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Introduction

The long and difficult struggle to free Africa from foreign domination has produced many heroic figures and will continue to produce many more. In some instances individuals who seemed to be unlikely candidates emerged as spokesmen for the masses of their people. Often these were individuals who rejected avenues of escape from the realities of their people and who elected instead to return to the source of their own being. In taking this step these individuals reaffirmed the right of their people to take their own place in history.

Amilcar Cabral is one such figure. And in the hearts of the people of the small West African country of Guinea (Bissau), he will remain a leader who helped them regain their identity and who was otherwise instrumental in the initial stages of the long and difficult process of national liberation.

Cabral is recognized as having been one of the world’s outstanding political theoreticians. At the time of his assassination by Portuguese agents, on Jan. 20, 1973—Cabral, as Secretary-General of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC), was also an outstanding practitioner of these political theories. He had the ability to translate abstract theories into the concrete realities of his people, and very often the realities of his people resulted in the formulation of new theories.

The specific conditions of colonialism in Guinea (Bissau) and on the Cape Verde Islands were instrumental in the political development of Cabral. To his people, Portuguese colonialism meant a stagnant existence coupled with the absence of personal dignity and liberty. More than 99% of the population could not read or write. Sixty percent of the babies died before reaching the age of one year. Forty percent of the population suffered from sleeping sickness and almost everyone had some form of malaria. There were never more than 11 doctors for the entire rural population, or one doctor for every 45,000 Africans.

In an effort to control the African population, Portugal attempted to create a minimally educated class, the members of which were granted the “privilege” of serving Portugal’s interests. They were told to disdain everything African and to revere everything European. However, even if they adopted these attitudes they were never really accepted by their masters. The myth of Portugal’s multi-racial society came to be exposed for what it was—a tool for little Portugal’s continued domination of vast stretches of Africa.

Cabral studied in Portugal with Africans from other Portuguese colonies. This was a restive period in the development of African nationalist movements. The colonial powers had been weakened by the Second World War. And Africans had heard these powers speak of democracy, liberty and human dignity—all of which were denied to the colonial subjects. Many Africans had even fought and died for the “liberty” of their colonial masters. However, in the process those who survived learned much about the world and themselves.

Cabral’s contemporaries as a student included Agostinho Neto and Mario de Andrade (founding members of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-MPLA), and Eduardo Mondlane* and Marcelino dos Santos (founding members of the Mozambique Liberation Front-FRELIMO). These men all rejected Portugal’s right to define the lives of African people and committed themselves to struggle for change. As students they strived to assert their national identities and subsequently they returned to their respective countries to participate in the process of national liberation.

All of them saw that their peoples’ enemy was not simply poverty, disease, or lack of education; nor was it the Portuguese people or simply whites; rather, it was colonialism and its parent imperialism. Cabral articulated this view in stating:

“We are not fighting against the Portuguese people, against individual Portuguese or Portuguese families. Without ever confusing the people of Portugal and Portuguese colonialism, we have been forced to take up arms in order to extirpate from the soil of our African fatherland, the shameful Portuguese colonial domination.” Declaration made on the release of three Portuguese soldiers taken prisoner by the PAIGC, March, 1968.

This definition of the enemy proved an important ideological starting point. From here revolutionary theories were formulated and put into practice which resulted in the liberation of almost 75 percent of the countryside of Guinea (Bissau) in less than ten years of revolutionary armed struggle.

At the time of Cabral’s murder, Guinea (Bissau) had virtually become an independent state with most of its principal towns occupied by a foreign army. In his Second Address At the United Nations, Cabral presented an overview of the struggle from its earliest days and he described life in the liberated areas of his country. He described the process of national reconstruction in the face of continuous bombardments and attacks by Portuguese soldiers. And, he announced the successful completion of freely held elections for a new National Assembly.

With each passing day Portugal finds itself more and more isolated from the international community. Not even the death of Cabral can reverse the tide which is running against one of the world’s last remaining colonial rulers. In his New Year’s Message, Cabral called on the PAIGC to press foward and continue the work necessary to issue a formal declaration of the new and independent state—Guinea (Bissau). This declaration will be issued during 1973 and will raise the struggle against Portuguese colonialism to another level.

The selections contained in this work illustrate a vital part of the study, analysis and application which made it possible for the people of Guinea (Bissau), and their comrades in Mozambique and Angola, to achieve what they have achieved in the face of numerous difficulties. For example, in Identity and Dignity in the Context of the National Liberation Struggle, Cabral discusses the “return to the source” as a political process rather than a cultural event.

He saw the process of returning to the source as being more difficult for those “native elites” who had lived in isolation from the “native masses” and developed feelings of frustration as a result of their ambiguous roles. Thus, he viewed movements which propounded strictly cultural or traditional views to be manifestations of the frustrations resulting from being isolated from the African reality.

Among the many truths left by Cabral, is the fact that the process of returning to the source is of no historical importance (and would in fact be political opportunism) unless it involves not only a contest against the foreign culture but also complete participation in the mass struggle against foreign political and economic domination.

Africa Information Service

July, 1973

* Mondlane was himself the victim of an assassination carried out by Portuguese agents on February 3, 1969.