The precipitous rise and controversial fall of a formidable African leader. Samora Machel (1933–1986), the son of small-town farmers, led his people through a war against their Portuguese colonists and became the first president of the People’s Republic of Mozambique. Machel’s military successes against a colonial regime backed by South Africa, Rhodesia, the United States, and its NATO allies enhanced his reputation as a revolutionary hero to the oppressed people of Southern Africa. In 1986, during the country’s civil war, Machel died in a plane crash under circumstances that remain uncertain. Allen and Barbara Isaacman lived through many of these changes in Mozambique and bring personal recollections together with archival research and interviews with others who knew Machel or participated in events of the revolutionary or post-revolutionary years.
In 1974, Samora Machel led FRELIMO, the Mozambican Liberation Front, to victory over the Portuguese colonial government. The following year, he became the first president of an independent Mozambique. Eleven years later, he was killed in a mysterious plane crash, and many have blamed his death on machinations by the South African government. Drawing on stories, speeches, documents, and the memories of those who knew Machel well, this biography captures the many facets of a man Nelson Mandela has called "a true African revolutionary." Machel was trained as a nurse, yet later became a consummate military strategist. He was a farmer's son, yet possessed the diplomatic skills necessary to negotiate a relationship with China and the Soviet Union while winning over Western leaders like Margaret Thatcher. Machel was a man of the people who at the same time found himself utterly alone. A dedicated seeker of peace, he nevertheless never saw anything but war. This volume takes stock of the discourse of equality, liberty, and comradeship that motivated the liberation struggles of Machel's people and other southern African communities in the 1960s and 1970s, all in the face of a dominant Cold War rhetoric. It meditates on the different languages through which the Mozambican dream was articulated, including the linguistic currencies of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and Marxism-Leninism, while exploring the gaps between then and now, between Mozambicans and Western idealists who wanted to be part of Machel's new society, and between Mozambicans themselves.
Dan Moyane was 10 years old when he lay on his back on a patch of grass at his parents' home in White City Jabavu, Soweto, looking at the moon and thinking, 'I don't want to die unknown.' The year was 1969, and Neil Armstrong and his team had recently achieved immortality by completing the first moon landing. It was the knowledge that the astronauts would be remembered as long as the world turned that made Dan realise that he, too, would like to be remembered by people outside of his immediate community, just as he would like to find out more about what lay beyond his horizon. Dan's insatiable curiosity and love of learning have ensured that his name has, indeed, become known throughout South Africa. This is the story of how he achieved his goal – from his days as a student at the apex of South Africa's political turmoil, to his years in exile in Mozambique and his first job in media, and the trajectory of a career that would see him become one of South Africa's most highly regarded and influential broadcasters. It is a career that led Dan to interview prominent leaders in Mozambique and South Africa and become acquainted with the likes of Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel, and saw him cover the country's birth into democracy, and help shape South Africans' understanding of the changed world around them. I Don't Want to Die Unknown delves into these experiences, giving a glimpse into the inquisitiveness and desire to know more, do more and be more that has driven Dan Moyane. It offers a rare insight into the man behind the microphone – his ambitions, trials, and motivations. Part memoir, part legacy, this book bears testimony to the fact that far from dying unknown, Dan is one of South Africa's most important, high profile media players and his story provides the framework for his next significant question: How best to use his public profile to benefit his countrymen.
It has been 50 years since the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold mysteriously died in a plane crash in Africa. Williams uncovers new evidence to demonstrate conclusively that the horrific conflict in the Congo was driven not so much by internal divisions as by the Cold War and the West's determination to control post-colonial Africa.
African news making headlines today is dominated by disaster: wars, famine, HIV. Those who respond - from stars to ordinary citizens - are learning that real solutions require more than charity. This book provides a comprehensive, panoramic view of US activism in Africa from 1950 to 2000, activism grounded in a common struggle for justice. It portrays organisations, activists and networks that contributed to African liberation and, in turn, shows how African struggles informed US activism, including the civil rights and black power movements.
More than twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, this book looks afresh at some of the lasting legacies of that period in history. It does so by focusing on individual life trajectories of a group of people whose adolescence was shaped by the politics of socialism and the transitions within it. Through their life histories, Legacies of Socialist Solidarity offers an alternative reading of Mozambique’s socialist past with important repercussions for the present. At the center of the book are the life histories of a group of then youth who attended one of the largest educational exchange projects between two socialist countries, Mozambique and former East Germany, in the 1980s. Having been educated in East Germany to become part of a future socialist elite back home, the book’s protagonists returned to a Mozambique that had meanwhile embarked on the new path of capitalist development. Their qualifications and skills were of little relevance, and the new Mozambican government regarded them as a threat rather than an asset. The book analyzes the life courses of some of those who spent their adolescence in East Germany with a focus on personal aspirations, political orientation, collective memories, and shared horizons. It shows lasting legacies of socialist beliefs and practices. In placing those into the context of the broader political developments in Mozambique, the book explores an important dimension for the understanding of contemporary Mozambique. In addition, it makes a significant contribution to the comprehension of socialist cosmopolitanism and resulting patterns of identity and belonging, and to the wider literature on post-socialist change, the decentering of Cold War histories, and the pervasiveness of the political in everyday lives.
After reviewing just part of this book's contents, Rex Mudenda - a risk-management professional and Lusaka based avid reader of political science literature - states This book is loaded. There is usually no such a cocktail of prominent personalities covered in one book. I kept on salivating on the featured names under the "Conversations" section. The book has captured a good slice of Zambia's political story. Mulenga Kapwepwe, a prolific Zambian author, states: A page turning thriller of historical, social and political value. Each prominent personality comes alive through Amos Malupenga's compelling narrative, allowing us rare glimpses into their personal experiences and connections to pivotal events that have impacted and coloured our fascinating national story. The above is an apt description of this book's contents. They are as intriguing as they are gripping. Because of the "cocktail" of the personalities featured, one can safely say "these are several books in one." On the basis of these conversations with most of the political figures, the author has taken the liberty to draw a parallel between democracy and theocracy. In so doing, the author concludes that from the beginning of human history, even the best human governments (democracies) have failed to solve mankind's serious problems because of bad leadership owing to the inherent imperfection as a result of sin. The bad leadership "is increasingly proving to be one of the root causes of all evil in human societies" across the entire inhabited earth. Consequently, the author asserts that theocracy is the panacea, the universal cure, the perfect solution and sovereign remedy to mankind's problems - be they big or small.
First published by Panaf in 1989, this was the first major biography of Samora Machel after his death in 1986. The author, a journalist who had known Machel since 1970, presents a portrait of Machel as a revolutionary, a military strategist and skilled politician - a charismatic leader and influential statesman who had "become a living and vibrant symbol of the liberation struggle's inevitable victory".
This is a powerful, first-hand account of a religious ministry that reaches out to console, heal, and build the lives of poor and desperate immigrants who come to the United States in search of a better life. Daniel G. Groody talked with immigration officials, 'coyote' smugglers, and immigrants in detention centers and those working in the fields. The picture that emerges starkly contrasts with the negative stereotypes about Mexican immigrants: Groody discovered insights into God, family, values, suffering, faith, and hope that offer a treasury of spiritual knowledge helpful to anyone, even those who are materially comfortable but spiritually empty. This book has a message that reaches across borders, divisions, and preconceptions; it reaches all the way to the heart.
