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.

I was reading a critique of literature this morning and noticed that the author was being rather negative and critical of others for being too negative and critical. S/he seemed oblivious to the contradiction, as their writing bemoaned the lack of more positive writing.

A stark problem with the success of the 419 fraud schemes is that the perpetrators often say they do nothing more than let people give them money. The victims fall into a trap of optimism, believing that they have actually found something for nothing. Alas, a little more critical thinking might be just what the doctor ordered for the new and less familiar risks people face online or to deal with a world where common hallmarks of universal rights are being seriously challenged (i.e. the Geneva convention):

Torture may be worse now in Iraq than under former leader Saddam Hussein, the UN’s chief anti-torture expert says.

[…]

Victims come from prisons run by US-led multinational forces as well as by the ministries of interior and defence and private militias, the report said.

Writing will be positive when people feel safe and prosperous (again). On what basis would a person manufacture a positive outlook in the face of great moral, financial or even physical danger? Conversely, prosperity and positivity also brings heightened risk in the forms of threats and vulnerabilities, painfully illustrated by the tragedy of the Cathars. Should proper caution and controls lead to a more universally safe and stable foundation, positive writing may again someday flourish. Until then, attacking people for being too negative is little more than the pot calling the kettle black.