Kosovo Polje

Baserad serbisk jordbruksbrigad? 

De "baserade" serberna ("the most Game-conscious people in Europe"), som är allierade med Moder Ryssland, agerar ju på ett intressant sätt här...

Serbiens plan: Massinvandring från tredje världen

Gold Coast

 

How is this even possible today? The whole thing feels so 1970 or perhaps 1995. Is this woman a member of a cult of some kind?  

The wrath of the world

 

 

I can´t let this go. The final scenes from Werner Herzog´s films "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and "Cobra Verde" are disturbing allegories of the end of the world. Or humanity. Or - at a minimum - modern civilization. Especially the last minute or so of the "Aguirre" climax, where the sun (God?) looks down on the pathetic raft of the mad conquistador (Earth? Homo sapiens?) as it´s invaded by monkeys in the middle of a completely indifferent wilderness. Note also the sharp contrast between his hubris and the actual state of affairs. What kind of vibes I got from the ending of "Cobra Verde", I won´t even tell you...

Cobra Verde

 

I haven´t seen Werner Herzog´s "Cobra Verde" (featuring Klaus Kinski as some crazy guy - as usual), but the ending is just as bizarre and disturbing as the climactic scene of "Aguirre: The Wrath of God"...

I hope they don´t insult al-Mus’hafash-Sharif

President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo 
Credit: Graham Carlow

Non-OIC member-state extends religious freedom! Breaking now!

Witchcraft accusations in Ghana could be banned by new law

Våroffensiv

Mondelez verkar inte vara de enda som har problem med "krishanteringen" just nu...

Historiskt haveri: H&Ms vd lät som en mytoman

African Gospel

"Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology" (2004) is a book by Diane B Stinton, a Canadian scholar and theologian. She resided and taught in Kenya at the time her book was published. "Jesus of Africa" combines theology and anthropology. It´s not as interesting as I first imagined, and feels somewhat "in-house", but it´s not a complete waste of time either. People extremely interested in Christian missionary activity (and the theological conundrums surrounding it) will probably find it worthwhile. 

Stinton has carried out field work in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana, and also quotes authors from Cameroon and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. She has mostly excluded southern Africa from consideration, however. The book comments on some theological developments within African Christian Churches since the abolition of European colonial rule. Both Protestants and Catholics are included. There are also "African Independent Churches", Christian denominations started by Black Africans outside the structures of the missionary Churches (which are ultimately controlled from Europe or the United States). Stinton describes various strategies used by African Christians to make Jesus and the Biblical message more relevant to African concerns, both traditional and modern. 

The author refers to these strategies as "inculturation" and "liberation". There is an obvious tension between them, not always explored in the book, since the former tries to adapt Christianity to traditional African cultures (including traditional African religions), while the latter is more modern and might therefore clash with tradition. For instance, feminist theology will come into conflict with patriarchal structures, while a more general liberation theology will clash with those of a less radical political bent. There are also attempts to bridge the gap between inculturation and liberation, however, for instance by claiming that traditional culture is really matriarchal, or by recasting traditional kings ("tribal chiefs" in Western parlance) as liberation fighters.

Much of the inculturation will strike more doctrinally purist Christians as syncretist and heretical. While Stinton paints African religion as monotheist, I think more traditional theologians will easily define it as pantheist and polytheist. The "life force" from "God" is mediated through spirit-beings, of which the ancestors of the tribe, clan and/or family are the most important. This makes ancestral cults central to many African cultures. Jesus is incorporated into this structure as the Ancestor par excellence, sometimes referred to as the Proto-Ancestor, who mediates between God and man. He can also be seen as the foremost manifestation of the vitalistic life force which permeats the entire cosmos and ultimately comes from God. Traditional African terms for the Divine are used when describing "God the Father" of the Bible, and likewise Jesus can be given names or titles associated with the Divine or some important divine figure in the traditional religion. Jesus can further be cast as a traditional African king, who is seen not only as an earthly ruler and mediator with the Divine, but also as a powerful warrior and "liberator" or "savior" of his people. The author once visited a Church compound where the chapel (i.e. the "house" of Jesus) was surrounded in circular fashion by the other buildings, in the same way as the house of a king is surrounded by the domiciles of his plural wives! 

Other inculturation attempts include seeing Jesus as a family member, obviously because the extended family is the central social unit in many African societies. Jesus can be seen as father, brother, husband, or even as "mother". While nobody interviewed in the book regards Jesus as literally feminine, many women did see Jesus as a motherly figure. He is said to give life (like a woman) and care for his flock in motherly fashion. Sometimes his suffering is interpreted as a motherly act. In one Kenyan culture, women have traditionally worked as shepherds, so obviously "the good shepherd" sounds like feminine symbolism there. However, women just as often see Jesus as a manly figure. For instance, widows might interpret him as a "husband". 

The author is "pro-African", which a critical reader might find mildly annoying. For instance, the already mentioned attempt to cast African paganism as "monotheist", obviously intended as praise, since monotheism is "good" in a Christian context. A more neutral observer might argue that it shouldn´t matter whether or not non-Christian religion is mono-, pan- or polytheist. Both the author and the African theologians she quote constantly use the terms "holistic" and "wholistic" when describing traditional African culture. But surely this term can´t be African? It smacks more of American New Age! It´s also obvious that the holistic "community" described by Stinton is really a tribal or clan society, something very problematic from a "liberation" perspective. 

An ironic side effect of the inculturation efforts is that belief in magic, witches and traditional medicine has remained strong even in a Christian context, often supplemented by faith healing. Jesus can be seen as a powerful healer or medicine man. It struck me that the success of the prosperity gospel in Africa (mentioned in passing by the author as an anti-traditional reaction) can actually have a "traditional" explanation: maybe the Faith movement preachers are seen as powerful magicians? 

Some topics are not covered in the book at all, or only mentioned in passing, yet seems relevant to the context. Thus, Stinton mentions that African Christians often prefer the Old Testament to the Gospels. Why? This is never explained. Is it the tribal aspect? Or something more disturbing? In Rwanda, the Hutu extremists used OT imagery to rally the Hutu against the Tutsi. It seems Black Jesus can also be a genocidaire! I also noted that White Europeans get all the blame for the slave trade, when in reality the Muslim slave trade was just as extensive and older than the Christian. Kenya and Uganda would have been mostly hit by the Muslim slave trade, while Ghana was presumably hit by both. Is "liberation" only directed against Whites, or is there an anti-Muslim aspect we are not told about?

From a non-Christian perspective, "Jesus of Africa" also raises other questions. For instance, how far can Christianity be stretched without becoming something else entirely? *Is* Christianity relevant to Africa (or anyone really) if it has to be de-Judaized, de-Biblicized or de-NT-ized to fit the new cultural context? How would Christianity look like if it had used the same inculturation strategy during, say, the Early Middle Ages when it spread to northern Europe? And what exactly is the infallible divine revelation in all this?

Those are my reflections on the contemporary African Christologies. 

Scientific breakthrough or clickbait as usual?

Interesting, to be sure, but perhaps to soon to rehabilitate ol´ Lamarck. Why can´t the ability to turn on non-random mutations to protect the organism in itself be a feature that evolved through random mutations? 

Even Dawkins talks about "the evolution of evolvability" or something to that effect. Note also the bizarre glee in the first article, with its click-baitish title "Darwin was wrong!" (Darwin actually had no idea how inheriterance works so he couldn´t be "wrong" or "right" about mutations). 

Short form: yes, Mr. Editor, your evolutionary cousin really was a chimp! No use denying it. 

Darwin was wrong!

Are genetic mutations random in humans? Israeli study says NO

Swedish imperial over-reach?

"Stormakten växer fram" (The Great Power Arises) is a short book by Swedish history professor and popularizer-in-chief Dick Harrison, published in 2020. The contents overlap with two other Harrison specials, "Drottning Kristina" and "Ett stort lidande har kommit över oss". The book deals with Sweden´s remarkable rise from peripheral kingdom in the far north of Europe to a regional great power with interests in both northern and central Europe. This period (circa 1600 to 1718) is known as the "Great Power Period" in Swedish history writing, and is mostly associated with two warrior-kings, Gustavus Adophus (Gustav II Adolf) who intervened in the Thirty Year War, and Charles XII (Karl XII) who fought in the Great Northern War. Harrison´s book deals mostly with the former, since it concentrates on the rise and zenith of Swedish power during the 17th century. There are also chapters on Charles IX (Karl IX) and Charles X Gustav (Karl X Gustav). Unsurprisingly, a large portion of "Stormakten växer fram" deals with the Swedish intervention in Germany, Bohemia and Moravia during the Thirty Year War. 

Harrison begins the story with a thorough character assasination of Charles IX (who ruled Sweden from 1599 to 1611), clearly not one of the author´s favorites! Duke Charles became regent and later king by overthrowing his nephew, Sigismund (Zygmunt Waza) who was king of both Sweden and Poland. Since Sigismund was a Catholic (Sweden was Lutheran) and associated with the high nobility, Charles could appeal to the clergy, burghers and peasants to overthrow him. This was simply a clever manouevre. Harrison regards Charles IX as a brutal dictator, perhaps even a paranoiac and sociopath, before whom nobody was safe. His foreign policy was scarcely any better. When the king died, he had "succeeded" in making enemies of essentially all Sweden´s neighbors: Poland, Russia and Denmark-Norway. The defeats against the Polish and the Danes were particularly humiliating. The Swedish army was no match for the Polish Hussars, and after the defeat against Denmark, Sweden was forced to pay a huge ransom to get back certain occupied territories. Ironically, however, it was precisely these defeats that made Sweden - or rather the new Swedish rulers - motivated to reform the political, military and fiscal system from top to bottom. Under the new king, the legendary Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden became the most militarized state in Europe. "Sweden wasn´t a nation with an army, but an army with a nation". Essentially everything was subordinated to the demands of war. The swift mercantilist economic development of Sweden during this period (made possible by skilled immigrants from Wallonia and the Netherlands) was really a way to collect new revenues for the military. A highly centralized state apparatus collected exorbitant taxes, drafted soldiers and carried out intrusive censuses of the population. The Church of Sweden, which had priests in every village, functioned as a de facto part of the state machinery. Meanwhile, the Swedish army was modernized and adopted battle tactics that were relatively new in Europe at the time. The Sweden of the Great Power Period became a kind of early modern state par excellence. 

Harrison marvels over the fact that no peasant rebellions took place in Sweden during the period in question. In the rest of Europe, civil wars and popular rebellions were common during the 17th century. They had been common in Sweden, too, during the 16th century. Despite the severe hardships imposed on the peasantry, Sweden became a nation of obedient soldiers and tax-payers. Why? While I don´t think there is any simple explanation, Harrison does point to a few factors. One was that the Swedish peasantry had their own representatives in the Diet or Parliament. They also had an amount of local self-government through the "socknar" (a kind of parish councils doubling as secular local councils). While the peasantry didn´t have any *real* influence over the course of national politics, the system thus had "safety valves" which permitted the peasants to at least voice their grievances. In most European polities, peasants had exactly zero possibility to do this. Another factor is that Gustavus Adolphus (perhaps reluctantly) agreed to share power with the nobility. This created political stability. It was also a welcome contrast to the arbitrary rule of Charles IX. Finally, there were personality issues which made the Swedish administration run smoothly. The king´s chief minister Axel Oxenstierna was extremely competent at everything from grand strategic designs to micro-management, and although he and Gustavus were polar opposites on a purely personal level, they nevertheless agreed to work together as a team. Oxenstierna was considered one of the greatest European statesmen by his contemporaries. 

This unprecedented mobilization of resources turned Sweden - one of the smallest kingdoms in Europe in terms of population - into a feared military adversary in just a few decades. Another factor should also be mentioned. During the Thirty Year War, Catholic France paid enormous subsidies to Lutheran Sweden to keep the Swedish military operations going. The reasons were pure Realpolitik: France was encircled by the equally Catholic Habsburgs, who ruled both Germany, Italy, Spain and the area today known as Belgium. An anti-Habsburg alliance with the "heretical" Swedes was pure common sense for the likes of Cardinal Richelieu. Of course, Sweden wouldn´t be of interest to one of Europe´s true great powers without the previously mentioned mobilizations.

While all this is impressive, in a sense, the end results are not. Sweden lost one third of its male population to war during the period 1618-1718. The Thirty Year War, in which Sweden played such a crucial role, devastated Germany as foreign and domestic armies systematically plundered and killed the civilian population en masse. Poland didn´t fear any better when Karl X Gustav decided to devastate that nation. Of course, Sweden´s enemies were just as bad - these were bad times. One thing that struck me when reading Harrison´s account of the Thirty Year War in particular was the opportunism of many of the involved parties. Whatever the Thirty Year War may have been, it certainly wasn´t a "war of religion"! Many Protestant princes didn´t want Swedish "aid", both Protestant and Catholic polities switched sides on a semi-regular basis depending on who had the upper hand in the war (but somehow forgot to switch their religion in the process) and Gustavus Adolphus (hailed as "the Lion of the North" by some German Protestants) had to allow Catholics freedom of worship in order to get those French subsidies... 

The last chapter of "Stormakten växer fram" deals with Sweden´s colonial adventures in North America and West Africa. Sweden is sometimes portrayed as a downright incompetent colonial nation (or even as somehow benign), but judging by Harrison´s description, the problem was rather that Sweden´s attempts at colonial expansion were nipped in the bud by stronger competitors.  There was nothing inherently bad with the Swedish plans, per se. In West Africa, the Swedes built a trading fortress called Carolusburg at the Gold Coast and found a suitable market for slave export at Sao Tomé. It was even possible to export slaves to the Carribean, but before the expansion could begin in earnest, the Swedish Africa Company was betrayed by its former superintendent, Heinrich Carlof, who entered Danish service and started attacking the outposts of his former employers. I´m not sure if the fate of New Sweden in North America illustrates the author´s thesis, though. He admits that Sweden seldom sent ships with food, guns and reinforcements to its North American colony, and I assume the low population of Sweden made it difficult to find prospective settlers for an overseas venture. I suppose you *could* call this incompetence, or at least an original form of imperial over-reach!

And speaking of imperial over-reach, Sweden eventually lost its great power status, but that´s another book (also by Dick Harrison). 

The wager

“West African Wager” is a book published in 1972. It deals with the post-independence developments in two West African nations, Ghana and the Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire). In 1957, the Ivorian leader Félix Houphouët-Boigny made a symbolic wager with Ghanaian ditto Kwame Nkrumah, claiming that the Ivory Coast would have better economic and social conditions than Ghana within ten years. At the time, the Ivory Coast was still a French colony, while Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) had just achieved independence from Britain. The wager was repeated by Houphouët at several points after the Ivory Coast, too, became independent and was apparently well known in the region.

The author of “West African Wager”, Jon Woronoff, clearly sympathizes with Houphouët, who followed a moderate, pro-Western line, turning the Ivory Coast into a French-style capitalist mixed economy. The author believes that this, while hardly “solving” all of the nation's problems, nevertheless laid the basis for political stability and economic growth.

By contrast, Nkrumah tried to make Ghana “socialist” at break-neck speed, wrecking the economy in the process. In the name of Pan-African unity, Nkrumah attempted to destabilize other African nations, including the Ivory Coast. Nkrumah also promoted a personality cult around himself as “The African Personality” and the “Osagyefo” (often translated Redeemer) and even launched his own “philosophy”, known as Consciencism. In 1966, while Nkrumah was away on an official visit to China, the Ghanaian army staged a coup d'etat and declared the Redeemer overthrown. After a failed attempt to retake power with the aid of Guinea (another socialist-oriented nation in West Africa), Nkrumah resigned himself to his fate. He died in 1972.

At some points, Ghana and the Ivory Coast resembled each other. Both were one party states, and both leaders were de facto (Nkrumah even de jure) presidents for life. The uncritical attitude of the author towards Houphouët-Boigny leads him to downplay the Ivorian leader's participation in various destabilization attempts throughout the region, as if Nkrumah was the only culprit…

That being said, I nevertheless found “West African Wager” both interesting and slightly disturbing. Being left-of-center, my instinctive sympathies would be with Nkrumah, yet, it seems that his attempted leap towards socialism ended in the same way as the Soviet experiment: personality cult, fanatical youth brigades, soaring inflation, stagnant economy, complete failure in agriculture, and a dependency on foreign aid (often from the Eastern bloc) to make up for the deficits. The attempts by the great leader to construct his own “philosophy” are perhaps more unique (most socialist-oriented states simply adopt Marxism). However, it was also interesting to note that the “liberal” course (the author's words) in the Ivory Coast was really a form of dirigiste mixed economy, a far cry from neo-liberalism proper.

Judging by the list of references at the back of the book, there are more detailed and voluminous books on both nations, all of them out of print, but “West African Wager” seems to be a good summary as any, and I will therefore give it four stars.

Pan-Africanism in practice?

This is a detailed, perhaps too detailed, study of Kwame Nkrumah's foreign policy. Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana from 1957 to 1966. Still today, Nkrumah is considered important in some circles, as the founder and first leader of Pan-Africanism. Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) was the first European colony in Black Africa to become independent. Nkrumah therefore wielded an enormous moral influence on African independence struggles. Soon, he attempted to turn this prestige into real political and military clout. Ghanaian troops (under UN command) were present in the Congo during the Congo crisis. Nkrumah called on the newly independent African states to swiftly form a union, complete with an actual federal government. He did manage to form a bloc of radical states as a counterweight to a more moderate alliance headed by the Ivory Coast and Liberia. However, the “organic union” remained elusive.

The author of this book accuses Nkrumah of unrealistic expectations and adventurism. Despite Ghana's poverty and small size, Nkrumah saw himself as an important international statesman, bickering with Nasser, Nehru or Tito (the real heavy weights) over the future course of the Non-Aligned Movement. Nkrumah's official visits to other nations seem to have been many, prolonged and always done in the company of a large entourage. He vacationed at Crimea at the invitation of Soviet leader Khrushchev. At times, Nkrumah's antics were downright comical. During a visit to tiny Albania, the Ghanaian president and Albanian Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha signed an agreement to establish an air traffic link between Tirana and Accra, trafficked by Albanian planes. There was just one problem: Albania didn't have any civilian air planes... (To be fair, Ghana's economy was actually stronger than Albania's and Romania's ditto, the reason probably being that the British colonial power had developed the Gold Coast prior to independence. Albania subsequently exported substandard beer and cigarettes to Ghana, while Romanian diplomats in Accra used their nation's trade deal with Nkrumah as a means of obtaining foreign currency, suggesting that the Ghanaian pound was stronger than the Romanian leu!)

Nkrumah's politics also had darker sides. The Ghanaian leader attempted to destabilize many other African nations, became increasingly more autocratic at home, and turned sharply “to the left” in the hope of receiving substantial subsidies from the Soviet Union and China. (Of course, Ghana was frequently the target of destabilization by others, including several attempts to assassinate Nkrumah himself.) Despite his radical reputation as a Pan-Africanist and socialist, Nkrumah's international forays were frequently opportunistic. In the Congo, Ghana's troops refused to give Lumumba (Nkrumah's supposed ally) access to the national radio station at a critical point in the power struggle with Kasavubu (who was more pro-Western). Later, however, Ghana agreed to smuggle Soviet arms to Lumumba's supporters in Stanleyville. In Togo, Nkrumah's operatives attempted to topple the nationalist government of Sylvanus Olympio (since he had various conflicts with Ghana), in effect siding with pro-Western coup plotter Nicolas Grunitsky. Nkrumah made attempts to obtain massive amounts of financial assistance and food from the Western powers (including the United States), while "building socialism" and strengthening Ghana's ties with the Soviet bloc.

It's not clear whether Nkrumah was a genuine megalomaniac or simply a poseur. The author regards his politics as seriously intended, if extremely unrealistic and misguided, including the attempts to form a vast African super-state (or super-federation) ASAP. He also believes that Ghana might have become a dangerous Soviet satellite, had Nkrumah not been overthrown by the military in 1966.

Due to its attention to details, “Ghana's Foreign Policy 1957-66” is a tedious read. The book is *not* detailed when dealing with other issues than its stated subject. Somewhat ironically, it therefore requires a good deal of background knowledge (especially concerning Ghana's domestic policy) to be fully understood. My background knowledge comes from Jon Woronoff's “West African Wager”, reviewed by me elsewhere.

That being said, this study is probably a must if West African political history is your thing…

Pale red star over Ghana?

“Ghana: End of an Illusion” was originally published in 1966 as an issue of Monthly Review, the independent Marxist magazine edited by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman. It's ideological orientation was broadly “Maoist”. The essay on Ghana was written by Bob Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer.

The writers scrutinize the politics of Kwame Nkrumah, who led this particular West African nation from 1952 to 1966. Before 1957, Ghana – then known as the Gold Coast - was a British colony. Nkrumah was a central leader of the independence struggle. After reaching an accommodation with the British, he was appointed “Prime Minister” of the colony in 1952. Nkrumah continued as Prime Minister after Ghana became independent, and later became President. Ghana was the first colony in Black Africa to achieve independent status, which gave Nkrumah an enormous moral and political authority. He was a hero to many socialists, Communists and liberation fighters around the world, while pro-Western groups saw him as a megalomaniacal dictator who wrecked Ghana's once prosperous economy. In 1966, Nkrumah was overthrown in his absence by the Ghanaian military.

The authors believe that both Nkrumah's admirers and detractors are wrong. The Ghanaian leader wasn't a socialist. But no, he didn't wreck the country's economy. Ghana's economic problems were caused by capitalism and neo-colonialism, a system from which Nkrumah failed to break away. During the first years after independence, Nkrumah's politics were subservient to British neo-colonialism, which continued to super-exploit Ghana's economy. Later, Nkrumah turned towards an ostensibly “socialist” model, but the economy was still dependent on foreign Western capital, which continued to siphon off the nation's wealth. Meanwhile, Nkrumah did little to improve the low wages and generally bad conditions of the working class, even suppressing a general strike. The “masses” therefore abandoned him in 1966, instead cheering on the coup (which was really neo-colonialist and pro-Western).

“Ghana: End of an Illusion” does contain an interesting class analysis of Ghanaian society, criticism of the role played by the British colonial power, and some observations on Nkrumah's supposed “mass party” (the CCP) which completely dominated Ghana's politics during his tenure. It says almost nothing about Nkrumah's foreign policy. The authors believe that the People's Republic of China (i.e. Mao's regime) shows the way to economic development and modernization for the Third World. They end with a tribute to Amilcar Cabral, the leader of the PAIGC, the independence movement in Portuguese Guinea. The Marxist-inspired PAIGC was waging a guerilla war against Portugal, a war the authors compare to Mao's ditto in China. While there may be some truth in Monthly Review's criticism of British colonialism (and of Kwame Nkrumah), I can't say their alternatives inspire much confidence!

That being said, I will nevertheless give this book four stars, for being a good counterpoint to the more official-sounding books (both pro or con) about the pale red star over Ghana…

Flight Lieutenant on deck

“Ghana: Politics, Economics and Society” is a book in the Marxist Regimes series, published in 1986. It describes the government of Flight Lieutenant Jerry J Rawlings and his Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). Rawlings, who had temporarily taken power in 1979, took over permanently in 1981, an event known as the “31st December Revolution”.

The PNDC had a socialist orientation and was initially supported by two Marxist groups, the pro-Soviet JFM and the Maoist NDM. The JFM wanted to implement full socialism right away, while the NDM called for an extended period of “new democracy” and mixed economy. Curiously, Rawlings acted as a kind of honorary chairman of the JFM, while his actual perspective was closer to that of the NDM. Socialist construction in Ghana soon ran into serious problems, as neither the Soviet bloc nor Gaddafi's Libya (both of which were solicited by the PNDC) had the necessary resources to rebuild the shattered Ghanaian economy. This forced the revolutionary regime to turn “right” and seek loans from the IMF and the World Bank.

The JFM broke with Rawlings in 1982 and seems to have participated in several coup attempts against him. That the ultra-left JFM united with right-wing forces operating from pro-Western Togo is, of course, interesting. The NDM, by contrast, continued to support the PNDC. Rawlings' government did manage to stimulate economic growth in Ghana for the first time in decades, while alienating many leftists, union members and civil servants who had previously supported the revolution.

Internationally, the PNDC had a more consistently left-wing stance, supporting ANC, SWAPO and the PLO. Rawlings cultivated good relations with Cuba and contemplated a political union with Burkina Faso, then headed by pro-Cuban revolutionary Thomas Sankara. Many Ghanaians joined the AYC, apparently one of Moscow's many peace fronts, which operated freely in the country.

Since the book was written in 1986, it doesn't contain any information on Rawlings' subsequent political transformation into a centrist “Social Democrat” after the fall of Soviet Communism. The author is a supporter of the 31st December Revolution, has interviewed Rawlings himself, and frequently expounds on the “Leninist” merits (or otherwise) of the PNDC's policies. The book seems to have been written in a hurry, contains frequent repetitions and could have needed a better editor. Its relatively interesting and informative despite its shortcomings, however, and I will therefore give it three black stars…