Harry’s Place

3) they block out reality because they see people from other continents as good savages.

4) They believe that all these reports are exaggeration, lies and propaganda.

Does anyone know the historic origin of the cry a luta continua? This of course was one of the rallying cries of the ANC, among other movements, and of course “viva ANC/Mandela/whoever viva”. I was reminded of it last wekk when watching an induction video for women prisoners here in the UK made by someone I know who does poetry sessions with women prisoners. In the film, one of the black women prisoners recites a poem about my land Africa, concluding with a shout ‘a luta Africa a luta’. I wondered to what extent these are authentic Africa liberation phrases, or did Che import them during his adventures in Africa?

3) they block out reality because they see people from other continents as good savages.

An idiot nutter ~/David T~ as Newman is, I don’t think he believes that. See his statement that Sankara combated the local Burkinabe chiefs. This ain’t some Rosseuean admiration of the noble savage. It’s Marxist Millenarianism.

Thank you for the info on Machel, Paul. I strongly suspect you’re going to get Paul Fauvet in a mo’.

What kind of hallucinogenics are these guys taking? They live in a parallel reality!

I remember very well Samora Machel, and the way he and his wife lived in great luxury while the people was starving to death. Now Graça Machel, currently married to Nelson Mandela, only wears african style clothes, but back then she prefered Dior.

I deeply regret my country’s serious responsibilities in the way power was handed over. The peoples formerly oppressed by the portuguese colonialism didn’t have the chance to exert their right to self-determination.

What happened is simply that after the 1974 revolution in Portugal, the army factions controlled by the communist party created a situation that prevented the new democratic government of Portugal to guarantee a political solution that would allow the africans to choose who would govern them.

By that time, Portugal itself was close to civil war, with a serious confrontation being held between the Socialist party, supported and the Communist party.

With the exception of Guinea-Bissau, where the liberation army had already practically defeated the portuguese army, in all the other countries the communist factions within the portuguese army had the power to choose whom to give the colonies to.

In Angola they gave it to MPLA, then a soviet-backed. They are still there, but now they are savage capitalists.

In Mozambique it was Frelimo who got chosen. After some years of civil war, Machel approached the American administration, was received in the White House by Reagan and then shortly after that the airplane where he was traveling crashed.

So, not only he was a tyrant, but his love for “socialism” was not that big, because he was preparing to switch sides.

By the way, Machel was indeed a nurse, but he was not the son of a peasant, but instead he was the son of an important tribal leader. Anyone with a basic knowledge of Africa knows how traditional structures overlap with political movements (not only in Africa, even in Europe it’s like that in smaller countries). A son of a simple peasant would simply not be able to get to the top of Frelimo, because he would lack a power basis.

But, then, that small detail would spoil the the picture.

These people make me feel sick.

What next? A praise for Robert Mugabe?

Sarah, has happened. Then there was the time Seumas Milne went to South Africa to cross the picket and offload the whole damn shipment of arms himself (TM Mike, 2008).

4) They believe that all these reports are exaggeration, lies and propaganda.

Which prompts the further question: why do they disbelieve the reports about Machel and Castro but not the reports about Mobutu and Pinochet?

Their political animism, Paul.

If it’s not too glib, surely there is a third possibility:

3. That they are utterly deluded and have managed either to ignore or deny the reality of life under these regimes.

It would not be all that hard to achieve. First of all, one needs to be able to discount utterly any account of the regime that does not accord with the views you already hold. This is quite simple if you have already been indoctrinated with the notion that Capitalist = Bad and Socialist (even if in name alone) = Good. Therefore, anyone who criticises the regime must be an evil capitalist, and their opinions may be discounted.

With this mindset in place, you can tune out dissenting opinions and focus only on the twaddle your associates and the leaders of the regimes feed you.

1. They want to impose the same tyranny and commit the same atrocities here.

You think?

It is a strange type of craziness. I tell my Guardian reading Dad about the problems my friends had in Venezuela and how they are even frightened to vote against Chavez living in the UK - but he still is not convinced.

and frelimo didn’t militarily defeat the portuguese army.

Colonialism defeated itself.

After 13 years of war, a group of young captains decided that they had had enough, then overthrew the dictatorship.

Horrible crimes of war were commited by the portuguese army in Mozambique, which enabled it to have a substancial control over the territory.

There was no military defeat of the portuguese, there was no military victory of the rebels.

Let’s not falsifie History.

The fight against portuguese colonialism had had great leaders, the greatest of them being Amilcar Cabral, who was murdered by the portuguese political police.

You can say that Eduardo Mondlane was a leader with vision, also murdered by the portuguese political police.

in both cases there are suspicions of complicity from insiders.

Machel was not a great leader in any way you look at him.

alec, I am a newcomer!

I should have guessed. at least they are coherent. What I don’t understand is why don’t they equally praise Pinochet, Suharto, etc…

are extreme left wing dictators better than extreme right wing dictators?

No, I think they’re aware of what goes on, but consider it a reasonable price to pay - especially given that they’re not paying it - in order to defeat colonialism, imperialism etc.

If you’ve ever the “anti-imperialist newspaper” Lalkar it comes out with stuff like “Zanu-PF’s record is one of immense achievements of historic proportions”. Although it’s probably unfair to compare Andy Newman with Lalkar because Lalkar is barking mad.

in both cases there are suspicions of complicity from insiders.

Sarah, would you then compare this to Ian Smith’s destruction of moderates within the, then, black Rhodesian population and the subsequent power grab by the likes of Robert Mugabe?

First of all, one needs to be able to discount utterly any account of the regime that does not accord with the views you already hold. This is quite simple if you have already been indoctrinated with the notion that Capitalist = Bad and Socialist (even if in name alone) = Good. Therefore, anyone who criticises the regime must be an evil capitalist, and their opinions may be discounted.

Here is a classic example:-

The Thai ruling class finds its options narrowing… Laotian and Cambodian reactionary refugees in camps in the northern part of the country are being promised colonist landholdings, in return for fevered and fabricated stories of communist “bloodbaths” and atrocities in their liberated homelands for the “free world” media. As privileged alien landowners, these lackeys will obviously have strongly anti-communist motives.

(Malcolm Caldwell, “Thailand: Towards the Revolution,” Race and Class, 18:2, Autumn 1976, p148)

Caldwell was eventually murdered by the communist butchers he championed.

Hang around, Sarah. I guarantee Paul Fauvet is going to have a fit!

What I don’t understand is why don’t they equally praise Pinochet, Suharto, etc…

Simply put, they were in vague connexion to the USA and ‘capitalism’.

Your photostream is bringing back good memories my last holiday, to Lisbon. Sheer coincidence, I ran into Glasgow Celtic for their match against Benfica. Still, the city got off better than Manchester does with Glasgow Rangers.

Done a bit of traveling around Mos by Land Cruiser. It’s a stunning country, but quite unbelievably buggered, the war detritus is still lying around, old T34 tanks, BMP APCs, old Soviet trucks, thousands of items of railway rolling stock, smashed, like an abandoned train set all over the country .. and so on, sod-all infrastructure. Many of the people live in the most unbelievably grinding poverty.

Samora Michel is rather lionised now in South Africa; hardly surprising I suppose really - given the tacit endorsement of mad Bob by the ANC.

It is a form of racism, that not allows to know itself. It agrees with other countries having leaaders that would never accept for onself.

Yes, I was trying to think of an example but work got in the way. Caldwell is a very good one.

I believe Bertrand Russell and other upper class commies of his ilk refused to acknowledge the accounts of dissidents from the Iron Curtain.

It is a form of racism, that not allows to know itself. It agrees with other countries having leaaders that would never accept for onself.

There must be something about having that sort of world view that means your brain is ill-equipped to deal with things like every day political administration and so forth. It would certainly explain why Western leftist organisations seem to be hard pressed to distinguish their posterior from their humerus.

I surmise that any state run by such people would go tits-up in a matter of weeks, much as Respect its descendants and predecessors have done, again and again, for the last century or so.

There must be something about having that sort of world view that means your brain is ill-equipped to deal with things like every day political administration and so forth
Yup, it’s known technically as ‘The Chomsky Effect’.

The traditional CP hack justification for atrocities committed by Communist and marxist regimes was “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” You don’t hear that much nowadays; the last person I heard utter it in all seriousness was Professor Harold Rosen, father of Michael. He also gravely informed me that the vanguard (folk such as himself) were always in possession of the most advanced ideas…

Sadly, part of the reason that the Samoras of this world continue to be sanitised and lionised is their association with the sainted Mandela and the he-wishes-he-was-sainted Desmond Tutu who still see themselves as maintaining solidarity with their comrades in the liberation struggle.

And of course, there’s always “we are all Hezbollah now”…

Not wanting to sound like a broken record, but hard leftists adopt these ossified positions because it is their religion.

When there is a conflict between ‘faith’ and reality, leftist faith triumphs.

They’re a bit like the 17th century Vatican vis à vis Galileo, with the exception that The Vatican eventually admitted to the new world view.

The hard left, on the other hand is still Ptolyomic

Marxist sundials.

Not wanting to sound like a broken record, but hard leftists adopt these ossified positions because it is their religion.

Indeed. In this sense they are no different from a astrologer or an anti-vaccinationist. It matters not one jot that they have no evidence to support their case: what such people value more than anything else is the *fervency* of their belief, most particularly perhaps in the face of powerful and plentiful evidence to the contrary.

david t-i like cheese.
sarah franco-i like cheese too!
alex macperson-lol!gorgonzola is nice!
pabluski-no way dude.wensleydale rocks!
etc etc etc etc etc

Judy: “The traditional CP hack justification for atrocities committed by Communist and marxist regimes was “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

To which the easy reply is, “I see lots of broken eggs - but where are the omelettes?”

When I was a kid growing up in South Africa I remember a joke that went around after Samora Michel’s plane was blown up (I was 7 or 8) at the time.

‘Have you heard, they found Samora Michel?’

‘Really?’

‘Ja, they found Samora Michel and Samora Michel and Samora Michel.’

I remember not knowing who he was — only that he was some African leader.

But for some reason the fact that you could make a pun out of someone’s name and a joke out of a tragedy was something that left an indelible impression on me.

“trellis” .indeed .in this sense you sound no different to a pompous funeral parlour owner.

blah: You of course are Oscar Wilde and we are not worthy

a few years ago when I left the swp AN contacted me and told me that it was a long and winding road overcoming residual trottery- I always believed that AN was ploughing a happy course back into a left reformism/ eventual labour party career. Unfortunately he has become embroiled in the political shennanigans of George Galloways post split Respect and his site is now the home to some of the worse of GG style stalinism.see for example His recent support for Chinese repression in Tibet, and the interview with the american Green leader Joel kovel http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2295 which was a good example of how modern “anti-zionism” and anti- semitism merge seemlessly together

Judy:

The traditional CP hack justification for atrocities committed by Communist and marxist regimes was “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

Nick:

To which the easy reply is, “I see lots of broken eggs - but where are the omelettes?”

And there is another question: did they intend to make omelettes in the first place?

blah:
I am sorry, I am a little dumb and not a native english speaker. I don’t understand what is there to mention about cheese. I like cheese, though. But I am not a sofisticated person, so I never ate gorgonzola.

anyway, it’s good to know that you like cheese. It’s good for your health. Congratulations.

Alec:

I don’t know how to compare the case of Ian smith’s regime.

About Mondlane and Amílcar cabral I know more, especially about Cabral, who by coincidence lived on the building next to my family’s home when he was studying in Lisbon. He was a great man, comparable to Leopold Senghor. He was fighting colonialism but he also loved Portugal and the portuguese people. My mother remembers him very well, although she didn’t know at that time that he was more than a student.

He also had good contacts with portuguese exiled dissidents based in Algeria.

Mondlane was a UN official. One of Salazar’s most important advisers, Adriano Moreira, met him at the UN when both were working there and, recognizing his qualities, tried to bring him to the portuguese side, but he didn’t go, and latter joined the resistance movements in Mozambique, who lacked a credible leader.

Both were killed by letter-bombs. It is a proven fact that PIDE, the political police send those bombs. The mystery is how come the letter-bombs were not opened by someone else. They both knew they were targets and there were security measures that they took to protect themselves.

They were both moderate people who had no option than to embrace armed conflict in order to liberate their people. Their death was highly convenient to others less moderate whose goal was not freedom but power.

This is a classical pattern in rebel movements. Even with the romans it was like that, not to mention the Trojan horse.

In every war there are people who are ready to betray those who rely on them. The fascist regime was highly skilled in using different factions against each other.

sarah Franco: I loved that encouraging post you have just done on your site about your friend. Maybe you can answer my question about a luta continua- I had been thinking it might have originated with Cabral?

“david t-i like cheese.
sarah franco-i like cheese too!
alex macperson-lol!gorgonzola is nice!
pabluski-no way dude.wensleydale rocks!
etc etc etc etc etc”

I like cheese too. Give me anything soft, French and smelly. (I like my cheese like I like my wome- anyway.)

The fondue is a noble, if rather retro form of cheese consumption. Of course, you can have meat fondues too. Maybe one with little shredded bits of blah would be good. What’s sauce for the Mozambiquan goose is surely sauce for the blah-ian gander?

I feel quite fatigued by all these poor-quality food-based analogies.

“We can’t afford to be choosy.” — J Pilger

Say cheese, Blah!

One mustn’t forget that Renamo, the creature of the SA Defence Force and its spooks, committed unspeakable atrocities as they laid waste to the countryside. So Mozambicans endured terror from left and right.

AMI:

a luta continua is a communist slogan created in the period that we call PREC.

Amílcar Cabral had nothing to do with it.

dave F: renamo, in Mozmbique, UNITA in Angola… the geopolitics of the civil wars in Mozmbique and Angola is fascinating.

I am most aquainted with Angola. These movements had no ideology whatsoever.

They would just adopt the ideology of their sponsor.

UNITA was backed by the chinese, then by the portuguese to fight the other movements, then by the USA and South Africa, then by Mobutu, then the Berlin wall came down and apartheid in south africa too, then US shifted its support for MPLA, then Mobutu was overtrown with the support of MPLA and Zimbabwe, then Namibia let MPLA use its territory to attack UNITA etc etc etc.

But don’t undervalue local actors. They have their own agenda. they are not merely puppets of major interests.

To Mozambique once again: there is ONE cardiologist for all the population of Maputo. Millions are being invested in tourism in Mozambique, and in agriculture. But the children of Maputo have to relie on charity to get medicines.

These people are no more than predators.

Bogdanor relies on a book by Joao Cabrita, a sympathizer of Renamo–about as bloodthirsty a bunch of goons that you will ever run into. Here’s a review of his book which describes his pro-Remano tilt:

http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/ASR/10No2/BookReviews.html

That’s par for the course here. Yell and scream about the sins of Anglo-American imperialism’s enemies and turn a blind eye to your own.

Dave F:

Mozambicans endured terror from left and right.

Renamo’s leaders, Andre Matsangaissa and Alfonso Dhlakama, were both former Frelimo officers.

John Doe:

Bogdanor relies on a book by Joao Cabrita, a sympathizer of Renamo–about as bloodthirsty a bunch of goons that you will ever run into.

Actually Cabrita’s book discusses Renamo atrocities as well as Frelimo atrocities.

That’s par for the course here. Yell and scream about the sins of Anglo-American imperialism’s enemies and turn a blind eye to your own.

A particularly stupid comment. “Anglo-American imperialism” supported Frelimo against Renamo. Reagan’s State Department gave financial aid while Thatcher actually sent the SAS to train Mozambique’s army.

That’s the problem with conducting “anti-imperialist” polemics based on a Google search. It quickly becomes clear that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

I was wondering how long it would take someone to mention Renamo.

The reason I didn’t mention it in my post is that no-one worships Renamo’s Dhlakama to the ridiculous extent that Newman worships Frelimo’s Machel.

a luta continua is a communist slogan created in the period that we call PREC. Amílcar Cabral had nothing to do with it.
Ok, having found something via Google (pace Paul) that suggested it was connected to Cabral, I had hoped it did have some authentic connection with the African liberation movements. But if what you say is correct, my immediate reaction to the Nigerian woman prisoner reciting her poem in a UK prison is revived, namely saddened that these fragments of forgotten imposed agendas are encrusted onto what she cherishes about her heritage.

Bogdanor: “Actually Cabrita’s book discusses Renamo atrocities as well as Frelimo atrocities.”

Well, that’s what you say, but the review I linked to says the following: “No detailed account is provided of atrocities by Renamo. Sometimes, the presentation has an apologetic character that almost borders on cynical in its naivete.” I can certainly understand why a rightwing fanatic like you would rely on such a book. I am also grateful for Harry’s Place publishing your tripe since it establishes their own rightwing appetites no matter their laughable attempts to speak on behalf of a “decent” left.

John Doe:

the review I linked to says the following…

My research, unlike yours, isn’t limited to an online review discovered through a Google search. I have actually read the book. It discusses Renamo atrocities explicitly and without apology. It has no “detailed account” of either side’s war crimes. That’s because it’s a political history of Mozambique and not a NGO report.

rightwing fanatic like you… publishing your tripe… their own rightwing appetites…

Since the Stalinist dictatorship you obviously adore was supported by the right-wing “Anglo-American imperialism” you claim to oppose; since the same Stalinist dictatorship was the source of the “bloodthirsty bunch of goons” you purport to condemn; and since, in your previous message, you displayed either complete ignorance or blatant mendacity regarding these facts, it’s clear that your tantrums are not to be taken seriously.

And unlike you, Bogdanor, I was in Mozambique in 1990. By any measure, the government of Mozambique was far more faithful to the kind of values that Harry’s Place pays lip-service to than the goons that were trying to overthrow it. That is why the apartheid state backed Renamo. People can judge for themselves whether the book you rely on is objective or not. My guess is that the review is correct, that it does whitewash Renamo. Indeed, another scholarly review (Journal of African Studies, June 2002) describes the book as guilty of “systematic bias” on behalf of Renamo. Another (African Studies Review, April, 2002) describes it as a “hatchet job” on Frelimo. Anyhow, people can figure out where you are coming from on your neoconservative website. Harry’s Place is welcome to you. That mangy dog does have a way of attracting fleas.

Oh yes Bogdanor very convincing. So you give us an utterly distorted and one sided account and then justify yourself by suggesting its for the lefts moral education. hmm. interesting.

John Doe:-

By any measure, the government of Mozambique was far more faithful to the kind of values that Harry’s Place pays lip-service to than the goons that were trying to overthrow it.

Since HP’s values don’t include one-party dictatorships, banning of opposition parties and independent trade unions, religious apartheid, slave labour, concentration camps, and systematic torture, rape and murder, and since HP doesn’t celebrate tyrants whose models include Mao and Pol Pot, plainly you’re expressing your own support for the state terrorists who committed those crimes.

Now if you want to identify with some of the worst sadists in Africa, that’s your problem. But don’t pretend that you’ve visited Mozambique, or that you have any knowledge of the conflict at all, when you’ve just falsely asserted that “Anglo-American imperialism” supported the other side. That’s the sort of blunder made by someone whose information comes from a 5-second Google search.

My guess is that the review is correct, that it does whitewash Renamo.

But of course, you haven’t read the book, so you wouldn’t know that Cabrita cites, e.g., Zimbabwe and Frelimo allegations of Renamo atrocities including attacks on civilian targets, destruction of villages, hacking people to death, etc. (pp253-4). That’s what happens when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

On the other hand, when you do know what you’re talking about, your dishonesty is apparent:-

Indeed, another scholarly review (Journal of African Studies, June 2002) describes the book as guilty of “systematic bias” on behalf of Renamo.

In fact the reviewer (in the Journal of Modern African Studies - you can’t even get the title right) raises the issue of bias because the coverage of Renamo’s record doesn’t match the items on

Frelimo human rights abuses (most of which are entirely credible).

So the source you offered to discredit the author you haven’t read explicitly affirms his credibility on the very issue that I used him to document.

Another (African Studies Review, April, 2002) describes it as a “hatchet job” on Frelimo.

The full passage (p202) reads:-

Can Mondlane still be considered the equal of Agostinho Neto, Amilcar Lopes Cabral, Julius Nyerere, Frantz Fanon, et al.? If so, in what way?

It is important to raise these questions, if only to spare Cabrita’s work from being perceived as a hatchet job. Ultimately, though, this text stands in need of a broad conceptual fabric to hold the inquiry together.

In other words, the criticism has nothing to do with Cabrita’s discussion of Machel’s dictatorship; it’s about the political biography of Machel’s predecessor.

To sum up: you’ve boasted of your support for Stalinists, you’ve vilified a scholar you haven’t read, and you’ve defended yourself by falsifying the few second-hand items you have read.

Psychopath, dunce and liar: what a combination!

John Doe:-

By any measure, the government of Mozambique was far more faithful to the kind of values that Harry’s Place pays lip-service to than the goons that were trying to overthrow it.

Since HP’s values don’t include one-party dictatorships, banning of opposition parties and independent trade unions, religious apartheid, slave labour, concentration camps, and systematic torture, rape and murder, and since HP doesn’t celebrate tyrants whose models include Mao and Pol Pot, plainly you’re expressing your own support for the state terrorists who committed those crimes.

Now if you want to identify with some of the worst sadists in Africa, that’s your problem. But don’t pretend that you’ve visited Mozambique, or that you have any knowledge of the conflict at all, when you’ve just falsely asserted that “Anglo-American imperialism” supported the other side. That’s the sort of blunder made by someone whose information comes from a 5-second Google search.

My guess is that the review is correct, that it does whitewash Renamo.

But of course, you haven’t read the book, so you wouldn’t know that Cabrita cites, e.g., Zimbabwe and Frelimo allegations of Renamo atrocities including attacks on civilian targets, destruction of villages, hacking people to death, etc. (pp253-4). That’s what happens when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

On the other hand, when you do know what you’re talking about, your dishonesty is apparent:-

Indeed, another scholarly review (Journal of African Studies, June 2002) describes the book as guilty of “systematic bias” on behalf of Renamo.

In fact the reviewer (in the Journal of Modern African Studies - you can’t even get the title right) raises the issue of bias because the coverage of Renamo’s record doesn’t match the items on

Frelimo human rights abuses (most of which are entirely credible).

So the source you offered to discredit the author you haven’t read explicitly affirms his credibility on the very issue that I used him to document.

Another (African Studies Review, April, 2002) describes it as a “hatchet job” on Frelimo.

The full passage (p202) reads:-

Can Mondlane still be considered the equal of Agostinho Neto, Amilcar Lopes Cabral, Julius Nyerere, Frantz Fanon, et al.? If so, in what way?

It is important to raise these questions, if only to spare Cabrita’s work from being perceived as a hatchet job. Ultimately, though, this text stands in need of a broad conceptual fabric to hold the inquiry together.

In other words, the criticism has nothing to do with Cabrita’s discussion of Machel’s dictatorship; it’s about the political biography of Machel’s predecessor.

To sum up: you’ve boasted of your support for Stalinists, you’ve vilified a scholar you haven’t read, and you’ve defended yourself by falsifying the few second-hand items you have read.

Psychopath, dunce and liar: what a combination!

Is pwn too juvenile a word to describe Paul’s post?

“Sometimes, the presentation has an apologetic character that almost borders on cynical in its naivete. “Initially, Renamo ambushes on the south-north highway, as on other routes, were by means of road blocks. Passengers from civilian vehicles, usually buses, were ordered to alight with their belongings. Renamo says it resorted to ambushing road traffic when government soldiers travelling in civilian vehicles began shooting at guerrillas. Renamo did try to discourage civilians from travelling together with FAM personnel.” The author obviously tries either to conceal or simply forgets the fact that the civil war in Mozambique was of such viciousness that, until Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, it marked the most serious degradation of human rights in Africa. From the late 1970s until the early 1990s, Renamo set about devastating the country and terrorising those who failed to support them. It was in Mozambique that, for the first time in independent Africa, Africans resorted to the systematic use of mutilation and the killing of parents by their children in order to assure subservience”

From the link posted by John Doe. Not only has Bogdanor relied on an account which seeks to cover up these horrendos crimes, but he is in fact far more one eyed and tub thumping then even an apologist for Renamo for goodness sake. You’d never know reading his account above that the crimes he documented were committed during a civil war in which there were two sides, a civil war during which the kinds of horrors with which we have tragically become more familiar since, where actually pioneered.

So is history re-written for the purposes of cheap polemic. Odd how much those who write like this resemble the stereotypes they decry.

Bogdanor’s frantic efforts to salvage the reputation of Cabrita’s book should fool nobody. The consistent thread through all the reviews I cited is that he is partial to Renamo. And as far as the Washington Post item cited by Bogdanor about cab drivers being thrown in prison (for what? overcharging?), it actually appeared originally in the London Telegraph. You can get a sense of the political leanings of the author, “an American electronics designer” by reading the final sentences of his report: “We landed in Johannesburg Airport 45 minutes later. At Jan Smuts airport, we were surprised by a sound that we hardly ever heard in Mozambique: laughter.” I am sure you must know what laughter this knucklehead racist is referring to, the sound of Afrikaner cops as they torture Black prisoners.

So is history re-written for the purposes of cheap polemic.

Of course. Anything which declines to praise some perpetual Swuppie student’s designated savour is writing “polemic”.

johng:-

While your comrade started with a 5-second Google search, it seems your research has only just reached that primitive stage. As I’ve just cited Cabrito references to Renamo atrocities, I think the reviewer’s claim that he conceals the brutality of the conflict needs rather more support than a banal quotation about ambushes on roads.

And the reviewer’s statement that systematic mutilation, etc., in the Mozambique civil war occurred “for the first time in independent Africa” is laughable. Such atrocities had taken place in Uganda, Burundi, Angola, and elsewhere.

You’d never know reading his account above that the crimes he documented were committed during a civil war in which there were two sides, a civil war during which the kinds of horrors with which we have tragically become more familiar since, where [sic] actually pioneered.

Most of the atrocities chronicled in my post did not occur during the civil war. They started as soon as Frelimo came to power. They had nothing to do with the civil war.

If you had bothered to glance at the dates in my footnotes you wouldn’t have made that blunder - which, I admit, is not as impressive as your comrade’s falsehood about “Anglo-American imperialism,” or his lies about quotations.

Just for once, John Game does (sort of) have a point.

Let’s not forget that Renamo (backed first by the Smith regime in Rhodesia, then by apartheid South Africa) were a pack of bastards as well. It doesn’t detract from Paul Bogdanor’s original point.

“John Doe” may be a self-disclosed Stalinist, a self-confessed ignoramus, and a proven liar, but at least he’s serviceable as an object of mockery:-

You can get a sense of the political leanings of the author, “an American electronics designer” by reading the final sentences of his report: “We landed in Johannesburg Airport 45 minutes later. At Jan Smuts airport, we were surprised by a sound that we hardly ever heard in Mozambique: laughter.” I am sure you must know what laughter this knucklehead racist is referring to, the sound of Afrikaner cops as they torture Black prisoners.

That’s right: John Doe concludes that a man who was released from one country’s concentration camps and heard laughter in another country’s airport must have been a supporter of that country’s political system! He heard laughter in an airport - so he was a racist! Could anyone makes this up? Presumably John Doe’s powers of deduction tell him that the Telegraph was racist because it published this account, and the Washington Post was racist for reprinting it! Who could hope to compete with such a pathetic display?

The book review that inspired these absurdities from John Doe and johng attacked Cabrita for the “apologetic character” of his presentation, which is “almost cynical in its naivete.” The basis for that criticism is this quotation from Cabrita’s book:-

Initially, Renamo ambushes on the south-north highway, as on other routes, were by means of road blocks. Passengers from civilian vehicles, usually buses, were ordered to alight with their belongings. Renamo says it resorted to ambushing road traffic when government soldiers travelling in civilian vehicles began shooting at guerrillas. Renamo did try to discourage civilians from travelling together with FAM personnel.

The reviewer commented that Cabrita “obviously tries either to conceal or simply forgets” the viciousness of the civil war.

Here is the rest of Cabrita’s paragraph:-

As the war dragged on, horrific accounts of ambushes on the highway targeted by Renamo began to emerge. A total of 262 people were reportedly killed in two separate ambushes on the north-south highway in October 1967. (Cabrita, p198)

The reviewer was lying about Cabrita’s concealment of Renamo atrocities in this passage.

John Doe and johng used a dishonest book review to defame a scholar without bothering to read him.

John Doe and johng have no basis whatsoever for rejecting Cabrita’s evidence of Frelimo atrocities.

For people interested in real reporting from the same period as opposed to some “electronics designer”, I recommend Michael T. Kaufman’s Nov. 12, 1977 article in the NY Times. It starts off, “In slightly more than 2 years of independence, this Marxist state seems to have succeeded where so many developing African nations have failed: creating a sense of discipline without outwardly turning the country into an armed camp.” He continues, “what was even more striking to a visitor was the absence of men in uniform or men with guns.”

In distinction to Bogdanor’s redbaiting hysteria, the NY Times reports that “though there were nightmares in the settler community, there was no bloodbath.” Western diplomats were cited by the Times for acknowledging only 2 executions in this period, and that was a couple of Blacks found guilty of murdering a white priest. However, Frelimo regarded this as a mistake because the new constitution banned capital punishment.

There were some social changes (nightclubs were closed) but “no one complained of outright repression” according to the Times.

At any rate, anybody who wants to find out what was going on in Mozambique in this period can do searches in Proquest in any public library. What Bogdanor is trying to do is paint a picture of Mozambique as Cambodia but it is utter and complete bullshit. He cites one book written by a Renamo sympathizer, the Economist and some “electronics designer” to build his case. Most serious researchers would go to the Washington Post and NY Times to read what their correspondents had to say. NONE OF THEM report anything like the lurid and utterly false portrait painted by the hysterical redbaiter and neocon Bogdanor.

John Doe:-

In distinction to Bogdanor’s redbaiting hysteria, the NY Times reports that “though there were nightmares in the settler community, there was no bloodbath.”

The NYT also reported that there was no Stalinist famine during forced collectivisation in the Ukraine, that there were no Stalinist frame-ups during the Moscow purge trials, that Castro was not planning a communist dictatorship in Cuba, that Pol Pot’s impending victory promised a better life for the population of Cambodia, etc., etc.

To assess the NYT journalist’s claims about Mozambique, consider this report from Time Magazine:-

There are now fewer than 1,000 trained administrators and only 15 medical doctors for a population of 8.5 million people. Machel, 42, a onetime medical orderly who led the struggle for independence and became the country’s first President, set about at breakneck pace to convert Mozambique into what he calls “Africa’s first Marxist state.” All land was nationalized. The large colonial plantations, which supported more than half of the population, were organized into collective farms. But, reports one visitor, “nobody can agree on how they are to be run, so production from the land is at a virtual standstill. While the bureaucrats argue, nobody does any planting.”

Food production is down by 75% in some areas. Bread, rice, milk and eggs are in short supply. Production of major cash crops like sugar and cotton is off at least 50%. Investment has been scared away, unemployment has soared, and the last remaining whites (who number fewer than 30,000) are scrambling to get out.

Thousands of people have been packed off to “reeducation centers,” where Machel’s brand of Marxism is taught with a heavy and sometimes brutal hand. Machel does not coddle even his own supporters. He has warned that many workers might have to toil for as long as three years without pay “for we are without funds to reward your labors.” After independence, Frelimo soldiers were given the choice of leaving the service without pay for their years in the guerrilla movement or of staying in the service—also without pay. Says Machel: “We cannot tolerate a bourgeoisie in Mozambique, even a black one.”

Now recall John Doe’s closing rant:-

NONE OF THEM report anything like the lurid and utterly false portrait painted by the hysterical redbaiter and neocon Bogdanor.

John Doe has defamed an author he hasn’t read.

John Doe has lied about reviews of the author he hasn’t read.

John Doe has used a dishonest book review to defame the author he hasn’t read.

And now John Doe has lied about press coverage of the Stalinist dictatorship he supports.

There is summat Sonic-like and disreputable about hiding behind an ad hoc moniker to spend a day seizing on single points in heavily referened essays, offering little more than secondary reports and 30 year old opinion columns yourself; not to mention the ‘neo-con’ denouncement.

Plus, even if the poster John Doe were in Mozambique in 1990, the events being discussed stretch back to the late 1970s. Even Machel died four years whence.

Oh please. I use a moniker because if I used my real name, my posts would be deleted as was the case when I first posted here. And who gives a shit if I used my real name or not. The issue is what I am saying. Let me repeat. In 1977, there was no “repression” in Mozambique. If you don’t believe me, get your ass over to a public library and do your own search on Proquest. There is NOTHING to indicate that people were being arrested, tortured, etc. Harry’s Place allowed a guest post from a filthy neocon liar. I guess that after being caught in a lie over supporting Bush’s war in Iraq, the “decents” have no other option but to go back to a period that is less familiar. In either case, you are dealing with neocon disinformation, the hallmark of this dreadful blog.

Ass? Don’t you mean arse?

As I said, disreputable. No effort to present your case, merely expecting others to research your meanwhiling, and presenting opposing opinion as inconceivable.

And too accustomed to the name-calling and deletion of dissenting opinion at Lenin’s Tomb, methinks. Unless you’re the creature known as W J Philips, you ain’t going to be deleted.

John, it’s quite simple: if you think this blog is dreadful then fuck off. There must be millions of blogs about. No sane person goes around seeking out ones he finds dreadful and then trolling them. And nobody’s posts get deleted unless they’re either (a) porn or other spam or (b) pointless aggressive trolling.

Paul, have you apologized for supporting the Iraq War?