Here is the second in my new Histories of Conflict series. (I posted my first last week on Iran-Iraq.) Angola was a highly significant war. In addition to drawing in the superpowers, it brought South Africa and Cuba into a direct confrontation. Even now, its effects are still felt. Anyway, I hope to be able to do more of these. Do let me know which other conflicts you would like to see me cover? I have a long list already, but I'm keen to hear more suggestions from you. Let me know below.
I've long appreciated your historical overviews in other videos. In particular your ability to concisely cover sometimes many decades or centuries of relevant history for a present-day topic is very helpful. I hope this series works out well for you and is continued.
@LookBackHistory Thank you so much! I have a sense that these will be for a rather different audience than my usual videos. I just really wanted to do a series looking at histories of conflict. We’ll see how they go. I also have a few other things I want to try with the second weekly video. Interviews are high on my list.
Hello professor, what I find interesting as a topic is how modern conflicts are almost never end with a peace agreement but rather stay " frozen" for decades Have we lost the knowledge of how to make peace?
I like this. Your usual videos are very good. Clear, concise, informative and well spoken. Now we can also learn about past conflicts from you as well and how it affects the world today. Keep it up
The East Germans also had a big finger in the Angola pie acting as USSR’s proxy alongside Cuba. They also had an eye on Namibia as well at the time - ironically Namibia was a former German colony.
Barely anyone who doesn't dig into History knows of this war today. I was first made aware of it through my interest for military aviation history - Soviet MiGs with Cuban pilots taking on French Mirages with South African pilots. There's something so surreal right there.
Thank you! You’re absolutely right. I find it so interesting how quickly historical memory fades. I grew up in ten 1980s. Conflicts like Angola and Iran-Iraq were regularly raised. And yet, today, barely anyone has heard of them, let alone knows what they were about. I thought it might be interesting to try to look at some of them.
@ I knew they had send some troops into different military conflict in Africa but I didn't know the extend of the missions. I thought it was more like when some Central American countries sent troops to Afghanistan.
My father served in Angola with the south African army in 75-76 afterwards he just couldn't go on with life in the county he grew up ( SA) he felt the need to start over life and moved " back to the Ancestral land" of Greece where he lived the rest of his life At home we never watched war movies or wear " miliatre" clothes when was trendy You know typical undiagnosed ptsd staff But one thing that really made a bit wiser as a teenager was this one We are at one of those very common Street bazaars you find all over Athens, my father had the habit to switch from Greek to English on random always with a very strong south African accent, so a black guy about his age asked him if he is from SA my father replied and the guy told him that he was from Angola, my father just told him that he had been there and the guy told him that he was " on the other side" then the black guy asked him " why we fought?" and my father replied " so we can never reach our full potential" both men became very emotional and They embraced each other like being brothers that had lost contact for years Life and the human experience isn't always straightforward, black and white and as simple as people often think..
Thank you so much for sharing that, Pavlos. I really appreciate it. I can well imagine how he would have been scarred by that experience. By all accounts, it was a brutal conflict. I’ve met a few other South Africans and Greek South Africans who served in the SA forces. It did something to all of them!
My father was a chain smoker and passed away at age 58, the diagnosis was " heavy smoker" a habit he got after his military service, he couldn't have a nice nap he was always "on alert" and he used say about it that" it's better now "than when was younger 😏@@JamesKerLindsay
I’m cuban and from as long and I could remember I’ve heard mentions of family members having gone to Angola to fight in a war. Yet it has always perplexed me, as I never understood why Cuba even participated in the first place. After this video I can more so understand why, thanks!
It was fascinating how UNITA evolved for a pro-Chinese organization (in the '60s and early '70s) to a later pro-Western one. Another interesting event was Castro manipulating the Soviets into ferrying his troops from Cuba to Angola.
@@sufthegoat They were helping a lot of freedom movements around the world. They sent volunteers and the pay was more or less zero. And the equipment was bare minimum if even that. The cubans had neither a good navy or air force, they sent their men on commercial freighters, airplanes and what not - whomever would take them there the cheapest. There's a nice book about it, but I can't remember the name. They did a great service for Angola by keeping the racist apartheid regimes of Namibia and South Africa at bay at the border.
A few precisions: 1. The second revolt in Angola, by a movement called UPA, in 1961, was a widespread attack against white people and black people working for them in a region in the North of Angola; it is estimated that 5.000 persons were killed in an incident that makes October 7th look like a small thing (behedings of children, babies, really happened, were documented and you can still easily find photos and videos of that); Portuguese response to what was classified as a terrorist atack was brutal and indiscriminate with estimates of casualties varying a lot but certainly reaching scary numbers; napalm bombing took place (yes it happened first in Angola, not in Vietnam); brutal events of soldiers playing footbal with african persons heads are documented; indeed history does repeat itself, including it's darkest moments, just look at Gaza nowadays 2. The portuguese administration pre-1974 was everything but military; the key point was that it was a dictatorship, with a nacionalistic conservative mindset, in which the empire was a key part; ideologically it was not possible to give away the empire and keep the regime as was; empire equaled political survival in the mind of the dictator (nevermind if he was right or not, he believed it) 3. Economic gains from Angola, in the XX century only started coming right at the end of the war; the fact is that Portugal was never much into investing in its african colonies and only started doing that at scale in the 1950s as a reaction to international pressure to decolonize; profits from that investment came but not before the second half of the sixties 4. Unlike in Guine Bissau or Mozambique, the colonial war in Angola was pretty much won by the colonizers (and even Unita at some point may have been basically working for the colonial army); defeat in this case came through political means It is excelent to see atention focusing on Angola. It is somewhat concerning that some important details were missed in the piece (one has to wonder what other details may have been missed) The author of this coment is strongly anti-colonialism, however it is above all a believer in the importance of precise fact based narratives.
Would you say the MPLA and UNITA purposefully over-emphasized ideology in order to get more backing from their respective cold war super powers for the purpose of trying to gain Ethnic supremacy in Angola? Or am I overstating the role Ethnicity played, and it really was more about Ideological supremacy more than anything for actual Angolans on the ground?
@@djlyon2864 why apply one sided bias? Slavery was a norm in the pre industrial world. If somebody sells a slave, there will be a buyer to obtain them. Period.
@joaofernandes1817 uma boa pergunta é “porque é que não foi?”. Quero dizer logo em 1822. A economia de Angola estava mais ligada ao Brasil que a Portugal.
I find it difficult to fathom how Prof. Ker-Lindsay cannot see how Communism was responsible for the lengthy Angola Wars (Civil and otherwise). Angola's struggle for Independence was sparked by communists and for that Angola should be thankful. Where the proverbial excrement hit the fan was when after helping Angola gain its independence, said same communists wanted to expand on that success and involve neighboring states in the same struggle. Namibia, South Africa and Zaire/Congo became targets for the expansion of communism in Africa. One might say "Well, Communism helped free Angola, why not free the rest of Africa?" and they would have a point if all communism did was free colonial Africa from its shackles of imperialism. Unfortunately, communism is the cure that kills the patient. Communism is not the way to freedom but just another and worse form of domination than even imperialism. Had Angola taken its freedom and worked for the betterment of its people, Angola would have been left to its own devices and spared the long and multiple conflicts. Just like Cuba would have been left alone had it not started exporting revolution. Every newly formed communist state faces resistance from non-communist states, at least at first. But eventually, the newly minted communists make a choice. The choices are accepting their newly gained independence and live in peace with your neighbors or take on the mantle of "Liberators" and export the revolution to said same neighbors. Angola chose the latter. Angola's burning desire to "free" its neighbors led to South Africa confronting Angola and its Cuban/Russian advisors in a long and costly war. Angola's same burning desire led to Angola harboring, arming and training Katanga rebels who then flooded back into Zaire causing the French and Belgians to intervene. It just keeps repeating a cycle of fermenting trouble with its neighbors that keeps Angola on everyone's radar screen.
I’m not sure why you think that I don’t see what damage communism has done? I’m a centrist by nature. I see how both communism and exploitative capitalism have done enormous damage around the world.
Here is the second in my new Histories of Conflict series. (I posted my first last week on Iran-Iraq.) Angola was a highly significant war. In addition to drawing in the superpowers, it brought South Africa and Cuba into a direct confrontation. Even now, its effects are still felt. Anyway, I hope to be able to do more of these. Do let me know which other conflicts you would like to see me cover? I have a long list already, but I'm keen to hear more suggestions from you. Let me know below.
I've long appreciated your historical overviews in other videos. In particular your ability to concisely cover sometimes many decades or centuries of relevant history for a present-day topic is very helpful. I hope this series works out well for you and is continued.
@LookBackHistory Thank you so much! I have a sense that these will be for a rather different audience than my usual videos. I just really wanted to do a series looking at histories of conflict. We’ll see how they go. I also have a few other things I want to try with the second weekly video. Interviews are high on my list.
Hello professor, what I find interesting as a topic is how modern conflicts are almost never end with a peace agreement but rather stay " frozen" for decades
Have we lost the knowledge of how to make peace?
I like this. Your usual videos are very good. Clear, concise, informative and well spoken.
Now we can also learn about past conflicts from you as well and how it affects the world today.
Keep it up
This video is very much appreciated. Angola is one of those Cold War conflicts which I knew little about, bar that it was tragically messy.
I'm loving this series! Good that the channel is focusing on more than what conflicts are "hot" right now!
Excellent as always,
Awesome video.
Thank you so much!
The East Germans also had a big finger in the Angola pie acting as USSR’s proxy alongside Cuba. They also had an eye on Namibia as well at the time - ironically Namibia was a former German colony.
Thanks. Great points! You’re absolutely right. I have long wanted to do a video on Namibia. It is a fascinating story.
Barely anyone who doesn't dig into History knows of this war today.
I was first made aware of it through my interest for military aviation history - Soviet MiGs with Cuban pilots taking on French Mirages with South African pilots. There's something so surreal right there.
Thank you! You’re absolutely right. I find it so interesting how quickly historical memory fades. I grew up in ten 1980s. Conflicts like Angola and Iran-Iraq were regularly raised. And yet, today, barely anyone has heard of them, let alone knows what they were about. I thought it might be interesting to try to look at some of them.
I read about this war when I found out Cuba sent its military there. I was like what? lol
@@the0ne809 My brain broke right there as well.
Cuban pilots? In Angola? Wat? 😅
@ I knew they had send some troops into different military conflict in Africa but I didn't know the extend of the missions. I thought it was more like when some Central American countries sent troops to Afghanistan.
Please make more videos about the future!
Great video! Small critique on the thumbnail, maybe use the old Apartheid-era flag instead of the democratic-era South African flag.
"7:30 is incorrect. There was no military administration in portugal, it was a civilian dictatorship.
He said that at 5:44, but you are correct. In fact it was as General Humberto Delgado showed, civilian.
My father served in Angola with the south African army in 75-76 afterwards he just couldn't go on with life in the county he grew up ( SA) he felt the need to start over life and moved " back to the Ancestral land" of Greece where he lived the rest of his life
At home we never watched war movies or wear " miliatre" clothes when was trendy
You know typical undiagnosed ptsd staff
But one thing that really made a bit wiser as a teenager was this one
We are at one of those very common Street bazaars you find all over Athens, my father had the habit to switch from Greek to English on random always with a very strong south African accent, so a black guy about his age asked him if he is from SA my father replied and the guy told him that he was from Angola, my father just told him that he had been there and the guy told him that he was " on the other side" then the black guy asked him " why we fought?" and my father replied " so we can never reach our full potential" both men became very emotional and They embraced each other like being brothers that had lost contact for years
Life and the human experience isn't always straightforward, black and white and as simple as people often think..
Thank you so much for sharing that, Pavlos. I really appreciate it. I can well imagine how he would have been scarred by that experience. By all accounts, it was a brutal conflict. I’ve met a few other South Africans and Greek South Africans who served in the SA forces. It did something to all of them!
My father was a chain smoker and passed away at age 58, the diagnosis was " heavy smoker" a habit he got after his military service, he couldn't have a nice nap he was always "on alert" and he used say about it that" it's better now "than when was younger 😏@@JamesKerLindsay
Great story, thanks for sharing that
I’m cuban and from as long and I could remember I’ve heard mentions of family members having gone to Angola to fight in a war. Yet it has always perplexed me, as I never understood why Cuba even participated in the first place. After this video I can more so understand why, thanks!
It was fascinating how UNITA evolved for a pro-Chinese organization (in the '60s and early '70s) to a later pro-Western one.
Another interesting event was Castro manipulating the Soviets into ferrying his troops from Cuba to Angola.
0:38 I am not new to the channel, so what should I call you then? ;)
The phrase 'A luta continuha' (the fight goes on) (Copyright Ian Smith) unfortunately was wholly apt.
Wow I remember that Cuba was involved thats it but never how brutal it was
@@sufthegoat They were helping a lot of freedom movements around the world. They sent volunteers and the pay was more or less zero. And the equipment was bare minimum if even that.
The cubans had neither a good navy or air force, they sent their men on commercial freighters, airplanes and what not - whomever would take them there the cheapest.
There's a nice book about it, but I can't remember the name.
They did a great service for Angola by keeping the racist apartheid regimes of Namibia and South Africa at bay at the border.
Can't wait for your video analysis on Biafra, Esp now Biafra has been declared in Finland by Woman, with it Prime minister Ekpa arrested in Finland.
A few precisions:
1. The second revolt in Angola, by a movement called UPA, in 1961, was a widespread attack against white people and black people working for them in a region in the North of Angola; it is estimated that 5.000 persons were killed in an incident that makes October 7th look like a small thing (behedings of children, babies, really happened, were documented and you can still easily find photos and videos of that); Portuguese response to what was classified as a terrorist atack was brutal and indiscriminate with estimates of casualties varying a lot but certainly reaching scary numbers; napalm bombing took place (yes it happened first in Angola, not in Vietnam); brutal events of soldiers playing footbal with african persons heads are documented; indeed history does repeat itself, including it's darkest moments, just look at Gaza nowadays
2. The portuguese administration pre-1974 was everything but military; the key point was that it was a dictatorship, with a nacionalistic conservative mindset, in which the empire was a key part; ideologically it was not possible to give away the empire and keep the regime as was; empire equaled political survival in the mind of the dictator (nevermind if he was right or not, he believed it)
3. Economic gains from Angola, in the XX century only started coming right at the end of the war; the fact is that Portugal was never much into investing in its african colonies and only started doing that at scale in the 1950s as a reaction to international pressure to decolonize; profits from that investment came but not before the second half of the sixties
4. Unlike in Guine Bissau or Mozambique, the colonial war in Angola was pretty much won by the colonizers (and even Unita at some point may have been basically working for the colonial army); defeat in this case came through political means
It is excelent to see atention focusing on Angola. It is somewhat concerning that some important details were missed in the piece (one has to wonder what other details may have been missed)
The author of this coment is strongly anti-colonialism, however it is above all a believer in the importance of precise fact based narratives.
Would you say the MPLA and UNITA purposefully over-emphasized ideology in order to get more backing from their respective cold war super powers for the purpose of trying to gain Ethnic supremacy in Angola? Or am I overstating the role Ethnicity played, and it really was more about Ideological supremacy more than anything for actual Angolans on the ground?
Another incredibly common W from Castro.
no one cared about castro or cuba, it was ussr's involvement that made the other side uneasy
Who sold the Portugese the slaves?
E.g. the Kingdom of Bakongo. There may have been others as well but that's the one I know about.
You don’t buy Humans because one is selling Humans.
@@djlyon2864 why apply one sided bias? Slavery was a norm in the pre industrial world. If somebody sells a slave, there will be a buyer to obtain them. Period.
Angola deveria ter sido Anexada ao Brasil
Do nada um comentário em português 💀
@joaofernandes1817 uma boa pergunta é “porque é que não foi?”. Quero dizer logo em 1822. A economia de Angola estava mais ligada ao Brasil que a Portugal.
O Brasil caminha até socialism, Angola caminha na outra direção?
I find it difficult to fathom how Prof. Ker-Lindsay cannot see how Communism was responsible for the lengthy Angola Wars (Civil and otherwise). Angola's struggle for Independence was sparked by communists and for that Angola should be thankful. Where the proverbial excrement hit the fan was when after helping Angola gain its independence, said same communists wanted to expand on that success and involve neighboring states in the same struggle. Namibia, South Africa and Zaire/Congo became targets for the expansion of communism in Africa. One might say "Well, Communism helped free Angola, why not free the rest of Africa?" and they would have a point if all communism did was free colonial Africa from its shackles of imperialism. Unfortunately, communism is the cure that kills the patient. Communism is not the way to freedom but just another and worse form of domination than even imperialism. Had Angola taken its freedom and worked for the betterment of its people, Angola would have been left to its own devices and spared the long and multiple conflicts. Just like Cuba would have been left alone had it not started exporting revolution. Every newly formed communist state faces resistance from non-communist states, at least at first. But eventually, the newly minted communists make a choice. The choices are accepting their newly gained independence and live in peace with your neighbors or take on the mantle of "Liberators" and export the revolution to said same neighbors. Angola chose the latter. Angola's burning desire to "free" its neighbors led to South Africa confronting Angola and its Cuban/Russian advisors in a long and costly war. Angola's same burning desire led to Angola harboring, arming and training Katanga rebels who then flooded back into Zaire causing the French and Belgians to intervene. It just keeps repeating a cycle of fermenting trouble with its neighbors that keeps Angola on everyone's radar screen.
I’m not sure why you think that I don’t see what damage communism has done? I’m a centrist by nature. I see how both communism and exploitative capitalism have done enormous damage around the world.
@@JamesKerLindsay My profound and humbled apologies
@@brianfoley4328You stepped back and apologized. My respects to you. ✌️
@@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156 When I'm wrong I can admit it (I've had lots of practice).