“Never has it been more certain that our victory depends principally on our own actions. Tell no lies, claim no easy victories . . .” —Amílcar Cabral
On the centennial of Amílcar Cabral’s birth, and fifty years after his passing, Claim No Easy Victories brings to life the resonance of his thought for today’s freedom movements.
World-renowned revolutionary, poet, liberation philosopher, and leader of the anticolonial independence movement of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, Amílcar Cabral’s legacy stretches well beyond the shores of West Africa. His profound influence on the pan-Africanist movement and the Black liberation movement in the United States and the English-speaking world spans the ages—and is only growing in an era of renewed anti-imperialist internationalist struggle.
In this unique collection of essays, radical thinkers from across Africa, the United States, and internationally commemorate Cabral’s life and legacy and his relevance to contemporary struggles for self-determination and emancipation.
Claim No Easy Victories serves equally as an introduction or reintroduction to a figure and militant history that the rulers and beneficiaries of global racial capitalism would rather see forgotten. Understanding Cabral then and now sheds light on the necessity of grounding radical change in the creation of theory based on the actual conditions within which movements develop.
The depth and dimension of Cabral’s theoretical ideas and revolutionary practice of building popular movements for liberation are assessed by each of the authors and critically reanimated for a new generation of freedom fighters.
The book features contributions by: Kali Akuno, Samir Amin, David Austin, Jesse Benjamin, Angela Davis, Bill Fletcher Jr, Mireille Fanon-Mendès France, Lewis Gordon, Firoze Manji, Asha Rodney, Patricia Rodney, Olúfémi Táíwò—and others.
About the Editors
Firoze Manji, a Kenyan with more than forty years’ experience in international development, health and human rights, is the founder and publisher of Daraja Press, including host of the online interview series Organizing in the time of Covid-19. He is Adjunct Professor at the Institute of African Studies and Contract Instructor, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Manji is the founder and former editor-in-chief of the prize-winning pan African social justice newsletter and website Pambazuka News and Pambazuka Press and the founder and former executive director of Fahamu: Networks for Social Justice, a pan-African organization with bases in Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and the UK. He has published widely in politics, health and development. He is coeditor, with Sokari Ekine, of African Awakenings: The Emerging Revolutions.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a racial justice, labor, and international activist based in the United States. He is an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com; senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; the immediate former president of TransAfrica Forum; the coauthor of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin); and the author of They're Bankrupting Us: And Twenty Other Myths about Unions.
What People Are Saying
“The book's essayists bring some complex and interesting analysis— interlaced with Cabral's biography and an overview of his writings—to the fore. They examine the theories of class suicide and re-Africanisation, which are intrinsically linked to Cabral's revolutionary consciousness. The book’s thorough scrutiny of the impact of Cabral's struggles and African liberation movements bring perspective to his legacy and also draw attention to Black movements in the Americas, where the dialectics of culture and ideology as dissected by Cabral served as an essential tool for the unpacking of social realities. Cabral's global vision of struggle also touches on his fight for the emancipation of women, described as his rejection of that era's 'masculinist and militarist images of struggle'.” The Africa Report
“As a collection it is a timely one and will be valuable for anyone seeking to be introduced or reacquainted with debates about revolution, colonialism and culture, nationalism, and pan-Africanism.” Claudia Gastrow, Feminist Africa