Jump to content

Amílcar Cabral

From Wikiquote
Amílcar Cabral and Nicolae Ceaușescu (1972)

Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (12 September 1924 – 20 January 1973) was a Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, pan-Africanist, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat. He was one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders.

Quotes

[edit]
  • In combating racism we do not make progress if we combat the people themselves. We have to combat the causes of racism. If a bandit comes to my house and I have a gun, I cannot shoot the shadow of the bandit; I have to shoot the bandit. Many people lose energy and effort, and make sacrifices combating shadows. We have to combat the material reality that produces the shadow. If we cannot change the light that is one cause of the shadow, we can at least change the body. It is important to avoid confusion between the shadow and the body that projects the shadow.
    • talk in New York City (October 20, 1972), collected in Return to the Source: Selected Texts
  • We Africans, having rejected the idea of begging for freedom, which was contrary to our dignity and our sacred right to freedom and independence, reaffirmed our steadfast decision to end colonial domination of our country, no matter what the sacrifices involved, and to conquer for ourselves the opportunity to achieve in peace our own progress and happiness.
    • from speech before the United Nations (October 16, 1972). English language translation collected in Return to the Source: Selected Texts
  • At this very moment when, despite the contradictions which prevail in the world contradictions of ideology and of social and politica! systems --there are contacts between the most opposing poles, and these contacts are developing, at this very moment when certain nations are dreaming of conquering the cosmos, in a collective undertaking, to plant there the hopes of man, it is not really much to ask that before you le"ave for nebulous Andromeda or other far corners of the universe you should help us specifically and realistically to liberate our people from the scourge of Portuguesa colonialism, because, like you we should like to participate in the great human adventure either on this earth or across the universe.
    • speech to United Nations Security Counsel (February 1, 1972)
  • A people who free themselves from foreign domination will not be culturally free unless, without underestimating the importance of positive contributions from the oppressor’s culture and other cultures, they return to the upwards paths of their own culture. The latter is nourished by the living reality of the environment and rejects harmful influences as much as any kind of subjection to foreign cultures. We see therefore that, if imperialist domination has the vital need to practise cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture. "National Liberation and Culture"
  • After the Second World War, imperialism entered on a new phase: on the one hand, it worked out the new policy of aid, ie granted independence to the occupied countries plus 'aid' and, on the other hand, concentrated on preferential investment in the European countries; this was, above all, an attempt at rationalising imperialism. Even if it has not yet provoked reactions of a nationalist kind in the European countries, we are convinced that it will soon do so. As we see it, neocolonialism (which we may call rationalised imperialism) is more a defeat for the international working class than for the colonised peoples. Neocolonialism is at work on two fronts – in Europe as well as in the underdeveloped countries. Its current framework in the underdeveloped countries is the policy of aid, and one of the essential aims of this policy is to create a false bourgeoisie to put brakes on the revolution and to enlarge the possibilities of the petty bourgeoisie as a neutraliser of the revolution; at the same time it invests capital in France, Italy, Belgium, England and so on.

address (1965)

[edit]

at the Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP) Conference in Dar Es-Salaam, Tanzania. Translated into English by Richard Handyside

  • If we do not forget the historical perspectives of the major events in the life of humanity, if, while maintaining due respect for all philosophies, we do not forget that the world is the creation of man himself, then colonialism can be considered as the paralysis or deviation or even the halting of the history of one people in favour of the acceleration of the historical development of other peoples.
  • In Africa, we are for an African policy which seeks to defend first and foremost the interests of African peoples, of each African country, but also for a policy which does not, at any time, forget the interests of the world, of all humanity.
  • We of the CONCP are committed to our peoples, we are fighting for the complete liberation of our peoples, but we are not fighting simply in order to hoist a flag in our countries and to have a national anthem. We of the CONCP are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists-not only by Europeans, not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the colour of men's skins; we do not want any exploitation in our countries, not even by black people.

Quotes about Amílcar Cabral

[edit]
  • ...one of the most lucid and brilliant leaders in Africa, Comrade Amílcar Cabral, who instilled in us tremendous confidence in the future and the success of his struggle for liberation.
    • Fidel Castro, Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba (1966)
  • He was a Cape Verdean agronomist, born in Guinea in 1924, and educated in Portugal where he had been a brilliant student. He was at the time regarded as a young and promising engineer. He had published widely in his field and was highly regarded by his Portuguese colleagues. Unknown to them, however, he had steeped himself into political and social literature while a student in Lisbon. He had become thoroughly acquainted with the cultural movements (most notably Negritude) which had led so many privileged and educated young Africans to 'return to their African roots'. Unlike many, however, he had become determined to go beyond this cultural revolt and to seek an end to colonialism by political means.
  • I would like to suggest that it is the epistemic openness and consistently non-dogmatic radicalism and revolutionary praxis of Cabral's project, the richness and wide range and reach of his ideas, and the absence of any finished system or closed body of clearly defined truths that can be accepted or rejected at ease, which constitute both the contemporary philosophical fascination with, and continuing relevance of, Amílcar Cabral's radical politics, critical social theory, and revolutionary praxis.
    • Reiland Rabaka, "The Weapon of Critical Theory: Amílcar Cabral, Cabralism, and Africana Critical Theory" in Resistance and Decolonization (2016)
  • one of Africa's most profound revolutionaries...His occupation of so many subject positions - student, diplomat, organic intellectual, poet, agronomist, general secretary, revolutionary, and so forth - gave rise to a critical discourse and praxis that performatively puts into question the limits of white, armchair critical theory.
    • Dan Wood, "Imbrications of Coloniality: An Introduction to Cabralist Critical Theory in Relation to Contemporary Struggles" in Resistance and Decolonization (2016)
[edit]

Encyclopedic article on Amílcar Cabral on Wikipedia

Retrieved from "https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Amílcar_Cabral&oldid=3848303"