Two Hopes

Sukarno and Amilcar Cabral tend to reconcile and diverge at many points during their discourses on liberation and culture. If made to converse, both would agree that independence is not an end but a means to reach something, demanding of them even more patience and strength. However, a disagreement might arise in who they believe to have taken this independence from and what they feel has been truly lost.

The liberation stands on something robust for both. For Sukarno, it finds its base on an acknowledgement of sacrifice. There is great emphasis on the “spirit” of ancestors, and the burden that comes with knowing they cannot be let down. Independence then has been both an idea and a moment. Colonialism simply changed who took charge over both. Under colonial rule independence became an idea for those oppressed. Now, after 1945 it takes shape as a moment “newly re-covered”, seized by those it always belonged to. This claim is most prevalent when Sukarno says there has been a “reawakening”, suggestive of a time where there was once freedom. From this moment comes the reason to fight for a liberation. In that, independence only offers itself as a tool to break free of “physical, spiritual and intellectual bonds” so that the Asians and African nations can see each other as allies rather than enemies. Liberation depends on learning to see the struggles of others from “religions” different from and the same as one’s own, through the lens of independence.

When reading Cabral, the central focus becomes one of culture. For him too, like Sukarno, liberation has a firm foundation. The foundation in this case being the adaptability and fluidity of culture. The armed struggle is a “builder of culture” but also equally “an act of culture” itself. The condition of being dominated by a colonial power provided “sustenance” for culture, in that, it led to various alterations allowing for its evolution. In many ways, culture is kept alive and meaningful when it is being challenged. From here there is a point in the paper where Cabral and Sukarno align neatly. Cabral writes that before the liberation struggle there was “an increase in cultural phenomena…which crystallize(d) into an attempt.” That is, an independent society living according to its own culture is carried on to a moment in time where the culture takes the form of an action. Since for Cabral, culture can also be an “ideology”, it is safe to say that independence (in this case of culture) is one that eventually becomes a tool to resist. A lens to look through. In short, liberation will prove to be unsuccessful if not achieved through the assertion of one’s cultural “personality”.

Despite this similarity (although full of differences in itself), both take different approaches when describing who and what this liberation is meant to fight. For Sukarno, it is the “evil” of colonialism and an “alien community” that has made his community suffer. He claims then, that the colonizer could not take shape in those from the same nation under colonial rule. For him there is this external threat. Cabral on the other hand, tends to explain the “cultural alienation” in local leaders that often leads them to oppress their own people. The colonial idea of suppression to him, is not reserved for a certain person, but is an illness that “flourishes” if “defenders of culture” do not keep rising up. In other words, unity for Sukarno is possible through “reason” and dialogue with other cultures. For Cabral, this is not enough, since what one is uniting against is not always that clear.

To conclude, the answer to the question for me, cannot be a simple yes or no. There seem to be many ways to present a case for either argument. This is however not a disadvantage in the least, since for Cabral and Sukarno to have thought only similarly, there would have been a little less to the richness of ideas in our world.