Samora Machel was born in 1933 and was raised in the village of Chilembene. He was a member of the Shangana ethnic group and his parents were poor. Machel parents were forced to grow cotton by the Portuguese, rather than food such as corn which they could eat. In the 1950's his parents' farmland was taken and given to Portuguese settlers. In order to avoid starvation, his relatives went to work in the South African mines under repressive and dangerous conditions. Soon after, his brother was killed in a mining accident.
Machel attended Catholic school and when he was not in class he worked in the fields. He studied to become a nurse, one of the few professions open to Mozambican Blacks at that time. Machel was attracted to Marxist ideals and began his political activities in a hospital where he protested that the black nurses were paid less than whites, who were doing the same job. He later told a reporter how bad medical treatment was for Mozambique's poor by saying, "the rich man's dog gets more in the way of vaccination, medicine and medical care than do the workers upon whom the rich man's wealth is built."
Rebellion against Portugal was not new to Samora Machel. His grandparents and great-grandparents had fought against the Portuguese in the 19th century. In 1962 Machel joined the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique or FRELIMO, as it was called by most. FRELIMO was dedicated to creating an independent Mozambique. In 1963 Samora Machel left Mozambique and travelled to several other African nations where he received military training. In 1964 he returned to Mozambique and led FRELIMO's first guerrilla attack against the Portuguese in northern Mozambique. Machel spent most of his time in the field with his men, leading them in combat and sharing their dangers and hardships. By 1970 Samora Machel became commander and chief of the Frelimo army. He believed in a guerilla war and Frelimo's army established itself among the poor in Mozambique's. He was a revolutionary who was not only dedicated to throwing the Portuguese out of Mozambique but also radically changing the society. He said, "of all the things we have done, the most important - the one that history will record as the principal contribution of our generation - is that we understand how to turn the armed struggle into a Revolution; that we realized that it was essential to create a new mentality to build a new society."
Machel's goals were to be realized. The revolutionary army weakened Portugal, and after the country's coup in 1974, the Portuguese were forced to leave Mozambique. The new revolutionary government, led by Machel, took over on June 25, 1975. Machel became independent Mozambique's first president and was affectionately referred to as "President Samora."
Machel put his revolutionary principles into practice. As a Marxist, he called for the "nationalization" (government ownership) of the Portuguese plantations and property. He moved quickly to have the Frelimo government establish public schools and health clinics for the poor. He called for Frelimo to organize itself into a Leninist Party.
Samora Machel supported and allowed revolutionaries fighting white minority regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa to operate within Mozambique. Soon after Mozambique's independence both of these countries attacked Mozambique with an anti-Frelimo organization called RENAMO. RENAMO's activities included: the killing of peasants, the destruction of schools and hospitals built by Frelimo, and the blowing up of railway lines and hydroelectric facilities. The Mozambique economy was strangled by these depredations and began to depend on overseas aid - in particular from the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Machel remained popular throughout his presidency. Samora Machel was awarded Lenin Peace Prize in 1975-1976.
On October 19, 1986, Samora Machel was on his way back from an international meeting in Zambia in the presidential Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft when the plane crashed in the Lebombo Mountains, near Mbuzini. There were nine survivors but President Machel and twenty-four others died, including ministers and officials of the Mozambique government. Although several years before the aeroplane went down Machel had signed a non-agression pact with South Africa, there was widespread suspicion that the apartheid regime was implicated in the crash.
On October 6, 1986, just two weeks before the crash, South African soldiers (SADF) were injured by landmines near the spot where the borders of Mozambique, South Africa, and Swaziland converge. This site was very close to where the Tupolev Tu-134 went down. Time magazine noted that this "really seemed too much a coincidence". Throughout southern Africa, angry people mourned the loss of Samora Machel. In South Africa, protestors blamed their government for Machel's death. In Zimbabwe, thousands of youths stormed through downtown Harare. The crash remains a mystery: with some blaming it simply on bad weather and others still believing in South Africa's guilt. No conclusive evidence to either effect has yet emerged.
"For the oppressed peoples and classes, for the peoples and workers who have taken control of their destiny, Marxism is a shining path, a sun of hope and certainty that never sets, a sun that is always at its zenith."
- Samora Machel
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Did some protesting today, was good, legs are sore cause
I went running before meeting up with peoplecommunism :swole-doge:
Fuck that's awful. I don't know what to say.
Fuck the prison system.
I walked past the lounge and my roommates are watching a TV series where the good guys were the CIA and MI6 are solving something involving oil. The bad guys put nanobots in the oil or some shit (I was just passing through so I only caught parts) the main part I caught was a people protesting oil were burning shit and looting (one of them had been shown earlier to be a vegan that hates nice food omg!) One of my roomies says to the other "Why do people do that?" (Looting) and the other says "They're animals, Mob violence."
Yeah, can you see why I only have a passing relationship with my roommates?
Just came across people (Ukraine supporters) unironically calling Morello of Rage Against the Machine a fascist on twitter.
I am going to become the joker.
If you oppose liberalism then you're a fascist, and Communists are just a different kind of fascist because they also oppose liberalism.
the site is broken because it runs on emojis and we need more emojis
:grumpy-lizard::the-doohickey: 💥 :bolso-pain:
It's me, a person with a ukrane flag emoji in my handle, about to drop the most psychotic take you've ever heard then call you a trump supporter
Remember if you don't trust everything the west says then you love drumf and putler!
I have analyzed ur account with a bot to detect Russian trolls and it says u are 80% likely to be one
What's that? You don't uncritically support my totally information free and enthusiastic support of western propaganda? Russian bot! Russian bot! No complexity or dissent exists! Russian bot!
:very-intelligent: Sarcasm is a Russian propaganda technique, curious you would instinctively resort to it when called out on your suspicious behavior
Alice from WTYP saying she believes the Warren commission report is so funny. Huge self-own.
i was totally onboard with their 9/11 episode about how it wasn't really a conspiracy, but i will be very curious if they have anything compelling about jfk. or maybe that's just alice. seems like something she could be out of lockstep with the others on.
9/11 is more clear cut because you’re just talking about the engineering and I think the case for controlled demolition stuff is really super weak. Like is it really that unconvincing that a plane crashing into a tower is not something it can handle? But the human side of things is where a lot more questioning can happen. But JFK is really entirely about the human element. I can’t believe anyone who bothers to dig into at least a little bit of research thinks the official story totally adds up.
Some blacksmith once responded to "jet fuel can't melt steal beams" by taking a steal beam, clamping it, and trying to bend it. Obviously nothing happened. Then he heated it up to a few degrees and bent it like taffy, demonstrating now brain numbingly silly the particular "theory" was.
I wonder if she is just a contrarian, or if she genuinely believes that there are never anything shady happening around her. Can't really fathom thinking that way as a self-professed communist, but then again, I've just finished reading Family of Secrets, so my brain is vibrating on a whole other frequency for the foreseeable future.
:twisted: Me sitting with the Hexbear lag-switch, cackling as I revel in peoples frustration a
Hi there!
:hexbear-chapochat:always cool when the first thing i hear about someone is that they repeatedly sexually harassed and groped their trans niece to the point where she called the cops. guess i won't be watching amsterdam!
“I'm 100% pro-vaccine, and they improve your odds of not dying from covid, but
{most reactionary antisemitic conspiracy-brained wall of text you’ve ever seen in your life}
”Might have an interview lined up in two weeks from now, and it's something I actually want to do, it's patient transfer inside a hospital. Only problem is, right now the recruiter is saying it's only two days out of the week I'd be working. Going to email them back and ask if there's any full time positions available and set up an interview anyway.
edit: Set up an interview for next week, worth a shot, it'd be cool if I get the job and can get full time down the road.
love too take a polisci class where the professor almost literally does the "the problems are bad but their causes...their causes are very good" bit.
"oh well obviously inequality is at an all time high, but can you really say that raising taxes would solve that? and is it really important to do anything about it?"
judging purely from people here, i'm starting to think university polsci courses are worthless
some of the readings are pretty good. and he recommended we all watch capitalism: a love story, which is about as far left as "mainstream" american politics go. and last year i took a polisci class where the professor was more or less an open marxist. but also i now have this asshole
Universit courses are valuable in direct proportion to how marxist your professors are. Also include liberal arts bc otherwise you'll no how to do stuff but no idea why to do stuff.