 |
Unity & Struggle
Amilcar Cabral
(First published 1980)
This books is out of print.
Struggle of the people, by the people, for the people
A basic principle for our struggle is that it is the struggle of our people, and that it is our poeple who must wage it, and its result is for our people.
You have already clearly understood what the people are. The question we now pose is the following: against whom are our people struggling?
Obviously a people's struggle is effectively theirs if the reason for that struggle is based on the apsirations, the dreams, the desire for justice and progress of the people themselves and not on the aspriations, dreams or ambitions of half a dozen persons, or of a group of persons who are in contradiction with the actual interests of their people.
Against whom must our people struggle? We answered this clearly right from the start. We, as colonies of Portugal in Guiné and Cape Verde, are dominated by a foreigner, but it is not all foreigners who dominate us and within Portugal it is not all the Portuguese who dominate us.
The force and oppression which is exerted on us comes from the ruling class in Portugal, from the Portuguese capitalist bourgeoisie, which exploits the people of Portugal as much as it exploits us. And as we know well, the ruling cass in Portugal, the colonialist class in Portugal, is tied to world domination by other classes in other countries, who together make up imperialist domination. It is tied to the ensemble of capitalist forces in the world which as well as dominating their own countries have a vital need to dominate other peoples, other countries, both to have raw materials for their industry and to have markets for their manufactures. In short we are dominated by the Portuguese colonialist capitalist class, tied to world imperialism.
Our people are therefore struggling against the Portuguese capitalist colonialist class, and struggling against that means necessarily to struggle against imperialism, because the Portuguese class is a piece, albeit minute and rotting, of imperialism. So we know against whom we are struggling.
But we face the question not only of liberation but also of progress for our epople. And on this basis we quickly see that our struggle cannot only be against foreigners, but must also be against their internal enemies. Who? All the social strata of our land, of classes of our land, who do not want progress for our people, but merely want progress for themselves, their family, their own. And so we say that our people's struggle is not only against anything that might be contrary to their liberty and independence, but also against anything that might be contrary to their progress and happiness.
The struggle in our land must be made by our people. We cannot for a moment think of liberating our land, of building peace and progress in our land, by bringing foreigners from outside to come and struggle for us. In Guiné and Cape Verde we are the ones who must struggle, we are the ones who must buckle down to all the means of struggling. And in fact this is what has happened.
It is now quite common to hear this exchange in our Party; someone asks: 'Are you of the people?', and the other replies: 'No, I'm army'. 'Are you of the people?', 'No, I'm militia'. 'Are you of the people?', 'No, I am a responsible worker.' That is how we commonly talk, but all those folk are people. It is enough to see where our combatants, our responsible workers, our leaders come from to understand that they are all people from our land. Naturally enough in the armed struggle in Guiné, the majority are from Guiné itself. Likewise in the struggle in Cape Verde, the majority are from Cape Verde itself. Guiné and Cape Verde are separated by sea and it is not easy to transfer large forces from one point to the other.
But there can be no doubt that it is our people who wage our struggle, through their children as militants, leaders, combatants, militia, etc. The fundamental strength is our people, themselves. Our population, or rather the population linked to the work of our Party, mobilized and organized by our Party, has from the beginning fed our struggle, borne sacrifices for our struggle, and so has been the principal strength of our struggle. It would have been impossible for us to wage the struggle, in the era of clandestinity, were it not that our people kept us alive among them like a fish in water.
The enemy know that it is our own people who share in the struggle, and so they make efforts to separate the part of our people who are Party and the part of our people who are population, to draw from us this principal strength in the liberation struggle, namely the support of the mass of the people. We might say that our struggle has the more potential for victory, the more we can keep on our side the support of the mass of the people in our land. The Portuguese know this too, and so they are making every effort to take this support from us.
Our struggle is for the people, because its objective, its purpose, is to satisfy the aspirations, dreams and desires of our people: to lead a decent and worthy life, as all the peoples in the world want, to have peace in order to build progress in their land, to build happiness for their children. We want everything we win in this struggle to belong to our people and we have to do our utmost to form an organisation such that even if some want to divert the conquests of the struggle to their own advantage, our people will not let them. This is very important.
Our people now do really feel that the struggle is theirs. Not only because it is their children who have the weapons in their hands. Not only because it is their children who study and are trained as cadres, nurses, doctors, engineers, technicians, etc. Not only because it is their children who lead,. But also because even in the villages, the militiamen or civilian population take up what principally symbolizes our struggle: weapons. It is not by chance, or for any other reason, that our Party leadership has given weapons, and constatnly gives more, to our population. It is precisely so that no one should take it into his head that only those who take up arms in the people's army or in the guerrilla force are effectively struggling for results in this struggle. The more weapons there are for our supporters, the more certainty our population and our people will feel that the struggle is really theirs, and the fewer illusions there will be in the heads of our combatants and leaders that the stuggle is their exclusive concern.
We are stuggling for the progress of our land. We must make all the sacrifices to succeed with progress for our land of Guiné and Cape Verde. We must put an end to all injustices, miseries and suffering. We must guarantee for the children born in our land today and tomorrow a certainty that no barrier or wall should be put in their way. They must go forward, according to their capacities, to give their utmost. They must constantly improve the lot of our people and our land, serving not only our interests but also those of Africa and of all mankind. That is why from the start our Party set out on the best course for this, namely organisation based on mobilizing our people, mobilizing the population of our land for the struggle against Portuguese colonialism.
Our Party has trained the children of our land to mobilize the people of our land. This work was no laughing matter. Many of you here, young lads who are today responsible workers in th Party, cannot imagine how difficult this work was. Moreover we have organized within the framework of our Party a large proportion of the population of our land. This was the principal political strength of our sturggle, which provided the potential for our struggle to advance as well as it has advanced. We must train our people, we must train ourselves - leaders and militants of our Party, our combatants who are making the sacrifice today - to defend at all costs the conquests our people are making through their struggle.
Today the people born in the bush, who yesterday could express no views on their lives and on their destiny, can express their views, can make decisions, They can decide issues in the Party committees and in the people's courts, where the descendants of our land have shown the ability to try the errors, crimes and other wrongdoings committed by other descendants of our land. This is further clear evidence that this struggle is of our people, by our people and for our people.
But various Party comrades, with high or low responsibilities, and even ordinary combatants have not understood this very well. They have tried to turn the struggle a little to their advantage, after all they are the people, it would seem. The struggle of our people, by our people, but for them. This is one of the most serious mistakes that can be made in a struggle like ours. We cannont in the least allow our armed forces, our militants or our responsible workers to forget for a single instant that the greatest consideration, respect and dedication is owed to the people of our land, to our population, above all in the liberated areas of our land. Anyone who is ready to die from some bullet in this war but is able to show lack of respect for our people, the village folk, the population, will die without knowing why he is dying, or dies under a delusion.
The more we can do in our land to raise the morale of our people, to give them greater courage and greater enthusiam for the Party, the more it helps the present and future of our people, helps our Party. Anything that is done to destroy the population's confidence in us, to bully the population, to show lack of consideration for them, to steal their goods, to abuse their sons and daughters, is the worst crime that a combatant comrade or a responsible worker could commit. It damages our Party, and damages the future and present of our land.
It is better that we should be few in number but incapable of doing any injury to the population of our land than that we should be numerous but include folk capable of causing harm. For anyone among us who turns the population against our Party, to mistrust the Party, to lose confidence in the Party, is the best ally the Portuguese could have. You know - and what I am saying is not in my imagination - that there are comrades who behaved badly towards our population. Fortunately the situation has become much better because the Party has been vigilant in this matter.
So at each moment of this great struggle we are waging, we must focus on two phases: one, against the colonialist capitalist ruling classes in Portugal and imperalism which want to dominate our land economically and politically; the other, against all the internal forces, whether material or spiritual (meaning ideas from the mind), which might arise against our people's progress on the path of liberty, independence and justice. These demand courageous struggle against imperlialist agents. But in addition permanent and determined struggle against those who, even if they are militants, responsible workers or leaders of the Party, do anything which ould prejudice our people's march to total conquest of their dignity, their liberty and their progress.
