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RETURN TO THE SOURCE
“I am a simple African man, doing my duty in my own country in the context of our time.”
AMILCAR CABRAL
1924-1973
in memoriam.
RETURN TO THE SOURCE
Selected Speeches by Amilcar Cabral
edited by Africa Information Service
Monthly Review Press
New York and London
with Africa Information Service
Copyright © 1973 by Africa Information Service and the
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and the
Cape Verde Islands
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cabral, Amilcar
Return to the source.
1. Guinea, Portuguese—Politics and government—Collected works. 2. Nationalism—Guinea, Portuguese—Collected works. 3. Guerrillas—Guinea, Portuguese—Collected works. I. Title.
DT613.75.C32 1974 320.9′66′5702 74-7788
ISBN 0-85345-345-4
Monthly Review Press
146 West 29th street, Suite 6W
New York, NY 10001
Dedicated to the struggle
The Africa Information Service (AIS) is an organization of Africans, African-Caribbeans and African-Americans who share a commitment to Third World anti-imperialist struggles. We prepare, catalog, and distribute information on African liberation movements and on the struggles to achieve economic independence by the people in those parts of Africa recognized as independent political states. We also provide the people of Africa with information on various struggles being waged by Third World peoples in the Western Hemisphere. Africa is our focal point, but we recognize that the African struggles do not exist in isolation. They are themselves part of a larger movement by Third World peoples.
Our thanks to the comrades and organizations who made the printing of this book possible, including the Africana Studies and Research Center of Cornell University and the Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church. And above all our special appreciation to the militants of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea* and the Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC) for their assistance.
Proceeds from the sale of this book will be sent to the PAIGC.
* Throughout this book the English (Guinea) and Portuguese (Guine) spellings are used interchangably.
Contents
Second Address Before the United Nations, Fourth Committee, 1972
National Liberation and Culture
Identity and Dignity in the Context of the National Liberation Struggle
Connecting the Struggles: an informal talk with Black Americans
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.