Western representations of the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

The unflattering epithets that have been attached to Guinea-Bissau in recent decades – “failed state” and “narco-state”, amongst others – have served to obscure the brief albeit very intense period in which the country was internationally considered an exemplary case of a successful anti-colonial war and represented a promising horizon for newly independent states. This chapter proposes to rescue this history of armed struggle and the embryonic construction of the Guinean nation as it was memorialised by its Western contemporaries. Drawing from scholarly work, media reports, international organisations' declarations, government statements, and personal narratives, the chapter recovers these lost memories of Guinea-Bissau's liberation trajectory in the Western imaginary.