A Blueprint for Resistance
Amílcar Cabral, trans. Dan Wood, Resistance and Decolonization
Rowman & Littlefield International, 192pp, £70.00, ISBN 9781783483754
reviewed by Rafe McGregor
Amílcar Cabral was born in Portuguese Guinea in 1923, trained as an agricultural engineer in Lisbon, and returned to the colony to become one of the founding members of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in 1956. After six years of unsuccessful civil protest, the PAIGC took up arms against Portuguese rule and opened hostilities in the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence with an assault on a military garrison in 1963. Cabral was assassinated ten years later, the victim of either rivals in the PAIGC or the Portuguese secret police (the identity of the perpetrators remains disputed), and did not live to see the independence of Guinea-Bissau in 1974 and Cape Verde the following year.
Resistance and Decolonization is the fourth publication in Rowman & Littlefield International’s ‘Reinventing Critical Theory’ series, which aims to provide a body of critical social theory relevant to the contemporary world. Dan Wood presents the first English translation of Cabral’s Analysis of a Few Types of Resistance (a series of four lectures delivered to PAIGC insurgents in November 1969) and ‘The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence’ (a speech written for a UNESCO meeting in Paris and delivered in absentia in July 1972) in parts two (chapters three to six) and three (chapter seven) respectively. Part one consists of an essay by Reiland Rabaka on Cabral’s role in Africana critical theory (chapter one) and an introduction to Cabral and his philosophy by Wood (chapter two). Rabaka’s essay situates Cabral in the Africana critical tradition initiated by WEB Du Bois and popularised by Frantz Fanon, for which Rabaka has already made a comprehensive and compelling argument in The Negritude Movement: W.E.B. Du Bois, Leon Damas, Aime Cesaire, Leopold Senghor, Frantz Fanon, and the Evolution of an Insurgent Idea (2015). The chapter makes a perfect complement to Rabaka’s treatise on Africana critical theory, but would have been more appropriate as an afterword, allowing Wood’s fine introduction – which quickly and efficiently summarises Cabral’s life and applies his philosophy to contemporary concerns – to familiarise readers with the content to come.
Rabaka writes that critics of Cabral ‘charge his work with being overly simplistic’ and Wood of the ‘didactic, corrective, organizational, and motivational ends’ of the lecture series and their combination leaves the impression that they are making a controversial claim for Cabral’s significance and continued relevance. There is no evidence of Cabral being either simplistic or unnecessarily didactic in the translated discourses and they are a model of eloquence, insight, and conviction, dealing with complex issues in an astute but accessible manner. The first of the four lectures to the PAIGC exemplifies the style and structure of those to follow. Cabral begins by defining resistance in terms of both destruction (of colonial rule) and construction (of national liberation). He establishes the aim of resistance as ‘concrete and equal possibilities for any child of our land, man or woman, to advance as a human being’, identifies the political as the most far-reaching aspect of resistance (specifically, national unity), and highlights the importance of morality in the struggle. As such, Cabral offers sophisticated conceptions of the nature of the enemy (Portuguese colonialists, not the Portuguese nation) and whether the targeting of civilians can be justified (it cannot). He explores the consequences of his political stance for the international relations of the PAIGC in a world then divided into First, Second, and Third, refusing to allow his essentially socialist struggle to be set in the context of the Cold War (as, for example, the National Party succeeded in doing in South Africa in order to prolong the life of Apartheid). Cabral points to the securing of material assistance from Sweden (in addition to Eastern Bloc countries) as evidence of the success of his neutrality and then concludes with a brief summary of his three key points: national unity, adhering to core principles, and prioritising the political above other aspects of resistance.
The theme of resistance as combining destruction and construction runs through the next three lectures, which set out the economic, cultural, and military aspects of resistance as part of the overall strategy to achieve the political goal of independence. True to his training, Cabral recognises the economic significance of agriculture and the need for troops to eat before they can fight and to be able to feed themselves during and after the fight. He has a (once again) sophisticated conception of the cultural importance of the Portuguese language, which he regards as a means to sustainable independence rather than an instrument of colonial oppression. His military strategy is no less refined and far-sighted, conceiving of the armed organisation of the PAIGC as having three phases: from a guerrilla force to a regular army to a national militia. Put together, the four lectures establish a blueprint for the practice of resistance that takes both local and global circumstances into account and lays the foundation for a post-independence Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde to function as sovereign states.
Part three, ‘The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence’, revisits and expands cultural resistance, contrasting popular culture with assimilated culture and focusing on the different elements within the petite bourgeoisie and their roles for and against the liberation movement. Cabral’s brother, Luís, became the first president of Guinea-Bissau, but his rule was controversial for a number of reasons and the country has remained unstable in the 21st century. In contrast, Cape Verde prospered despite its lack of natural resources and currently ranks high on both the Human Development Index and the Democracy Index. Cabral’s long-term aim has therefore, it seems, been achieved for at least one of the two states on whose behalf he died. My only criticism of Cabral’s discourse is its brevity, the reasons for which are explained by Wood in his introduction, but the result is that there are only a hundred-odd pages of Cabral’s actual work in this volume. Wood has nonetheless performed a great service with this translation, not just to those who maintain an interest in African philosophy or Global Theory, but to philosophers, cultural critics, political scientists, and political theorists more generally.
Resistance and Decolonization is the fourth publication in Rowman & Littlefield International’s ‘Reinventing Critical Theory’ series, which aims to provide a body of critical social theory relevant to the contemporary world. Dan Wood presents the first English translation of Cabral’s Analysis of a Few Types of Resistance (a series of four lectures delivered to PAIGC insurgents in November 1969) and ‘The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence’ (a speech written for a UNESCO meeting in Paris and delivered in absentia in July 1972) in parts two (chapters three to six) and three (chapter seven) respectively. Part one consists of an essay by Reiland Rabaka on Cabral’s role in Africana critical theory (chapter one) and an introduction to Cabral and his philosophy by Wood (chapter two). Rabaka’s essay situates Cabral in the Africana critical tradition initiated by WEB Du Bois and popularised by Frantz Fanon, for which Rabaka has already made a comprehensive and compelling argument in The Negritude Movement: W.E.B. Du Bois, Leon Damas, Aime Cesaire, Leopold Senghor, Frantz Fanon, and the Evolution of an Insurgent Idea (2015). The chapter makes a perfect complement to Rabaka’s treatise on Africana critical theory, but would have been more appropriate as an afterword, allowing Wood’s fine introduction – which quickly and efficiently summarises Cabral’s life and applies his philosophy to contemporary concerns – to familiarise readers with the content to come.
Rabaka writes that critics of Cabral ‘charge his work with being overly simplistic’ and Wood of the ‘didactic, corrective, organizational, and motivational ends’ of the lecture series and their combination leaves the impression that they are making a controversial claim for Cabral’s significance and continued relevance. There is no evidence of Cabral being either simplistic or unnecessarily didactic in the translated discourses and they are a model of eloquence, insight, and conviction, dealing with complex issues in an astute but accessible manner. The first of the four lectures to the PAIGC exemplifies the style and structure of those to follow. Cabral begins by defining resistance in terms of both destruction (of colonial rule) and construction (of national liberation). He establishes the aim of resistance as ‘concrete and equal possibilities for any child of our land, man or woman, to advance as a human being’, identifies the political as the most far-reaching aspect of resistance (specifically, national unity), and highlights the importance of morality in the struggle. As such, Cabral offers sophisticated conceptions of the nature of the enemy (Portuguese colonialists, not the Portuguese nation) and whether the targeting of civilians can be justified (it cannot). He explores the consequences of his political stance for the international relations of the PAIGC in a world then divided into First, Second, and Third, refusing to allow his essentially socialist struggle to be set in the context of the Cold War (as, for example, the National Party succeeded in doing in South Africa in order to prolong the life of Apartheid). Cabral points to the securing of material assistance from Sweden (in addition to Eastern Bloc countries) as evidence of the success of his neutrality and then concludes with a brief summary of his three key points: national unity, adhering to core principles, and prioritising the political above other aspects of resistance.
The theme of resistance as combining destruction and construction runs through the next three lectures, which set out the economic, cultural, and military aspects of resistance as part of the overall strategy to achieve the political goal of independence. True to his training, Cabral recognises the economic significance of agriculture and the need for troops to eat before they can fight and to be able to feed themselves during and after the fight. He has a (once again) sophisticated conception of the cultural importance of the Portuguese language, which he regards as a means to sustainable independence rather than an instrument of colonial oppression. His military strategy is no less refined and far-sighted, conceiving of the armed organisation of the PAIGC as having three phases: from a guerrilla force to a regular army to a national militia. Put together, the four lectures establish a blueprint for the practice of resistance that takes both local and global circumstances into account and lays the foundation for a post-independence Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde to function as sovereign states.
Part three, ‘The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence’, revisits and expands cultural resistance, contrasting popular culture with assimilated culture and focusing on the different elements within the petite bourgeoisie and their roles for and against the liberation movement. Cabral’s brother, Luís, became the first president of Guinea-Bissau, but his rule was controversial for a number of reasons and the country has remained unstable in the 21st century. In contrast, Cape Verde prospered despite its lack of natural resources and currently ranks high on both the Human Development Index and the Democracy Index. Cabral’s long-term aim has therefore, it seems, been achieved for at least one of the two states on whose behalf he died. My only criticism of Cabral’s discourse is its brevity, the reasons for which are explained by Wood in his introduction, but the result is that there are only a hundred-odd pages of Cabral’s actual work in this volume. Wood has nonetheless performed a great service with this translation, not just to those who maintain an interest in African philosophy or Global Theory, but to philosophers, cultural critics, political scientists, and political theorists more generally.