Philosophy and Religion, Part 6
Weapon
of Theory
The Tricontinental
Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America was held in
Havana, in January, 1966, 46 years after the Baku Conference of the Peoples of the
East and seven years after the
Cuban Revolution.
Forty-nine more years have now passed since the Tricontinental. A lot
has been achieved in that time, including our South African democratic
breakthrough, twenty-one years ago, and the unbanning of the ANC and the SACP,
twenty-five years ago.
The full defeat of Imperialism has not yet occurred. What we can positively
say is that from early in the 20th-Century the historical agenda was
set by the liberation movements, and that Imperialism represents the
degeneration and the decline of bourgeois class power, and not its heyday.
The great political change in the world in the last century was the
taking of sovereign independence by the formerly oppressed people of the former
colonies, affecting the great majority of the population of the planet, and
opening the road of democracy for them.
This gigantic movement and vast change was achieved with the weapon of theory. In other words, the
movement had a conscious philosophy.
49 years ago Amilcar Cabral, in the speech to the Tricontinental that
has always been known by the title “Weapon of Theory” (attached, and linked via
the download, below) said the following:
“It is often said that national liberation is based on
the right of every people to freely control its own destiny and that the
objective of this liberation is national independence. Although we do not
disagree with this vague and subjective way of expressing a complex reality, we
prefer to be objective, since for us the basis of national liberation, whatever
the formulas adopted on the level of international law, is the inalienable
right of every people to have its own history, and the objective of national
liberation is to regain this right usurped by imperialism, that is to say, to
free the process of development of the national productive forces.
“For this reason, in our opinion, any national
liberation movement which does not take into consideration this basis and this
objective may certainly struggle against imperialism, but will surely not be
struggling for national liberation.
“This means that, bearing in mind the essential
characteristics of the present world economy, as well as experiences already
gained in the field of anti-imperialist struggle, the principal aspect of
national liberation struggle is the struggle against neo-colonialism.”
Amilcar Cabral was a true vanguardist. He was both a great leader, and a
great intellectual.
Please download the document via the link given here.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: The Weapon of Theory, 1966, Amilcar Cabral.
