African Liberation:
The Cancer of Betrayal
Amilcar Cabral
Africa would be a different continent today if nationalist movements had been able to make the transition from revolutionary forces opposing oppressive colonial rule, to equally progressive governing political parties. However, this idealistic observation is almost redundant as nationalist liberation movements did not operate in a vacuum, but within a hostile domestic environment and even more aggressive geopolitical landscape. Movements were undermined by the counter operations of the global super powers, as well opportunists at home who seized the chance to profit from the neo-colonial agenda. Before corrupt African leaders became a cliché, it was African leadership that freed Africa from colonial rule – exemplified by liberation movements led by Amílcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau, Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel in Mozambique, Agostinho Nesto in Angola, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Patrice Lumumba in the Congo.
Agricultural engineer, writer and poet Amílcar Cabral was heavily inspired by the Cuban revolution and led a 10 year guerrilla movement against the Portuguese. Cabral was assassinated by Portuguese agents eight months before Guinea-Bissau declared independence. He believed that socialism was the only means of uprooting the exploitations of capitalism and imperialism in Africa. He also understood that the external threat of colonialism was mirrored amongst natives – particularly the unpredictable bourgeoisie who relied on the colonial apparatus for their livelihood. Outlining the objectives of the war for independence Cabral stated, “we are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never be more exploited by imperialists 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 exploitation in our countries, not even by black people” (Return to the Source, 1974). Cabral’s concerns were legitimate and evidenced time and time again. The most obvious example of betrayal being the assassination of Thomas Sankara who was assassinated in a coup d’état supported by the French and led by his oldest friend Blaise Compaoré in 1987.
Amílcar Cabral articulated his concerns about the pattern of betrayal in African liberation movements during his speech at the State funeral of Kwame Nkrumah in Conakry. The speech titled Le Cancer de la Trahison (The Cancer of Betrayal) insinuates that it was the cancer of betrayal that really killed Nkrumah, by killing his vision for Ghana when his government was overthrown in his absence. Nkrumah is often celebrated as the father of Pan-Africanism and this philosophy resonated loudly amongst leaders, intellectuals and musicians in Africa and the diaspora who championed the idea of a unified global African community. Today Cabral’s words are as powerful as they were at Nkrumah’s funeral in 1972. Betrayal of the collectivist philosophy that anchored Africa’s liberation movements and the erasure of the legacies of African heroes is why today leadership in Africa is typically shamelessly dysfunctional. Lack of progressive leadership is why the Mo Ibrahim Foundation - an organisation working hard to promote good governance on the continent – has withheld its Leadership Award for the third time in six years. African nationalists like Amílcar Cabral remain the greatest examples of leadership Africa has ever seen.
“… What to say? but we must speak otherwise at this point, if we don’t talk, our hearts may burst. Our tears should not infiltrate the truth. We, freedom fighters, we do not mourn the death of a man, even a man who was a comrade and an exemplary revolutionary, because as President Ahmed Sekou Toure often says ‘what is man in front of the infinite being and transgressing of the people and of humanity?’ We do not mourn the people of Ghana scoffed in its most beautiful realisations, in its most legitimate aspirations. We are not crying for Africa, betrayed. We are mourning, yes, of hatred towards those who were able to betray Nkrumah to serve the ignoble imperialism … Mr President, Africa by requiring through the voice of the people of the Republic of Guinea, as always fairly represented by President Ahmed Sekou Toure, whom Nkrumah had put in his right place on the Kilimandjaro’s highest summits of the African revolution, Africa rehabilitates itself and through history. President Nkrumah, which we honor is primarily the great strategist of the struggle against classic colonialism, he is the one who created what we call African positivism, what he called “positive action”, affirmative action. We pay tribute to the declared enemy of neocolonialism in Africa and elsewhere, the strategist of economic development in his country. Mr President, we praise the freedom fighter of the African people who always gave his full support to national liberation movements, and we want to tell you here that we, in Guinea and Cape Verde islands, even though it is true that the most important factor for the development of our struggle outside our country was the independence of the Republic of Guinea, the heroic ‘no’ of the people of Guinea on 28 September 1958. It is also true that if we went through the struggle regenerated, it was essentially due to the concrete support of Ghana and particularly of President Nkrumah …
Mr. President, we should however in this moment remember that all coins in life have two faces, all realities have positive and negative sides… to all positive action, is opposed a negative action. To what extent is betrayal’s success in Ghana linked to problems of class struggle, from contributions to social structures, from the role of party or other instructions, including armed forces as part of a new independent state. To what level, we shall ask ourselves, is betrayal’s success in Ghana linked to a correct definition of this historical entity and craftsman of history that is the people and their daily work, in defending its own independence conquests? Or to what extent is betrayal’s success not linked to the major problem of the choice of men in the revolution? My idea on this question will allow us to better understand the greatness of Nkrumah’s work, to understand the complexity of problems he had to face so many times alone… problems that will allow us to conclude that, as imperialism exists, an independent state in Africa should be a liberation movement to power or it would not exist. Let no one tell us that Nkrumah died of a cancer to the throat or some other disease; no, Nkrumah has been killed by the cancer of betrayal that we should uproot… by the cancer of betrayal, that we should root out of Africa if we really want to definitely crush the imperialist domination on this continent. But, we, Africans, firmly believe that the dead continue living by our sides, we are a society of dead and living. Nkrumah will resuscitate each dawn in the hearts and in the determinations of freedom fighters, in the action of all true African patriots. Our liberation movement will not forgive those who betrayed Nkrumah, the people of Ghana will not forgive, Africa will not forgive, progressive mankind will not forgive!” Translation via Afrolegends