It has been
pointed out that the assassination of Amilcar Cabral marked the end
of a sequence of history (Michael Neocosmos) namely the end of
politics through armed struggles. In the process of thinking and
re-thinking the legacy of Amilcar Cabral is it possible to say
anything that has not been already said, either by himself, or by
those who have written about him? Is it possible to go beyond just
citing words and/or phrases that reconnect to his vision of an
emancipated Africa? Is it possible to accept that, from the end of
WWII, if not before, history has unfolded as imposed by the most
powerful economic and political forces.
Discussing Amilcar Cabral, in a way, is no different from discussing other iconic and revolutionary figures whose lives were cut short precisely because of how they were perceived by their enemy. The long history of freeing Africa and Africans from the legacies of enslavement, colonization, apartheid, globalization seems like a never-ending task. The task could be made easier if one’s understanding of the above legacies were not too intimately tied to the Enlightenment.
In this
essay, I would like to argue that one of the reasons Africa and
Africans, and especially the poorest, are not better than they were
in 1973 (possibly worse off), has to do, in part, with an inadequate
understanding of how capitalism rooted itself in Africa, while
uprooting its people, its culture, its history, and, at the same time
pushing the splitting of humanity to levels that will make the task
of coming back together appear impossible.
While most
theorizers of capitalism and the processes linked to its expansion do
mention violence, to my knowledge, none has really focused on the
impact of cumulative violence on both sides. In addition, most
theorizers, even if they may deny this, focus on the economic and
financial impact of capital. The political and ideological impact
resulting from the violence has not received the same kind of
attention that the equation labor-capital has received. If capital,
for the sake of its survival, shall feed on states, any of them, it
will do so.
The
financialization of capital and the kind of impunity it rests on must
be analyzed through a theorization of how violence has been exercised
while, at the same time, not being presented as violence. The
towering dominance of finance capital is deeply connected with the
violence present, represented and accumulated over the years in
military organizations like NATO and the nuclear arsenals of
countries with nuclear capability. In turn that latent violence which
hangs over humanity like a Damocles sword has historical roots in
processes that tend to be seen as separate. Ideologically speaking,
capital and capitalism must be presented in the same light as, say
the history of the US: the best, the greatest, incapable of
committing crimes against humanity. The ruthlessness of capital,
under any of its historical sequences, has been sanitized to the
point of turning it into the “only acceptable alternative”.
The political
and ideological power that has resulted from the violence inflicted
during slavery and colonization deserves greater attention if the
economic, political and cultural transitions are going to be
understood, whether from slavery, colonial, apartheid to
post-slavery, post-colonial, post-apartheid times. In a nutshell, the
argument can be summarized as follows: from slavery through the
current era called “globalization”, a type of power has emerged
on a global scale that has not be given a name, as yet. In addition
the cumulative effect of violence, physical and psychic has led to
the emergence of a world in which violence will often take forms that
have nothing or little to do with violence as is understood. To this
kind of overwhelming power that is almost impossible to assess, one
should add the power of technology. The creative side of technology
is overemphasized while its destructive capacity has been growing
beyond the imaginable.
For example,
through advertizing (supposedly focused on creativity), consumers are
led to believe that a given product (while in reality lethal for
one’s health) is not only desirable, but also will enhance one’s
health, and how one will feel, look, etc. Thus, while living under a
socio-economic system that could be described as the most predatory
in the history of humanity, humans seem to be unaware and/or
unconcerned that, in the words of Aimé Césaire, “We have entered
a tower of silence where we have become prey and vulture.” Indeed,
one could convey the same idea by wondering whether capitalism has
become the nicotine of humanity.
If it were to
be analyzed in detail, this kind of power, rooted in how capitalism
has imposed itself could lead one to conclude it has achieved the
kind of dominance that Nazi leaders could never ever have dreamed of.
Yet, it would be wrong to look at the end of WWII (i.e. how it came
about, as a singular turning point. What is needed is a history of
transitions (from slavery to colonization to apartheid to
globalization) of capitalism, focused on where and how the
concentration of economic, political, financial power was built.
One of the
starting points has to be how the post-WWII has been presented by the
powers that have been in control of that process: as a period that
has brought greater progress, peace and security to everyone, under
the twin aegis of capitalism and the United States. This narrative
must be questioned in view of the crossroads in which humanity finds
itself today. Asking for the narrative to be questioned does not mean
that one has reached a conclusion with regard to how one should call
the times under which we are living, but questioning at all times
while maintaining fidelity to humanity can be the only way of
maintaining fidelity to emancipatory politics.
Cabral’s
famous warning about not claiming easy victory comes to mind. Yet, it
could be argued that, in fact, systematically, at every transition
there has been something akin to “claiming an easy victory”, or
thinking that because some victories had been achieved, the rest, as
Nkrumah so famously put it, will follow. In Frelimo’s publication
during the struggle, an editorial was written, very critical of
Nkrumah. Was Cabral thinking of Nkrumah when he issued his warning
about not claiming easy victories?
As in any
scientific endeavor, emancipatory processes, if they are going to be
successful, can never end, if only because the temptations of one
group seeking to take advantage of the rest is always going to be
present. One of the difficulties, if not the principal one, is that
the nature, form and appearance of the challenges will never be the
same. Thus, Samora’s probing question “Who is the Enemy?”
cannot ever have a prefabricated, or ready-made answer. It requires a
constant battle whose shape, form, organization will never be the
same. Sounds obvious, but is it? One of the reasons why there has
been a tendency to claim easy victories (whether over slavery,
colonization, Nazism or apartheid) comes from the imposition of
historical narratives that see no connections (or very few) between
these various phases when, in reality, the connections are
structural, and should lead to constant re-examination.
For example,
is it far fetched for an author like Claude Ribbe to look at Napoléon
Bonaparte as a precursor of Hitler? Ribbe’s book focuses on how
Napoleon ordered the restoration of slavery when he came to power.
How that process was carried out may lead historians to other
conclusions, but there is no doubt about how horrific it was
(instructions coming from the highest levels were to make no
prisoners, and asphyxiate them in massive numbers in the ship howls
before throwing the dead bodies in the ocean). Moreover, Napoleon’s
intentions were made clear: make the punishment as severe as possible
so that the enslaved would think twice before engaging in
overthrowing slavery. In other words, there are parts of the history
of capitalism and/or nations that became powerful through its
expansion that are considered sacred and untouchable. If impunity is
going to be addressed seriously, then let it be done in a manner that
does not flinch at investigating some of the most deeply embedded
causes.
The enemy
that allowed slavery to be abolished was actually working at
modernizing slavery, i.e. getting rid of those shackles that were
considered as obstacles on the growth of capital. The enemy that was
later defeated in Indochina, Kenya, Algeria was in the process of
modernizing its arsenal. This process has nothing to do with
conspiracy theory; rather it has to do with the transition from
colonization by European countries to US capital overtaking the
latter. It has to do with the obvious: reconnecting histories that
have continued to be treated as separate and unrelated to each other.
The history
of the politics of emancipation as it has unfolded in Africa is one
that should generate a process of rethinking à la Cabral. This would
mean that emancipatory politics must understand the trajectories of
colonization, apartheid, globalization, better than those who think
that given that they always have won, there is no other lesson to
learn from anyone, let alone from those who have been systematically
slaughtered because their resistance was described as backward,
barbarian, etc.
1. Power,
violence and impunity
At the root
of the long process of conquering Africa, one finds violence
exercised with impunity. The end result, as can be seen today, is a
practice of power that, implicitly and/or explicitly states that
“power is only power if it is exercised with impunity”. In order
to understand this, one has to look at the cumulative violence that
has been unleashed for centuries, most of which went unrecorded in
the annals or archives of the conquering forces.
It is not
enough to note, as most observers do today, that there are two
international justice systems, one at the service of the most
powerful nations, corporations and one at the service of the weakest.
For the latter, an arsenal of humanitarian, charitable organizations
have been put in place since the days of the abolitionist movement in
England, in particular, but not only.
Humanitarianism
has a history longer than the birth of the United Nations and most
charitable organizations. Humanitarianism can be looked at the manner
in which the most powerful show their power to the weakest. Justice
that is practiced out of charity is not justice. When adjectives
begin to be added to justice, such as “social justice”, then one
should be alerted to the fact that justice means different things to
different groups of people.
For power to
be exercised with impunity, the violence behind it must not be
interpreted as questionable, or unjust. The most powerful nations and
corporations are not interested in examining the
reverberations/repercussions of how they exercise their power. It has
reached levels of unaccountability that are usually associated with
dictatorial rule.
For example,
when it is decided in a given place that a group of people must be
liquidated because one person has been identified as a threat to the
well being of those controlling economic, political and financial
power. Such a process makes a mockery of justice and reframes the
parameters of international relations in a way that becomes
impossible to challenge because impunity has become part and parcel
of the definition of power as exercised by the most powerful.
2. Education,
history
If one looks
at the interest in history during the liberation struggles and the
immediate aftermath, it is not difficult to notice that history was
an important topic. Education was equally important. The reasons were
obvious: if people were going to be mobilized to fight colonial rule,
then it was important for them to understand its roots and how it
worked, both physically and mentally.
The
correlation between knowing the past, the present and the future was
crucial in the success of the armed struggles for liberation. If one
takes the example of Frelimo and the teaching of who the enemy is,
during the armed struggle, it is not difficult to see how crucial
education and history were as mobilizing weapons. When the colonized
(or the enslaved) stand up and affirm themselves as not colonized, as
free, they state that they count in a way that goes counter to how
they had been treated by the enslavers and/or colonizers. However,
that affirmation does require constant updating if the pitfall of
National consciousness (or claiming easy victories) is going to be
avoided.
Is it not
interesting that preoccupation with history and/or education tends to
occur at moments of crisis or in times when there is a sense that
things cannot go on as they are? Although still in power, Frelimo has
adopted the dominant manners and practices of its former enemy by
relegating history, education and health to the bottom of the
priorities. The presupposition (from the US to Mozambique, to DRC, to
Brazil) is that these disciplines are sought by the less
intellectually gifted. According to those in power (corporations
and/or state) this is as it should be because the best brains are
headed for science, Business and Law Schools.
Post
Apartheid South Africa devotes 20% of its budget to education, and
yet education continues to suffer from the apparent determination
that it is not crucial for a society driven by a bottom line that has
stated, for centuries now, that Africa and Africans should not get
the best education possible for every single person. The bottom line
continues to be dictated by the notion that those who have risen to
the top have done so thanks to their own merit. The idea that
maintaining fidelity to humanity is crucial not just for the tiny few
at the top, but for every single one, is simply anathema to those who
have most benefitted from the process of dispossession and
dehumanization that has taken place under capitalism.
3.
Capitalism: toward eradicating humanity and its history?
Over and
above the typical features of capital related to the relationship
between labor and capital, what takes place at the same time is a
process of dispossession that goes far beyond what has been
understood. How lethal capitalism has been in its process of
destroying humanity has not been fully understood. The discussions
about whether primitive accumulation or dispossession best capture
how capitalism as an economic system operates can only lead to
claiming easy victories, because capitalism has impacted humans in
ways that go far beyond the realm of economics.
It is not
sufficient to provide a critique of capitalism by just focusing on
its economic features. Sometimes it may take the voice of poets to
see better through capitalism. I will refer here to just two of them:
Aimé Césaire and Ayi Kwei Armah. For the first I can only send
readers to his Discourse on Colonialism. In it he articulates the
interconnections between capitalism, Nazism and colonialism in a way
that does not follow the usual script. He points out how the
reconstruction of Europe went hand in hand with a continuation of
Nazism (in the colonies). After all, it is not Hitler who proclaimed
the following: “We do not aspire to equality, but to domination.
The foreign race country must become again a land of serfs, daily
farm or industrial workers. The issue is not to do away with
inequalities among people, but to amplify them and turn it into a
law”. Ernest Renan, the western humanist, the idealist philosopher
is the author of this quote, written immediately following the end of
WWII.
In a few more
paragraphs, Césaire illustrates, with quotes, the ideological
kinship between French thinkers and Hitler and his acolytes; between
the barbarism that colonization leads to do, and where Nazism led.
For Césaire, both colonialism and Nazism are the by-products of a
sick civilization that, in his word “irresistibly, from consequence
to consequence, from renunciation to renunciation, calls for its
Hitler, I mean its punishment”.
From the
perspective of Africa and its enslavement, Ayi Kwei Armah has written
about the reality brought about by the white destroyers and the way
to heal from the carnage. He has done it not only in his writings,
but also in his practices as a writer, a thinker, as a sharer of his
vision and understanding of the way away from the destroyers’ way.
In chapter 7 of Two Thousand Seasons, readers will find reflections
that are pertinent to not claiming easy victories, as in the
following lines where he describes what a liberator is: “For he is
no liberator whose skill lies in calling loudly to the bound, the
trapped, the impotent enslaved, to rise upon their destroyers. The
liberator is he who from a necessary silence, from a necessary
secrecy strikes the destroyer. That, not loudness, is the necessary
beginning.” (p. 314) Further down, he warns of more difficulties:
“Dangers will be in the newness of this discovery, dangers like the
headiness of too quick, abundant faith from those too long sold to
despair; the pull of old habits from destruction’s empire; the sour
possibility of people helping each other turning in times of
difficulty into people using each other to create a selfish
ease…(p.315)
4. Cabral and
Guiné-Bissau
As observers
and scholars look today at the African continent, the general
impression that emerges is certainly not the one that prevailed
around 1973, just before the assassination of Cabral. Even the
assassination of Cabral could not dampen the feeling that victory
against Portuguese colonial rule was within reach. By April 1974,
thanks to the pressure brought by the armed struggles in the
colonies, the Portuguese army seized power and put an end to the
dictatorship. With the independence of Mozambique the (September
1975) the focus shifted from ending Portuguese colonial rule to
facing and defeating Ian Smith and its allies in South Africa. With
the defeat of the Americans in Vietnam in 1975, it appeared as if
anything was possible, including the end of the apartheid regime.
There came Soweto 1976, but soon after that (September 1977) came the
assassination of Steve Bantu Biko. And it was around this time (April
1976) that the US (under Henry Kissinger), decided that the timing of
the end of apartheid had to take place according to what would be
decided in Washington, London, and not by Africans pursuing their
search for complete and total emancipation from centuries of
domination.
For the
purposes of this essay and the current times, there is one question
that is impossible to avoid: from the days of Nkrumah’s rise to
power and the process of decolonization, what is it that,
systematically, has not been dealt with as it should have been?
Despite the volumes written on, around African unity, how come
everything but unity prevails? What is it that prevented thinkers
like Cheikh Anta Diop, Nkrumah, Cabral, Fanon, Nyerere, Mondlane,
Ruben Um Nyobe, from joining their efforts? What is it that has led
African political leaders to treat Cheikh Anta Diop’s individual
work with the same disdain that, collectively speaking, Haiti’s
overthrow of slavery has been treated? These questions will have to
be answered sooner or later.
I mentioned
earlier the fact that in the process of enslaving and colonizing the
continent, the process of destruction did much more than what has
been acknowledged, even by leaders like Cabral. It is one thing to
call for African unity, it is another to articulate it in a way that
any one on the continent would immediately understand the historical,
cultural, linguistic, philosophical roots of that unity; provided
such articulations were rooted in an understanding and conviction
that, in fact, the unity that politicians talk about has in fact been
in existence through the culture, the languages, the values that can
be traced back to Egyptian civilization. Although Cabral himself
pointed out that the history of Africa has deeper roots than alleged
by the theoretical approach framed by the history of class struggle,
there is no evidence that he or his close collaborators, like Mario
de Andrade, for example, took the work of Cheikh Anta Diop seriously.
Today, what
is the state of liberation (emancipatory politics) in countries that
fought armed struggles? More broadly speaking what is the state of
the continent compared to what it looked like it might become in
1973? Can one say that the leadership in charge today has carried on,
with fidelity to humanity (as envisioned by Fanon in his conclusion
to The Wretched of the Earth) from where Amilcar Cabral and others
left?
Land grabbing
in various countries is taking place as if cued by some sort of
virtual replay of the Berlin Conference (more than a century later)
aimed at dividing up the Continent according to the new configuration
imposed by capitalism. If it is not land grabbing, laundering of the
money made through drug trafficking is ensuring that capitalism does
take root by any means necessary. The dispossessing or dehumanization
of humanity has received a new lease of life on the continent thanks
to a renewed process of aggression against the most precious treasure
held by all human beings: conscience.
5. Conclusion
For emphasis,
let it be said that the focus on African history and not on history
has led to a failure to understand humanity and its history as a
whole. By creating area studies for the sake of producing expert
knowledge on areas like Africa, the US and its allies (mostly former
colonizing countries) created a way of looking at African history
that prepared the ground for the repeated stumbling that prevented a
complete and total eradication of the consequences of enslavement and
colonization. When looking at the history of Africa and Africans by
only concentrating on the continent, one ends up distorting that
history. In turn that distortion leads to a distortion of the history
of humanity especially if, in the process, the humanity of Africans
is systematically denied.
From within
the emancipatory tradition, there are more voices of conscience than
the ones referred to in this text. At the same time, what is not
sufficiently appreciated is the degree to which capitalism has come
to dominate humanity’s conception of itself, and its reliance on
its conscience to keep coming back to its senses. Whether it was from
Fanon, Ruben Um Nyobe, Biko, Sankara, Lumumba, Nehanda or Kimpa Vita,
these voices expressed what humanity has in common: conscience. While
it may have been eroded to the point of giving the impression that it
has disappeared, I would suspect that it never will, but if it is
going to succeed in reversing the current process, then there has to
be a conviction that conscience is humanity’s most powerful weapon
in resisting its ongoing liquidation.
If Césaire’s
questioning of whether Nazism had ended (Discourse on Colonialism)
had been pursued systematically, one of the possible results could
have led to an understanding of capitalism as a system that
modernized Nazism so that it would automatically generate mechanisms
(ways of thinking) aimed at getting rid of those members of humanity
that are considered worthless: the poor, the Africans, the old
people, the indigenous people, street children, the handicapped, the
terminally ill, etc. In other words, what can be seen today (through
so-called globalization, but not only) is a modernized form of Nazism
in which there is no Hitler to point at as a scapegoat, but
capitalism seeks the same lebensraum that Hitler was aiming at. The
difference is that capitalism has been slowly transforming humanity
into its opposite by occupying all of the spaces that were once
considered sacred if fidelity to humanity was going to be maintained.
J. Depelchin
(Hugh Le May Fellow at Rhodes University, July-December 2012—Visiting
professor history department, Universidade Estadual de Feira de
Santana, Bahia Brazil)
