I found two interesting bits to this story in the New Zealand Herald. First, the definition of “traitor” as presented by Kit Bennetts, the man who performed surveillance that ultimately led to the arrest of Dr William Sutch:
“He was a loving husband. He was a great father. He was a great family man. His role in the social development of New Zealand was great. Many would say that would outweigh this silly little dabble with the Soviets, whereas I say he was involved in a full-on intelligence operation as an asset of the KGB. To me that outweighs the good he did.
“I honestly believe he never saw himself as a traitor. I don’t think he would have done anything to consciously harm New Zealand. The fact that he did is probably a product of his arrogance … and his belief that he perhaps knew better.”
And so he was charged with doing unconscious harm to New Zealand, although his intent was purely good? That sounds a bit odd to me.
Second, this story came up because a new book is being published by Bennetts that is causing some controversy:
[Former New Zealand defence analyst Jim Rolfe] said there would be some disquiet from the SIS that a retired officer had published a book, but he doubted if the service would do anything.
“They have been burned too often trying to stop secrets once they have been let out.”
Something tells me if the content was sensitive enough, they would actually stop the secret. But since this is a story about a man who was charged and acquitted thirty years ago, what secret could possibly be worth stopping?
This Grammy Award winning song was released last year by Kanye West.
It’s a remix of a 1971 hit “Diamonds Are Forever” by Shirley Bassey (vocals on the intro and hook), the theme song to a James Bond film of the same name.
“Blood diamonds” usually refers to brutality of white South Africans who used forced labor (even slavery) in Black diamond mines.
It was an asset scheme using monopoly tactics to launder money and illegally fund white supremacy — perpetuate Nazism after 1948 (Mary Gerety wrote the famous “A Diamond is Forever” ad slogan in 1947).
Millions of people in Africa tragically died due from violent conflicts related to white supremacist asset wealth manipulation in countries such as Angola, Botswana, Congo, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.
In 1998 the U.N. and European Union embargoed diamonds from Angola due to the overtly white supremacist (apartheid) South African government policy of military intervention and destabilization (Civil War).
However, Kanye here tries to flip the story, like he’s making Kristallnacht into a song, to attack Jews for the crimes of these modern-day Nazis.
The video goes even further than lyrics, using well-known propaganda imagery tactics to breed racial tension and anti-semitism.
Faceless views of whites (arguably anti-semitic portrayals using a rear-view of spectacle-wearing hunched-over “jewelers”) are contrasted with full frontal views of big-eyed poor Black children forced to work in diamond mines. Source: YouTube
Such propagandist imagery is coupled with record-scratching lines such as this:
I’m talkin’ bout Rockefelle’, my home, my chain
These ain’t conflict diamonds, is they Jacob?
A misplaced call-out to the American oilman “Rockefeller” and a Biblical reference to “Jacob” (people of Israel) clearly expose… Kanye’s intentions of spreading hate towards Jews.
The apparent reason Kanye uses the name here is to pull the classic hate group tactic of blaming Jews for anything and everything.
Here’s the larger context, where you can see how again he abruptly pulls in the conspiracy signal using Rockefeller.
Good Morning, this ain’t Vietnam still People lose hands, legs, arms for real
Little was known of Sierra Leone
And how it connect to the diamonds we own
When I speak of diamonds in this song
I ain’t talkin bout the ones that be glowin’
I’m talkin bout Rockefelle’, my home, my chain
These ain’t conflict diamonds, is they Jacob? Don’t lie to me man
See, a part of me sayin’ keep shinin’
How? when I know of the blood diamonds
Though it’s thousands of miles away
Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today
Over here, its a drug trade, we die from drugs
Over there, they die from what we buy from drugs
The diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charms
I thought my Jesus piece was so harmless
’til I seen a picture of a shorty armless
And here’s the conflict
It’s in a black person’s soul to rock that gold
Spend ya whole life try’n to get that ice
On a polar rug boy it look so nice
How could somethin’ so wrong make me feel so right, right?
‘fore I beat myself up like Ike
You could still throw ya Rockefelle’ diamond tonight, ’cause…
A Grammy for hate speech seems… somehow par for course in the country that gave rise to the rancid disinformation of Mel Gibson.
The Associated Press reports that a poem by Robert Frost, about the tragic loss of a friend (poet Edward Thomas) in World War I, has been uncovered by a student reviewing Frost’s papers archived at the University of Virginia.
“War Thoughts at Home” will now be published in the next issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review:
And one says to the rest
We must just watch our chance
And escape one by one
Though the fight is no more done
Than the war is in France.
First-hand source material is the holy grail of the Internet and information security. Rather than all the citations and quotations (like the one provided above), which diminish in quality, meaning and integrity as they become more and more removed from the source, access to original source material is golden. If primary source material were available, we could have a far more rich and rewarding source to study and learn from. Imagine hanging an exact replica of a famous painting on your wall compared to the ability to print a precise copy of Frost’s handwritten poem.
I will never forget the time I was perusing some original papers in the British Archives and stumbled upon a note from the desk of Winston Churchill. The handwriting was unmistakable. The dark, rich strokes from his fountain pen made me stop and think about the amazing treasure trove of information locked away in the rows and rows of folders that the vast majority of people will never see.
I left the archives that day imagining giant racks of spinning optical media (maybe I liked the idea of a shiny surface) serving primary source material to everyone in the world as they sat liesurely at desks hundreds or thousands of miles away. This was the summer of 1994 and I saw the Internet as a place where the source could finally bubble up. Not editorials, not analysis, not books (although those are also important) but the raw source material. As it turns out, I myself found someone had published a book misquoting original Colonial Office and War Office memos (quite badly, in fact, if I remember correctly).
I also spent an evening in the basement of an old library and found actual leaflets distributed in Ethiopia by RAF planes in the early 1940s. I mentioned the leaflets in passing to another historian and he became excited and insisted I publish them so others could someday enjoy the information I uncovered.
He was right. That library was “rennovated” and I fear it may be impossible to find the original leaflets again. Sadly, today you are most likely to find my copy of the leaflet at the end of my master’s thesis hidden away in an obscure folder in an archive or buried in some university library, and Frost’s poem looks like it will be “published” and then filed rather than posted online…
I recently watched a movie about South Africa called Tsotsi. One thing in particular, out of many, that caught my attention was the music by Bonginkosi Dlamini (Zola). A quick search revealed that he has since released an album called Bhambatha. A little further research uncovered that this name is a reference to a legendary Zulu chief.
Also known as Bambata, or Mbata, Bhambatha was a chief of the Zondi tribe in Kwazulu-Natal. He is famous for his role in an armed rebellion in 1906 when the poll tax was raised from a tax per hut to per head (£1 tax on all native men older than 18) increasing hardship during a severe economic depression following the Anglo-Boer War. The Natal Police believed Bhambatha was going to resist the tax with force and so about 150 men were sent to subdue or arrest him. Instead the police were ambushed and four policemen killed. Thousands of colonial troops were then sent after him, including calvary and heavy artillery, leading to 3,500 dead. Bhambatha himself reportedly was killed in the Battle of Mome Gorge. Thus, today he is often credited as an inspiration to native resistance.
The greater political and economic context to the rebellion, in relation to the Anglo-Boer War, is also interesting. For example, guns and ammunition Bhambatha and other Zulu chiefs used were apparently awarded to King Dinuzulu in 1901. The British formally recognized him as a king and provided weapons in order for him to assemble a large army that would speed the demise of the Boers. In addition, 250 of his men were put directly under the command of General Bruce Hamilton. After the Boer capitulation in May, 1902, however, the Natal government banned blacks from possessing firearms. The government also prohibited them from drinking alcohol, refused to replace their lost homes, forced them to work for the Boer farmers, and then increased the poll tax to have them pay for the war.
During this transition, the Zulu king was given 100 head of cattle as a reward and “demoted” back to local government status with his travel restricted. His guns and ammunition were seized. Although he complied, local whites reported that not all the guns were returned. This could have been a rumor spread by the settlers in order to motivate colonial armies to enforce control of the area, or the Zulus may really have been planning an organized armed resistance to the Natal government. It is both hard to imagine the latter, given the harsh treatment of the Boers by the British during the war, as well as understandable given the oppressive treatment after fighting on behalf of the British. In either case, tension was already high by the time Bhambatha engaged the armed policemen who had come to arrest him and started what he called a “War with the Europeans“. Instead, it seems to me, his rebellion marked the final chapter to the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 and the beginning of the Freedom Struggle.
Portions of this were posted to Wikipedia, to help give context to the music/poetry of Zola.
