Amílcar Cabral
Liberation from colonial rule is an act of culture, and revolutionary theory must grow from the real conditions of your own people.
Placement
Agronomist and leader of the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: national liberation is an act of culture, and theory must grow from the concrete reality of one’s own people.
Key ideas
- The weapon of theory
- National liberation as an act of culture
- Class suicide of the petty bourgeoisie
Influence
Influenced by 1
Karl Marx
influenced by
Cabral reworked Marx’s theory of history: its motor is the productive forces, so peoples without classes are not outside history (‘The Weapon of Theory’, Havana, 1966). A. Cabral, “The Weapon of Theory”, address to the Tricontinental Conference, Havana (1966), in Revolution in Guinea (1969)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Influenced 1
Paulo Freire
influenced
Freire built his literacy work in Guinea-Bissau on Cabral’s call for the ‘re-Africanisation of mentalities’ and the ‘class suicide’ of the petty bourgeoisie (Cartas à Guiné-Bissau, 1977). P. Freire, Cartas à Guiné-Bissau: Registros de uma experiência em processo (1977; Eng. Pedagogy in Process, 1978); A. Cabral, Unity and Struggle (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Paulo Freire › 1921–1997
Works
Address to the Tricontinental Conference in Havana: liberation movements need theory grounded in their own history, not borrowed formulas.
Position
Cabral held that liberation movements need theory, but theory grown from their own reality rather than borrowed formulas. In “The Weapon of Theory” he reworked Marxism: the motor of history is the development of productive forces, so peoples without classes are not outside history, and liberation means a people regaining its own history. The educated petty bourgeoisie must commit “class suicide” and identify with workers and peasants. National liberation is also an act of culture: culture sustains resistance, yet must be renewed critically, not idealised. He urged his comrades to tell no lies and claim no easy victories. Freire, who later worked in Guinea-Bissau, drew on him.
Life & context
Amílcar Cabral was born in 1924 in Bafatá, Portuguese Guinea, to Cape Verdean parents, and grew up partly in Cape Verde. He studied agronomy in Lisbon, where he met other students from the Portuguese colonies, and carried out an agricultural census of Guinea. He co-founded the PAIGC and from 1963 led its armed struggle. In January 1973 he was assassinated in Conakry, months before Guinea-Bissau declared independence.
Further main works
- Revolution in Guinea (1969, collected writings)
- National Liberation and Culture (1970)
- Return to the Source (1973, collected speeches)
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