The French Anticolonial Solidarity Movement and the Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

Abstract

The liberation wars in the Portuguese colonies were not merely local processes, circumscribed to the geographical areas where armed combat was taking place. This article sheds light on this phenomenon by examining the ways in which the PAIGC's struggle, combined with Amilcar Cabral's political performance, influenced the activism of anticolonialist committees in France, particularly in Paris. After mapping out the committees' actions and discourses concerning the PAIGCas well as their broader critique of Portuguese colonialism and authoritarianismthe article analyses a set of cultural artefacts (books, plays, etc) produced by these groups which helped disseminate the Guinean war at an international level. It also discusses the articulation between the committees' demands and their positions vis-à-vis the politics of France and Portugal, as well as their wider denunciation of western imperialism and the Cold War system. The aim is to assess the interplay between domestic and internationalist agendas, demonstrating how, on the one hand, the French committees' rhetoric and actions were influenced by the liberation movements and, on the other hand, the support for the African struggle served a purpose in their political strategy at home.

Portuguese Geography, tropics and late colonialism

“…Portuguese Africa to gather support and sympathies at the international level. Starting from the consultation of a set of private collections -that of the French communist geographer Jean Suret-Canale integrated in the Departmental Archives of Seine-Saint Denis, in Bobigny, France, and the documentation of Amílcar Cabral and Mário Pinto de Andrade made available by the Mário Soares and Maria Barroso Foundation, in Lisbon, Portugal -, Ferretti attempts a reconstitution of this network of international solidarity, including names such as the historian Basil Davidson, the political economist Ronald H. Chilcote, the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein and the writer Joyce Lussu, in addition to the French activists linked to the Comité National de Soutien de la Lutte de Libération dans les Colonies Portugaises, as was the case with Gil Tchernia and Maurice Gastaud (Barros, 2020;Ginsburger, 2021).…”

Introduction. Amílcar Cabral and the Idea of Anticolonial Revolution

“…Conveying a different approach, other publications have searched for a more holistic framework, incorporating a transnational lens. The study of the PAIGC and Cabral's agency in enlisting support against Portugal embodies such an approach, detailing the moral, political and material assistance received from governments, international organizations, personalities, groups of people, activists and a multitude of informal networks and solidarity movements established across the globe (Russo 2020, Barros 2019, Dallywater et al 2019, 2016a, Schliehe 2019, Telepneva 2019a, Parrott 2014, Sellstrom 2002, 1999a, Eriksen 2000.…”

“…Sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) grant PTDC/EPH-HIS/6964/2014, the project aimed to study Amílcar Cabral's contribution for the creation of the political subjectivity of the populations of Guinea and Cabo Verde, the process of construction of Cabral as an international political actor and the representations of his life and work. Consisting of several publications and a website, the outputs of the research project are likely to continue in the future to shape the scholarship on the complex history and legacies of Amílcar Cabral (Jones 2020, Barros 2019, Laranjeiro 2019b, Lopes & Barros 2019, Sousa 2020, Telepneva 2019a.3…”

«Aumentar o nível de consciência política». La Conferencia de Solidaridad de Roma, el anticolonialismo italiano y los movimientos de liberación de las colonias portuguesas

“…La cuestión de la solidaridad y el estudio de sus redes ha recibido recientemente interés por parte de la investigación histórica (Martín 2022;Prashad 2007;Randall 2017). Pero especialmente, y para lo que nos concierne, observamos este interés en aquellos trabajos que se han aproximado a las redes de solidaridad entre las organizaciones de las colonias portuguesas con países europeos como Francia (Barros 2019), Suecia (Sellström 1999a(Sellström , 1999b e Italia (Kaiser 2017;Russo 2020;Tornimbeni 2018), así como con organismos internacionales (Santos 2012).…”