Britain and Southern Africa

The Angolan petty-bourgeoisie has not formed in an even fashion, either geographically or over time. The urban pettybourgeoisie of Luanda and the coastal cities was created by the machinery of the colonial administration, and the service and commercial sectors. Many were mestizo (of mixed racial origin) and frequently reached the status of assimilados (non-whites having Portuguese language and culture who received significant social and civil benefits). It developed essentially after the Second World War. Finally, because of its position which combined a feeling of frustration with the restrictions of the white dictatorship and the 'extra-ethnic viewpoint of those who have inhabited a capital city for a long time or are of mixed origins, this bourgeoisie attained, to a degree, a 'universal' viewpoint, nationalist in the sense of the 'Angolan nation'. From this area emerged the leadership of the MPLA. On the other hand, currents had been developing amongst Angolan emigrants in the Belgian Congo. There had been two great waves of emigration: before the '20s and at the beginning of the '60s. There had always been a permanent population movement leading to the formation of a community of Angolan origin in the Congo. This emigration was primarily Bakongo of peasant origin. Traditional village structures were more or less preserved. The elite remained of noble Bakongo family. Certainly, the sons of chiefs in the colonial Congo became shabby petty-bourgeois, but they kept up their ties with the tribal lineages. The political development of the Angolan population, especially in the Leopoldville basin, was influenced by the development of nationalism in the Congo. Movements like Kasavubu's 'Abako' were first formed around a messianism: "Kibanguism'. This represented the first elementary and frustrated form of consciousness that rejected white institutions, primarily religious ones. Sects like the Tocoists gave birth amongst the Angolan emigrants to the political formations which fused to form the FNLA. Among these was the Union of the People of Northern Angola (UPNA), led by the traditional Bakongo chiefs. When Holden became leader he dropped the 'N' and prociaimed it the UPA. But nothing changed in the organisation's objective base. This remained firmly in the Bakongo hierarchy. They were strongly marked by their prophetic origins and first emerged with the development of the Congolese nationalist forces who were extremely regionalist. Therefore this localist petty-bourgeois FNLA leadership didn't acquire the 'nationalist universalist' viewpoint of the MPLA leaders. This seems to explain the different lines each later established with the masses, as well as the ENLA's early alignment with the Kinshasa regime and imperialism. But after these few recollections, what can be concluded about the equation 'FNLA " Bakongo consciousness'? The FNLA leadership was a sort of transitional grouping between the traditional lineages and the bureaucratic pettybourgeoisie. Holden's suppression of the reference to northern Angola proves he understood that, being based exclusively in the north, it could gain mass appeal only by affirming its Angolan character. But this also proves that the Bakongocentric aspects of FNLA did not miraculously create a 'Bakongo national consciousness'. A society constituted almost solely of peasants, their elite and a petty-bourgeoisie still tied to the village lineages, is incapable of developing national demands. Where is the Bakongo bourgeoisie which will make itself the champion of national liberation? Bakongo nationalism is therefore not the forerunner of a potential 'Bakongo nation', National consciousness has little chance of developing when it is borne only by a petty-bourgeoisie strongly tied to the fossilised structures of the tribal hierarchies. These have neither the power nor the will to summon up a nation. Who else could do it in the place of a peasantry still subordinated to village structures or of a nonexistent proletariat? For the Neto leadership of MPLA all this was a matter of "tribalism'. So these reactionary particularisms had to be fought with every energy. Defeating FNLA meant repulsing tribalism. Defeating tribalism meant militarily beating the FNLA. This conception is evidently false. The defeat of 11 Neto, Roberto and Savimbi in 1975 FNLA might mean defeating part of the forces of reaction, but it would not resolve the Bakongo question. A militarist policy coupled with general propaganda about the 'nation' would not miraculously dissolve Bakongo sentiments, largely explicable by their particular history; their specific sense of frustration under Portuguese colonialism. Defeating FNLA is one thing; winning these people to the revolution by advancing measures to satisfy their particular needs, mainly in the agrarian sphere, but including the language question, the oppression of the young under the lineage system, etc., is quite another. The failure to do this perpetuates the Bakongo's tailing behind a reactionary leadership. britain & SOUTHERN AFRICA A ONE DAY CONFERENCE FOR TRADES UNIONISTS AND YOUTH PLACE: ABRAHAM MOSS CENTRE, CRUMPSALL, MANCHESTER. DATE: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11th TIME: 10am - 6pm SPONSORED BY N.W.T.U.C. Manchester Anti-Apartheid 59 Tintern Ave. Manchester M20 8ND Tele: 061-434-7549 INTERNATIONAL As a movement with a petty-bourgeois national leadership and programme, MPLA cannot propose any alternative. It clings to the moral idea of the nation and national interests without understanding that cohesion is strengthened far more by the political involvement of the masses in similar social processes. It fails to recognise that nationalism invariably alienates a part of the population. By giving this strictly bourgeois response to the question posed, it necessarily fails in a continent torn apart by foreign domination. A revolutionary communist leadership in Angola would recognise the right of self-determination, particularly for the peoples of the north. Simultaneously, it would stand clearly for a socialist unification of all regions. It would also explain that people like the Bakongo were divided between Laire, the Congo and Angola because of colonial balkanisation. To overcome this situation it would give active support to revolutionaries in these countries and clearly show that only the revolutionary unity of peoples can resolve the demands of particular regions. At the same time, such a leadership would not be neutral regarding the FNLA. This organisation represents a counter-revolutionary response to the national question and, crucially, serves the aim of crushing the mass struggle. REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE Revolutionary work amongst the peasantry cannot be undertaken without a clear vision of the particular tasks faced in specific regions. But revolutionaries must also do selective work, starting to intervene in those regions that are weak links in the chain of the neo-colenial state's domination. Forms of peasant organisation will also vary considerably according to region. Prolonged struggles in the countryside will eventually highlight the need for permanent peasant SUBSCRIBE NOW! NAME:.. ADDRESS Individuals (Britain): £3 12 organisations. Given the 'specialisation' of regions, particularly in different single crops, but also in ethnic differences, there will be an uneven development and regionalisation of peasant movements. What are the dangers of such a situation? 1. To defuse the situation, the state will propose the formation of a 'broad peasant union' on the national level (under its control). 2. The small local landowners, certain members of the village elite, and certain politicians will fight against the coordinațion of struggles and the unification of the peasants' fight. Revolutionaries have to combat these two policies. They must exploit the uneven development of peasant opposition and promote on the one hand the deepening of local experiences and, on the other, the formation of a united peasant movement as an objective ally of the working class. This will only happen through recognising specific demands which emerge out of the fragmented and regionalised way in which the peasantry becomes politically conseious. The trotskyists will be in the vanguard of such debates to the extent that their strategy of 'permanent revolution' assigns to the working class the role of motive force in the social processes that make up the revolutionary crisis and, at a later stage, in the workers' state. Only an anti-capitalist vanguard, only a genuine revolutionary party, can take a correct approach to all these ethnic and national problems: that is to say, by starting from a class viewpoint, to express the interrelationship between the democratic and revolutionary tasks. We are not 'democrats' in the bourgeois meaning of the term, but we will always be the best defenders of democratic rights. C. Gabriel 18 December 1977 WRITE TO: INTERNATIONAL, 328/9 Upper Strøet, London N.1. Please make cheques/ POs payable to Relgocrest Ltd. 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