By CARLOS HORTMANN*
As long as there is a human being willing to fight for another society, Amílcar Cabral will live. Amílcar Cabral, present!
This brief chronicle commemorating the centenary of Amílcar Lopes Cabral is the result of my reflection on what to write on that day, about a thinker that I have studied systematically for the last 10 years! I asked myself what Cabral's work has transformed in me?
The synthetic conclusion was that his theoretical production and political intervention made me rethink my own understanding of Marxism (or as some like Marxisms), but above all his hopeful capacity to never give up fighting for those who are exploited and oppressed, even when faced with a mountain that seems impossible to topple.
Along these lines, a question I am always asked is: “Why do you still believe in a society that overcomes capitalism (socialism, communism, post-capitalism, etc.)? And whenever I am asked this, they usually complete the question with the argument that such a goal seems impossible, that the end of the world is closer than the end of capitalism.
However, Amílcar Cabral taught me that there are times when the materiality of some ideas seem unattainable, but if we continue to fight creatively, critically and with our feet firmly planted in concrete reality, the day will come when they will be historically unavoidable. Just as for him [Amílcar Cabral] the long march of liberation of the peoples who lived under the yoke of violence, plunder and exploitation of colonialism was.
I still remember the day when, while walking through a Lisbon fair during the Troika's austerity period (when impoverishment was devastating the working class in Portugal), I saw a brochure written on a typewriter with the title: Theory weapon. I picked it up and sat down on the lawn, where that second-hand bookshop was advertising “all books for 1 euro!” As I leafed through it, I saw a passage that marked my political life, a hopeful flame that continues to fuel my collective dream of the future.
“Overcoming the vulgar conception according to which politics is the art of the possible, Lenin demonstrated that it is rather the art of transforming what is apparently impossible into the possible (making the impossible possible), categorically rejecting opportunism. Thus defined, political action implies permanent creativity. For it, as part of art, creating is not inventing!”
The importance of Lenin's thought for anti-colonial struggles became clear to me, as Amílcar Cabral's Leninism was creative, in the sense of applying the political methods of the leader of the October Revolution to the reality of Cape Verde and Guinea.
Amilcar Cabral wrote in Some principles of the Party: “We advance towards our struggle, confident in the reality of our land (with our feet firmly planted on the ground).” In other words, it is a concrete analysis of the concrete situation. Therefore, Amílcar Cabral knew that the immediate task (“minor program”) was national liberation and that it should be permanently linked to the historical task (“major program”) of building a socialist society.
I would like to point out that, in addition to Amílcar Cabral's vaunted internationalism, he was a Marxist revolutionary, a socialist and an unwavering commitment to the working class of the entire world. He was a man who never bowed to liberal-capitalist ideology, which some "Cabralists" sometimes try to hide.
That said, as long as there is a human being willing to fight for another society, Amílcar Cabral will live. Amílcar Cabral, present!
* Carlos Hortmann He is a philosopher, historian and musician.
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
