Ian Liebenberg

The African Renaissance: Myth, Vital Lie, or Mobilising Tool?

“From Somalia to Angola to the streets of Hillbrow, Africa is on the moue creating its own models. It is this Africa that Clinton and his policy-makers should be looking at and seeking to understand, rather than condemning the continent to being a deoiant example of a Western model whose only hope lies in falling victim to globalisation.”

THE WAGES OF DESTRUCTION: THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF THE NAZI ECONOMY/ADAM TOOZE

When can a country go to war, if ever? Tooze does not answer this question in general. He focuses on the economy of pre-war Germany and the years to follow under Nazi rule. A tour de force in political economy with a focus on one case study, it is worth consulting. Tooze demonstrates that, despite stereotypes and the frequent hype about the sophisticated and nearly unbeatable Nazi war machine, Germany was far from ready to go to war. As a matter of fact, it was not – and it was unlikely to be ever in such a position, given the then international balance of power and global economic tendencies. Economists, politicians and military leaders within Germany argued before the time that it was more than a risk to go to war – doing so bordered on folly. Tooze deploys a meticulous analysis of the state of the German economy since the end of the First World War, the Weimar Republic and the perceived impressive rise of the German economy under the Nazis. Archival research is splendid, candid and exhaustive.

FUTURE TENSE: THE COMING WORLD ORDER/ Gwynne Dyer

“‘Terrorism’ is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; ‘War’ is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it – Sydney Harris. With this quote the reader is introduced to developments worldwide over the past twenty years and their future implications.

THE ORAL HISTORY OF FORGOTTEN WARS: THE MEMOIRS OF VETERANS OF THE WAR IN ANGOLA/GENNADY SHUBIN

With the commemoration of the battles around Cuito Canavale coming up, various authors are striding Angolan battlefields again. In South Africa a variety of publications is seeing the light. Unfortunately many of these are by former senior officers highlighting their own interpretation of the war, as did many previous publications in South Africa. Many publications here are espousing one side of the war. The role of Special Forces is but one example. This trend was set in the 1980s and seems to continue in South Africa. The role of Special Forces - as if others were not involved - deserves a lot of attention. More so the role of other actors such as the Angolan armed forces (FAPLA), the Cubans and the Soviets is mostly ignored except for some stereotyping underpinned by an ideology from times gone by - indeed a sad state of affairs.

Sociology, Biology or Philosophy of a warrior? Reflections on Jan Smuts, Guerrilla–being and a politics of choices

This article could have been titled “Feeling our way into the mind of a man formed in guerrilla war more than a century ago.” South Africa produced arguably three statesmen of international stature. These are Shaka-Zulu (militarist, conqueror and Jacobin nation-builder), Jan Smuts (guerilla, military leader, statesman and philosopher) and Nelson Mandela (leader of the struggle for liberation from white minority rule and renowned reconciliatory statesman). Within their own historical epochs these men became known far outside the territory of their birth and carved their names into international history and political discourse.

BEYOND THE BORDER WAR: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTHERN AFRICA’S LATE COLD WAR CONFLICTS/EDITED BY G. BAINES AND P. VALE

Namibia became independent after decades of struggle when the apartheid government accepted UN Resolution 435. In Windhoek the flag of the occupier finally made way for one heralding a rising sun. Peace returned to Namibia and Namibia to the Namibians. South Africa had withdrawn from Angola after years of intimate involvement. Jonas Savimbi, leader of the rebel movement Unita and a former proxy of South Africa, continued the civil war for another dozen years. The landmines remained. In many towns and villages in Angola the maimed and the wounded are still to be seen.