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Abstract

On 24 September 1973, the former Portuguese colony of West Africa, Guinea Bissau, under the leadership of Amilcar Cabral and the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands), declared its independence after fighting a national liberation war against their Portuguese colonialists. This was the first and the only war for independence in West Africa, with the complete defeat of a European colonial army. During and after the Guinea Bissau Liberation war; 1963-1974, many social scientists, particularly those using the Marxist framework analyzed this African nationalist struggle as a successful Marxist revolution in West Africa. However, representing the fight in this manner, presents at least three problems. First, it denies the African originality of Amilcar Cabral and his followers. Second, it removes or ignores the voices of local individuals and varied "non-Marxist participants." Finally, it creates a new kind of colonization of the same territory, one that is intellectual, rather than physical. I argue some of the reasons to resist the Marxist calling are Amilcar Cabral never called himself a Marxist and was known to have a perspective of "whatever formula works." By painting the Guinea Bissau national war as Marxist, these scholars present the struggle as part of a western evolution, rather than an African event, thus erasing at the same time the voices of local, non-Marxist participants, such as women and youth.

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