Angola's People
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In the Eye of the Storm: Angola's People http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.crp20002 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org In the Eye of the Storm: Angola's People Author/Creator Davidson, Basil Publisher Anchor Books Anchor Press/Doubleday Date 1973-00-00 Resource type Books Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Angola, Zambia, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the, Congo Coverage (temporal) 1600 - 1972 Rights By kind permission of Basil R. Davidson. Description This book provides both historical background and a description of Davidson's trip to eastern Angola with MPLA guerrilla forces. Format extent 403 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.crp20002 http://www.aluka.org A Doubleday Anchor Book A Doubleday Anchor Book $2.95' IN THE EYE OF THE STORM 'CIL OTHER BOOKS ABOUT AFRICA BY BASIL DAVIDSON HISTORY The Lost Cities of Africa Black Mother: The African Slave Trade The African Past: Chronicles from Antiquity to Modern Times The African Genius: An Introduction to African Social and Cultural History Africa in History: Themes and Outlines A History of West Africa AD 1000-1800; with J. A. Ade Ajayi and F. K. Buah A History of East and Central Africa to the Late 19th Century; with J. E. F. Mhina African Kingdoms; with the editors of Time-Life Books Guide to African History Discovering Our African Heritage CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS Report on Southern Africa The New West Africa; symposium edited with A. Ademola The African Awakening Which Way Africa? The Search for a New Society The Liberation of Guin6: Aspects of an African Revolution FICTION The Rapids BASIL DAVIDSON is an eminent British writer who has a particular interest in the history of Africa, upon which he is a recognized world authority. His books include The Lost Cities of Africa; Black Mother; A History of West Africa; and The African Genius: An Introduction to African Cultural History. Mr. Davidson has traveled regularly in Africa for many years studying evidence of ancient African history and observing current history in the making. IN THE EYE OF THE STORM Angola's People by BASIL DAVIDSON ANCHOR BOOKS ANCHOR PRESS/DOUBLEDAY GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 1973 In the Eye of the Storm was originally published in a hardbound edition by Doubleday & Company, Inc. in 1972 Anchor Books edition: 1973 ISBN: 0-385-05298-7 COPYRIGHT @ 1972 BY BASIL DAVIDSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MARION in love and gratitude and TO THE MEMORY OF AMERICO BOAVIDA surgeon patriot revolutionary killed by the Portuguese air force while tending the sick in the Cambule Forest of Angola September 25, 1968 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION xi THE SEED OF MIDWINTER Guerrilla Days, Guerrilla Nights 3 PART ONE ANGOLA IN HISTORY 31 1 Themes and Outlines 33 2 Early Development 47 3 The "Take-off" into Kingship 53 4 Marauders from the Sea 69 5 The Hundred Years' War 79 6 Primitive Extraction, 1600-1850 87 PART TWO THE YEARS OF SILENCE: 1850--1960 97 1 Carving Out a Colony 99 2 Extending the System: From Slavery to Forced Labor 107 3 The Years of Salazar 121 4 On the African Side 133 5 From Reformism to Revolt 145 Documentary One 157 6 "The Time of the Leaflet" 163 7OntheEve 173 PART THREE GUERRILLA WAR 183 1 Luanda, February 1961 185 2 The Rising in the North 189 Documentary Two 197 CONTENTS 3 Congo Diversions 211 4 Riding the Storm 233 Documentary Three 249 5 The Eastern Front: Toward the Atlantic 257 Documentary Four 281 6 Midwinter's Harvest: From Revolt to Revolution 289 PART FOUR THE REVOLUTION OF THE POOR 307 1TheEndofaRoad 309 2 The Colonial Answer 313 3 The Neo-Colonial Variant 331 4 The Road Ahead 349 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 359 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 361 NDEX 363 MAPS 1 Portuguese Angola: Districts, district capitals, railways 32 2 Angola: Some principal ethnic groups (approximate locations) 35 3 Middle Africa (West and Central): Main precolonial centers of power and kingship (approximate locations) 55 4 Eastern Angola 261 5 Central Angola: Location of some guerrilla actions in Bi6 274 6 Areas of guerrilla presence and penetration, 1971-72, and of national liberation organization 288 INTRODUCTION 1961. A few hundred men and women take to arms in a land of silence and obscurity. They mean to free their people from foreign rule, yet have everything to learn except determination. All but crushed by the power they have rebelled against, some of them survive to rethink their problems, reapply themselves, gradually expand their ranks. By 1972, eleven years later, they lead a national movement deeply rooted in the soil of native hope and loyalty, participation and support. As the roots deepen, so do their aims and thoughts widen. Their principal aim is still to free their country from foreign rule, but now they believe they must build a new society as well; freedom and revolution have opened a partnership here. INTRODUCTION How has this come about, and why? With what actual and potential consequences for Angola? With what implications for the rest of Africa, for the rest of the world? Their country is a vast region, more than five times as large as Britain, more than twice as large as France, nearly one sixth the size of all the U.S.A. While its people number fewer than six millions, it is also a most deprived country, even in African terms. Viewed from the outside, its hopes of creative change can only seem small. Yet pessimism is rich man's property. The deprived have at least this advantage: they must act to save themselves. The interesting question is whether they act wisely. The question of whether the deprived act wisely is the question of whether they act successfully. For the success of the deprived in acting creatively against conditions of barbarism that the endowed may deplore, but, being endowed, will continue to accept for others, has now become the survival test of any civilization worth the name. Angola's people are among the most deprived of any people anywhere. Do they act successfully? "When power has been assembled by those who have grievances," Gunnar Myrdal has replied, "then is the time when ideals and the social conscience can become effective." There is of course nothing automatic in the process: ideals and the social conscience may become effective, or they may not. Is this a case, a test case, where they have? To change fear into confidence, despair into hope, anger into understanding, even hatred into love; these are essentials of success in such a case as this one is, even though, or perhaps above all because, the path to creative change must go through the wretchedness of war. Are these essentials to be found here? Angola's case is certainly extreme in its deprivation. Not because nine tenths of Angolans still live in thatched villages or woodland homesteads scattered across remote plains, lost in long, slow hills, niched in solitude along the banks of languid streams or broad, forgotten rivers; at least in principle, there may be much to be said for living thus. But in 1972 these people were living there, and have long lived there, in INTRODUCTION acute material distress and hunger, while other Angolans, somehow surviving in urban slums, suffered conditions not much better and sometimes worse. During the 1960s about 98 per cent of all Angolans were completely illiterate, were denied any effective control over their own lives, and were unable to participate in any legal action to improve their lot. This extremity of Angola's situation gives more than drama to the scene. In wider terms-in terms of an inquiry into the possibilities of constructive change-it can and does shed light on less extreme cases, since the issues here are desperately plain and clear, and yet, at the same time, inherently characteristic of all other parts of the colonial or formally colonial world. More than that: in one degree or other, these issues may even be those, substantially, that matter today for almost every people, whether living in the "backward" countries or in those that are called "developed." What must Angola's people now do to build a good society, a society worth living in? What can they do? The questions are particular to Angola; the problems they pose are general to mankind. The study of these problems is the study of ourselves. This book is an attempt to ask such questions, and to portray their actual or possible answers, against the background of Angolan history and the living reality of the past few years as well as today.