Driving Revolution

Amilcar Cabral places culture at the heart of the process of resistance against domination. For him, culture is where one can find the seed of resistance that later births long-lived struggles of liberation/independence. He puts it to be the fruit of history reflecting the material and spiritual realities of society. Underpinning his tribute to the sacrifices of the dominated (both of lives and culture), Cabral’s account presents a holistic framework to place the struggle of his audience as well as Sukarno himself.  

Cabral explains that domination can not be established or sustained without paralyzing one’s culture. He claims that political or economic domination is not viable without an attack on the oppressed culture. Then, the indomitable, invincible spirit of the natives that Sukarno refers to earlier in his speech can be interpreted as the spirit of re-africanisation (as put by Cabral).  The distaste and rejection to control stems from little more than the reversal of alienation from the elite’s own roots. An increase in the cultural phenomena of the colonised leads to an inevitable push-back against the oppressor and their agenda. Sukarno’s speech is indicative of a similar path. The spirit he hints towards is not only the spirit to resist economic and political exploitation. It is the spirit of taking pride in one’s own ideals and values while rejecting any impositions on it. Thus, any assimilations by the colonisers neither interests nor convinces anyone but themselves. It first serves to change the oppressed mentality, before taking the form of an all-out struggle to preserve what is left of their present.

Second, Sukarno’s famous speech highlights the importance of unity in diversity. The representatives present in the hall had different skin-tones, spoke different languages, believed in different gods, and even engaged in practices that a white ethnographer would classify to be inherently distinct. Yet, somehow the people of the East stood up with and for one another. These people had nothing to share but the need and will to fight the oppressive actions forced on them by the white. In resonation, Cabral argues that a liberation movement must bring about a convergence of the levels of culture. A similar convergence is seen when we consider the decolonisation movements that grew in different parts of Asia and Africa. Where this convergence of cultures begins by forming a single national culture to be deployed for armed resistance, it has also manifested itself as a convergence towards a shared culture of the oppressed. Despite possessing distinct values, these people had come together to form a shared character which was of their own cultures being damaged by their colonisers. This shared quality led to the realisation of the genius in their own values and ideas. The realisation was followed by a long struggle to break free from the chains of cultural exploitation.

 Therefore, the pride echoing in Sukarno’s speech is a direct result of the slow, but a sure realisation that was felt by every person in his audience. These people had, as Cabral stated been able to discover the richness of spirit, the capacity for argument and for clear exposition of ideas, the ease with which they understand and assimilate concepts. This spirit and realisation were stemming from the damage done to these individual cultures to form a shared culture that finally drove their revolution.