On 16 March the “Amílcar Cabral” exhibition opened at the Baldaya Palace in Lisbon, as part of the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April. The exhibition was curated by IHC researchers José Neves and Leonor Pires Martins.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by the curators, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Minister of Culture, Pedro Adão e Silva, the President of the Benfica Parish Council, and Maria Inácia Rezola, also an IHC historian and Commissioner of the 25th of April Commemorative Commission.

In the various speeches made, the historical importance and global legacy of Amílcar Cabral was highlighted, as the founder of the PAIGC – African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde and leader of the liberation struggle in Guinea Bissau (where he was born) and Cape Verde, as well as a unique figure in anti-colonial and anti-racist activism worldwide. This exhibition celebrates his life and legacy in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of his assassination, in Conakry, on 20 January 1973.

In an interview to RTP, José Neves explained that the exhibition contains objects and documents from different archives, namely from the Amílcar Cabral Archive, and noted that “his death and his life trajectory have provoked, over the last 50 years, an avalanche of speeches, appropriations, portraits, music”, which makes the exhibition interesting for “those who know or wish to deepen their knowledge about the life of one of the revolutionaries who contributed to the end of the last European empire (…) and to understand what we have designated as the posthumous lives of Amílcar Cabral”.

In his speech, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa highlighted the pivotal role of Amílcar Cabral “in the affirmation of freedom in Portugal together with the affirmation of independence in Guinea Bissau (…) and then in Cape Verde”, having managed to “combine not only ideas with a deep knowledge of reality, treading the ground and leaving the ground registered for the future, but also the affirmation of the fight for independence in two sovereign states”. After showing his surprise at the fact that there are “sectors of Portuguese social and political life that do not understand that decolonisation is inseparable from the 25th of April”, the President of the Republic stated that “it is an indisputable historical fact that there is a cause that is even more determinant than the fight for freedom and democracy, or the fight for development and social justice, which is the cause that is translated into the struggle of the liberation movements, into the adhesion to that struggle on the part of Portuguese political, economic, and social forces and, afterwards, into the leading role assumed by the Captains of April, largely determined by the rejection of the colonial war and, therefore, by the defence of decolonisation” and he ended his speech by thanking Amílcar Cabral.

The exhibition will be open daily, with free admission, from 9am to 10pm, until 25 June, at the Baldaya Palace in the Lisbon neighbourhood of Benfica.

Picture and videos: Diana Barbosa