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Sherry Lowrance

.:Middle East Online:.Syria opposition reaches out to army - 0 views

www.middle-east-online.com/english

syria protests military

shared by Sherry Lowrance on 05 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • "We urge our supporters to deliver a message to free soldiers in the Syrian army so that hand in hand the guardians of the homeland join our peaceful revolution," said Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group spurring anti-regime protests that have swept the country since mid-March
  • The army's feared 4th division, which was sent in to put down protests in the southern flashpoint town of Daraa, is also controlled by the president's brother Maher.
Arabica Robusta

I cite: Campus protests: struggle and safety - 0 views

jdeanicite.typepad.com/...itlin-is-so-disappointing.html

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Some universities present themselves as caring, as providing mental health services and a personalized environment that will help students meet their individual needs and goals. For the most part, this is advertising -- as everybody knows. The reality is  stress, debt, the reproduction of privilege, and, for some, a few years of extreme partying.
  • What's innovative in the last round of protests is the weaponization of safety and vulnerability. Think cultural revolution rather than therapy, hundreds and thousands of students on campus after campus rejecting the status quo and demanding change. The attack on privilege is an attack on hierarchies of race and class, waged in the language available to those told they live in a post-racial society offering no alternative to capitalism.
  • The risk of invoking vulnerability and appealing to safety comes in the reinforcing of an authority who would promise security, who would recognize the vulnerable as vulnerable and guarantee that he would protect them from harm.
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  • From the changing climate to the barbarous economy, the university can't shore itself up against the society it includes and reproduces. 
  • Arabica Robusta on 23 Nov 15
     
    "That said, the rhetoric of safe spaces, vulnerability, and civility does seem part of the current moment. Why? Gitlin too quickly dismisses political economic considerations -- the enormity of student debt, diminished economic prospects, loss of rewarding work, and intensified financial insecurity facing this generation of students. He notes, only to discard, the surveillance part of contemporary life. I think these political economic factors are more important than Gitlin allows. They establish the terms through which the students are voicing their critique. Students frame their opposition in a language of safety and vulnerability because that is the language available to them after forty years of neoliberalism and in the second decade of the war on terror."
Arabica Robusta

Ecuador's Correa Seeks South American Allies in Conflict with Anti-Mining Social Movements - 0 views

upsidedownworld.org/...h-anti-mining-social-movements

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry mining extractive ecuador correa

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • “This is something we have to deal with together, Colombia included, because Peru has the same problems. There have been outbreaks of violence from activists who are full of talk about democracy,” he stated. Correa warned that radical anti-mining groups were contradicting themselves as “they never protest against highly polluting mining,” but instead they protest against “clean mining” that does not harm water supplies or the environment.
  • Correa also strongly criticized the “so-called environmentalists” who are opposed to the development of “ecological mining” and suggested they intend native communities to live in poverty “as part of folklore and the environment.”“When we want to develop good mining practices, these so-called environmentalists come out claiming that human beings are not much more than a nuisance to the environment and that poverty is all part of folklore,” he said.
Arabica Robusta

At the Mexican Embassy in London: Demand for an End to the Attacks on the Zap... - 0 views

dorsetchiapassolidarity.wordpress.com/...community-of-san-marcos-aviles

social movements intervention development human rights corporate industry mexico zapatista

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Today, 26th April, 2013, the UK Zapatista Solidarity Network held a protest at the Embassy of Mexico in London in solidarity with the Zapatista support base (BAZ) community of San Marcos Avilés in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico. The protestors delivered a letter demanding an end to the threats, aggressions and acts of violence being made against this community by members of the Mexican political parties, with the aim of displacing the Zapatistas from their homes and their lands. This is being done, explained members of the Network, with the full support and backing of the Mexican state, in an attempt to put an end to the advances in Zapatista autonomy.
  • The group ended the protest by saying “We wish through our actions today to send a message of solidarity to our dignified sisters and brothers of San Marcos Avilés. They have our full support.”
Arabica Robusta

http://www.ecprnet.eu/MyECPR/proposals/reykjavik/uploads/papers/2277.pdf - 0 views

www.ecprnet.eu/...2277.pdf

shared by Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12 - No Cached
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      The panel of social cyber-activists analyzed in the aforementioned research indicates  that leftist organizations did not act in coordination with the counterinformation  networks (such as the Nodo50 platform, which had already shown potential on 13M and  in subsequent calls by the MRH) and the campaigning strategies of left-wing parties.  This was not the case for the conservative axis, which the cyber-activists interviewed  felt was "more instrumental in electoral terms and  more effective in their combined  strategies through conventional media, politics and e-politics." (Sampedro, 2010:25).  
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      In 2004, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt launched their vision of a "multitude  project" based on the possibility of a global democratic society, open and inclusive,  promoted by multitudes fighting for justice and a free world. Perhaps we are currently  witnessing its first steps, and the nature of the demonstrations that take place all over  the world may are proof of that. The authors point  that analyzing the nature and  conditions of crowds helps to "identify the real creative forces that are emerging with  the potential to create a new world" (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 95). This new world will  be built over current scenario, the contemporary post-industrial world, which the  theorist Manuel Castells defines as network society, a concept that replaces that of  information (or knowledge) society. 
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      However, above their deliberation potential, ICTs have created a new category of social  movement that is characterized by network organization, coordination and action, as  well as decentralization, flexibility and collective action. New social movements have  managed to mobilize the multitudes (Negri and Hardt, 2004) and have characteristics  that differentiate them markedly from previous social movements.
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    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      As previously pointed out, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri propose the concept of multitude in 2004 and define it as the manifestation of collective intelligence that Lévy  predicted on the fringes of cyberspace in 1995: "The development of computer-assisted  communication and global digital networks appears to be the realization of a more or  less well-formulated project to deliberately create new forms of collective intelligence,  which are more flexible and democratic and based on reciprocity and respect for singularities. In this sense, we could define collective intelligence as a fully distributed  intelligence that is continuously enhanced and synergized in real-time" (Lèvy, 1999:76).  However, Negri and Hardt's concept of multitudes transcends virtual profiles and asserts  its presence in public spaces and offline arenas. It differs from the traditional category  of people in that the people is homogeneous whereas the multitude is plural (2004: 16),  it is not an identity and, in contrast with the homogeneous, irresponsible and easily  manipulated mass, the multitude is plural and highly rational. "The common ground of a  multitude is not discovered, it is built" (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 17).  
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      The area of action in the 13 March 2004 protests was clearly offline, as the streets of  Madrid became spaces for public discussion and hundreds of citizens gathered in  peaceful civil disobedience. This kind of political action lifestyle-based: "Everybody  mistrusted mainstream media and career politicians. To one degree or another, everyone  debated and coordinated the protests in their own name and using their own means. (…)  They positioned themselves in the transformative left or, at the very least, in a state of  vigilant citizenship" (Sampedro, 2005:291-292).  
Arabica Robusta

Peru's great transformation - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...2012614113713713304.html

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry peru newmont gold humala

shared by Arabica Robusta on 26 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Since Humala took office, ten people have died in social conflicts in Peru, more than 120 civilians have been wounded, and states of emergency have been declared in two regions. More than 120 farming leaders and human rights defenders are reportedly under criminal investigation for their alleged involvement in protests against foreign mining companies, including one provincial and one state governor, a priest, and two Catholic Church workers.
  • Peruvian groups such as Red Muqui and CONACAMI, a nation-wide coalition of mining communities, say they are not against mining. They want a national zoning plan to designate areas for mining and other industry, agriculture and protected reserves. They're also demanding a moratorium on mining in watersheds and the use of cyanide in gold mining operations.
  • During the strike in November, Humala's prime minister, Salomon Lerner, a left-leaning businessman, was sent to negotiate. He wasn't given much time. One day after Lerner initiated talks, the president trumped him by declaring a state of emergency. This meant that civil liberties were suspended and martial law was in effect. At least 28 people were injured during brutal police repression, including a young farmer who was reportedly paralysed by a rubber bullet fired by police. Lerner resigned, allowing Humala to re-stock his cabinet with a decided shift to the right.
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  • The president's national security advisor is Adrian Villafuerte, an ex-colonel with alleged ties to Vladimiro Montesinos, the notorious security adviser to former president Alberto Fujimori. Both Fujimori and Montesinos are currently in jail for human rights abuses and corruption. Humala himself was an army captain during Fujimori's rule, and had been accused of crimes such as torture and forced disappearances when he was in charge of the Madre Mia military base. The case against Humala was shelved, but human rights groups in Peru are not satisfied and want to see the former captain on trial.
  • In an attempt to end the conflict, Oscar Mollohuanca, Espinar's provincial governor, asked the national government to mediate talks with the mining company. The following day, while Mollohuanca met with local leaders to plan the negotiations, about 50 police commandos reportedly burst into his office in a scene reminiscent of the reality show Cops.
  • Father Marco Arana, one of the protest leaders, says the government finds it easier to look for scapegoats than "to admit it has a widespread social problem". According to Peru's government ombudsman's office, there are 171 "active social conflicts" across the nation, most centred on mining, petroleum and hydroelectric projects.
  • "You were elected to be the champion of democracy, and not plutocracy, Mr President," wrote Gorriti. "There's still time to adjust your path. I hope you do so. Your success would be a triumph for all of us."
Arabica Robusta

What the Wikileaks Cables Say about Leopoldo López - 0 views

www.cepr.net/...the-americas-blog

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry venezuela hugo chávez

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Many of the cables focus on internal disputes within the opposition, with Lopez often in conflict with others both within his party and others in the opposition. Given this history, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the current protests that he has been leading, calling for “la salida” – the exit – of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro have also caused internal divisions within the opposition.
  • This week, Smilde added in a quote to USA Today, "Before this happened, Lopez was playing second fiddle to Capriles… I think his goal is to try and leapfrog over Capriles. The student protests have put him in the spotlight."
  • The U.S. government has been funding the Venezuelan opposition for at least 12 years, including, as the State Department has acknowledged, some of the people and organizations involved in the 2002 military coup. Their goal has always been to get rid of the Chávez government and replace it with something more to their liking. However, their funding is probably not their most important contribution in Venezuela, since the Venezuelan opposition has most of the wealth and income of the country. A more important role is the outside pressure for unity, which, as these cables and the history of the past 15 years show, has been a serious problem for the Venezuelan opposition. The cables also show that this is a serious concern for the U.S. government.
Arabica Robusta

Pan-African News Wire: Egyptian Women Detainees Released In Desert Following Clashes - 0 views

panafricannews.blogspot.com/...men-detainees-released-in.html

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry africa egypt

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The interior ministry justified the dispersal, saying the gathering broke a newly enforced protest law since the organisers did not notify authorities of their actions as the new legislation stipulates.
  • The interior ministry justified the dispersal, saying the gathering broke a newly enforced protest law since the organisers did not notify authorities of their actions as the new legislation stipulates.
Arabica Robusta

Rio de Janeiro: a story of occupations and evictions | ROAR Magazine - 0 views

roarmag.org/...zil-world-cup-favela-evictions

resistance latin america social movements social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry latin america brazil neoliberalism

shared by Arabica Robusta on 25 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • The Homeless Worker Movement occupied a building in Rio, helping to shelter thousands — but in the run-up to the World Cup they were violently evicted.
  • Before the advent of Google Maps, maps of Rio de Janeiro depicted the older, more traditional areas of the city and the newer expansions towards Barra and Recreio while the rest of the area was apparently uninhabited space. Google maps dealt a serious blow to this bucolic image of the Cidade Maravilhosa (‘Wonderful City’) by revealing that all available space in the urban area — hills, valleys, rough ground — was occupied by favelas. The reaction of much of the elite was a sense of betrayal, but it’s impossible to sweep these satellite images under the carpet. Suddenly everyone was forced to admit the favelas‘ existence.
  • So what was the solution for all this “criminal activity”? At dawn on April 11, 1.600 heavily armed military police invaded the area. Sleeping women were kicked awake, huts were knocked down, everyone was sprayed with chemical spray — not from the usual hand-held canisters but from massive cylinders the size of fire extinguishers, which the police carried in backpacks. All members of the press, whether corporate or independent, were expelled from the area and even one of the Globo reporters was arrested by police on the spurious charge that he was “throwing stones.” Occupants allege that four infants succumbed to the chemical spray and rumors circulated that one of the reasons for keeping reporters out was to prevent them from witnessing the fatalities.
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  • The contagious spirit of the mass protests that have been rocking Brazil over the past year has also found fertile soil in the favelas, where the death of every young person murdered by police is another rallying cry for popular resistance. As the current wave of anti-World Cup protests shows, the genie is out of the bottle — and it will take a lot more than violent evictions and police repression to silence the awakened and indignant multitude.
Arabica Robusta

US support for regime change in Venezuela is a mistake | Mark Weisbrot | Comment is fre... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-support-regime-change-mistake

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry venezuela

shared by Arabica Robusta on 02 May 14 - No Cached
  • When is it considered legitimate to try and overthrow a democratically-elected government? In Washington, the answer has always been simple: when the US government says it is. Not surprisingly, that's not the way Latin American governments generally see it.
  • An anonymous State Department spokesman was even clearer last week, when he responded to the protests by expressing concern about the government's "weakening of democratic institutions in Venezuela", and said that there was an obligation for "government institutions [to] respond effectively to the legitimate economic and social needs of its citizens". He was joining the opposition's efforts to de-legitimize the government, a vital part of any "regime change" strategy.
  • Kerry refused to recognize the election results. Kerry's aggressive, anti-democratic posture brought such a strong rebuke from South American governments that he was forced to reverse course and tacitly recognize the Maduro government. (For those who did not follow these events, there was no doubt about the election results.)
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  • Opposition leader Leopoldo López – competing with Capriles for leadership –has portrayed the current demonstrations as something that could force Maduro from office. It was obvious that there was, and remains, no peaceful way that this could happen. As University of Georgia professor David Smilde has argued, the government has everything to lose from violence in the demonstrations, and the opposition has something to gain.
Arabica Robusta

How the left let Abahlali down - Cape Times | IOL.co.za - 0 views

www.iol.co.za/...ft-let-abahlali-down-1.1685297

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry africa abahlali baseMjondolo

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 May 14 - No Cached
  • Years ago I began to support a unique and influential social movement called Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), the Shackdwellers’ Movement. At the time, the movement had just refused to work with an influential leftist NGO called the Centre for Civil Society (CSS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Supported by the militant Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), AbM had protested against the takeover of the Social Movement Indaba by NGOs such as CCS. As grassroots activists, they understood that their voice was being managed and also often silenced by those on the left coming from more privileged backgrounds.
  • AbM and the Anti-Eviction Campaign’s principled stance was brave. They lost massive support from leftists who believed themselves to be the vanguard of working-class struggle and who thought the poor must be directed towards the “right politics”. Leaders were ridiculed, pseudo-academic pieces were written to undermine the movement, and friends of the movement received death threats – some even lost their jobs. Many Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists scoffed at their “No Land! No House! No Vote!” campaign as being short-sighted and liberal. The only legitimate form of organising, they said, was around the creation of a workers’ party.
  • Abahlali has always been an autonomous movement. While it has shared ideas and worked closely with other movements, including some non-authoritarian NGOs and a few supportive academics, decisions have always been taken by the movement without regard to outsiders’ wishes and/or agendas.
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  • This autonomous organising was truly Frantz Fanon’s work in practice. Abahlali has always been and still is a shackdwellers’ organisation, run not by privileged activists or academics but by shackdwellers themselves. But the continued repression of the movement has taken a toll on its members.
  • Renewed threats against Abahlali leadership put its president, S’bu Zikode, and general secretary, Bandile Mdlalose, back in safe houses and members began focusing on ANC repression, rather than the state, as the primary driver of this violence. Over the course of the past year, a shift seems to have taken place in the rank and file of the movement in KwaZulu-Natal. Their original critique of the state has shifted to an overarching and focused critique of the ANC.
  • I say opportunistically because that is what it truly is. In Cape Town, the DA plays the same role as the ANC in oppressing social movements and poor communities. The party pioneered the use of the Anti-Land Invasion Unit and is very happy to shoot protesting shackdwellers and build massive transit camps when it suits them.
  • There is nothing about DA policy that is progressive economically or supportive of the rights and needs of shackdwellers. However, the DA leadership in KZN did listen to one Abahlali demand (which the ANC failed to do): talk to us, not about us
  • I was shocked and horrified to hear of AbM-KZN’s decision to vote as a bloc for the DA. (Note: Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Western Cape has not endorsed the DA despite media reports to the contrary). I believe that this is a hugely mistaken move for the most important post-1994 social movement – both from an acknowledgement that the DA is a right-wing, white supremacist political party, and also from an understanding that electoral politics undermines, destroys, and co-opts rather than helps social movements. Despite my love for Abahlali, it is very difficult for me to continue to support an organisation that votes for the DA – a party founded on white supremacy.
  • Some leftists have cried foul, claiming that the process could not possibly have been democratic or that white supporters of the movement, such as myself, were involved in manipulating Abahlali to support the DA. To other leftists, the fact that AbM went through a rigorously democratic process and yet ended up voting for their oppressor, proves once and for all that shackdwellers cannot be trusted with a vanguardist political project.
  • If we are to talk about Abahlali baseMjondolo’s core focus around land and housing, it would also be important to note that not only are there many more shacks per capita in Cape Town than in eThekwini, but Cape Town remains by far the most segregated city in the country.
  • Most of the people attacking the movement have never lived a day of their life in a shack settlement – yet their self-righteousness is palpable. They’ve refused to comprehend the way repression makes backing the DA seem like a very practical decision – one not about principles or the extent of AbM’s radicalism, but about tactically defending one’s own life. Under constant threat of death, what would you do? Do any of us really understand how much pain they have endured?
Arabica Robusta

space for email i havent had time to read :: Capital's Limits and Its New Fro... - 0 views

cutdump.blogsome.com/...p97

knowledge education capitalism energy international development

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • unless there is an understanding of capital’s role in this situation, and unless precisely this fact is determined, broken down and fought against, that the very protests themselves are an additional new frontier for capitalist appropriation.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 23 Feb 10
       
      "the very protests themselves are an additional new frontier for capitalist appropriation."
  • The only way to truly accomplish radical change is to link different social struggles, which are all implicated in capital’s appropriation of every sphere of life”
Arabica Robusta

The History Of Oil, Protest And The Economy | PopularResistance.Org - 0 views

www.popularresistance.org/of-oil-protest-and-the-economy

petroleum social movements climate change mitchell

shared by Arabica Robusta on 18 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Because production of energy now occurred a long way from where it was consumed, it was more difficult for workers to coordinate actions along the energy chain. Oil also occurs in a fluid form so it’s much easier for managers to supervise or replace workers (as in the recent U.S. refinery strikes), and easier to shift supply routes so that if one area is on strike you can use a different source of supply.
  • Something really extraordinary happened in the mid-twentieth century, as we shifted to an oil-based energy system. Economists began focusing not on well-being but on national income, calculated in the narrow terms of GDP. And the growth of GDP was imagined as something that could go on forever. This coincided with a period when fossil fuels, and oil in particular, became extraordinarily abundant. There was a sense that you no longer had to account for the cost of energy, a cost that had previously made limitless growth unthinkable. So oil enabled not only a new form of accounting, but really a new form of failing to account for what you are doing.
  • With the rise of oil, it was much harder for workers to interrupt the flow of energy. But that’s not the end of the story of sabotage. The power of sabotage switched hands to the oil companies. See, originally most business firms only had to concern themselves with rivals in the same region, because it was too expensive to transport goods between particular areas of dominance. But oil was so light and easy to transport that competition was a global threat. Oil companies realized that their profits would only continue if they were able to organize sabotage power on a global level, to restrict supply and eliminate rivals. By the 1920’s, a handful of companies like Exxon Mobil (as they are known today) and Shell had taken control of every major site of oil production in the world, outside the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and they maintained that dominance for about half a century. They used this control to strategically limit the production of oil for the purpose of keeping profits high.
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  • This sabotage takes economic forms as well. Another way of stating my argument about oil companies is to say that these were not companies set up to produce oil, they were companies set up to produce a return on investment. We should think of Exxon, BP, Shell etc. as financial machines, not energy companies. While it may seem like economic life today is dominated by the power of financial firms, the truth is that the history of energy has always been a history of finance.
  • Once you realize an oil company functions not to deliver oil but to structure the future as a system of financial flows, then the points of sabotage shift a little bit. This is why I think projects like Carbon Tracker’s “Unburnable Carbon” are really important. Carbon Tracker shows that the share price of fossil fuel companies is a bubble, since it is based on a projected use of energy that is incompatible with keeping the planet livable. This campaign works precisely at the point at which the corporation understood as a set of financial flows is vulnerable—the calculability of future revenue.
Arabica Robusta

They Want It Now - Transitions Online - 0 views

www.tol.org/...23848-they-want-it-now.html

social movements development human rights

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • The protesters are urban, young to middle aged, middle class, active on Facebook and Twitter, demanding economic growth but also asking for honesty and morality in politics. The crowds demonstrate in a carnival fashion, forming flash mobs and staging happenings.
Arabica Robusta

Amilcar Cabral's Revolutionary Anti-Colonialist Ideas | PopularResistance.Org - 0 views

popularresistance.org/tionary-anti-colonialist-ideas

cabral liberation social movements africa

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Cabral understood that the extension and domination of capitalism depends critically on dehumanizing the colonial subject. And central to the process of dehumanization has been the need to destroy, modify or recast the culture of the colonized, for it is principally through culture, “because it is history”, that the colonized have sought to resist domination and assert their humanity. For Cabral, and also for Fanon, culture is not some aesthetic artefact, but an expression of history, the foundation of liberation, and a means to resist domination. At heart, culture is subversive.
  • The history of liberalism has been one of contestation between the cultures of what Losurdo refers to as the sacred and profane spaces.
  • The democracy of the sacred space to which the Enlightenment gave birth in the New World was, writes Losurdo, a “Herrenvolk democracy”, a democracy of the white master-race that refused to allow blacks, indigenous peoples, or even white women, to be considered citizens. They were regarded as part of the profane space occupied by the less-than-human.
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  • I discuss how neocolonial regimes have attempted to disarticulate culture from politics, a process that neoliberalism has exacerbated. But as discontent after nearly forty years of austerity (a.k.a. “structural adjustment programs”) in Africa rises, as governments increasingly lose popular legitimacy, there is a resurgence of uprisings and protests, and once again culture is re-emerging as a mobilizing and organizing force.
  • This attempt to erase the culture of Africans was a signal failure. For while the forces of liberalism destroyed the institutions, cities, literature, science and art on the continent, people’s memories of culture, art forms, music and all that is associated with being human remained alive, and were also carried across on the slave ships to where African slaves found themselves, and where that culture evolved in their new material conditions to become a basis for resistance.
  • “After the slave trade, armed conquest and colonial wars,” wrote Cabral, “there came the complete destruction of the economic and social structure of African society. The next phase was European occupation and ever-increasing European immigration into these territories. The lands and possessions of the Africans were looted.” Colonial powers established control by imposing taxes, enforcing compulsory crops, introducing forced labor, excluding Africans from particular jobs, removing them from the most fertile regions, and establishing native authorities consisting of collaborators.
  • Cabral pointed out that whatever the material aspects of domination, “it can be maintained only by the permanent and organized repression of the cultural life of the people concerned.” Of course, domination could only be completely guaranteed by the elimination of a significant part of the population as, for example, in the genocide of the Herero peoples in southern Africa or of many of the indigenous nations of North America, but in practice this was not always feasible or indeed seen as desirable from the point of view of empire.
  • What is important here is the assertion that Africans are not only human beings, but that their history, struggle and experiences are part of the struggle for a universal humanity that “belong[s] to the whole world.” “We must have the courage to state this clearly,” wrote Cabral. “No one should think that the culture of Africa, what is really African and so must be preserved for all time, for us to be Africans, is our weakness in the face of nature.” This is in marked contrast to the ideology of “Negritude” that emerged in the 1930s and 1940s in Paris and was to become associated with the writings of Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire.
  • Movements that had sought a radical agenda to advance the people’s interests were systematically removed through coups d’état and assassinations (for example, Lumumba in Congo, Nkrumah in Ghana, Sankara in Burkina Faso). As stated earlier, Cabral too was assassinated by a group of his own comrades, apparently with the support of the Portuguese secret police (PIDE), on 20 January 1973.
  • As Cabral pointed out: “True, imperialism is cruel and unscrupulous, but we must not lay all the blame on its broad back. For, as the African people say: ‘Rice only cooks inside the pot’”. And “here is the reality that is made more evident by our struggle: in spite of their armed forces, the imperialists cannot do without traitors; traditional chiefs and bandits in the times of slavery and of the wars of colonial conquest, gendarmes, various agents and mercenary soldiers during the golden age of colonialism, self-styled heads of state and ministers in the present time of neo-colonialism.
  • Now that political independence had been achieved, the priority was “development” because, implicitly, the new rulers concurred that its people were “under-developed”. Social and economic improvements would come, the nationalist leaders said, with patience and as a result of combined national effort involving all. In this early post-independence period, civil and political rights soon came to be seen as a “luxury”, to be enjoyed at some unspecified time in the future when “development” had been achieved. For now, said many African presidents, “our people are not ready” — echoing, ironically, the arguments used by the former colonial rulers against the nationalists’ cries for independence a few years earlier.
  • Cabral was adamantly opposed to this tendency. He did not believe that independence movements should take over the colonial state apparatus and use it for their own purposes. The issue wasn’t the color of the administrator’s skin, he argued, but the fact that there was an administrator. “We don’t accept any institution of the Portuguese colonialists. We are not interested in the preservation of any of the structures of the colonial state..”
  • Culture never has the translucency of custom. Culture eminently eludes any form of simplification. In its essence it is the very opposite of custom, which is always a deterioration of culture. Seeking to stick to tradition or reviving neglected traditions is not only going against history, but against one’s people.
  • Culture was no longer considered a means of liberation. Instead, disarticulated from such notions, it was left empty of meaning beyond representing a caricature of some imagined past comprised of customs and traditions, consistent with notions of the savage that still prevailed in liberalism and which provided fodder for tourists’ imaginations.
  • the commodification of anything that can make a fast buck. Just as the early years of liberalism were characterized by the plethora of charitable organizations, so today Africa is replete with development NGOs contributing to the depoliticization of poverty by diverting attention away from the processes that create mass impoverishment and misery. Citizens have been transformed into consumers, and those without the means to consume have been thrown on the dung heap of history as the seldom or never employed. And neoliberalism has attempted to rewrite the histories of the damned (Fanon’s Les Damnés de la Terre), seeking to erase their memories of the past through its invasion of the curriculums of schools and universities.
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