Portugal Dominated Angola for Centuries. Now the Roles Are Reversed | Hacker News Reader

Portugal Dominated Angola for Centuries. Now the Roles Are Reversed

nytimes.com

107 pointsbenbreen73 comments

Not Angola, but the cadre of family members and generals that rule the country. It's a daily shame for many of us Portuguese, seeing how our governments grovel to them and keep silent while Portuguese citizens (even if they're also Angolan) are made political prisoners. Our self-respect indexed to the barrel of Brent.

I really hope they can move on, but my Angolan friends (both emigrants and living there) aren't hopeful for the short term.

Yes, not Angola, but the select Angolan crony elites which basically bleed the country dry for their benefit, with the blessing of the western world. The same can be said about a couple handful of other African countries as well.

Here's a graph of all the political and corporate interconnections, from a popular book and documentary (afaik, only published in Portuguese), called Os Donos Angolanos de Portugal (the Angolan Owners of Portugal).

https://i.imgur.com/Fb0ZWRG.jpg

And another one, sans politicians, from a sister publication, Os Donos de Portugal (The Owners of Portugal)

https://i.imgur.com/NBJHcB7.jpg

"On her Twitter account, Ms. dos Santos identifies herself with just one word: entrepreneur."

It makes me vomit a little bit in my mouth to hear a super corrupt billionaire, daughter of a guy who has been president in a country for 38 years, calling herself "entrepreneur".

EDIT: she was invited to the London School of Economics to give a lecture. WTF? What's next, Kim Jong Un giving a lecture in democracy?

The West has been supporting the insanely-corrupt governments in Africa for a very long time.

The governments of first world countries exploit the people and encourage corruption every chance they get, because it's profitable for their corporations, and it keeps the people of Africa as slaves to the first word countries.

The UN watches, and does nothing.

I am in West Africa now. I have been to 15 countries here in the last 14 months. My eyes are open.

As an African let me rephrase that for you. Africans do not think twice about turning on their bretheren when offered huge sums of money. Liberation heroes turn into tyrants once they taste the good life.

I am by no means condoning what the West is/has done. I however have a problem with my own people taking the lions share of any profits.

It's not Africans, it's just people. Westerners sell each other out to foreigners too. Just look at the history of Latin America. There are just far fewer foreigners with the relative wealth to buy off whole governments in MDCs. And in many cases our institutions developed to resist corruption before international finance made it so incredibly easy to accomplish.

The intentional abuses of colonization were vile, but the neglectful exploitation of decolonization has hardly been better.

I replied to another post below. People are just people, agreed. Impact of corruption on a developing nation is felt much more by the people. This is why Africans will risk their lives on rickety boats to get to Europe but Europeans haven't got to that stage yet.

If that's any consolation, I don't think that's only for Africans. You can see the same thing happening in Europe, the Americas and in Asia. Power corrupts. That's why our history is filled with stories about the powerful oppressing the weak, and our litterature is replete with upper-middle class characters struggling with the allure of power, resisting or giving in to the dehumanization aspects that occur all too easily.

I agree. People are just people.

I think we just at a different development stage. The impact of corruption in Africa is more acute. The West have been building hospitals and schools for centuries. We were late to the party. Corruption means we don't have essentials, hospitals, running water, schools. People end up dying of diseases that have cures because there is no medicine.

IMO I don't think its as simple as just building infrastructure, even though that's a significant part of it. One of the best things about Western society is that there is a certain amount of trust among the people, even strangers that seems to be very important to get things done. i.e. if I pay a contractor to fix my house, its very likely they will (if the problem is well known etc.). Even if the trust is misplaced, there is a good judicial system to resort to in egregious cases which keeps (most) bad behaviors/people in check. Cooperation among strangers is essential to the advancement of any society.

In most non-Western countries, this level of trust or belief/existence of the judicial system is absent. Which increases the risk exponentially of investing, working etc.

Now of course, you do need a good education system to provide lawyers/judges and people of every skill level to man these institutions and keep them from corruption. So it does seem like a somewhat cyclical problem.

>and it keeps the people of Africa as slaves to the first word countries.

There are absolutely people who are out to exploit the poor and uneducated, but you make it sound as if someone wants to enslave for the purpose of enslaving.

> but you make it sound as if someone wants to enslave for the purpose of enslaving.

I have no doubt in my mind that some people do want this.

LSE has a little form in this area…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Economics_Gad...

According to her, she started selling eggs and buying cotton http://www.makaangola.org/2016/05/isabel-dos-santos-africas-... (sarcasm here)

Buying/selling eggs and cotton? Is she following the M&M Enterprises business model?

https://norighttobelieve.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/everybody-...

The most scary part is that she isn't trying to be a smart ass, she really believe what she is saying.

Seems on pair with the behind-kissing of major Oil producers including one (or many) that finances terror

On her Instagram account (linked from the NYTimes article) there's this pic: https://www.instagram.com/p/BWnuoDFlGC1/?taken-by=isabel_dos...

What does she use to get that weird, almost photoshopped like effect?

The strong front lighting reduces shadows, for example on her face, that normally provide visual clues about the depth of her features (e.g. how large her nose is) this tends to flatten a persons features to a degree as pointed out by rangibaby.

The overall focus in strongly divided into foreground features and very blurred background features. I haven't played around with the ability of the iPhone 7+ to do this blurring algorithmically, but it is very commonly done with SRL cameras by choosing a very shallow depth of field. This is done by using a large aperture, say f2 or f2.8. This wider open lens allows more of the outer, more curved, part of the lens to collect and focus light onto the image, and due to the geometry of the optics this makes the range of the scene that remains in sharp focus much shallower. (See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field .) Notice particularly, the excellent bokeh formed by the blurred lights in the background. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh)

Finally, a flash combined with a wide open lens can overpower the exposure, a problem for film's limited range of sensitivity (film speed). Cameras can compensate for this by using insanely short exposures, like 1/8000 second, and/or adjusting the exposure sensitivity for a few individual shots (film cameras require changing film rolls to change sensitivity, but today's digital cameras can automatically change the sensitivity on a per shot basis). To me, the picture has a frozen, surreal aspect that can come from a high shutter speed.

All of these effects, which can be done with the appropriate camera settings, can also be simulated with enough Photoshop work. This particular photo could have just been produced serendipitously, especially in this age of unlimited snaps from cell phones that never run out of film, but it looks more professional to me. Consider the careful edge lighting that separates the hair from the background. (See https://www.slrlounge.com/5-ways-to-separate-your-subject-fr... )

I'm not seeing the effect you mentioned. She is lit with a flash, which makes her look flat, but other than that I'm not seeing anything.

I noticed this by accident on my iPhone 7+. If you take a picture of a figure with strong back lighting, then use the editing functions to bring up the shadows, it will look like this.

Where is the problem? Most young entrepreneurs I met had, at least, better of parents, if not rich.

The idea of startups is to fail fast, so if you can fail on your parents money till you're 21 that could also counts as an apprenticeship...

Friend of mine hand dentist parents. Did a few motion picture companies till 21, made almost no money with them and lived with his parents. Later he jumped on the VR bandwagon with 4 years of CEO expertise and got investors like nobodies business

She is the richest women in Africa on account of comically massive corruption, nepotism, being the daughter of a "democratically elected president" who has been in the job for 38 years, all the while the people of Angola live in absolutely abject poverty. Seriously, Luanda is almost the definition of late stage capitalism: one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in as a uber-rich, and a population so miserably destitute I don't even... You gotta be really in too deep if this is just a ok with you.

you need to understand that most, really most of the riches we've got today are rich due to crimes to society.

in the US you have a lot of "self-made" people who wouldn't make it anywhere if the US didn't keep its imperialism, which generally kills more people than that regime, but it's ok right as you are the benefitor of something which happened somewhat far away from you, correct? not really.

becoming an entrepreneur is something only some people can afford to.

it's just life.

"Society is unequal. It's just life" said the slave to the master, said the serf to the lord, said the subject to the sovereign. No its just just bloody life, it's a system of society which can be improved upon or even replaced (as indeed such systems have evolved and changed in the past).

What an appallingly paralysing way to view things.

That went downhill fast. I'm assuming here that you mean income inequality. Just bear in mind that equalizing politics has been one of the greatest sources of tyranny in history (think Animal Farm; see Frankfurt's "On Equality" for some discussion around equality qua equality and the issues around it). The problem isn't inequality per se, but things like poverty or secondary issues like the power that money often buys. To say that "the system" is the ultimate source of our evils is a silly notion that fails to pin the blame on individuals. "Systems" (or I'd say, prevailing social realities) can make bad behaviors appealing, but morally upright people do not take advantage of such opportunities. Certainly, some social orders are better than others, and legal systems that punish and reward appropriately is very important, but thinking that a properly constructed "system" will eliminate all concerned evils by removing inequality is terrifying madness. Focus on the elimination of poverty instead. Inequality per se is irrelevant.

In Animal Farm, the source of tyranny was not equality, on the contrary; it was the failure of the masses to sustain the idea and to prevent the leaders from violating it. Orwell was still a believer in socialist equality, just not in the Bolsheviks or Stalinism.

See Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell's Neglected Commentary.

You're oversimplifying things to an absurd level. A lot of American entrepreneurial wealth is made from goods & services made and sold in the US, so I don't see how American Foreign policy has any effect on it.

Sure the established corporations do make a ton of money from international trade (Oil, Manufacturing, Electronics etc.).

Anyone can be an entrepreneur. It's having an idea that can be acted upon that should provide a positive return (in terms of comparable and calculable inputs and outputs). In the capitalist production order, entrepreneurs need capital to create the conditions necessary to act on the plan. Most people don't have ideas that can be acted upon with enough potential return to justify seeking capital investment as a unique enterprise.

Is there a wonderful country somewhere we should emulate instead? You must have somewhere in mind.

> you are the benefitor

He has to pay the taxes and has his social programs gutted to finance imperialist policies that primarily benefit the connected ultra rich, who might let him have a few crumbs of their wealth.

Some benefit.

Democratically elected with 99.6% of the vote, according to a picture in the article. So either a massive campaign of coercion, or redolent of a quote about whichever of North Korean Kims it was who was reported to have got 18 holes in one the first time he played golf: "the more outrageous the lie, the greater the display of power".

Kind of crazy just how late it was decolonized: 1975. You don't really think of 20th century Portugal as having remnants of empire.

> Kind of crazy just how late it was decolonized: 1975.

Actually it was fully decolonized in 2002.

Independence didn't lead to real independence. Europeans, americans, russians, etc fought over "independent" angola for 37 years after 1975.

The last foreign troops "officially" left in 1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War

> You don't really think of 20th century Portugal as having remnants of empire.

Portugal officially returned macau to china in 1999. Now that is shocking. A small nation of 10 million keeping territory from a nation of 1.4 billion until 1999.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Macaus-Return-to-China-3537...

Also portugal kept gao from india into the 60s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa

It's pretty amazing how such a small colonial power stayed under the radar for so long.

Most european empires still have overseas colonies. The french still have colonies all over the world. The british just renamed their the "commonwealth".

And former european colonial powers still exercise power over much of africa, middle east, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict#Battle_...

It's now under the banner of "democracy and freedom and etc" rather than to bring "civilization". European colonization just got rebranded. That's all.

> It's pretty amazing how such a small colonial power stayed under the radar for so long.

I'm biased because being Brazilian the history of the Portuguese empire wasn't exactly under the radar for us, especially during history lessons.

IMO Portugal never stayed under the radar, it just faded into its own disarray, they had all the tools and resources(its colonies and geographical position) to rule over the world but didn't due to widespread corruption and bureaucracy.

Portugal was more concerned with getting trade goods from the far east than trying to build up sub-Saharan Africa for most of it's history. It just so happened that when the Scramble for Africa started, Portugal already had toeholds all along the coast.

> The french still have colonies all over the world

They're not colonies if their inhabitants are full French citizens (which they are AFAIK). Are the Hawaii a US colony?

Semantically no, but in reality it is. Like many parts of the US, if they hadn't been flooded with American citizens they would have eventually regained their independence.

Not that I think independence is necessarily a good thing.

>> Semantically no, but in reality it is.

If you're still including French oversea departments in that statement, then you are out of your depth here, I must say. Do you know people from the French Caribbeans or Reunion? I do. If you had said they feel under-represented, not supported enough by their government (relative to other regions), or victim of racism, you would have been correct. But talks about being 'colonized'? I have basically never heard that. This is not even part of the discussion for them.

This is supported by their local political landscape: independentist-leaning parties are either anecdotical in size, or have changed their position on this topic. Hell, there are more overt secessionist parties on the French mainland itself (Britany, Corsica), which should tell you something.

This is also a weird remark to make, since France is known to still be very much a neo-colonial power that often interfere in their former colonies' politics, and seldom for the better. So if you're looking for nefarious colonialist behaviour, it's there, just not in their oversea departments.

No, I wasn't making any remark about French colonies as I was replying to a direct question about Hawaii.

I actually think unification is preferable to independence. Independence mainly seems to benefit the people in control.

Not only that, but Schengen rules are in place.

They do use a different currency, but it is pegged to the Euro.

While you make some good points, The british just renamed their the "commonwealth". is pretty inaccurate.

The Commonwealth includes countries like Australia, Canada and India. Britian doesn't dominate them.

See also Bermuda, Gibraltar, and the Falkland Islands.

There are two Australian examples that make me mad every time I think of them:

- U.K. nuclear testing

- the removal of Gough Whitlam

The Gough Whitlam thing was Australian domestic politics, and the palace only provided advice.

Yes it is crazy we still aren't a republic, but I think the dismissal was our own disfunction.

Well most of the British Empire unravelled soon after WW II because the country was broke and exhausted, hence there was little appetite for clinging onto those overseas possessions that began clamouring for independence.

"Decolonized" reads way too light. It was a 13 or 14 years long war (depending on how you count) before independence and that has left huge scars in the country. Not to mention that the war mostly ended because the Portuguese government fell in 1974.

Also, Macau was only returned to China in 1999.

Not to forget Goa, which was actually invaded by India in 1961, with the Portuguese fighting back, although there were 10 times more Indian troops.

If by fighting back you mean laying down arms as quickly as humanly possible.

The engagement lasted two days resulting in twenty-two Indians and thirty Portuguese killed in the fighting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa

Yeah, that's what the fascist dictatorship at the time got by being aligned with the "right" (ie. winning) side, first by not allying itself with the Axis powers in WW2 and then allowing the US to use Azores as a military base during the Cold War.

The "Scramble for Africa" was a particularly late colonization push (late 19th century). Colonization in Africa started after de-colonization was complete in the Americas.

> de-colonization was complete in the Americas.

Except for Canada and many islands which are still colonies today.

Macau was handed over from Portugal to China in 1999.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau#Transfer_of_sovereignty_...

It definitely is crazy and something most people don't know about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Colonial_War

If you ask which other first world countries have "remnants of empire" still, you may get some surprising answers.

This is really interesting, especially in light of all the alleged racism in Portugal.

As far as the corruption in Africa, are there any good books that explain why this is so common in Africa? Is this simply a post colonial pattern that can be found through out human history or is it unique to the recent situation in Africa?

Anyone interested in reading more about Angola and the U.S.'s involvement should check out the book "In Search of Enemies" by John Stockwell who was a manager in the CIA, and involved in the Angola operations.

> Angola is often listed as one of the world’s most corrupt nations. And Portugal has been singled out for its laxness in reining in money laundering and bribery...

The end of story.

Would you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN, especially on inflammatory topics? This never serves thoughtful discussion, which we're hoping to see in HN threads.

And here's yet another major publication resorting to click bait...

What an odd assertion. Most of the elite and leadership ( especially business ) in agola are portuguese. It's just the angolan political elite and portuguese business elite plus a handful of chinese oil companies that dominate angola. It isn't angola dominating portugal. It's portuguese businessmen and angolan political elite dominating and robbing angola of its wealth and moving it to europe.

Portugal is a small country. I did not see any serious investments going on, anything besides their "golden visa" program. A rich guy may invest 500k there to get his residency but serious cash is stored in the UK, Switzerland, Luxembourg, USA. But isn't this the case for most African countries?

OT: A much more interesting woman than Ms. dos Santos, also from Angola: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba

OT2: Actually most of the oil in Angola is in an obscure enclave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinda_Province

> “And suddenly they were able to help us and to buy things that we cannot buy,” he said. “It was like a housekeeper buying your house. That is awkward.”

Good lord. Come on.

Yeah I found that statement rather classist/racist

> late stage capitalism

Much later than the capitalism in most advanced economies ?

We ban accounts that use HN primarily for political or ideological battle. Single-purpose accounts are also not allowed here. Therefore I've banned this one. Please don't create accounts to break the HN guidelines with: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071005 and marked it off-topic.

"late stage capitalism" is a reference to a view that capitalism inevitably leads to a system run by oligarchs. Or something like that - it isn't exactly used consistently[1]. Originally it was a Marxist term, but I don't believe many people use it in this original meaning[2].

It's a pity, because everything else in that poster's comment made sense, I think this detracts from their point.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/late-ca...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism

Pegging "capitalism" into a teleological historiographic narrative (aimed at justifying non-capital producing collectivist dictatorships) has been around for so long that its retro chic again.

That wasn't at all my intention. But nor is it unreasonable to argue that capitalism as it is practiced today cannot sustain itself indefinitely. Nothing teleological or prophetic about it.

To my ear that's like saying evolution cannot sustain itself indefinitely. As long as there are generational selective pressures on imperfect replicators, evolution will continue.

Without a superstructure of omnipresent social domination to hinder or disrupt it, capitalism will be used where countable savings for investment and idea that promising accountable returns find themselves together.

Here's a thought to explain my defense of capitalism: capitalism doesn't cause corruption, but like anything else it is destroyed by corruption. Capitalism is used by the corrupt because it is so good at identifying that which the market values and in delivering it.

I must admit I'm not familiar with the original usage of the term. Probably replace "late capitalism" with something like "unchecked capitalism" or something. I probably didn't use the correct term.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com