre- colonial and colonial systems. Through selective alliances, Portuguese colonialism was able to carry out its domination by reinforcing the traditional prerogatives and accommodating the cultural identities of pre-colonial classes. Thus the colonizer and a “native” group were able to co- exist over and against a larger body of colonized peoples.

Any efforts to reorder the established system, bring to full empowerment the masses of people and resolve the contradictions and disparities in status and wealth of the colonial and pre-colonial eras threatened the colonial and traditional order and those groups and individuals who benefit-(ed) from it. The goal of Cabral and the PAIGC was to effect empowerment (i.e. a re-entry into history) for all members of the colonized society, across all divisions on both the macro and micro levels of human activity. This could be done by creating a new Guinean citizen and society that was both cognizant and critical of its culture and history and committed to the transformation of the state and the individual. Anything less would merely perpetuate the inequalities, colonial or pre-colonial, that would limit the creation of a new and fully autonomous nation-state. Under Cabral and the PAIGC’s organizing, this reorganization of state, society, and consciousness would affect every member of Guinean culture and society, especially those populations most subject to pre-colonial and colonial forms of domination.

The question of the “role” of women in the anti-colonial struggle is one that is asked across African cultures both, continental and diasporic. For continental African societies, definitions of “womanhood” are shaped and informed by both pre- colonial systems and, one might argue, colonial examples and beliefs. The basis of articulations of “womanhood” within diasporic cultures, it can be argued, are informed by pre- slavery cultural mores as well as values resulting from enmeshment within colonial culture. Regardless of one’s standpoint, the overarching concern is the manner in which African liberation, continental and diasporic, is articulated in language and practice exclusive of authoritative female influence/participation and mindful of female life and experience.⁵⁶ Stephanie Urdang, in Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea – Bissau,⁵⁷ details how Cabral, the PAIGC and its cadres of women attempted to liberate women in Guinean society during and through the process of creating a liberated Guinea. She writes,

slow but perceptible change in sexist attitudes could be traced between the period of mobilization and the end of the war.. The younger women who had grown up under PAIGC were experiencing greater equality.. The older generation of women had to struggle against the conditioning of a lifetime, both their own and the mens’, in order to break ground which their younger sisters could follow.⁵⁸

Acknowledging that the transformation in women’s and men’s views on gender was not complete, Urdang describes scenes of female empowerment within the process of national liberation: “I witnessed a number of encounters involving women’s cadres and their male comrades who had not totally rid themselves of chauvinist ideas. The women’s response was often angry, but it always included a firm declaration of their rights and a demand for equal respect.”⁵⁹ Involvement in the struggle itself appears as a means by which women within the PAIGC develop a critical consciousness and take responsibility for the resolution of contradictions internal to mass popular culture. Urdang quotes at length, Teodora, a member of the PAIGC military cadre based at Candjafara,

The belief that all women are good for is to do the domestic work and to be a sexual partner and bear children still manifests itself in our society.. We continue to battle with these ideas and I can say that there has been a very perceptible change over the years. Nonetheless, we cannot deny that in reality despite our efforts, they still exist. But it is not just the men. As Cabral used to point out, women themselves must have a clear understanding of how these attitudes affect them. No one can fight for their rights except women themselves.⁶⁰

Through their participation all sectors of the populace will develop beyond positions and identities known prior to the national liberation struggle. For females, the category of “woman” and the various presumptions/meanings of the category are subject to critique, vulnerable to change necessarily redefined as the emergent nation, as a whole, necessarily changes and grows beyond the definitions placed on it by pre- colonial and colonial systems of meaning. These particular social, political and ideological struggles among the colonized are reflective of the struggles necessary for the transformation of the colonized elite. The commitment evinced by Cabral, the PAIGC and its cadres to ending gender inequalities in the newly formed state show the PAIGC’s firm belief in the empowerment of all sectors of the new society, recognition of the particular struggles and experiences of women in pre- colonial and colonial conditions and a belief in the possibility of human transformation in the midst of the national liberation struggle.

The process and demands of struggling for national liberation enable the complete eradication of contradictions internal and external to the struggle. As the consciousness of the mass populace would be transformed so would that of the African petty bourgeoisie. Most significantly, like the position of pre-colonial elite groups and that of women in particular societies, elite immersion becomes not just an act of individual, but as well, of communal and national change.

The material change in the social, cultural and physical position of the elite is vital to all aspects of the national liberation struggle: “For Cabral, to speak of the material relations which exist between man and his environment and the relationships among the individuals and collective components of a society is, ‘to speak of history, but is also to speak of culture’.”⁶¹ The return to the source is a movement by the elite which alters the geo-cultural and political relations of the colony. This alteration of culture and consciousness relies upon the transformative power of elite labor among the mass popular forces. The elite re- connection to mass popular life plugs it into the physical and subsequently, cultural and psychological life of the popular masses, thereby occasioning a re-entry into “history” (i.e., proactive, autonomous, self-realizing and beneficial behaviour) by the elite; bolstering mass popular culture and political effort (through the contribution of the skills the elite have gained from colonial institutions) and contributing to the overall national liberation struggle. The return to the source provides an opportunity for the elite to undergo the necessary changes that will contribute not only to the national liberation struggle but also to the newly established nation-state. Like the nation itself, in order to achieve true liberation (i.e. the complete and total emancipation of the productive and cultural forces of the nation from foreign domination) the elite must undergo a revolutionary conversion on the most primal cultural, social and psychological levels. In a sense, the transformation of the elite becomes symbolic of the anti-colonial struggle as the colonized nation must throw off its dependence on the colonizer and re-create itself through what former Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah would call “Positive Action”.

Cabral, like Fanon, was more than aware of the dangers of an unreconstructed leadership class. He knew that “the political leaders—even the most famous—may be culturally alienated people.”⁶² The return to the source and its testing ground, the national liberation struggle, are the catalytic converters through which the elite must pass. “Cabral agreed with Che Guevara that this Africanization, which in some ways he equated with the removal of elitist attitudes, develops gradually during the struggle.. Consequently, the longer the struggle [the likelier it is that] the people at all levels [will] develop a new consciousness which is vital for a successful social revolution after liberation.”⁶³ In essence, the core of the national liberation struggle is the creation of a new national consciousness through the personal and collective participation of its members. For the elite, the return to the source works in concert with the national liberation struggle to bring about more than a mere reorientation but a thorough negation of the elite as individual, class and category. Class suicide is the final step in the elite’s growth. The mass populace must grow based on its core cultural life, and at the same time evolve self-consciously shed those traditions which harm the growth as a people and as a nation. The elite, on the other hand, as individuals and as a class, must dissolve and renew itself within the context of mass popular culture and struggle for the sake of the new nation. Cabral’s point is not the reformation of elite leadership, or the emergence of a kinder gentler African ruling class, or even the recognition of the advantages of a popularly based elite stratum. He demanded the elimination of the elite as individuals, as a class and as a concept, from the registry of anti-colonial and national liberation efforts.

The transformation of the elite is a vital issue in the life of the newly liberated state. Cabral’s analysis is not an optimistic desire but one conscious of the inherent perils of the elite and its participation in national liberation struggles. The developed orientation of the petty bourgeoisie makes it dangerous as its acquired skills under colonialism empower it in the post-colonial period⁶⁴ and its acquired political and cultural orientation under colonial domination distances it from the mass populace. I quote Cabral,

To return to the question of the nature of the petty bourgeoisie and the role it can play after the liberation . . . What would you have thought if Fidel Castro had come to terms with the Americans? Is it possible or impossible that the Cuban petty bourgeoisie, which set the Cuban people marching towards revolution, might have come to terms with the Americans? I think this helps to clarify the character of the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie.⁶⁵

Thus the role of the petty bourgeoisie is a dangerous point in the progression toward national liberation. In order to fulfill the possibilities of the national liberation struggle, the elite, who has returned to the source, must be an oxymoronic term. To completely return to the source is to no longer be an elite. Patrick Chabal quotes Cabral, “The revolutionary petite bourgeoisie must be capable of committing suicide as a class in order to be reborn as revolutionary workers, completely identified with the deepest aspirations of the people to which it belongs.”⁶⁶ The petty bourgeoisie can no longer exist, “To do this it may have to commit suicide, but it will not lose; by sacrificing itself it can reincarnate itself, but in the condition of workers or peasants.”⁶⁷

In a single blow, Cabral contended with and resolved the dilemma of Fanon’s “native intellectual” by formulating and proving through revolutionary praxis that successful anti-colonial struggles must necessarily resolve vanguardist tendencies by eliminating the vanguard (the elite class) through its rebirth as members of the mass populace. This view appropriates the traditional argument for elite leadership (the elite contribution of colonial derived intellectual and technical skills) by utilizing these skills from a new socio-cultural position.⁶⁸ The former elite becomes a skilled member of the mass populace as opposed to an elite temporarily aligned with the mass popular struggle.

Amilcar Cabral’s analysis of the role of the colonized elite (petite bourgeois and urbanized classes) stridently maintains its grounding in the concrete realities of the PAIGC’s anti-colonial efforts in Guinea Bissau. However, the theoretical issues that he spoke to must be noted as to how they relate to the larger question of elite activism within the African diasporic experience as a whole. Cabral clearly theorized beyond the standard assumptions of liberation struggles that argue the necessity of the emergence of elite nationalists. No doubt in view of African independence struggles of the 1950’s and 1960’s, dependence on mass popular participation, e.g., Ghana, and peasant-based militancy, e.g., Algeria, Angola, and Mozambique, Cabral’s formulations critically reconsider the role of elites in anti-colonial struggle. In light of their awareness of the entrenchment of neo-colonial regimes which established themselves on the backs of those previous independence struggles in places like Ghana, Nigeria, or Egypt, Cabral and the PAIGC were forced to reconsider the nature of elite consciousness in the post-independence period and, more to the point, during the course of the national liberation struggle.

Amilcar Cabral’s analysis of class and culture in the context of the national liberation/anti-colonial struggle sought to simultaneously formulate a means by which to understand the functioning of the national entity at hand and construct the national body, yet to be. This two-pronged approach postulated the necessity of the colonized subject’s ability to consciously change and transform him/herself into a new being. This new being would no longer be a colonial subject in any form or fashion but would be the citizen of a new nation, liberated from its colonial past. Though the mass populace and its culture provided the doorway to national liberation, it was the colonized elite who would be the key. The elite contribution of technical and intellectual training would be of great benefit to the revolutionary struggle but it was the process of elite growth which held the greatest value. For the elite to dissolve and then evolve within the mass popular struggle through the processes of “Re- Africanisation” and “Returning to the Source”, was a significant sign of the vulnerability of Portuguese colonial culture and ideology. As well, it was a significant sign of the social, cultural, political and ideological possibilities of the post- colonial nation.

The elite reunion with mass popular struggle and culture disproves the lie of colonial invincibility and superiority by showing how colonial subjects can move beyond foreign domination. For the elite class, the class most immersed in colonial ideology and culture, moving beyond the shadow of colonial influence demonstrates the possibility of a new nation rising out of the ashes of a dominated past. With an eye to the future, the reborn elite, by becoming one with the mass population, suggests and actively works toward a new democratic nation that attempts to deliver on the party’s national liberatory promises. The elite who serves as a “prodigal son” to the people announces through strength of arms, ideology and conviction that the future for national liberation is guaranteed as all vestiges of the oppressive past have been laid to rest.

References

Cabral, Amilcar. Revolution in Guinea. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972

------------, Return to the Source. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974

------------. “Original Writings.” Ufahamu, 3, 3, Winter (1973)

Chabal, Patrick. Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983

Chilcote, Ronald H. “The Political Thought of Amilcar Cabral.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 6,3, (1968)

Cole, Johnetta B. “Culture: Negro, Black and Nigger.” New Black Voices. Abraham Chapman, ed. New York: New American Library, 1987

Dhada, Mustafa. Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really set Free. Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1993

DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: New American Library, 1969

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press, 1963

------------. Black Skins, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1967

Fernandez, Gil. “A Talk with a Guinean Revolutionary.” Ufahama, 1,1, (1970)

Grundy, Kenneth. “The Class Struggle in Africa: An Examination of Conflicting Theories.” Journal of Modern African Studies, 2,1,3, (1964)

Hammond, Richard J. “Race Attitudes and policies in Portuguese Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” Race, IX, 2, (1967)

Hubbard, Maryinez L. “Culture and history in a revolutionary context: approaches to Amilcar Cabral.” Ufahamu, VI, 1, (1976)

KRS-ONE. “Criminals in Action (CIA).” Lyricist lounge: Volume One. Open Mike Records, 1998

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Sister Outsider. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984

Lyon, Judson M. “Marxism and ethno-nationalism in Guinea-Bissau.” Ethnic Studies, 3, 2, (1980)

O’Brien, Jay. “Tribe, class and nation: revolution and the weapon of theory in Guinea Bissau.” Race & Class, XIX, 1, 1977

Opuko, K. “Cabral and the African Revolution.” Presence (sic) Africain, 105, 1, (1978)

Thiam, Awa. “Black Sisters, Speak Out.” Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and \Writings by Women of African Descent from Ancient Egypt to the Present. Margaret Busby, ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992

Urdang, Stephanie. Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea-Bissau. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979

Endnotes

1. The Atlanta University Center (The Inter Denominational Theological Center, Clarke-Atlanta University, Morris Brown, Spelman College and Morehouse College) is a collective of historically Black colleges in Atlanta, Georgia that maintain distinct collegiate institutions, enrollment and missions yet function as a single entity in that students are allowed access to resources across campuses.

2. Cole, Johnetta B. “Culture: Negro, Black and Nigger.” New Black Voices. Abraham Chapman, ed. (New York: New American Library, 1987).

3. KRS-ONE. “CIA (Criminals in Action).” Lyricist Lounge: Volume One. Open Mike Records, 1998.

4. Within the context of external colonialism, “national liberation” was the goal for many African communities. In other cases, Pan-Africanism (Nkrumah’s Organization of African Unity) or Federation (C. L. R. James’ along with others lobbied for a West Indian Confederation promptly after independence from British colonial rule) were the goals of post-colonial governments but at the heart of all instances lay a nationalist base. I argue pursuant to Chapter 1’s discussion of Afri-US peoples as an internally colonized group, that in lieu of a “national liberation struggle”, the “Civil Rights Movement” (the period of conscious and organized Afri- U. S. social political struggle roughly dating from the Birmingham Bus Boycott of 1954 to the mid 1970’s) was the primary staging area of political alliances between Afri-US elites and mass popular action. “Desegregation” and “Equal Rights” were the rough equivalents to Ghana’s “Freedom Now” and Kenya’s “Uhuru Sasa.” This is not to discount the Nationalist agendas of the Black Power Movement or the revolutionary aims of the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, Revolutionary Action Movement or the cultural nationalism of Maulana Karenga’s US movement. Yet for the sake of this argument and the analysis of colonized elite participation in mass popular anti colonial struggle, the Civil Rights movement and its residual effects best serve as Afri-US examples.

5. (New York: Routledge, 1994).

6. ibid, 88.

7. ibid, 89

8. In 1959, the PAIGC helped organize and lead a strike of Guinean dockworkers at Pijiguiti that ended in a Portuguese military raid leaving over 50 strikers dead and more than 100 injured. See Cedric Robinson. “Amilcar Cabral and the Dialectic of Portuguese Colonialism.”

9. Dhada, Mustafah. Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free. (Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1993)145.

10. Chilcote, Ronald H. “The Political Thought of Amilcar Cabral”. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 6, 3 (1968): 373. States Chilcote, “Cabral entered a second phase of activity by serving as a consultant to the Portuguese Government and to private firms in Angola and Guinea...focusing on land problems, his technical and theoretical writings at that time demonstrated a profound concern for finding development solutions to problems of the African masses.” (374-375) As stated in the introduction to some of Cabral’s original writings (Ufahama, Vol 3, No 3, Winter 1973), “The reader should bear in mind that although Cabral wrote these articles while still a Portuguese civil servant, he identified problems, located blame and recommended solutions which few, if any Portuguese civil servants today are either cognizant of or courageous enough to put in print.” (31)

11. Revolution in Guinea. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969).

12. Akin to the French Evolué colonial system, Portugal established a system of colonial control that would attempt to erase indigenous culture and society by offering to Guinean subjects Portuguese citizenship (and limited amounts of privilege) if they would in turn renounce their original languages, cultures and religions and embrace Portuguese language culture and religion. This status extended to phenotypical transformation as Portugal maintained the fiction of a Luso-phone racial paradise in its colonies through colonizer and native miscegenation. Those Guineans who achieved this status were known as Assimilados and became the highest strata of Guinean colonized society. States K. Opuko, “The cultural achievements of Portuguese imperialism are quite plain for us to see. After some five hundred years of colonial rule in Guinea, only 0.3% of its inhabitants achieved the status of assimilados, the remaining 99.7% could neither read nor write Portuguese.” “Cabral and the African Revolution”. Présence Africaine 105, 1(1978): 58.

13. Cabral. “At the United Nations.” ibid, 35.

14. Cabral, Amilcar. “National Liberation and Culture”. Return to the Source. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974) 49.

15. This perspective does not at all romanticize or guarantee the revolutionary desire of the peasant/rural/colonial marginal groups within the colonial context. Ironically this same distance which allows for a culturally and geographically distinct and separate indigenous culture, also encourages the reluctance of these groups to enter the anti colonial struggle. PAIGC representative to Cairo, Gil Fernandez states, “The peasant in our country is basically very conservative. Mainly that is because they did not have very much contact with the Portuguese [emphasis mine]---99.9% of the population literally. So when you go to the countryside and tell the population, look we’re forming a party; we have the guns and we want you to help us and join the party, they answer, are you crazy? How can we possibly fight the Portuguese when they have the tanks and planes and cars, and we can hardly strike a match?” Ufahama, Vol 1, 1, (1970): 8. Cabral states in, “Brief analysis of the social structure in Guinea”, “ It must be said at once that the peasantry is not a revolutionary force . . . A distinction must be made between a physical force and a revolutionary force.” Revolution in Guinea. (New York: Monthly Review Press 1972) 61.

16. Cabral, “Identity and Dignity in the Context of the National Liberation Struggle”. 64

17. Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”. Sister Outsider. (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984) 110.

18. ”National Liberation . . .” , 41.

19. ibid.

20. ibid, 43.

21. ibid, 44.

22. This refers to Afri-U.S. scholar and activist, W.E.B. Dubois’ pronouncement on the existential dilemma of Afri-U.S. peoples, “Double Consciousness.” The Souls of Black Folk. New York: New American Library, 1969

23. ibid, 45.

24. Chilcote,”During this early phase of his career Cabral associated with African students from Angola and Mozambique through such official organisations as the Casa dos Estudantes do Império and the Centro de Estudos Africanos.”ibid.

25. Cabral, “The Nationalist Movements of the Portuguese Colonies”. Revolution in Guinea 76.

26. Hammond, Richard J. “Race Attitudes and Policies in Portuguese Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”. Race, IX, 2 (1967). Hammond writes, “Lusotropicology, as invented by Gilberto Freyre, boils down to an assertion that the national character of the Portuguese has enabled them to create in Brazil and elsewhere a unique multiracial society,” 205.

27. Chilcote, 373.

28. (New York: Grove Press, 1963).

29. (New York: Grove Press, 1967).

30. ibid, 130.

31. Fanon. Wretched of the Earth. 171.

32. ibid, 172.

33. Cabral, “Identity and Dignity . . .” Revolution in Guinea, 67.

34. ibid, 178.

35. Fanon. Wretched. 169.

36. ibid, 175.

37. Dhada details the attempts of Cabral and his fellow Lusophone African companions to establish organizations independent of the Portuguese government in Lisbon to mobilize around issues of Portuguese colonialism. “Cabral, Agostinho Neto and Mario de Andrade met to revive their plan . . . to establish an independent centre for the study of African history, culture, and civilization.” 142.

38. ibid, 62.

39. Anyone familiar with Ford automobiles would ask, “what’s the difference, Ford is an ill made car regardless.” However, the power of British colonialism’s influence maintains its hold over the post-colonial subject. I have to thank my colleague Meredith Gadsby for relating this view held by a member of her family living in Barbados.

40. Cabral, “Identity and Dignity. . .,” 61.

41. ibid, 62-63.

42. ibid, 68.

43. ”Tribe, class and nation: revolution and the weapon of theory in Guinea Bissau”. Race & Class XIX, 1 (1977): 7.

44. Because of his high public profile and the strategies of the PAIGC’s political and military organization, Cabral spent most of the Guinean liberation struggle at the PAIGC’s primary training camp in Guinea (formerly French Guinea) under Sekou Toure’s protection or was traveling throughout Africa, AsiA, Europe, the Caribbean and North America on behalf of the PAIGC’s negotiator, ambassador and publicist. Mustafah Dhada reports that prior to his assassination Cabral only visited Portuguese Guinea 4 times and logged over 600,000 miles representing the liberation movement. (Dhada, Appendix C, Tables 1-5) 171-180.

45. Arguably this tactic, though based on Cabral’s particular analysis of Guinean geography and culture, is open to broader interpretations in regard to urbanized societies in the African diaspora and the political- geographic terrain created by colonial policies.

46. Cabral, “The Weapon of Theory”. Revolution in Guinea , 91 - 92.

47. ibid, “Brief analysis of the social structure in Guinea”. Revolution inGuinea , 57.

48. ”The Class Struggle in Africa: An Examination of Conflicting Theories,” Journal of Modern African Studies 2, 1, 3 (1964): 379- 393.

49. ibid, 389.

50. ”A Talk With A Guinean Revolutionary.” Ufahamu Vol. 1, 1 (1970): 8.

51. Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 3, 2 (1980): 160.

52. ibid, 162.

53. Cabral, “A Brief Analysis . . .” Revolution in . . ., 61.

54. ibid, 163.

55. ibid.

56. Awa Thiam, in “Black Sisters, Speak Out,” (Daughters of Africa: An International Anthologyof Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from Ancient Egypt to the Present. Margaret Busby, ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992). argues the connection of African women, continental and diasporic, to anti colonial struggle and the necessary inclusion in these battles of the particular issues facing women of African descent. She writes, “The problems that beset Black women are manifold. Whether she is from the West Indies, America or Africa, the plight of the Black woman is very different from that of her White or Yellow sisters,[ although in the long run the problems faced by all women tend to overlap] . . . Where Black women have to combat colonialism and neo-colonialism, capitalism and the patriarchal system, European women only have to fight against capitalism and patriarchy,” 476, 478.

57. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979).

58. ibid, 237, 240.

59. ibid, 240.

60. ibid, 241.

61. Hubbard, Maryinez L.”Culture and history in a revolutionary context: approaches to Amilcar Cabral”. Ufahama Vol. VI, No 1 (1976): 78

62. ibid, 80.

63. ibid.

64. Cabral.”The moment national liberation comes and the petty bourgeoisie takes power we enter, or rather return to history, and thus the internal contradictions break out again.” “Brief analysis? “ 69.

65. ibid, 72.

66. Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) 177.

67. Cabral, “Brief analysis . . .” 72.

68. ibid. States Cabral, “The African petty bourgeoisie . . . this is the only stratum capable of controlling or even utilizing the instruments which the colonial state used against our people. So we come to the conclusion that in colonial conditions it is the petty bourgeoisie which is the inheritor of state power (though I wish we could be wrong),” 69.

reprinted from West Africa Review

TOP
comments and letters to comments@ipoaa.com