[HN Gopher] The Frenchman who pioneered the modern mercenary ind...
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The Frenchman who pioneered the modern mercenary industry
Author : 1cvmask
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-11-09 12:42 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nationalinterest.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (nationalinterest.org)
| gricardo99 wrote:
| The book "In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz" [1], is a fascinating
| account of the post-colonial Congo region, which comes up several
| times in the OP article.
|
| 1 - https://www.amazon.com/Footsteps-Mr-Kurtz-Disaster-
| Mobutus/d...
| animalgonzales wrote:
| "Having served with the French Navy in the Algerian War, the
| ardently anti-communist Denard took part in the Katanga secession
| effort in the 1960s..."
|
| who woulda guessed
| mattmoose21 wrote:
| I find it interesting how detestable yet cool I find some of the
| people in these stories. Maybe it has to do with my love of the
| Metal Gear Solid games that the ideas of fighting foreign wars
| and switching sides has become a bit romantic.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Why are multiple people making the same post. Is this a popular
| talking point somewhere?
| jareklupinski wrote:
| hmmmmm you may be onto something; the next time someone on my
| team starts quoting Kojima characters again, i'm just going to
| assume they're already choosing between offers at other
| companies haha
| eigengrau5150 wrote:
| tl;dr: Bob Denard was the real-life Big Boss, and the Cormoros
| were the real-life Outer Heaven.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| While searching for some photos of people or events from the
| article I came across this site: http://www.babunga.alobi.cd/wp-
| content/uploads/
|
| I wish there were blog posts to go with the photos but seems like
| just images.
| ur-whale wrote:
| If you grok French, this is a pretty good documentary on Denard:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAgzti0fyao
| qvrjuec wrote:
| A little off topic, but I don't think grok is correct to use in
| this context. Understanding and grokking are different things
| ptha wrote:
| It appears that Gilbert Bourgeaud or "Bob Denard" may have been
| part of Katanga militias in the "Siege of Jadotville" (now also a
| film from Netflix).
|
| A militia force of about 3000 laid siege to about 156 Irish UN
| troops, who held out for 5 days before surrendering.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jadotville
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Faulques#Congo_Crisis
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Denard#Early_career
|
| It's hard to confirm if he was there, Roger Faulques his friend
| and leader of the militia force certainly was.
| dmix wrote:
| No film has shown the power of ground attack aircraft better
| than that movie. It was only one old plane but it was
| frightening.
|
| Excellent film.
| fsloth wrote:
| The book "Dogs of War" by Frederik Forsyth is an excellent semi-
| fictional description of a mercenary operation very analogous to
| the ones described in the article. The book is mostly concerned
| not with gratuitous violence, but hiring, logistics and finance
| in a legally gray-and-illegal territory and such is a fascinating
| read.
| marktangotango wrote:
| I recall the 1980 film inspired by the book to be "not bad",
| but it's been decades since I saw it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dogs_of_War_(film)
| abvdasker wrote:
| Dogs of War is an incredibly racist and misogynistic novel
| (goes well beyond mere depictions of racism and misogyny). I'm
| not suggesting the book is valueless, but it's concerning to me
| that someone can give a full-throated endorsement of such a
| text without at least mentioning these problems. One can only
| be left to assume that someone giving such an endorsement
| either 1) didn't notice these issues due to a shallow reading
| of the text 2) doesn't care about them or 3) agrees with
| Forsyth's racist/misogynistic views
| notRobot wrote:
| I've had that book on my shelf for years, but have never found
| the motivation to read it until I read your comment, but now
| I'll be giving it a read ASAP. Thanks!
| jksmith wrote:
| In addition, "No Mean Soldier" by Peter McAleese. The autobio
| account of an SAS soldier turned mercenary.
| sec400 wrote:
| A documentary about the attempt to kill Escobar that he was
| involved in has just come out:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTCjg40WCw
| JackFr wrote:
| I remember reading that -- I don't remember the precise
| bureaucratic details - but the gist was if you tried to buy a
| single machine gun you wouldn't be able to. "Of course they're
| illegal for private citizens." If you tried to buy 5000 machine
| guns, "Oh, just get this form filled notarized."
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| For a nonfiction read (although biased toward the authors
| perspective) I highly recommend Eeben Barlow's book on his
| founding and work via Executive Outcomes
| kryptonomist wrote:
| And he died at 78 in his bed.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Denard
| akudha wrote:
| The one thing I could think of while reading the article, this
| guy Denard's story would make a great movie! Despite the obvious
| nastiness, he seems to have lived a colorful life.
|
| I know it is wrong to popularize such characters by making movies
| about them, but damn, such stories are interesting. I guess there
| is a reason bad boy stories (like Netflix's Narcos show) are
| popular
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I don't understand your point. Stories about bad people sell?
| That goes back to Bible and the Odyssey.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| For those who enjoyed this, Eeben Barlow (one of the first South
| Africans who eventually formed Executive Outcomes, one of the
| most famous PMCs) had written a book also titled Executive
| Outcomes that was long out of print but is now available for
| download on Kindle. It's about 300 pages too long but is a really
| fascinating look at his side of the story and is damning for
| international groups who responded to crises across Africa but
| did little (read UN intervention in Sierra Leone) or were
| outright harmful.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| It's a shame for that price digitally. Physically it basically
| is priced to not be sold.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I know, it's an obscene price given the category of the book
| but I guess he's got a very small niche of people who are
| willing to pay a lot for his tell all. I personally found it
| worth it (for the digital one of course)
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Certainly an interesting account, it possibly hints at something
| else. Namely that lack of mercenaries were an anomaly
| unfortunately as forces conspire - people capable of violence and
| willing to take risks will want money and people with money will
| want other people to take the risk, and add layers of
| deniability.
|
| If I recall correctly part of the reason why mercenaries were
| excluded from Geneva Convention protections and banned via
| treaties was because of massive raiding, raping, and looting from
| continental rogue armies after their masters lost the ability to
| pay for them. That sort of "wildfire" and backlash made it
| acceptable to the nations to agree it would be better for them to
| not have it, similar to partisans and Free-Shooters.
|
| While they may technically wind up working both for and against
| the countries involved if they were condoned or not hints at what
| sorts of conditions they would prefer both them and their foes to
| have. There were all sorts of politics involved in the treaty.
|
| Even now PMCs are infamously "mercenaries but under offical
| backing of a recognized nation as opposed to any rando with
| cash".
|
| On a tangent it brings to mind a silly mental image of a cartel
| or street gang aiming for lawful combatant status.
| nradov wrote:
| At some point we'll probably see a cartel or street gang
| actually take complete control of one of the Central American
| countries. And then they'll technically become lawful
| combatants.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| That's essentially what FARC was.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Surely no one realized it at the time, but the seeds of a new
| way of war were planted in the Congo's rich soil at that time
|
| It's not hard to predict, and mercenaries are hardly new. Don't
| let leaders at the time or now off the hook for not expecting it.
|
| Wars have always resulted in unemployed soldiers that society
| either had to find work for, in peace or in another war, or they
| find work for themselves. From what I've read (not much) it was
| one reason for the Crusades - to give a lot of unemployed
| soldiers something to do, far away from home. People trained in
| Afghanistan by the US against the Soviets became Al Quada;
| Central Americans trained by the US in the 1980s became today's
| drug gangs; demobilized Iraqi soldiers became the insurgency and
| later many became part of ISIS. Many US soldiers from the War on
| Terror work for private contractors (at least some qualifying as
| mercenaries); many others come home and have a very hard time
| adjusting to civilian life, with tragically hide mental health
| and suicide rates as a result.
| JackFr wrote:
| That was also no small part of the thought behind the US GI
| Bill. People rememebered the post-WWI Bonus Army
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army) and were happy to
| send all the soldiers to college to avoid a similiar situation.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Sometimes I think we were so much more sophisticated in world
| affairs and war back then, and much of that has been
| forgotten. When people ridicule international institutions
| and the end of war as absurd idealism, it was the people with
| the _most_ experience in war, who had seen it all in two
| world wars, who build those institutions and the modern,
| peaceful world. We 're the absurd ones.
| cybert00th wrote:
| "Here's What You Need to Remember: Men like Denard but perhaps a
| little less theatrical--many of them South Africans--took the
| next logical step. They founded businesses with boring-sounding
| names but a deadly purpose: to fight Africa's nastiest conflicts
| on behalf of corrupt, inept governments, and for profit"
|
| I'm heartily sick and tired of the way white South African men
| are portrayed as the 'new bogeymen'.
|
| Each country has its good and bad men (and women for that
| matter), and if you could do a census I can almost guarantee the
| distribution would follow the usual Bell curve.
|
| Get your facts first, then you may distort them as you please.
|
| PS: I'm a white South African male
| knodi123 wrote:
| > Men like Denard but perhaps a little less theatrical--many of
| them South Africans
|
| So if all of the men being discussed had a hat with a propellor
| on it, we should be careful to avoid saying so, because there
| are also innocent unrelated men who wear propellor beanies?
|
| If a disproportionate ratio of those men are all from the same
| relatively small demographic in a relatively remote location,
| it should not be off-limits to notice that.
| ninja3925 wrote:
| FYI: I didn't read the racial taint in the sentence.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > I'm heartily sick and tired of the way white South African
| men are portrayed as the 'new bogeymen'.
|
| New boogeyman? The malign influence of whites in Africa is not
| a new phenomenon. The statement you took issue with is true.
|
| Of course, nobody reasonable would suggest that all whites in
| Africa, or that all white South Africans, are bad people, but
| it's disingenuous to dismiss historical facts about what white
| people have done in Africa on the basis that it hurts white
| people in Africa's feelings.
| nuerow wrote:
| > _(...) but it 's disingenuous to dismiss historical facts
| about what white people have done in Africa_
|
| You really have to figure out what you're referring to as
| "white people", not only because of the inherent racism in
| your statement but also because it fails to recognize the
| root cause of the colonialism problem throughout the world,
| including Africa.
|
| For example, do you feel it's appropriate to blame race when
| colonialist powers were forcing "white people" into exile to
| their colonies under the penalty of death? How about "white
| people" taking job offers to work on any industry located in
| said colonies and consequently ended up making their home
| there? Are you to blame for a problem just because you find
| yourself somewhere and you happen to be the wrong race?
|
| Colonialism were the result of oppressive policies driven by
| authoritarian regimes, but these processes weren't driven
| bottom-up.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > For example, do you feel it's appropriate to blame race
|
| Where did I "blame" race? And for what?
|
| People who are white have done horrible things in Africa.
| People who are black have done horrible things in Africa.
| It is, however, a simple fact that the people who are white
| came to Africa from other places.
|
| Looking at the history, I don't think it's difficult to
| make a strong argument that, on the whole, the arrival of
| white Europeans on the continent has hurt the (black)
| people who were already there more than it has helped them.
|
| That's not blaming white people for all that ails Africa.
| It's also not disingenuously dismissing the malign
| influence white Europeans have had on the continent.
|
| Again, let's look at the statement the OP took issue with
| and suggested was racist:
|
| > Men like Denard but perhaps a little less theatrical--
| many of them South Africans--took the next logical step.
| They founded businesses with boring-sounding names but a
| deadly purpose: to fight Africa's nastiest conflicts on
| behalf of corrupt, inept governments, and for profit
|
| Where's the racism in this? Is this not true?
| nuerow wrote:
| > _Where did I "blame" race? And for what?_
|
| Please don't play dumb. You accused, and I quote, "it's
| disingenuous to dismiss historical facts about what white
| people have done in Africa on the basis that it hurts
| white people in Africa's feelings."
|
| > _People who are white have done horrible things in
| Africa._
|
| Please don't play dumb. You know very well your racist
| comment was a blanked accusation targeted at entire
| ethnical groups.
|
| If you are honestly interested in learning about the
| crimes against humanity committed within the scope of
| imperialist agendas, you'll learn very well that the root
| cause is very specific. If on the other hand you're just
| invested in mindlessly spewing racist comments then you
| should really take a look at what you are doing.
| schrijver wrote:
| You're reading too much into it... that there were many South
| African mercenaries is a historical fact, they're not
| stereotyping any population in that sentence.
|
| For what it's worth, in the popular consciousness outside of
| SA, the white South African as a bogeyman probably peaked a
| long time ago, I would say around 1989 -- when Lethal Weapon 2
| was released with South Africans as the bad guys.
| panzagl wrote:
| I guess you could nitpick as to how many of them were from
| Rhodesia instead of South Africa proper. But South Africans
| have certainly made a cottage industry out of bush war
| memoirs, so it's hard to be too nitpicky.
| hedgehog wrote:
| There's some basis. Executive Outcomes was in its day one of
| the premier private military contractors and formed largely
| out of outgoing military who served the regime. Any time a
| big organization gets downsized those people need to find
| jobs, at the same time there's a robust market for arms-
| length labor to take on dangerous and politically risky work.
| The US has probably been #1 for the last 20 years.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes
| yardie wrote:
| Could this be a generational issue?
|
| I've met many pre-Apartheid white, South Africans who
| immigrated to London. And, wow, the racist shit they would say
| about black South Africans. Many found their racist attitude
| simply wouldn't fly in cosmopolitan London so they fled back to
| South Africa or Australia.
|
| Of the younger generation many were too young to fully
| comprehend apartheid or denounce it entirely.
|
| > Each country has its good and bad men (and women for that
| matter), and if you could do a census I can almost guarantee
| the distribution would follow the usual Bell curve.
|
| South African apartheid was a giant state apparatus. It takes a
| lot of people contributing to uphold it. While no one likes to
| think they were in the bad guy group I'm thinking the bell
| curve is going to look like a slope given the testimony from
| T&R records.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I'm so sick of western liberal ideology being the only means
| in which someone should be tolerated to survive in this
| world. Just because it goes against your belief system does
| not make it immoral or unethical. Every region is not like
| Westminster where it's safe for you to rely on the police to
| enforce people to abide by the law. In most of the world,
| you're lucky if you can seek restitution after the police did
| nothing.
|
| Racism as a whole sucks in every which way. It's unfortunate
| that it happens, but in bad areas of this world, it has
| helped enumerable people on both sides survive. People would
| not do it if it didn't have a positive correlation to
| survival. End of story. Religion sounds like hocus pocus
| magic, but at the end of the day, it creates rules and
| stability that people can establish a consensus without
| talking to one another. Likewise the same thing about racism.
| Essentially it's a religion of personhood deigned at birth.
|
| Western liberals love to believe they're so enlightened by
| their rational thought processes', but often forget people
| are not rational. We are not robots that follow a goddamn
| decision tree placing for the absolute most optimal result. I
| mean the Chinese interpreted the damn future based of tea
| leaves and how ashes showed up in turtle shells!
|
| People need to stop policing others on beliefs that aren't
| rational. Irrational decision making is very much rational.
| Otherwise we'd still be banging rocks against other rocks to
| make axes because the risk of wasting time melting that
| malleable metal to make a sharper and longer lasting axe
| might not pay off and you'll die.
| ruined wrote:
| you can't make a rights-based anti-universalist argument in
| favor of an attitude and framework like racism that is
| straightforwardly totalitarian and universalist.
|
| furthermore, it is totally normal to have a value system
| and then take efforts to make material reality reflect my
| value system. if a lot of people agree with me, it might
| even happen, maybe even against the will of people who
| disagree and hold a different value system.
|
| all people do this. real anti-universalism and your faux
| abstinence are both in fact just another kind of value
| system within this ecosystem.
|
| it's true that a value system does not have to be rational
| to dominate, but that is not an argument in your favor, it
| just emphasizes the necessity of aggressive activism and
| action against racists and their exposed weakness of
| irrationality.
|
| in closing, i highly value the destruction of things that i
| think are morally and ethically wrong. you can't fault me
| for having a different value system that demands i act
| against my enemies...
|
| for the other readers, this faux anti-universalism is a
| common neoreactionary talking point designed to subvert a
| weak conception of cultural diversity, by portraying
| oppressive policies as respectable cultural disagreements.
| i would encourage yall to recognize it when it appears.
| anti-universalism has utility, but this is a perversion.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| > i highly value the destruction of things that i think
| are morally and ethically wrong.
|
| This logic right here is the antithesis to true
| rationalism. You act as though your reason is more sound
| than someone elses simply because you deem your ways as
| the "ultimate" way. A Muslim in Pakistan may not consider
| your form of justice as the same as a Sikh in Suriname.
| You just jump to conclusions that any affront to your
| rationality is an attack on values of "goodness for
| mankind" as a whole. It's absolutely no different than a
| religion. So while you may not be a Muslim, you may find
| many Islamic teachings abhorrent. But to certain Muslims,
| they see you as an infidel or as the heathenous one who
| is striving from a path of moral goodness.
|
| This is exactly why western liberalism is such an affront
| to the world over. It is filled with too many pompous
| white people who think that because they became
| successful in this system, they can extend their white
| savior complex to others by force. Simply through
| justification that they believe they hold the keys to
| true morality.
|
| Western liberalism is no different than the Catholic
| Church in the middle ages. Constantly abusing the
| witchhunt of morality upon others. Incessantly purporting
| that nobody else holds the keys and that any questioning
| of the belief is heresy.
| polotics wrote:
| Wow you're very confused. No time to unpack all the errors
| in your thinking, but may I propose you bookmark this post
| of yours and set a reminder to look at it again in say one
| year or three? Thank You
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| But yet life has somehow brought me to these
| conclusions...
|
| Just because it goes against modern cultural ways of
| thinking does not make it wrong. You're then asserting
| Western ideology is the superior way of life also
| implying all others are inferior. You judge people just
| like priests in the Spanish inquisition, but instead of
| Christianity, you use "Western Thought" as your religious
| motive to criticize other means of thinking. If racism
| did not garner any success for peoples, those people
| would not be successful. Yet here we are. I'm not
| advocating for it because I'm not a moron. But I am
| saying that it on a sociological level is beneficial at
| certain times. Pretending that your "holier than thou"
| mentality while not having lived in those times/areas is
| truly the epitome of Western liberalism. You like to be
| the white savior but forget people are animals at the end
| of the day.
|
| Jesus...I mean even Anthony Bourdain had an episode in
| Haiti where they bought food for a bunch of people and it
| erupted into chaos. He even commented about the very
| thing I'm talking about with people being animals. You
| put scare resources and ways of life on the line, and
| people will revert back to their same old primitive ways.
| Why do you think the Western world has fantasies about
| things like "The Purge" or "Survivor?" Because they're
| impervious toward acting tribalistic? No it's because
| it's a basic fundamental part of who we are.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I'm so sick of western liberal ideology being the only
| means in which someone should be tolerated to survive in
| this world.
|
| I'm sick of the same old, predictable reactionary rhetoric:
| Attack, and if that doesn't work, attack harder. Throw more
| and more at the 'enemy' (because they are your enemy) until
| they quiet down. It's speech as a weapon, as an object to
| throw (verbally, until some people grasp the tactic and
| attack physically), not as meaning.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Would you believe me if I told you I was atheist?
| Removing religion allows you to look at life as a 0 sum
| game. Throw 99.99% of poor people in the situation of the
| only way to get rich is by being racist and it will spout
| on it's own. No need to even influence it.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's what I said would happen, throw more shocking
| nonsense at us. Oo I'm scared.
|
| Take a break, a deep breath. Life doesn't need to be so
| hard and traumatic. People live happily and peacefully,
| cooperate and build communities together. Hate and anger
| are just foreign imports, with no place or need, a
| complete loss. Give them up, and I promise you that you
| won't miss them and that life will suddenly feel
| immeasurably lighter.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I've always assumed that most white South Africans who tried
| to emigrate are the ones who profited heavily under apartheid
| and are unwilling to live under multiethnic rule. Basically
| the most racist of the bunch.
| yardie wrote:
| That's not what I understood. Once the new government
| formed there was a quite a bit of economic instability.
| White South Africans who benefited heavily under the old
| apartheid regime saw their career and economic prospects
| shrink and used their old commonwealth connections to
| migrate to the UK, Canada, and Australia. They didn't enjoy
| living with apartheid but they weren't going to sacrifice
| their comfort so that black South Africans would get a fair
| shot. The government had instituted some affirmative action
| measures and quite a few took that as a cue to leave.
| markdown wrote:
| > I've met many pre-Apartheid white, South Africans who
| immigrated
|
| That's it right there. The worst of them left after the
| collapse of their white supremacist paradise. Every time you
| see a South African immigrant in New Zealand (for example),
| chances are they're racist shitbags.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Some immigrated to avoid military service for the Apartheid
| regime.
|
| I despise Apartheid though perhaps we should point the
| finger less at our predecessors and act on similar
| oppression today.
|
| When there is significant evil in our societies, is it
| enough to say I didn't support it? Or are we obligated to
| put a stop to it? The latter is a harsh, demanding
| judgment, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
|
| Tacit opposition is no different than tacit support.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > It takes a lot of people contributing to uphold it
| [Apartheid].
|
| Actually it really, really didn't.
|
| Students of history will know that National Party (which
| assembled _Grand Apartheid_ and ruled from 1948 to 1994)
| merrily gerrymandered the entire country on a scale seldom
| seem.
|
| 1. liberal (more English) areas like those near Durban were
| _magically_ made part of conservative (more Afrikaans)
| farming areas hundreds of kilometres away. A good example is
| the affluent enclaves of Kloof and Hillcrest in Durban were
| somehow part of the [at the time] extremely conservative
| _Voortrekker_ town of Greytown a mere 150km away;
|
| 2. a further law deemed that the rural votes in each such
| Frankenstein voting district counted 100%, the distant urban
| votes a mere 75%
|
| 3. this happened _everywhere_ and ensured a massive majority
| for the National Party in every province;
|
| 4. there was by design - and in the most literal sense - no
| way for the white population to _vote_ themselves out of
| Apartheid. It was so successful that for many years their was
| only ONE liberal opposition member of parliament [Houghton,
| Johannesburg].
|
| I understand details are tough and cloud the cartoon good-vs-
| evil polemic you were no doubt exposed to. I guess one does
| get more dopamine from wild sweeping statements that
| reinforce and display your own ignorance and bigotry. I
| wouldn't use my real name either in posts like yours.
|
| For the casual observer: let this be a cautionary tale when
| gerrymandering is attempted in your own democracy.
|
| [PS. Southern Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - had a different, but
| equally effective voting mechanism to suppress the growth of
| a liberal opposition. For another day ]
| yardie wrote:
| This is very good rebuttal. I didn't even consider the
| gerrymandering that went on in the 40s. You've exposed a
| blindness I didn't know.
|
| > the cartoon good-vs-evil polemic you were no doubt
| exposed to
|
| I was a child before apartheid was abolished. And growing
| up in the US I knew it was wrong and knew any government
| that supported it was wrong. It seems the BDS campaigns
| were effective on small kids of that time. Honestly, who
| would justify apartheid.
|
| But based on the casual conversation with a few South
| Africans of that era I knew some actively benefited from
| it. A memorable one being with a soon retired office
| manager and ex SA military who had some ideas on what he
| would like to do to Nelson Mandela. How things were better
| before the ANC took over; kind of "the trains running on
| time" mindset.
|
| I went to school in the US. We were told slavery was
| unpopular but politically immovable. We were also told the
| civil war wasn't about slavery. Turns out it was popular
| and the war was absolutely about slavery. So it does color
| my opinion when others tell me something unethical was
| unpopular but politically immovable.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| > Honestly, who would justify apartheid.
|
| Judging by the calls to segregate un-vaccinated people, I
| guess most people.
|
| History (Nazi Germany, USSR, Apartheid South Africa etc)
| shows most people go with the flow, they don't care about
| morals as long as they're in the majority.
| teachrdan wrote:
| I never thought I'd see an impassioned defense of apartheid
| South Africa on Hacker News. But here we are.
|
| So the question is, did "a whole lot" of white people
| uphold a system of white supremacy in South Africa?
| Literally the only honest answer is, "Of course they did."
|
| "Although the majority of whites supported apartheid, some
| 20 percent did not." That's from Wikipedia as cited below.
| If you have an actual source to support your absurd claim
| that the majority of white South Africans opposed
| Apartheid, I'd love to see it. The gerrymandering you
| mention at great (distracting?) length could have been
| real, and would have had nothing to do with upholding
| apartheid, which had the support of about 80% of voters.
|
| Literally the entire state apparatus was dedicated to
| supporting apartheid, particularly the police (which kept
| non-whites from moving freely in their own country without
| passes), the courts (which punished non-whites for
| transgressions against the white state), and the military
| (which violently attacked and killed non-whites who could
| not be controlled by the police and courts). And all this
| in a country that was never more than 20% white in modern
| times.
|
| > I understand details are tough and cloud the cartoon
| good-vs-evil polemic you were no doubt exposed to.
|
| In the case of apartheid, good vs evil is exactly what it
| is. The white apartheid government, which had the support
| of 80% of white voters, was evil. And all the specious
| detail about gerrymandering won't make that go away.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| At the risk of exposing myself to some more sanctimonious
| insults, let me complete the half-told story here by
| showing - with the requested sources [1] that when white
| South Africans were actually offered a truly level-field,
| one-man-one-vote referendum as to whether to end
| Apartheid in 1990...
|
| the _vast_ majority ( > 80%) of eligible whites turned
| out and voted 68% in favour - with the gerry-mandered
| districts in my original post voting 85% in favour.
|
| Thus supporting my original explanation that a cynically
| engineered voting system is incredibly advantageous to
| the incumbent and needs far fewer supporters than is
| often believed to maintain the status quo over a long
| period.
|
| Sadly, some people just stopped thinking after the
| Spitting Image jingle.
|
| And since its a mandatory part of the weird _I-never-
| thought-I 'd-see_ kubuki theatre on HN: to remove all
| possible doubt, Apartheid had no redeeming
| characteristics, was a completely evil idea, and only a
| fucking moron would defend it. Sigh
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_South_African_apar
| theid_r...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > At the risk of exposing myself to some more
| sanctimonious insults
|
| Please leave out the victim rhetoric, which is a very
| tired and worn tactic; it's just personal attacks in
| reverse. Nothing in the GP was an insult. If you have a
| point to make, say it.
| teachrdan wrote:
| You are obviously invested in the false narrative that
| most white South Africans always secretly opposed
| Apartheid, and it was just the work a few bad men who
| somehow kept millions of Black South Africans oppressed
| for decades -- conveniently, to the material benefit of
| the white minority.
|
| It's your choice to believe something so stupid. But to
| propagate this racist myth of Hacker News is a profound
| act of intellectual dishonesty at best.
|
| Your proof that most white South Africans opposed
| apartheid is that the 1990 referendum came out in favor
| of ending it? This vote took place after it was clear
| that apartheid had no future. The ANC (main black freedom
| party) was increasingly organized and powerful, while
| years of economic sanctions had taken their toll on the
| economy.
|
| You claim that a majority of whites opposed apartheid the
| entire time. Then how could the system have persisted for
| decades?
|
| > to remove all possible doubt, Apartheid had no
| redeeming characteristics...
|
| This is a cheap trick performed by the right. They
| denounce an unjust system while minimizing anyone's
| participation in it. It's oppression without any
| oppressors. This is how the United States lionizes Martin
| Luther King while downplaying the white politicians and
| bureaucrats (like head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover) who
| persecuted him every step of the way.
|
| You may not be defending apartheid per se. But you are
| certainly defending millions of white South Africans who
| supported, enforced, and benefited from apartheid for
| decades, all at the expense of the overwhelming non-white
| majority. The fact that being reminded of their
| misconduct bothers you so much should tell you something.
|
| ---
|
| Land ownership under apartheid limited Black ownership to
| just 7% of the country:
| https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/africa/south-africa-land-
| refo...
| eslaught wrote:
| I want to be convinced, but your posts don't help.
|
| Three posts up, your only citation was to Wikipedia,
| claiming 20% of whites were against apartheid. But the
| paragraph in Wikipedia itself doesn't cite anything. I
| hope I don't need to say: Wikipedia is not in and of
| itself a source. Either they need to cite some sort of an
| underlying source, or you do.
|
| The post I'm immediately replying to has one citation to
| a source about Black ownership of land. That's not what's
| under dispute here.
|
| Can you provide some actual sources substantiating the
| claim of what percentage of whites actually did (or did
| not) support apartheid? Otherwise your posts are pure
| rhetoric.
| foldr wrote:
| Some citations can be found in the 'support for
| apartheid' section here: http://www.brandonhamber.com/pub
| lications/Journal%20A%20Stat...
|
| Also note the striking statistic in the abstract:
| "...over 40% of those surveyed think apartheid was a good
| idea, badly executed." And this was a survey conducted
| _in 1996_.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| Genuine question: why as a HN reader - so probably quite
| scientific - why is it _" striking"_ to you that after
| learning on this very forum of referendum where you found
| out that 30% voted to maintain Apartheid, a mere FOUR
| years later a poll finds 40% holding a similar position?
|
| a) surely you are familiar with error bars?
|
| b) where did you think that 30% went?
|
| I would be astonished if the poll said otherwise.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| Hi techrdan - can you lighten up on the insults. I'm
| really trying to discuss a topic with a teeny, tiny
| Overton window and I don't deserve you continued efforts
| to caricature me as a racist.
|
| > Then how could the system have persisted for decades?
|
| - surely I have explained at least one mechanism - in
| your words - "in distracting long detail";
|
| - another one was to make sure no white kid ever learnt a
| black language. Most kids in the areas I spoke about
| above learnt French as a third language - not Zulu or
| even Hindi. This was deliberate;
|
| - they went to enormous lengths to destroy any common
| knowledge of Sofiatown and it was a rejection of that the
| races could never live together. To show you what it
| meant: they renamed it "Triuph";
|
| - they high-jacked the dominant protestant religion (ask
| Reverend Beyers Naude)
|
| - in the mid 1980s the imposed a state of emergency that
| controlled all TV and news.
|
| - any yes, like many places in the early mid 20th century
| - there were indeed a lot of racists.
|
| But I suspect form the tone of your comments you aren't
| really asking in some good faith pursuit of knowledge of
| a complex place. I suspect you are rather employing a
| common rhetorical device to actually assert there "there
| other is no possible explanation - other than simple pure
| evil bigotry - for how it could continue for so long. And
| anyone who I _feel_ doesn 't agree with this is a bigot".
|
| Its not cool and its not consistent with the site
| guidelines.
|
| So let's discuss briefly the other Apartheid state -
| Northern Rhodesia. Here the whites-only voting was first-
| past-the-post as per the UK mother ship.
|
| In all of the elections about 40% of the white population
| regularly voted against Ian Smith in just about all the
| districts. They won exactly ZERO seats in parliament.
|
| 40% is not "a few" people.
|
| Voting structures matter and they get high-jacked. Look
| after yours.
| foldr wrote:
| >the vast majority (> 80%) of eligible whites turned out
| and voted 68% in favour - with the gerry-mandered
| districts in my original post voting 85% in favour.
|
| This stat seems to support teacherdan's point. Even at a
| time where it had become clear that the apartheid system
| could not continue (regardless of whether or not people
| supported it in principle), almost a third of whites
| votes to maintain it. In other words, a whole lot of
| white people supported apartheid right up to the bitter
| end, and that is one of the reasons that it was possible
| for it to continue for so long.
|
| Also, the referendum appears to have been in 1992, not
| 1990.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| s/1990/1992/ - thanks.
|
| Of course a hell of a lot of people supported it - most
| of them now long dead. [This mandatory prelude is so
| tedious]
|
| However, as I have shown, clearly not enough that the
| ruling National Party were prepared to _trust_ their own
| people with continuing to vote for it. An the 1992
| referendum proved their suspicions to be correct!
|
| Hence the outrageous - from the start - manipulation.
|
| If you think banal voting manipulation isn't as big a
| deal as _the evil that lurks in mens ' hearts_ then ask
| yourself - now that Iran has an Islamic democracy (they
| do hold elections) how does the current/next generation
| ever return to a secular democracy via the ballot - if
| that is what they want?
|
| As as in Apartheid South Africa, enormous effort has been
| made by the initial true believers to prevent it from
| ever happening.
|
| I could be wrong.
| foldr wrote:
| That's all fine, I just don't think it really refutes the
| point that "It takes a lot of people contributing to
| uphold it [Apartheid]."
|
| >An the 1992 referendum proved their suspicions to be
| correct!
|
| Well, sort of, except the National Party was campaigning
| for a 'Yes' [to end apartheid] vote.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > Well, sort of, except the National Party was
| campaigning for a 'Yes' [to end apartheid] vote.
|
| I'm not sure how that minimised anyone who then voted
| "yes, I'm glad you are finally proposing that - its what
| I want"? Odd line to take.
|
| But the Apartheid National Party did a lot stranger
| things than that - after a quick rebrand - they decided
| to _merge_ with the ANC!
|
| As I said - a complicated place.
| foldr wrote:
| As you've noted yourself, the government had a large
| amount of control over the media and the political system
| as a whole. It would be disingenuous to identify this as
| the primary factor in the maintenance of the apartheid
| system (as you have in several of your posts) and yet
| deny that it had any meaningful influence on the
| referendum result. The striking fact is that _even with
| the party that introduced apartheid campaigning to repeal
| it_ , almost a third of whites voted to keep the system.
| And as others have pointed out, this was at a point in
| time where SA had become a pariah state and it was
| abundantly clear that apartheid could not continue - even
| to many dyed-in-the-wool racists who had no objection to
| it in principle.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| I never know what the next step in these conversations is
| meant to be: a nation of people did a really bad thing.
| They - or their children their grandchildren clearly
| changed their mind when first given a real, unrigged
| vote.
|
| Now it only happened because the evil party told them to
| and the world was forcing them to? So what ? They haven't
| really changed _deep down_? And the proof is somehow the
| absolute strangers in the minority who didn 't change
| their mind?
|
| I am going to have to call a halt to my participation
| here as: to quote teachrdan - is absurd.
| foldr wrote:
| The motivations behind people's votes rather obviously do
| matter if your are attempting to use these votes as
| evidence of a particular attitude towards the apartheid
| system.
|
| The best that can be said is that once the imminent
| collapse of apartheid became obvious to almost everyone,
| a clear (but not overwhelming) majority of white people
| voted to get rid of it.
|
| To me these facts are obviously inconsistent with the
| narrative that apartheid was an unpopular policy that
| persisted only because of gerrymandering and other
| electoral shenanigans. One can also look at polling and
| surveys to reach the same conclusion.
| yardie wrote:
| In the TAs defense the National Party ran on a platform
| of apartheid in the 1940s did lose the popular vote but
| won the parliament through gerrymandering.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_South_African_general_
| ele...
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| Not only that, but the National Party were so rabid that
| in 1948 D.F Malan - their new prime minister - proposed
| in an actual parliament speech to deprive _white English-
| speaking_ citizens of the vote.
|
| God alone knows how they were going to enforce that in a
| completely multi-lingual society.
|
| Strange times. A warning to us all.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > I never thought I'd see an impassioned defense of
| apartheid South Africa on Hacker News. But here we are.
|
| Good news mate - you still haven't.
|
| But nice try
| mcguire wrote:
| Speaking as an older adult male from the south of the
| United States, I'm afraid one of my eyebrows was creeping
| upward while I read this. It's not the first time I have
| seen this kind of argument.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I am sure the vast majority of South
| Africans, English and Afrikaans, are decent enough people.
| It's really just that the "it wasn't all of us, it was
| those really bad people over there" is a part of the whole
| Lost Cause thing. Sorry.
| zizee wrote:
| So anyone living under a corrupt/violent regime are
| guilty of that regimes actions? Neat.
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(page generated 2021-11-09 23:01 UTC)