The centrality of Culture in National Liberation Movements

How important is culture to Cabral’s view of national liberation?

The liberation movement must besides achieve a mass character, the popular character of the culture, which is not, and cannot be the prerogative of one or of certain sectors of the society.

In his speech “National Liberation and Culture, Amilcar Cabral gives a nuanced and multilayered view of culture and the role it plays in national liberation movements. Amilcar Cabral perceives culture as one the main amour against foreign domination, stating the imperial rule cannot sustain without “permanent and organized repression of the cultural life of the people in questions”.

According to Cabral, for total imperial rule, the colonizer has to either liquidize entire population of the colonized country to prevent any form of cultural resistance or by “harmonize political and economic subjugation of the people with their cultural personality“. As the latter has yet to occur, Cabral sees the colonizers attempts to assimilate the native people and culture into their own as a way to subjugate the people and strengthen their own power without having to resort to complete annihilation. This so-called assimilation was simply another attempt of cultural colonization, to erase native history. Hence, for Cabral, if foreign domination is brought on by the subjugation of native culture, then national liberation is in fact, an act of cultural resistance. It is through recognizing and rebuilding their own culture that the colonized can hope to fight against the colonizers and their own destruction.

But that begs the question, what is culture to Cabral. From a superficial point of view, Cabral’s views of culture match Gandhi and Nyerere’s way of thinking. They too called for a rejection of Western mode of thinking as a method of opposition. But once, we go a bit deeper, Cabral view is more nuanced. Not to take away from their vision, but both Gandhi and Nyerere were harking back to a timeless past; a utopia where colonization never occurred and the natives (be it Africans or Indians) lived in simplicity and harmony. For Cabral, not only is that a futile endeavour, but it is also regressive and ultimately harmful to the national liberation struggle itself. For him, culture is a “vigorous manifestation of the materialist and historical reality of the society”. African culture is a dynamic, changing entity to Cabral. It is shaped by economic and political activities and the relationship between man and nature and between different social classes and group. It isnt free of class struggles but in fact produced out of it and is tied to the means and forces of production According to him:

“If history allows us to know the nature and the causes of the imbalances and conflicts (economic, political and social) which characterise the evolution of a society, culture teaches us what have been the dynamic syntheses, structured and established by the mind of society for the solution of these conflicts, at each stage in the evolution of this same society in the quest for survival and progress”.

While he does not believe in assimilating the cultures of the foreigner and the native, he does believe that in order to truly fight for liberation, one had to assert for the cultural personality of the people while at the same time acknowledging and rejecting the regressive aspects to that same culture. To him, a national liberation movement that is based on “blind acceptance of cultural values” and the “systematic exaltation of virtues without any criticisms of faults” is doomed to fail. Thus Cabral’s believes and shows that African cultures are not monolithic but in fact, capable of evolution and development, a feat granted solely European cultures.

For Cabral, the basis of a national liberation movement is the profound knowledge of all cultures of the different social categories of the nation as well an appreciation for the uniqueness of each element of the culture. The struggle must he believe achieve not just a culture with a mass character but also that of a popular culture that is representative of more than just the petty bourgeoisie and rural and urban elite of the land who have become culturally alienated to the rest of the society. It should representative of all categories of the society as then and only then would the masses be interested in fighting for revolution.

Ultimately, Cabral’s view of culture and national liberation are intimately tied to another. While culture acts as the basis for the liberation movement, the movement also results in the development of popular culture. Cabral acknowledges the numerous different cultures in Africa and calls for a movement that incorporates them and evolves into a culture that rejects exclusivity by skin colour or gender or class and welcomes and gives equal weight to all the different elements of that new culture.

How important is culture to Cabral’s view of national liberation?

Amilcar Cabral answers this question in his text, defining national liberation as “the organized political expression of the culture of a people undertaking the struggle against colonialism/imperialism”. The first two-thirds of Cabral’s essay can be understood as an explanation of the definition stated above. Systematically, he explains that the expression and affirmation of culture is simultaneously the source, the spirit and the end of any national struggle to overthrow foreign domination. To explain this, he answers three questions: What is the culture of a people? How does it threaten colonial rule? How can one systematically organize a political expression of culture to then resist colonial rule? The first two theoretical questions are what I shall engage with in this post, and in so doing, I will seek to summarize his main argument and so, provide a thorough answer to the question “how important is culture to Cabral’s view of national liberation?” In short, very.

What is Culture?

Cabral’s argument rests on his materialist understanding of culture. For him, culture is a reflection of a society’s mode of production. Two factors, he argues, determine a society’s mode of production:

the level of development of the productive forces of society – the manner in which people relate to nature/their capacity to act or to react in response to nature
the system for social utilization and distribution of the products made by productive forces, which determine relationships between individual men and different social classes and groups.

These two factors, which together constitute a people’s mode of production, reflect the way the society is ordered – it encapsulates a people’s entire mode of relating to the world, to others, and to themselves – which, when expressed, is known as culture. Cabral’s definition of culture thus is “the conscious result of the economic and political activities of a society – the dynamic expression of the kinds of relationships that prevail in that society, on the one hand between man and nature, and on the other hand, among individuals, groups of individuals, social strata or classes”. It is the “vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality” of a society – an affirmation that this society is real, there, and present!

Cabral further argues that a people’s mode of production also determines their history and evolution. “The mode of production, whose contradictions are manifested with more or less intensity through the class struggle, is the principle factor of the history of any group, the level of the productive forces being the true and permanent driving power of history”. Change, progress, time – these ideas are charted through changes in a people’s material relationship towards their mode of production – the result of challenges and oppositions amongst the people on how to effectively and efficiently channel their productive forces and distribute and utilize its rewards. To chart this is “to speak of these is to speak of history,” Cabral asserts, “ but it is also to speak of culture”. Culture encapsulates these changes, or rather, the lessons learnt from these changes into the character of the culture it represents. Cabral argues that “if history allows us to know the nature and extent of the imbalance and conflicts which characterize the evolution of society, culture allows us to know the dramatic syntheses which have been developed and established by social conscience to resolve these conflicts at each stage of its evolution, in the search for survival and progress”. Culture holds within it the means of a society’s perpetuation, it’s survival, it’s progress. The metaphor Cabral employs of culture as a flower is now clear – it both represents a culture and is responsible for its continuity, its evolution, it’s growth.

How does it threaten colonial rule?

Having understood what culture means to Cabral, his claim that the affirmation of culture as imperative to any national struggle for liberation becomes clear. Foreign domination, Cabral asserts, is “the negation of the organic historical process of the dominated people by means of violently usurping the free operation of the process of development of their productive forces”. In taking control, they usurp the means of production for their own ends, and cut off a society’s personal relation to that which orients their sense of self, of each other, and of the land. It is their culture that they can turn to – therein resides the seeds to affirm and ensure the safety and continuity of their indigenous way of life, and so, therein resides the seeds to generate resistance against foreign intervention and usurpation of what is theirs. Culture is an affirmation of a way of being specific to the land, specific to the people, and if affirmed during a period of domination, keeps people empowered despite their material subjugation, and so, is threatening to the colonizer, the dominator. If the dominator does not simultaneously arrest and oppress the cultural life of the people it has taken over then “foreign domination cannot be sure of its own perpetuation.” Thus, how Cabral starts his essay, referencing Goebbels pulling out a revolver whenever culture was discussed is poignant – domination, true domination and control over a people can only be maintained if culture is liquidated. This results in the creation of racist theories and systems of thought that seek to negate the existence or the value of the indigenous culture in favor of that of the oppressors – it is fed into the people and emphasized as superior, or, at least, obedience to their own culture is demanded and enforced. If culture is not affirmed, or re-learnt, it can result in self-hate, cultural alienation, and stunted development for a people – removed from their means of production that no longer serve their ends, but to the benefit of the foreign power.

The foundation of national liberation, to Cabral, rests in “the unalienable right of every people to create their own history…to reclaim the right, usurped by imperial domination… the liberation of the process of development of national productive forces”. If liberated, then the people will be allowed to determine the mode of production most appropriate for their collective well-being, and so allow for organic cultural development, growth, and progress, suited to their needs and desires. “A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally if they return to their upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of their own environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture.” Cabral highlights how many national liberation struggles are preceded by an increase in expression of culture, to affirm the cultural personality of the dominated people as a means of negating the oppressors culture. Thus, his definition is clarified: “it may be seen that if imperial domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture…the organized political expression of a colonized people”. Culture, thus, is the source, the spirit and the end of national liberation.

Culture and National Liberation

“Culture plunges its roots into the physical reality of the environmental humus in which it develops, and it reflects the organic nature of the society, which may be more or less influenced by external factors.”

Cabral writes of National liberation and culture as intertwined concepts inseparable from one another. For Cabral, the importance of culture to national liberation movements is rooted in its importance to domination. His text is thus an exercise in showing the interrelationality of modes of production, history and culture. In all, of Africa’s image of itself. Here I will read the text closely in an attempt to show the relationship of the modes of production/class struggle to culture and how Cabral sees this understanding as instrumental for the making of national liberation movements.

Cabral outlines the relationship of cultural domination and material extraction from the start of the text. He describes this as inherent to the Imperialistic project, stating that the material ambitions of Empire could only be actualised “by the permanent, organized repression of the cultural life of the people concerned.” Here, it is important to ask what the material allows for the cultural and vice versa? Cabral identifies the modes of production as the method through which a nation knows its material relationships. “of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies”. By controlling the modes of production, which Cabral outlines as “the true and permanent driving power of history”, Imperialism demarcates the material relationships that (wo)men can have and can not have within their own country. How (wo)men are allowed to interact with certain segments of society is prescriptive to how its history and culture will develop. While Cabral states that history allows for us to know the nature and extent of the disparity and conflict caused by Imperialism it is in “culture there lies the capacity (or the responsibility) for forming and fertilizing the seedling which will assure the continuity of history, at the same time assuring the prospects for evolution and progress of the society in question.” He further states “it is generally within the culture that we find the seed of opposition, which leads to the structuring and development of the liberation movement”. By limiting the material relationships of these countries, Imperialists effectively stunted the development of both histories and cultures. This proved instrumental in how native populations processed and reacted to foreign domination. The control of culture meant that native populations were subjugated into material domination. Thus, for Cabral the “seed of opposition” needed for national liberation movements could only be reversed by the effects of culture.

“Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture.”

The commitment and attitude towards a national liberation movement was also determined by the varying levels of culture present within society. The fact that material conditions underlied the formation of these varying levels is a comment on culture and how intrinsically tied it remained to imperial forms of domination. The “horizontal and vertical distribution of levels of culture” and the bolstered local elite was the product of Imperialism. For material domination to be successful, Imperialists recognised the need to develop a system of ‘cultural alienation’ that removed the local elite from the concerns of the masses. As a result of the social distance created, the local elite continued to reproduce this system of inequality long after the colonists had left. Cabral points to the danger of assimilating these men into National Liberation movements precisely for this reason and states the process of Re-Africanization as the only remedy. This serves as an example to the kinds of culture that need to be at the centre of the movement: “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. The cultural combat against colonial domination–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.” Cabral qualifies what culture is dangerous and what isn’t for the liberation movement.

For Cabral, culture was rooted in the material which could not be separated by the implications of Imperialism. How he situated culture at the centre of national liberation movements was tied directly to how he viewed them as invariably manipulated by imperial domination.

Culture: the driving force behind national liberation

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.

Cabral and National Liberation

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.

Culture: power dynamics and internal divisions

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.

Cabral on Culture

Amilcar Cabral’s 1970 speech reads like a forewarning of what is to befall the then newly liberated nations of Africa- a liberation that does not bring any significant material changes in the lives of the citizens of these nations. Culture is a variable that cannot be overlooked within national struggles because it is both a means of maintaining colonial domination by creating a class of native elite that is alienated from its own cultural context and has few or no qualms about upholding colonial systems that repress their own people. For him, the political and economic domination of a population is very closely intertwined with the denigration and domination that the colonised people’s cultures are subject to. Culture is more of less a manifestation of the politics and economy of a society and is tied to the forces of production and the means of the production. Long after the local people’s means of organising themselves and their means of production are made unsustainable by colonial rule, the culture that emerged out of them continues. The national liberation struggle becomes an instrument for the development and perpetuation of the nation’s culture as people from different segments of society mingle, reaffirming a common culture and deriving a sense of pride from it.

“Not without a certain surprise, they discover the richness of the spirit, the capacity for argument and for clear exposition of ideas, the ease with which they understand and assimilate concepts that the masses have- they the masses, who only yesterday were ignored if not despised and considered by the colonisers and seen by some nations, as lesser beings.”

(page 45)

The African continent’s cultures are dynamic entities that are not stuck in time. His speech affirms that a culture, that is capable of growing and undergoes multiple stages of development, is not the purview of only European people. Cabral’s speech becomes an indictment of the depiction of Africa and her culture as static. His description of African culture does not present it as a monolith

Cabral’s national liberation is different in that it does not hark back to a romanticised past for inspiration and neither does it idealise culture. His vision of liberation looks to the future where culture can evolve to accommodate the material realities of the world. He acknowledges the negative aspects that exist within a culture and does not justify them out of misplaced loyalty. Instead, he calls for a complete disavowal of all that is wrong with the colonised people’s cultures including the disparity between genders, nepotism, traditions and rites that pose a risk and gerontocracy. His speech paves way for an Africanization that contributes to a more egalitarian and participatory society. Cabral’s speech advocates for a popular culture that is inclusive of all classes, both urban and rural residents and women. He ponders on questions of what a new nation must look like and is adamant that it does not end up becoming one where the national culture is reduced to that of the petty-bourgeois and urban elite but reflects adequately the culture and conditions of all sectors of society. The mission of liberation is not just to free the elite of colonialism but also rid masses of the exploitation they face at the hands of the coloniser and his abettors.

2070

We are in LUMS. The year is 2070. The best culture has won. Everyone speaks English, wears Gucci belts and blazers, carries apple mac books, and eats chicken sandwiches. There is harmony in everything. All the disciplines are the same. History is the history of the Culture. Literature are the stories of the Culture. Everything is from the lens of the Culture. SDSB trains you to be resourceful to the economy. The engineering school focuses on maximizing the utility of human body through science. Our motto is earnest creation of labor for the world’s market and economy. For the global good. It is only through standardized quality, technological advancement, and specialized labor that the doors of development and progress can be opened.

The Pakistan I was born was entrenched in chaos and anarchy. Angry men took to the streets, burnt tyres, destroyed automobiles and chanted slogans in the name of national liberation. The speeches that were aired on television comprised of sentiments that aimed to protect the Pakistani culture which, according to the men, was being replaced by the Western culture. I remember my first day of school. It was recess time. I was sitting in a circle with my class fellows, and eating lunch. Our teacher was called to the principal’s office. When she came back, she had an expression of frustration and weariness on her face. She grabbed us by our arms, and took us to the basement. We stayed there till dark. She told us that bad men were outside so as long as people stayed inside, they were safe. That day, a fear settled in. I grew up praying that the men would disappear from Earth. Why did they want to burn shops and hurt people? What did they want to preserve? Their idea of food and those weird clothes? What they frequently called “pakistaaniyat”? Why did they hurl abuses at English medium schools, western attire (my attire), office jobs and recreational life? Why did they warn the country to reject Western ideas or we would lose our freedom as a nation?

These questions remain unanswered till today. In what they rejected, I saw success. All successful men of the past that I studied about in school dressed up in pant suit, wore oxford boots, and carried laptop bags with them. My rich friends’ fathers also wore the same clothes, spoke the same language, and lived the same lifestyle. The country’s Prime Minister, President, and ministers were the same. These men lived a life of happiness, luxury and ease. They were always on a vacation in Europe or the States, ate European cuisine, played soccer and golf, and listened to American pop music. Young boys wanted to grow up to be just like them.

Standing in the PDC counter queue, I know what I will be having for dinner. There is no unnecessary city wars about food; about how the Kashmiri chaye isn’t authentic, or how the biryani tastes like pulao because Lahoris can’t differentiate between the two. I will watch a soccer match at the Student Lounge after dinner. There is no hustling due to a loud and charged crowd of students for a Karachi Kings versus Lahore Qalandars match. On the weekend, LUMS will host a rising singer with a British accent for a concert which I will attend. No one bats an eye about why Coke Studio’s renditions continue to destroy classic music, or how tabla and raag should be taught in schools. Everything is standardized. All people agree with each other. There are no arguments. No one feels the need to dress a certain way, or eat a certain cuisine, or speak a certain language for the purpose of identity, culture, or resistance. None of it matters, because everyone is the same. The world is a simple and harmonious place to live in.

Cabral and the Palestinian National Liberation Movement

As someone belonging to Guinea-Bissau, a Portuguese colony, Cabrals entire argument circulates around the importance of culture in the national liberation of Africa. He particularly stresses on the importance of the African culture and defuncts any misconceptions about the richness of it. According to him, the link between colonialism and culture of the colonised is particularly important for “the greater the differences between the culture of the oppressed people and that of the oppressor, the more possible such a victory becomes.” Cabral premises this argument on the basis of the African example and how their dense culture created an easier path for the Europeans to dominate, thus alluding to the in-depth African colonial crisis.

The question however, of Cabrals main argument, still remains. Does the highest form of imperialism really come from cultural domination, and how can this be reverted?

According to Cabral, culture is the main steering force in colonial and post-colonial societies. In the former, the coloniser “not only creates a whole system of repression of the cultural life of the people colonised, but also arouses and develops the cultural alienation of a section of the populace either by the so-called assimilation of the indigenous people or by the creation of a social abyss between an indigenous elite and the popular masses.” In case of the latter, Cabral suggests the colonised people to rid themselves of the western influence (in case of Africa) through a certain set of rules. “The liberation movement must base its program on profound knowledge of the culture of the people, and it must be able to appreciate the elements of this culture, giving to each its due weight, and also, appreciate the various aspects levels it has reached in each social category.”

Colonialism, now almost a benign term, has caused great tumult across the world, and hence, the question of decolonisation remains pertinent and ever-integral to the given debate. While from most places, colonisers have physically withdrawn leaving behind a lasting post-colonial influence, some parts of the world still suffer where its native people are continuously struggling in a call for decolonisation- all in an effort to rid themselves of the occupier, at least physically. The case of Palestine and Israel is one example.

This piece will be focused on looking at the Palestinian Liberation Struggle in light of what Cabral said years ago, and shall aim to see if it is still relevant or not.

The anachronistic debate of the creation of Israel remains at the heart of the given conflict, however for this piece it may be convenient to elude that the Israelis occupied the Palestinian land in early 1900s and since then, the natives have been struggling to reclaim their territories. After three Arab-Israeli wars and two dreadful intifadas, Palestinians still remain devoid of their homeland.

Cabral may argue that this dominance is mainly rooted in the polarised cultures of the two communities for the farther they are to each other, the easier it is to dominate. And if we look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this may well be true. Since Jews did not belong to one homogenous nation, they brought with them different cultures and traditions of different countries. The Ashkenazi Jews brought with them German and Western European tastes, while the Sephardics brought forward Spanish and North African ideas. Similarly the Mizrachis came from areas like Iraq and Yemen, bringing their culture. Eventually they all settled down in what we now know as Israel, and developed a new, seemigly homogenous, culture of what was to define an Israeli. For the most part, they lacked one coherent culture and hence, most possibly, their religious practices started overlapping with their cultural ones. The kippah (a Jewish cap) became the sign of an Israeli, while they also started incorporating “hummus and falafel” in their cuisines and claiming it to be purely Israeli.

This settler colonialism raised staggering questions of how this new culture was even being formed. However in the early years, the main focus, as Frantz Fanon puts it, was on decolonising through violence- an attempt that has clearly not worked so far.

If one needs to make sense of how deeply entrenched this Israeli settler colonialism still is, Cabral is unarguably the best at giving us a rational and relevant argument. It can be seen how the Israelis came in as different groups and ethnicities, took over the land, knit picked from the Palestinian culture and eventually formed their own brand of it in the new land. Many years have passed by and the Palestinians after having exhausted most systems of violence have now resorted to something more interesting – something Cabral seems to have suggested years ago. They are now, quite literally, using their Arab culture to wage a war against Israel in an effort to nationally liberate and decolonise themselves.

The Palestinians, now more than ever, are raising voices on things that seemingly don’t matter in such a long lasting and dreadful conflict. They are starting to call out the Israelis on the culture they have apparently stolen from the Arab land, and in effect, proving the point of Palestines existence as something that dates way before Israel itself. An example of this is something as simple as the whole idea of “hummus and falafel” being at the heart of Israeli cuisine.

Another example of Palestinians trying to gain national liberation is through their cultural dance “Dabkeh”. The dance, over the years, has become a prominent symbol of the struggle and even more so, the Palestinian identity. The dance has not only been performed in the bruised war zones of Gaza Strip as a symbol of the Palestinian spirit, but also across the world in different academic campuses, where the Arabs unite in a common cause for Palestine and send out messages of an impending national liberation. The dance, which was previously seen as a mere art form, is also now seen as a threat to Israelis and their identity and a way to further to Palestinian interest.

Lastly and most importantly, stands the Palestinian keffiyeh. The scarf, a seemingly plain piece of cloth, has now come to represent and embody the Palestinian nationalist struggle as a whole. It is worn by Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with it, all across the world, and is celebrated as a symbol of pride that Palestine brings to them. A recent controversy cropped up by the American chain “Urban Outfitters” reasserts its power. The clothing line started selling the keffiyeh in stores across the US, calling it an “anti-war scarf”, and soon Jewish people rose up against its sale, eventually leading to the chain removing it. This incident in particular, reaffirms Cabrals argument on how central culture is in waging a war against the coloniser, and how impactful it can be. The keffiyah is now a common sight across the Gaza Strip into the worlds biggest airport and famous coffee shops. This suggests that while some maybe fighting an on-ground war in Palestine and Israel itself, this culture representation and struggle has made the cause a lot more common to those who are far and alien to it. Moreover, this also seems to internationalise the conflict and in effect, puts more pressure on Israel as though there is a new Yasser Arafat being born with every new keffiyah being worn.

Farah Abdel Jawad, a Palestinian carrying out a pro-Palestinian protest in the United States while wearing her keffiyah.

Can ‘White Masks’ lead change?

After reading Nkrumah and Nyerere’s stirring works, one finds Cabral’s piece slightly less accessible. While his musings on culture and its relevance are evocatively conveyed, but one can’t help noticing that his audience is more exclusive than that of the other two leaders. He clearly distinguishes between the two types of culture in prevalent in Africa. One is the African culture itself and stresses its importance for national liberation by asserting that ‘as with the flower in a plant, it is in culture that you find the capacity (or responsibility) for the production and the fertilizing of the seed which ensures the continuity of history’. The second culture he alludes to is the one exported by the colonizers (the Portuguese in his country’s case) and portrayed as one that is either threatened by the natives or imposed upon the naïve elite. One notices that it is these elites seem to be the targeted audience of Cabral’s paper. Rather than addressing the children of Africa as a whole, like the previously mentioned leaders did, Cabral talks to these men with black skin and white masks and seems to be entrusting them with the responsibility to relieve Africa of her pain.

It first becomes evident that this exposition is not meant for a smaller audience after Cabral alludes to the two cultures that exist but does not go into descriptions of either of these cultures. Rather he focuses on ‘culture’ itself and attempts to theorize it as both a driver of history and a significant threat to a foreign invader and sums these two up by saying that ‘it is therefore seen that imperialist domination being the negation of the true historical process of the oppressed people, it must necessarily be the negation of its cultural processes’. He is aware that his readers are more interested in cause and effect relationships rather than long descriptive pieces about a culture they view as ‘primitive’. In fact, after distinguishing between these types he talks about the native elite and hoe the colonizer ‘also arouses and develops the cultural alienation of a section of the populace either by the so-called assimilation of the indigenous people or by the creation of a social abyss between an indigenous elite and the popular mass’. He out rightly says that these people are not fit to lead liberation movements because of the cognitive divide that exists between them and the natives, a claim that is bound to incite them. This provocative claim begs the question; who is fit to lead freedom movements? He talks about how there are developments to be made as far as African culture is concerned and that mobilization is a trying task for them. Although it is absurd to suggest that the colonizers organize liberation movements he does make sense when he talks about the colonizers being able to exploit economic needs and local leaders thirst for power. The fact that these desires exist within people from Portugal as well as Africa means that they cannot be brushed under the carpet and it makes more sense for people to acknowledge their existence and deal accordingly. Technically, even the idea of national liberation is a western inspired concept. Should it be abandoned on these grounds?

Cabral makes sure not to end on a bleak note. He proposes that the leaders already chosen are the ones fit to rule because they have some understanding of and appreciation for western logic, which is important if new states are going to be members of the international arena. They will be able to integrate with the indigenous population they are leading and learn about the culture they were always taught to neglect. He maintains that culture is essentially the driving force behind national liberation movements but it needs to be fine-tuned where required as ‘culture, like history is necessarily a dynamic, moving phenomenon’, and that these particular natives may successfully do so. He doesn’t evoke a timeless past or fantasize about Pan Africanism but he does give a certain (very capable) segment of society hope that they can lead their nations and be forces of benevolence for their country. Of course it is problematic to assume that only certain people are capable of being leaders but one begins to think of how much this really matters. Apart from making no suggestion to keep reproducing a single class worthy of leadership, Cabral seems to be telling the people of liberation movements that they have made a step in the right direction by choosing these men as leaders and tells these leaders that they should use their privilege to harness good and should aspire to be noble leaders.