Amílcar Cabral

On a day like today, the World would lose an activist with a great sense of Humanity. The National Heroes Day in Guinea-Bissau and Cabo-Verde is also celebrated on this day. January 20th marks the anniversary of the death of Amílcar Cabral and pays tribute to those who fought for the independence of these two countries. It is calling upon us to bring up the memory of the life of Amílcar Cabral.  

“I am a simple African man doing my duty in my own country in the context of our time”

“To have ideology doesn't necessarily mean that you have to define whether you are a communist, socialist, or something like this. To have ideology is to know what you want in your own condition.” Amílcar Cabral in his Speech to an Informal group of Black Americans on 20 October 1972.

If there is a time in the life of our nations, Guinea Bissau and Cabo Verde, which the thinking and actions of men like Amílcar Cabral are needed, it is now. Amílcar Cabral was the Secretary-General of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and the Cabo Verde Islands (PAIGC).

Chosen by Hakim Adi (professor of the history of Africa and the African diaspora at the University of Chichester), Amílcar Cabral is on the list drawn up for History Extra, BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine. His name is listed alongside Pharaoh Amenhotep III (Egypt), Queen Elizabeth (Castile), Empress Catherine, the Great (Russia), French military leader Joan of Arc and US President Abraham Lincoln. Cabral shaped not only Guinea-Bissau and Cabo-Verde but also the former empire of Portugal. Although he is remarkable as a strategist, diplomat, philosopher, politician and pan-Africanist, his deeds are still not well spread among the youth of the world. Therefore, in this small article, we care to provide a small introduction to the personality of Amílcar Cabral.

Who is Amílcar Cabral? We do not use ‘was’ because we do think Cabral still lives in the memories of his people, the African people and more specifically the people of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde Islands. Amílcar Lopes Cabral was a Bissau-Guinean and Cabo-Verdean, agronomist by training, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat with a deep understanding of Culture and Unity. He was born on September 12th, 1924 in Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau, to a Guinean-Bissau mother, Iva Pinhel Évora and a Cabo-Verdean father, Juvenal Lopes Cabral. The couple moved to Cabo-Verde short after. Been born in Guinea-Bissau and raised in Cabo Verde did shape his love for both countries and contributed to his awareness of the reality in the two countries.

Juvenal Cabral & Iva Pinhel Évora

His primary and secondary education was done in Cabo Verde islands' Santiago Island (primary school starting in 1933) and Sao Vicente Island (secondary school completed in 1944). After finishing the secondary school studies he obtained a scholarship to pursue his higher education on Agronomy in Lisbon, Portugal where he attended the University of Lisbon’s School of Agriculture (Instituto Superior de Agronomia, ISA). His time in Lisbon, the capital of the metropolis, would be of large importance for the consciousness of Cabral as he would be in direct contact with students from other Lusophone African countries. He frequented the House of the students of the Metropolis (Casa de Estudantes do Império) and had access to writings of pan-Africanist cultural and political movements. His contemporary students in Portugal included Agostinho Neto and Mario Andrade (founding members of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola – MPLA), Eduardo Modlane and Marcelino dos Santos (founding Members of the Mozambique Liberation Front – FRELIMO). All these men rejected Portugal’s right to define the lives of African People and put themselves in a fight to change that. After his final defense in 1952 on the Erosion of Guinea-Bissau soils, he returned to Guinea-Bissau as the Director of the Experimental Agricultural Post in Pessube. This post gave him a better understanding of the social and geographic reality of Guinea-Bissau. By this time his political activities had already started and in the communities, he was calling for better treatment of his people. Due to his involvement with anti-colonial movements, he was advised to leave Bissau and return to Portugal. In his return to Portugal, he would found work Research Brigade on Plant Protection of Overseas Products (Brigada de Estudos de Defesa Fitossanitária dos Produtos Ultramarinos) had segmented his contact with Angolan friends from his student years.

In the 19th of September 1956, after working for the National Liberation Movement of Guinea-Bissau, he found the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo-Verde (PAIGC – Partido Africano para a Independência de Guine e Cabo Verde), along with Aristides Pereira, Luis Cabral, Júlio de Almeida, Fernando Fortes and Eliseu Turpin. Over the next years, Cabral will try to keep a close relationship with his friends from Angola and Mozambique and in 1957 Cabral, Marcelino dos Santos, Mario de Andrade and Viriato da Cruz held the first meeting of a joint between the three liberation movements of the Portuguese African Colonies. By 1963, PAIGC began its armed guerrilla insurgency, and within ten years they achieved control over most of Guiné’s territory and declared independence.

Even before the armed conflict started, Amílcar Cabral was the one in charge of the international denunciation of colonialism and contributed to the formation of unitary organizations of struggle along with the international organization, Organization of African Unity and United Nations, on the legitimization of the Portuguese colonies fight for liberation. His works with the Organization of African Unity put him in direct contact with other defenders of “returning to the source” as a way for freedom and dignity of African life like Nkrumah and others, who he considered friends. This would help to build Cabral Ideals and comfort for the struggle. Cabral's "return to the source" is the “denial, by the petite bourgeoisie, of the pretended supremacy of the culture of the dominant power over that of the dominated people with which it must identify itself”. As it goes in his saying, Cabral did not take time to put himself into an ideology pact which would characterize his thinking but rather act according to the need of his people and his country. The emphasis of Cabral on the cultural preservation of the African people is a crucial element of the emancipation of the people in his point of view.

From 1964 to 1972, Amílcar Cabral took part in innumerous Conferences across the globe promoting Unity, Nationalism and Culture, looking for more support to the Struggle. The summit of this campaign is probably Cabral’s intervention UN meeting in 1972, recognizing PAIGC as the legitimate representative of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo-Verde.

In 1972, Cabral began to form the People's Assembly in preparation for the independence of Guinea-Bissau. However, on January 20th, Portuguese PIDE agents, whose alleged plan eventually went awry, wanted to influence Cabral`s rivals through agents operating within the PAIGC by arresting Cabral and place him under the custody of Portuguese authorities. Facing the peaceful resistance from Cabral, they immediately killed him.

After the assassination, about one hundred officers and guerrilla soldiers of the PAIGC, accused of involvement in the conspiracy that resulted in the murder of Amílcar Cabral and the attempt to seize power in the movement, were summarily executed.

In summary, Cabral was a democratic socialist with a high inclination for communism, as laid in the PAIGC program published in 1960s, and is claimed to be one of world outstanding theoreticians of anti-imperialist struggle, putting high emphasis in the “return to the source” as a cultural phenomenon, which helps the people in unity and dignity. A man ahead of his time that unfortunately could not witness the fruits of his work.

PAIGC forces raise the flag of an independent Guinea-Bissau in 1974.

Cabo-Verde on July 5, 1975

Authors: Santos Ferreira and Willy Lima

References:

Books:

Cabral, Amílcar. Resistance and Decolonization. Translated by Dan Wood. Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016.

Cabral, Amílcar. Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amílcar Cabral. (Preview) Monthly Review Press, 1979.

Cabral, Amílcar. Return to the Source: Selected Speeches of Amílcar Cabral (pdf) Monthly Review Press, 1973.

Links:

https://portal.africa-union.org/DVD/Documents/DOC-OAU-DEC/CM%20Res%20268%20(XIX)%20_E.pdf

https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/index.htm

https://libcom.org/files/amilcar_cabral_return_to_the_source-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf

https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1965/tnlcnev.htm