Ideological Warfare

Cabral’s view of culture is rooted heavily in the means of production of a nation. If simplified the idea is as follows: if you can dominate a nation’s means of production you can destroy their culture which inevitably leads to the domination of the entire people. And this is exactly what colonizers do according Cabral. He believes there are a number of routes the dominating nation can take. They can either annihilate the people entirely so there is no culture left to be threatened by or they can reconcile their economic and political beliefs with the existing culture of the colonised. But neither of these two routes has been taken by the dominating people in an attempt to create a successful colony. The route that is always taken is one of total annihilation and overpowering of the nation’s culture.

But culture for him is not as simple to unfold. It is not only rooted in the economics of a nation but also within its politics and history. It is the fruit that forms through the years of struggle of a nation. It is the outcome of the entire historical process a people go through since the beginning of time. So it’s a twofold phenomenon. It is part of the present of the people rooted in their economic condition just as much as it is a part or product of their past. It is the essence of a nation’s existence.

If a population gives up their own values and beliefs to adopt those of the coloniser then we know that the coloniser has won. The dominators launch an ideological attack on those they want to overpower. The sad reality of the situation, Cabral points out, is that more often than not this strategy works. The great powers of the world had figured out that this course costs them much less than a physical attack would, but in turn costs the dominated every part of their identity. History teaches us that colonisers adopted a policy of ideological domination. They would work on deepening the existing rifts within the society they start to rule while also creating entirely new rifts in the process. The different parts of the nation which helped to move the culture of the country along now start to mistrust one another. There begins to form a sense of hatred for “the other”, while simultaneously an acceptance of intellectual inferiority of one’s own culture brews in their minds. Mostly a specific class starts to adopt Western values and mannerisms in an attempt to mimic their Western lords, to please them and gain favour from them. This idea slowly poisons the mind of people from all strata within the nation. An apt example would be the situation of the subcontinent (the gora complex). This belief still lingers on to this day. At this point the people willingly give up their own culture, let go of their identity to adopt an entirely new one making the job of the coloniser that much easier. The willing acceptance of the superiority of the white man is what led several nations to their doom.

According to Cabral due to the essential place of culture within a nation’s identity it is impossible for any national liberation movement to become successful or even begin without a step back towards the nation’s own roots. Any successful movement requires that the people embrace their culture fully and find guidance within. Culture helps bind people together around one final cause of freedom of their people from the oppression of the Western powers. Nations find cultural symbols and individuals who embody those symbols and values to rally the people around the cause. Many nations use their culture even after they gain liberation to keep individuals interested in the cause of the state and to keep nationalist feelings alive and burning within their hearts. They do it to find a direction to adopt after being given “a fresh start”, which is what Mobutu Sese Seko did exactly. It may not be the best path to adopt or even what Cabral meant when he talked about culture being the backbone of nationalist or liberation movements, but it the route many choose. Thus nationalism without culture is entirely impossible.