30 Cabrals


Recent runnings of this exercise include:
May 2023 in Hebden Bridge at an external assembly.
September 2024 in Birmingham with a youth organisation in solidarity with Palestine.

Problems (ie why the exercise was done):
Problem 1: Low-self esteem about the revolutionary status of the contemporary movement and the sense that old revolutionaries were extraordinarily different or more gifted than us

Problem 2: Lack of experience with, or interest in, internationalism

Problem 3: The tendency of revolutionary history to, justifiably sometimes, idolize movement leaders to the detriment of remembering the thousands of less remembered revolutionaries that made up the cadres, cells and groups that populate the movements and made them possible everywhere. What can we learn by trying to emulate them?

Modes:
Simulation
Imagination
Emulation

Materials used:
The script (only one, it must be shared)
Various props; chairs, tables, prop cameras, prop microphones

Participant numbers:
Anywhere from 5 to 30

How long does it take?
20-30 minutes

~ Instructions ~

Prologue: Warm Up

Run the following warm-up, adapted from Boal.

“Fill up the space, without leaving any gaps. Don’t stop moving.”

When the room has been filled up by people, then make sure everyone is walking at the same pace.

Then see if you can speed up together, until you’re going as fast as possible - don’t leave anyone behind! (these instructions should be given as you are participating in the process, too.)

Now slow down together, until you eventually come to a stop. When you have stopped, stay still for a bit and see if you can start again together.

“OK, now we’re going to make a series of scenes together as a group, make them together but without talking.”

Each of the following scenarios can be allowed to go on for one or two minutes:

  • The beginning of a mountain bike race

  • Waiting for a bus [and then - it has started raining!]

  • Used car showroom

“As a group you are now experts at scene setting. You’ve just shown me how you can work together without communicating in speech to create scenes and imagine yourselves there as a group and play off each other.”


Part One: Set the scene

We’re going to create a scene that happened in the past, and hasn’t happened again until now. And I’m going to read you the elements of the scene so you can get into character and get into the scene. We don’t know everything about this scene, we only have some details so we’re going to have to use our imaginations.

The first scene we’re going to do is one that Amilcar Cabral walked into one day. If you’re not familial with Cabral, he led an important liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau against the Portuguese. Now remember, as I describe the scene, you should create the scene. This is the description we have of this meeting:

“During his last visit to the United States Cabral asked the American Information Service to organise a small informal meeting at which he could speak with representatives of different black organisations. The A.I.S contacted approximately thirty organisations and on October 20, 1972, more than 120 people representing a wide range of Black groups in America crowded into a small room to meet with Amilcar Cabral.”

You may need to interject here to instruct people again to set the scene, there will also be the spectactors. Here you might break to all decide the edges of the small room, where the speaker is, etc.

A number of the people present came to New York specifically for this meeting.                            

Imagine you have been invited to this meeting, who do you think you are?

Try to get the participants to name examples here, i.e. a representative of a group of radical students.

“At the meeting, the vitality, warmth and humour of Cabral the person became evident to those who had not met him before.”

Now we’re going to start the scene. Anyone can say ‘STOP’ at any time, to ask a question or to say what they think about the scene, but they should get us going again pretty rapidly. We’ll pass the role of Cabral between us, but remember that it’s mostly the audience that will make Cabral Cabral.

The spectactors are responsible for bringing the scene to life. They are Cabral’s audience and they should act as realistically as they can imagine. Things they can do:

They should move around

They should whisper to one another

Coughing

Rolling cigarettes, passing cigarettes, smoking cigarettes

Handing things to one another

Arms around one another

Quiet conversations

Holding babies

“Shhhhh!”

They should use props

They should be actors as much as possible,

They should agree or disagree vocally and with gestures with Cabral, but shouldn’t be needlessly disruptive - what they do should add to the scene, not upend it.

The facilitators are trying to encourage this behaviour in the rest of the group - by doing it. If we go overboard, we may scare them off. We need to adjust the levels of our noise and movement to guide the mood in the room.

Part 2: Act out the scene

One of the spectators should begin as Cabral by reading a paragraph from the script. The comrades should continue keeping the scene alive in the manner worked out just before. But the script should pass around in an organic way, so that multiple people are slipping between their character as people in the crowd on one hand, and Cabral on the other. The script should be passed around.

The audience should be encouraged to stop the action at some points if they have a question - about something in the script, about how something would have been, and so on. The facilitators should encourage this by doing it themselves - asking questions they genuinely want to know the answer to. Someone who wants to stop the action should say loudly ‘STOP’.  

CABRAL: I am bringing to you—our African brothers and sisters of the United States — the fraternal salutations of our people in assuring you we are very conscious that all in this life concerning you also concerns us. If we do not always pronounce words that clearly show this, it doesn’t mean that we are not conscious of it. It is a reality and considering that the world is being made smaller each day all people are becoming conscious of this fact.

Naturally if you ask me between brothers and comrades what I prefer — if we are brothers it is not our fault or our responsibility. But if we are comrades, it is a political engagement. Naturally we like our brothers but in our conception it is better to be a brother and a comrade. We like our brothers very much, but we think that if we are brothers we have to realize the responsibility of this fact and take clear positions about our problems in order to see if beyond this condition of brothers, we are also comrades. This is very important for us.

We try to understand your situation in this country. You can be sure that we realize the difficulties you face, the problems you have and your feelings, your revolts, and also your hopes. We think that our fighting for Africa against colonialism and imperialism is a proof of understanding of your problem and also a contribution for the solution of your problems in this continent. Naturally the inverse is also true. All the achievements toward the solution of your problems here are real contributions to our own struggle. And we are very encouraged in our struggle by the fact that each day more of the African people born in America become conscious of their responsibilities to the struggle in Africa.

Does that mean you have to all leave here and go fight in Africa? We do not believe so. That is not being realistic in our opinion. History is a very strong chain. We have to accept the limits of history but not the limits imposed by the societies where we are living. There is a difference. We think that all you can do here to develop your own conditions in the sense of progress, in the sense of history and in the sense of the total realization of your aspirations as human beings is a contribution for us. It is also a contribution for you to never forget that you are Africans.

The fact that you follow our struggle and are interested in our achievements is good for us. We base our struggle on the concrete realities of our country. We appreciate the experiences and achievements of other peoples and we study them. But revolution or national liberation struggle is like a dress which must be fit to each individual’s body. Naturally, there are certain general or universal laws, even scientific laws for any condition, but the liberation struggle has to be developed according to the specific conditions of each country. This is fundamental.

The specific conditions to be considered include — economic, cultural, social, political and even geographic. The guerrilla manuals once told us that without mountains you can not make guerrilla war. But in my country there are no mountains, only the people. In the economic field we committed an error. We began training our people to commit sabotage on the railroads. When they returned from their training we remembered that there were no railroads in our country. The Portuguese built them in Mozambique and Angola but not in our country.

I am not going to develop these things further, I think it is better if you ask questions. We are very happy to be with you, our brothers and sisters. I tell you frankly, although it might hurt my visit to the United Nations, each day I feel myself more identified with you. I am not racist, but each day I realize that if I did not have to do what I have to do in my country, maybe I would come here to join you.

I am at your disposal for any kind of question; no secrets, or ceremonies or diplomacy with you.

QUESTION: I am from Mali. I don’t know if you will be comfortable with this questions, but are you satisfied with the type of moral, political and military aid you have been receiving from other African countries?

CABRAL: First of all, let me say to my brother that I am comfortable with any kind of question — there is no problem. Secondly, when one is in a condition that he has to receive aid, he is never satisfied.

QUESTION: I would like to know what forward thrust your country would have in the absence of NATO support to Portugal.

CABRAL: You see, Portugal is an underdeveloped country—the most backward in Western Europe. It is a country that doesn't even produce toy planes—this is not a joke, it's true. Portugal would never be able to launch three colonial wars in Africa without the help of NATO, the weapons of NATO, the planes of NATO, the bombs of NATO—it would be impossible for them.

QUESTION: My question concerns the basis of law you are using in your country, are you using the laws of the Portuguese?

CABRAL: If you really want to know the feelings of our people on this matter I can tell you that our government and all its institutions have to take another nature. For example, we must not use the houses occupied by the colonial power in the way they used them. I proposed to our party that the government palace in Bissau be transformed into a people’s house for culture, not for our prime minister or something like this (I don’t believe we will have prime ministers anyway). This is to let the people realize that they conquered colonialism — it’s finished this time— it’s not only a question of a change of skin. This is really very important. It is the most important problem in the liberation movement. The problem of the nature of the state created after independence is perhaps the secret of the failure of African independence.

QUESTION: My question is about the role of women. What is the nature of their transformation from the old system under imperialism?

CABRAL: In the beginning of the struggle, when we launched the guerrilla struggle, young women came without being called and asked for weapons to fight, hundreds and hundreds.

I hope we can send some of our women here so you will be able to know them. But we have big problems to solve and we have a great problem with some of the leaders of the Party. We have (even myself) to combat ourselves on this problem, because we have to be able to cut this cultural element, with its great roots, until the day we put down this bad thing—the exploitation of women, but we made great progress in this field in these ten years.

QUESTION: Comrade Cabral, you spoke about universal scientific laws of revolution. It is very clear that in this country, we too, are engaged in some stage of development of a revolutionary struggle. Certainly one of the most controversial aspects of our struggle is the grasp of these scientific universal laws. Would you talk about your Party’s understanding of revolutionary theory, particularly as related to Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, and the anti-colonial wars of national liberation?

CABRAL: I have to tell you that when we began preparing for our struggle in our own country, we didn’t know Mao. The first time I faced a book of Mao was in 1960. Our party was created in 1956. We knew less about the struggle of Cuba, but later we tried to know the experiences of other peoples. Some experiences we put aside because the difference was so great that it would waste time to study them. We think the experiences of other people is very important for you, principally to know things you should not do. Because what you have to do in your country you have to create yourself.

The general laws are very simple. For instance, the development of the armed fight in a country characterized by agriculture where most, if not all, of the population are peasants means you have to do the struggle as in China, in Viet Nam or in my country. Maybe you begin in the towns, but you recognize that this is not good. You pass to the countryside to mobilize the peasants. You recognize that the peasants are very difficult to mobilize under certain conditions, but you launch the armed struggle and step by step you approach the towns in order to finish the colonists.

You can tell me it’s not possible in the United States, the United States is not an agricultural country like this. But if you study deeply the conditions in your country maybe you will find that this law is also applicable. This is what I can tell you, because it is a very big problem to discuss, if I understood your question.

QUESTION: How were you able to set up a training program in which a cadre were exposed to this information?

CABRAL: In the beginning we established what you call a political school for militants. About one thousand people came from our country by groups. We first asked — who are we? Where are we? What do we want? How do we live? What is our enemy? Who is this enemy? What can he do against us? What is our country? Where is our country?—things like this, step by step, explaining our real conditions and explaining what we want, why we want it and why we had to fight against the Portuguese. Among all these people some step by step, approached other experiences. But the problem of going from feudal or semi-feudal society or tribal society to socialism is a very big problem, even from capitalism to socialism.

If there are Marxists here they know that Marx said that capitalism created all the conditions for socialism. The conditions were created but never passed. Even then it is very difficult. This is even more reason for the feudal or semi-feudal tribal societies to jump to socialism — but it's not a problem of jumping. It's a process of development. You have to establish the political aims and based on your own condition the ideological content of the fight. To have ideology doesn't necessarily mean that you have to define whether you are communist, socialist, or something like this. To have ideology is to know what you want in your own condition.

We want in our country this: to have no more exploitation of our people, not by white people or by black people. We don't want any more exploitation. It is in this way we educate our people—the masses, the cadres, the militants — in this way. For that we are taking step by step, all the measures necessary to avoid this exploitation. How? We give to our people the instrument to control, the people lead. And we give to our people all possibility to participate more actively each day in the direction of their own life.

Naturally, if an American comes he may say you are doing socialism in your country. This is a responsibility for him. We are not preoccupied with labels you see. We are occupied in the content of the thing, what we are doing, how we are doing it, what chances are we creating for realizing this aim.

QUESTION: But brother, why is it that each time the question of Pan-Africanism is brought to the discussion at the OAU [Organisation of African Unity] most of them take different views?

CABRAL: Oh yes. You see you cannot demand all the African states to agree immediately on Pan-Africanism. You see, my sister, you here in the United States, we understand you. You are for Pan-Africanism and you want it today. Pan-Africanism now! We are in Africa; don’t confuse this reaction against Pan-Africanism with the situation of the OAU. Pan-Africanism is a means to return to the source. You see, it's a very big problem. It's not like this. You are looking at the surface. It’s not like this. Unfortunately, I am leaving, but if not I would like very much to speak with you in order to show you Pan-Africanism is a very nice idea; but we have to work for it. We have a meeting at half past seven with the Chairman of the Decolonization Committee. We have to go there. It is about 20 minutes from here. I am late.

QUESTION: When will we see you again?

CABRAL: Again? I never know. It is difficult for me but I hope in two years. Also for some of you, if you want, you can come to my country and see me and see our people.

QUESTION: How?

CABRAL: By paying the travel, [laughter]

QUESTION: What are some of the specific financial and political things we can do to further the struggle?

CABRAL: Personally I don’t agree with that question. I think that this meeting is a meeting of brothers and sisters. You represent several organizations. I am very glad because we want your unity. We know it’s very difficult—it’s more difficult to make your unity than Pan-Africanism maybe. But we would like you to consider this meeting a meeting between brothers and sisters trying to reinforce not only our links in blood, and in history, but also in aims. I am very glad to have been here with you and I deeply regret that it is not possible to be with you longer. Thank you very much.

Criticism / Results of this exercise:
May 2023
When we ran this exercise at our 2023 external assembly, we failed to properly  debrief afterward. But we can base a few reflections on observations made during the exercise. One of our participants said that during meetings in the AAPRP, people shout a lot and outwardly display revolutionary spirit, and she questioned the docility of the group during the act. She demonstrated this by chanting (acting as one of Cabral’s guests) occasionally. This appeared to us to be a useful pedagogical moment for the students

On one hand, there were a handful of people who really got enthusiastic about setting the scene. The warm-up in advance of the exercise is to help get people in the spirit of “acting.” This translated well in some cases. It gave people who were more shy a role to play in creating the exercise, because they could mill about on the periphery and act like they were smoking a cigarette or taking photos. On the other hand, this can generate a kind of barrier to getting really involved in the content of the exercise for some people, a way to participate without really giving themselves to the learning process. If this kind of half-engagement proliferates, it produces a kind of make-believe feeling, or a pretending feeling, when the goal is rather to simulate. 

There were also a handful of people who did not participate at all. We can only speculate as to why, but we suspect that the exercise was considered too childish or unserious. Perhaps those participants believed that engaging in this kind of role-play ‘cheapened’ the work of past revolutionaries, or reduced their political work to a kind of scene (perhaps in this exercise you might be worried about ‘LARPing’ or preludes to ‘adventurism’ depending on the participants.) If you have participants who do not take political work seriously, then you are very likely to run into this kind of problem of role-playing, so the exercise relies on trust between the comrades who are carrying it out that this is not what is happening.

September 2024
We found that when people assumed the role of Cabral, they moved themselves to the front, which disrupts the scene’s flow and forces a certain character of speech that Cabral is giving. We would suggest you advise participants to stay where they were when they become Cabral. We also found that people who were at the session on their own found it more difficult to make interventions in the scene. 

Some people may be representing groups who are present at the meeting (families, couples, friendship groups, political affiliates, informers). Our reflection from when we ran the exercise was that the next step would be for them to form their groups more explicitly so that they can work out collective responses or interventions during the scene.










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