How important is culture to national liberation?

According to Cabral, the colonizer is able to oppress the colonized because of the negation of the culture of the colonized. Cabral keeps on arguing that the culture of the colonized is dynamic and a product of the history of the natives and hence is an expression of the continuity of history. The advent of the colonizer “paralyses” the culture of the colonized; makes it static because, essentially colonization ruptures time itself, for the colonized people are trapped in stale ideas of superiority and inferiority introduced by the colonizer.

Therefore, Cabral argues that the rediscovery and reinvention of African culture is pivotal to national liberation. Cabral, however, is clearly cognizant of the fault lines in this thesis. He argues that there is no uniform culture of the colonized people and culture varies across different social divisions within a society. He further claims that the process of cultural alienation deployed by the colonizer successfully creates an indigenous elite which either despises or is ignorant of the cultural values held by the masses. This is problematic because in absence of clear-cut objectives of the national liberation, these individuals adhering to the colonized mindset can become leaders of the national liberation and thereby they will reproduce the same social structures that the colonizer brought.

Cabral essentially talks about the “culture of the peoples of Africa”, which preserved despite massive repression by colonization, as the principle weapon in the struggle for selfhood. However, Cabral again is very conscious of the fact that national culture must not be glorified without keeping in view its shortcomings and that there is a need of a discourse with regards to culture itself and what it means for varying sections of the society from the peasants to the townsmen to the intelligentsia. He is arguing against viewing culture as a static entity, which is first and foremost a colonial legacy. He argues for the transformation and transcendence of various “cultures” into the nationalist culture through the principle of discourse. The discourse must also not be limited to varying sections within society but also needs to consider what the new, evolving culture can learn from other cultures, including the culture of the colonizer as an acknowledgement of what has happened and what needs to be done.

The objective of the nationalist struggle is that it should be free of all prejudice and exploitation and that is why it is necessary to examine what exactly the indigenous elite is fighting for within the struggle for national liberation. Is it the liberation of Africa or a selfish struggle to safeguard their individual interests? Cabral argues that armed nationalist struggle must be very cognizant of all these factors and must constantly try to create engagement within its ranks. He argues that the armed struggle is created by culture, but it is also creating culture. Cabral is talking about the restoration of the dynamism of Africa’s culture, and that is precisely how the nationalist struggle will heal the rupture in time caused by colonization.

For Cabral, there exists a striking commonality between foreign domination and its antithesis, national liberation, that of their understanding of, and engagement with, culture.

Calling culture, a vigorous manifestation of the materialist and historical reality of society, Cabral develops this notion further by analogizing it with a plant. The roots of which plunge into the material reality of the soil but, nevertheless, whose growth and vitality depends on factors beyond just its foundation based in forces of production. He uses this analogy to highlight just how dynamic the manifestation of culture is, and this analogy is always at the background of his speech, sometimes represented by an influenced flower, sometimes as the very seed of popular, mass indigenous resistance.

To describe culture in these terms allows for an understanding of the organic nature of the entire enterprise. Culture to Cabral is not static, in fact, he believes that culture untainted by foreign domination and intervention is on a trajectory guided by an organic process, like a plant that takes sustenance from its roots and grows if the external conditions are conducive. Imperialist domination, however, is the negation of, what he describes as, the true historical process of the oppressed people.

The Imperialist domination is only exacted by, and maintained, Cabral argues, by the harnessing, and subsequent creation of, particular manifestations of culture. Cabral’s notion of culture, and how it can be manipulated, is inextricably linked with class. He illustrates this relationship fully when he speaks of two broad categories of colonized peoples, the indigenous elite and the rural leaders.

The former is assimilated into the oppressor’s culture to such an extent that their own culture, their roots if one is to follow the analogy, becomes alienating for them. Strangers in their own land, they adopt the habits, sophistication, and tastes of the oppressors to the extent that they may even simply become unaware of the existence of a people, just like them, whom they share roots with. These assimilated elite, ones who Fanon would say to possess Black Skins but White Masks, are able to rise up the ranks and often take up the leadership of the national liberation struggle itself, something Cabral emphatically cautions against, in that their cultural alienation remains consistent long after foreign powers are cast off and this proves damning for all national liberation movements. The second category is that of the privileged groups in rural areas, they are similarly co-opted by the oppressive foreign regime but an emphasis in class is paramount in understanding their importance. Their cultural assimilation may be close to nil, but colonial administrations are able to harness, and sometimes create, their cultural authority over popular masses. Knowing full well of the dangers of the popular masses if they manifest anything culturally significant, colonial administrations support and protect the prestige of cultural influence of the indigenous ruling classes by granting them material privileges.

It is not to say that the groups discussed above are not interested in national liberation, given the material privileges that they exact via the oppressive regime, but, in fact, are almost always at the forefront of the struggle. Cabral is deeply suspicious of this and argues that their cultural assimilation, alienation, and supported cultural authority, allows for them to hijack the resistance and maintain the very structures that informed colonial oppression in the first place. This analysis is prophetic, in that it cuts across almost all instances of colonial administration and the subsequent national liberation movements they give rise to, consequences of which we see in almost all “independent” colonial states to this day.

Cabral makes a case that dominated peoples can only be culturally free when i) they understand the positive contributions of the oppressor’s culture, ii) of other cultures, iii) recapture the commanding heights of their own culture, and iv) equally reject the harmful influences of foreign culture. In this way, the dynamic nature of culture is revealed. He is simultaneously able to make an argument for the manifestation of a universal culture of resistance, one that does not necessarily rely on its roots alone, but also communicates with the sentiments of other liberation struggles, but, nevertheless, has it its own distinct character due to its distinct historical backdrop.

Cabral’s diagnosis of the problem is extremely sound, but his prescription is suspect of utopianism. The solution, Cabral thinks, is to, in a sense, cast away the very phenomenon that worsened and tightened colonial grip on the minds of the indigenous peoples. To meet this end, the national liberation struggle, one of a mass, popular kind, is indispensable and becomes a cultural phenomenon in itself.

The resistance, for Cabral, can bring together various social categories of people, including the two groups described above, into the fold of a single converging, popular, indigenous and mass national cultural force in the mold of an armed struggle. Through this armed resistance, itself, the indigenous ruling elite will become aware of the existence of their brethren, ones they could not even identify before, and the laboring masses will be able to cross the boundary of their village when they will see their indispensable role in the national liberation movement.

To Cabral, the national liberation will become a cultural reality in itself, clinging to which the identity of the entire indigenous populace, irrespective of their historical background, or if the analogy still flows, their roots, will take shape, and in doing so oppressed peoples will be liberated from their oppressor’s grip.

Cabral establishes that culture is “simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and determinant of history.” Given this, the task for imperial powers is to simply attack the colonial subjects’ culture—and historical progress—and take over the process of development of productive forces. Stripped off their history and denied the means to produce, the colonized find themselves to be a people without time.  Cabral’s central argument is that liberation from these circumstances—national liberation—is essentially the liberation of the colonized culture. The process he suggests requires the colonized people to liberate the process of development of national productive sources and to use them in the most fruitful way. Since these productive forces signal the stages of development and the material relationships man has with his environment, they form the basis for culture as a force of progress and as a weapon of opposition. The following analysis will elaborate on three ways in which Cabral highlights the importance of culture for the sake of national liberation: negating colonial supremacy, developing identity, and uniting regardless of class differences to liberate productive forces.  

The relationship identified between culture and history is integral to Cabral’s analysis. Culture is a sum of history and vice versa. Both signal the existence of a rich past and an identity. By denying this history and stamping on their culture, the colonial powers refuse to acknowledge that their colonized subjects had complex and organized societies of their own and that they too followed some kind of rational progression. This refusal is necessary because if the colonized people’s cultural and social development is considered, the European civilizing process would seem rather useless. Sure, the colonizers may still rightfully claim to be advancing faster but they could no longer be able to suggest that the colonized stands frozen in time. Thus, it is necessary to take away the colonized people’s past and show even to them that they are a people without history and culture, and they need their colonial masters to provide them with said history and culture. The colonial masters thus create a need for their intervention and a way to legitimize their control.

Another significant aspect of this process is the dehumanization and identity crisis that the colonial subjects are put through. Their culture is denounced and they are continually reminded of the differences between them and their rulers. This leaves behind the question of who the colonized really are and how they should be. What occurs then is a strange cultural appropriation. The colonized, who has been imagined a particular way by the colonizer, suddenly starts materializing. This can be seen in the example of Mobutu Sese Seko who epitomizes what the European vision of a Congolese president would be (in his leopard print cap). Mobutu is still an example from the postcolonial world. The confusion in the colonial world may have been even more heightened. The colonized, lacking any source of exposure to their own culture, would have been forced to be molded into the culture their colonial masters chose for them. What this also leads to is a disoriented notion of progress. Since, in the absence of one’s own culture, the only example of progress becomes the European model of progress, the colonized begin to compare themselves to the same standards. Therefore, the feelings of discontent and internalized inferiority emerge and strengthen over time.

The socialist vein in Cabral’s argument is evident. He recognizes that there is a need to take control of the productive sources because they determine how man interacts with each other and nature. Cabral also understands that culture within a same society differs based on one’s relationship with economic sources. Despite culture not being uniform, Cabral attempts to unite the people. His focus, unlike Marx, is not on class struggle but on the overall liberation of a people and their mode of production. There is an acknowledgment of social, political and economic conflicts that occur in a society with different social classes. Cabral states “history allows us to know the nature and extent of the imbalance and conflicts…which characterize the evolution of a society.” However, “culture allows us to know the dynamic syntheses…to resolve these conflicts at each stage of its evolution.” Thus despite internal conflicts, Cabral advocates for a strong recognition of one’s history and culture because the latter ensure the “continuity” of the former despite all problems.

National liberation needs to occur through the “organized political expression of the culture of the people” to remind them of their history not simply for the sake of record keeping but in order to establish a few things. First, acknowledgement of one’s own culture and history is important in competing against the colonial narrative and in negating legitimacy of colonial rulers who wanted to guide these people to civilization. Second, culture helps provide people with their own sense of identity, embedded in their own culture as opposed to fitting into the negative image developing out of the colonizer’s prejudiced mind. Lastly, culture and history remind the colonized to unite and take control of their productive forces and face the conflicts that follow by employing lessons they have learnt over time.

National liberation as a process for the colonized almost always came to defining who they were as a people. And one of the most defining features of this identity for Cabral is the local culture. For this very reason, culture became vital in anti-colonial struggle and thought, and in laying claim to one’s identity in opposition to that defined by the coloniser.

The continued existence of the coloniser in Africa was helped by the fact that it involved a constant negation of the personhood and entire history of the African people. And since culture for Cabral ensured the continuity of history, imperial control “must necessarily be the negation of its [Africa’s] cultural processes”. Since imperialist control by definition involved the negation of culture, efforts to take back control and reclaim history in a meaningful manner would necessarily involve reclaiming cultural values. What is interesting in this case is that Cabral does not call for a complete return to the culture and ways of the past. While remaining true to the roots is seen as desirable, culture is also seen as forever evolving and incorporating the way the world has progressed within it. Returning to the pre-colonial past as it was is not the best way to replace colonial rule. Cabral instead calls for an adoption of culture that is more cognizant of its own flaws and shortcomings.

The arrival of the coloniser in Africa interrupted a historical process, which would have led to a very different ‘developmental trajectory’ for the continent. One of the more prominent changes when it came to culture was the schism struck by conquest between the elite and the masses. The assimilation of a select group of people into the coloniser’s culture and language ensured that they were white in all but skin colour. This helped diminish the threat of a cultural conquest because all those who were in power, the “petit bourgeoisie” effectively considered the coloniser’s culture their own. The model national liberation movement for Cabral should be able to bridge these gaps and bring together the disparate groups in a single struggle that is predicated upon their common culture. The leaders and the laboring masses would be able to understand the worth of all actors involved and how instrumental the role of each is. He admires Eduardo Mondlane for this very reason: that he remained true to his cultural roots “despite all the attempts and the temptations of alienation from his African and Mozambiquan identity”. By bringing the leaders of the nationalist movement closer to the masses, local culture could be enriched and the movement used for the welfare of the people. Cabral’s ideal is however easier dreamt of than achieved. More often than not, the petite bourgeoisie are the pliant elite the coloniser would rather have them be, instead of a group that is well assimilated into the culture of the local population it claims to represent. Local culture is appropriated to the extent that any changes that are made end up being cosmetic, and do not achieve any substantive development because they are backed by the people who undermine that very culture and never identified with it in the first place.

The need to embrace and proudly express one’s own culture in the face of foreign domination is an idea that comes across eloquently in Cabral’s speech. Yet to strive against foreign domination, one has to acknowledge, or atleast have some inkling of the fact that they are being dominated by an external entity. What, then, does one say about a group of people who embrace this ‘new’ culture with utmost enthusiasm, who perceive the colonizer as a godsend rather than a threat to their existence. Why would they strive for deliverance from the colonizer when the colonizer Himself isthe liberation.      

This group of people, whom Cabral refers to as “indigenous elites” are those for whom involvement in the cultural liberation movement would mean losing their social status and “political authority”. In this case, colonial domination has not done much to change their way of life; the elite continue to exploit the masses via an uneven existence  and exercise their superiority by virtue of their “level of schooling, their scientific (and) technical knowledge”. One could argue that as far as “cultural superiority” goes, the native elites already presided at the top of the hierarchy; the colonizer, then, could perhaps have granted an increased level of legitimacy via chiefdoms, for example, without taking away from their already established state of local dominance. The native elite might simply consider their collaboration with the colonizer a mutually beneficial relationship. 

One might question, that if the native elites existed in a system where they were already powerful, why did they have to facilitate- via their complicity- the destruction of their homeland and the genocide of their people. Surely, one would think, some added legitimacy was not worth knowing that the colonizer would effectively ravage and plunder and abuse a homeland that belongs to them as much as it belongs to the “popular masses”. According to Cabral, the answer lies in “cultural alienation”. The affluent African internalizes the foreigner’s culture to the point where they are unable- or perhaps unwilling- to identify which is their own. However, one must address the likelihood that the local elite intended for this to be the outcome of their supposedly mutually beneficial relationship with the White Man. They would facilitate His destructive conquests, and He would allow, even encourage them, to assimilate into the world where the grass was greener. This is where the “opportunism” ran its course. A black person remains a black person regardless of their indoctrination into the White Man’s culture.

It is rather befitting how, in betraying their own kind in favour of the colonizer, the native elites were left alienated on both ends; stranded in the midst of a culture that would never see past their black skin and a culture that was now foreign to their white souls. They remain, in Cabral’s words, “unconverted individuals” in need of “re-Africanization” without which they will remain isolated from their motherland, from their people and perhaps even from themselves (owing to the fragmentation of their own identities). It is in the context of this cultural alienation and desire to be better than one’s fellow being that Cabral makes the simple yet profound observation: “all that glitters is not necessarily gold”.

Cabral is not patronizing towards the native elites in this respect. He acknowledges the power dynamics that keep them grounded in their relentless efforts to preserve their “class interests”. Perhaps it is the very human need for self-preservation that he empathizes with, ignorant though it may be. 

While culture reigns supreme in Cabral’s discourse on “National Liberation and Culture”, Cabral also develops a certain underlying ethic that he believes culture should be founded upon. Cabral places culture at the center of our realities, a center that he claims contains “the seed of protest, leading to the emergence and development of the liberation movement”. This beautiful analogy, if allowed, can be further extended to include water that nurtures and provides life to the fruit. This water is the ethic that accompanies a culture devoted to national liberation (my apologies if that was too corny).

This ethic includes a self-regulatory instinct that Cabral believes would keep culture from being exploited and falling into another cycle of oppression. Through constant “vigilance” of the type of culture being promoted, its origins, its strengths and its failings, we could gauge its impact and become more aware of our realities. But what does this extreme vigilance say about the national liberation itself?

Through this constant questioning Cabral makes the reader realize that the national liberation is always an ongoing and never ending process. Freedom is not simply handed to us once the oppressor leaves and the people are free from cultural domination. Since culture is ever-growing and evolving through the passage of time and is directly impacted by the political and economic spheres embedded in the society, the threat of it falling into the wrong hands is ever present. Thus, for Cabral true freedom is a process rather than a conclusive victory that is attained through remaining cognizant of one’s culture and history.

It is also important to note that this keen awareness of a culture’s ever changing nature shows how each nation has a different route to take on the road to liberation. It is simply not a one size fits all scenario but requires an acute understanding of the “historical and material realities” that shape that particular nation and a deeper knowledge regarding a popular culture that is present within the society.

Through this rigorous analysis, Cabral highlights one other feature of national liberation and its entanglement with culture. He points out how harmful the unwillingness of accepting the “positive contributions from the oppressors’ culture” can be and how the blindness towards the negative elements of one’s culture can hurt the movement. Essentially, there is no ‘perfect’ culture but through constant vigilance one could reach a safe middle ground.

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.

For Cabral, culture holds immense value as a tool of resistance by the colonised against colonial oppression, while also serving as a gateway to a “firmly entrenched domination” by the coloniser. It is cultural assimilation which largely enables the perpetuation of colonial rule in Africa, and it is cultural oppression which poses a challenge to it. Amilcar Cabral defines culture as the “materialist and historic reality of society being dominated” — a reality upon which the evolution of society is contingent upon. In pursuit of national liberation, culture serves as an essential armour against an erasure of history. Each society is afflicted with conflicts, and the antidote to them is found in the “dynamic syntheses” produced by its culture, which offer solutions to them. In the perception of national liberation employed by Cabral, the three main prongs of what culture entails — “continuity of history; progress of society in question, and a perspective of evolution” prove to be instrumental in establishing control over a society. The cultural personality of the colonised becomes an expression of either implicit collaboration with the coloniser, or of rejection of foreign invasion. The notion of liberation at a national level encompasses a story of a nation in a manner that the parts which make the whole do not lose their individual weight. According to Cabral, “culture is not the prerogative of one faction of the society” — and for the struggle against colonial domination, it is imperative to recognise that culture is not an overarching umbrella which paints the society with the same brush, but exists in various forms which need to be kept distinct, with a common thread of national liberation unifying them. Culture allows for an “understanding of, and integration with the environment, an identification with the fundamental problems, and an acceptance and possibility of change in the direction of progress.” Therefore, culture plays an integral role in striving towards liberation. 

Another distinction attributed to the notion of culture by Cabral is that of its ability to unify, but also to alienate. In Cabral’s view, culture can be expressed through assimilation with a foreign culture, which serves as a way of silencing dissent, and as a form of alienation in which the elites absorb cultural values of the invader, and in the process create a distance between them, and the masses. The road to liberation is paved with acquiring a consciousness which identifies this distance as a problem that ought to be addressed. To acquire this consciousness, building on the indigenous cultural values, beliefs, and norms, a “reconversion of minds” is necessary to become “reAfricanised.” What precedes national liberation is cultural domination exercised by the coloniser, which is embedded in the “class nature” of culture, that becomes more palpable and evident in the rural areas. In order to attain liberation, this dichotomy between the repression of the culture of the masses, and support and protection of the cultural influence of the ruling elite ought to be challenged and subverted. This is because in the context of rural areas, it becomes apparent that actual power is concentrated in the hands of the colonial administration, who exercise it with the collaboration of the native ruling class. This class of indigenous native elites come to be seen as black skins, wearing white masks. Culture holds a dualistic role for Cabral, who advocates its fundamental position in perpetuating domination, and its value in strengthening resistance. Culture acts as a potent tool of resistance, and as an integral part of national liberation movements because, in the words of Cabral, “not understanding the culture of Africa was a grave mistake that the Portuguese committed.” This blatant negation of an African culture by the Portuguese resulted in three subsequent wars of colonisation. This claim of establishing culture as an undeniable fact, lends credibility to the material reality of a society seeking liberation. 

Lastly, it is not sufficient to merely be cognisant of foreign domination resting on cultural oppression, because it is equally important to critically analyse, assess, and reevaluate aspects of native culture which do not contribute towards national liberation. A demarcation ought to be produced between the positive and negative aspects of African culture; its strengths and weaknesses; its essential and secondary characteristics, and between what is blindly accepted and exalted, and what ought to be embraced, cherished, and celebrated. It is easy to think of culture as all-embracing, but in pursuit of national liberation, the parts which make the whole need to be given their due weight and attention. These constituents of an overarching culture, each pertaining to a distinct social category, need to coalesce into a “single natural culture” which expresses itself in an armed struggle. For Cabral, culture is important when it manifests into an armed struggle, which functions as both a “cultural fact”, and as a “builder of culture.” Instead of transposing foreign methods of attaining national liberation onto a context where they might not be applicable, it is essential to increase political awareness, through a restructuring of native cultural values. This finds an expression into forms of popular, national, and scientific cultures, which then begin to oppose, challenge, and potentially subvert foreign domination. 

Cabrals understanding of cultural resistance is nuanced and inclusive. It accounts for various intricacies such as class, race and heterogeneous groups. He however recommends a counter intuitive action to his analysis; the selection of popular culture as the primary basis of the national liberation struggle, he states:

“…the liberation movement must, on the cultural level just as on the political level, base its action in popular culture, whatever may be the diversity of levels of cultures in the country”

This assertion rooted in practicality would not be problematic if Cabral in the very next paragraph did not emphasize the need to create a national framework where all kinds of cultures and peoples can be preserved, specifically:

“In order for culture to play the important role which falls to it in the framework of the liberation movement, the movement must be able to preserve the positive cultural values of every well defined social group, of every category, and to achieve the confluence of these values in the service of the struggle, giving it a new dimension–the national dimension”

In the initial quote Cabral discounts the need to account for diversity in creating popular culture; this empowers majority culture, whilst relegating minority cultures. History has shown us countless examples of the tyranny of the majority, in this case the imposition and domination of the popular culture against the sub-culture. Cabrals recommendation of creating the diversity-blind popular culture ignores the treatment of the Sunni-male, white American and communist towards the Shia-Female, African American and revisionist. The fact that inclusivity comes after the creation of the movement means that there is much room for exploitation and suppression. Even the example Cabral cites

 “the first phase of the liberation movement–can be planned efficiently only on the basis of the culture of the rural and urban working masses, including the nationalist (revolutionary) “petite bourgeoisie” who have been re-Africanized  or who are ready for cultural reconversion”

This caters to class-geographical groups i.e. rural-urban/ working class-bourgeoisie. Multiple identities are ignored, e.g. linguistic, religious, ethnic and gender. By creating a narrow, national, popular culture Cabral opens the door for a closed group that would claim to represent the voices of an entire mosaic of people. Furthermore it also provides the popular culture the opportunity to impose its will onto the minority sub-cultures. An abstract diverse national-framework seems like an afterthought and a rhetorical ploy, especially when contrasted with the specific and practical, popular culture. One could further postulate that it is a form of pacification of other groups; delaying urgent questions that require immediate answers to when after liberation is achieved.

Cabral throughout his piece is aware of class dynamics and sycophants- who may disguise themselves in the fervor of liberation. This perhaps signals that for Cabral a cultural liberation may transcend identity. Re-Africanization may mean unparalleled co-operation which moves beyond individual and group interests. He posits that culture is the underlying cause of varying levels of resistance/co-operation to the colonizer by members of the same ascendant class (e.g. the bourgeoisie). Culture makes a bourgeoisie work for liberation, despite it being against his self-interest. Does that mean that a cultural awakening would constitute a greater consciousness just as it would for an awakened proletariat? Cabrals Marxist roots are well known, so perhaps this is a hint of that influence. There is a strong emphasis on class throughout his analysis. A cultural awakening might have prevented exploitation or marginalization due to its higher consciousness. The weakness in this analysis however is the consistent inclusion of the bourgeoisie in the liberation struggle; class is second to cultural awakening?

If this theory does not hold, why then does Cabral ignore the potential tyranny of the majority that may result from a popular culture? Does he see the identity of African as so powerful that it would fuse all cultures into one overarching national culture? Is this why the term “Africanized” is used? However what can be established is that this tension in is not resolved in the text. Cabral attempts to reconcile this issue with the incorporation of a national framework but he fails to truly flesh it out, especially with this framework coming after the creation of the liberation movement. What stops the popular culture from dominating the minority, ignoring it all together? What stops the change from being cosmetic? What prevents the masters from simply changing the color of their skin?

Cabral potentially falls for the same pitfalls that he warns against, i.e. the liberation must not be anti-colonial. It is likely that in the struggle against the colonizer, unrepresented sub-groups would be supportive due to anti-colonial sentiments, as opposed to cultural. This is because the primary liberation movement would not grant the same cultural space to the smaller sub-cultures, meaning the major incentive to support the movement would be to oust the colonizer.  In fact a sign that even those people would be culturally awakened would be if they questioned the lack of representation in the popular and national culture. Belief in the equality and power of one’s own culture in relation to all cultures and subsequent rejection of subservience would mean that no sub-culture would allow itself to be sidelined. How then does Cabral expect culturally awakened people to step aside for the creation of a popular culture? If they do so are they still culturally awakened? Have they not allowed their people to become sidelined in the first instance of the liberation fight?

In an ideal world Cabral would be present, to respond. In a beautiful world Cabral would have the answer.