"It Is Not The Mountains Which Open Fire" - Efemia Chela on Amilcar Cabral's Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories

Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

In this episode we interview Efemia Chela. Chela is a Zambian-Ghanian writer, literary critic, and an editor. Efemia joins us in her role as the commissioning editor at Inkani Books, which is the publishing division of The Tricontinental Pan Africa NPC, a research institute that collaborates with and is aligned with the work of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

In this conversation Efemia shares a bit about some of the current struggles in South Africa, and situates Inkani Books as a publisher within those struggles as well as within their broader African continental context as a Pan African publishing house.

The focus of this discussion is Inkani’s latest book, Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories which brings together an extensive set of Amílcar Cabral’s interviews, official speeches and PAIGC party directives from 1962 through 1973. It features a foreword by Grant Farred and an introduction by Sónia Vaz Borges who we’ve previously hosted on the podcast.

We engage Efemia about several of Cabral’s important theoretical interventions, and the grounding of his theory in the real movement of the Guinean and Cape Verdean people and their liberation struggles. We talk about the continued relevance of his thought today to people and movements across the African continent, and discuss studying it in group contexts. Among other things, we discuss the idea of a new humanity forged in struggle, Cabral’s thinking on culture, on patriarchy, his caution with regards to decolonization and neocolonialism, and the question of what Cabral calls organic security for radical and revolutionary movements.

We want to deeply thank everyone who has been supporting us over these last 5 years. In just the last week we surpassed 1 million downloads around the world, almost half of those downloads have come this year. That feels like an amazing milestone. And we’re so thankful, and hope to continue to grow from here. We do want to note however that we don’t get paid anything for downloads. We don’t sell ads. And it is December, and this month we have a goal of adding 31 patrons, one per day. We’re always catching up with non-renewals this time of year as folks divert money towards holiday expenses. Which is understandable. So if you can afford to become a patron of the show, even if it’s just $1 a month or a small yearly contribution, it really helps a great deal at this time. You can do that at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Links:

Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy Victories by Amílcar Cabral (Inkani Books)

Inkani Books website

Tricontinental South Africa

Other MAKC Episodes on Cabral & the PAIGC:

Militant Education, Liberation Struggle, Consciousness - PAIGC Education with Sónia Vaz Borges (a recent study from Sónia on the PAIGC's education programs)

The Life of Amílcar Cabral and the Struggle of the PAIGC with António Tomás

“Culture is Sovereign” - Amílcar Cabral and African Anti-colonial Internationalism with António Tomás

Other episodes which reference Cabral historically or theoretically (there are others, but these were most handy):

"We Need To Be Active In The Working Class Struggle For Socialism Globally" - Steven Osuna on Class Suicide

"We Remember The Attempts To Be Free" - Joy James on Black August and the Captive Maternal

Becoming Kwame Ture with Amandla Thomas-Johnson

"Abolition Is Inherently Experimental" - Craig Gilmore on Fighting Prisons and Defunding Police