Your week-end programme, unfortunately mostly brought to you by internet providers and subscription television.
Italy/ Fiji : Saturday 1pm. Cancelled
England/Ireland: Saturday at 3pm
Wales / Georgia: Saturday at 5.15 pm
Scotland/France: Sunday at 4pm
But before that, right after breakfast, you’ll watch the most important game of the week-end, and it has nothing to do with the season.
No, it’s not Ireland at Twickenham, nor France at Murrayfield.
It’s much earlier in the day, and it’s Argentina vs Australia.
Can the Argentineans replicate last Saturday’s fantastic game when they stunned the All Blacks and won 25-15? Can they keep the same intensity and dismantle Australia as well? In the absence of South Africa, could they nick the Tri nations for the first time?
Most neutrals would hope so, but I’m not neutral. I desperately want a win for the South Americans.
Let’s see:
Mario Ledesma has stuck with the same players. Australia have beefed up their pack and recalled a couple of old horses. I doubt it will be enough. When Australia dispatched the ABs B team with not much to spare, Argentina crushed their A team. It suggests a gap in power and organization that Australia should not be able to fill, even in front of their fans. Both teams have great attacking power (often underestimated in Argentina’s case), but Australia’s pack might be on the back foot for long periods, particularly if Nic White is as slow as usual: he’ll be eaten alive by the ferocious Argentina back row.
Open the Malbec, it’s about time.
Argentina: 15 Santiago Carreras, 14 Bautista Delguy, 13 Matias Orlando, 12 Santiago Chocobares, 11 Juan Imhoff, 10 Nicolas Sanchez, 9 Tomas Cubelli, 8 Rodrigo Bruni, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Pablo Matera (c), 5 Matias Alemanno, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Francisco Gomez Kodela, 2 Julian Montoya, 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chapparo
Replacements: 16 Santiago Socino, 17 Mayco Vivas, 18 Santiago Medrano, 19 Santiago Grondona, 20 Facundo Isa, 21 Gonzalo Bertranou, 22 Emiliano Boffelli, 23 Santiago Cordero
Australia: 15 Tom Banks, 14 Tom Wright, 13 Jordan Petaia, 12 Hunter Paisami, 11 Marika Koroibete, 10 Reece Hodge, 9 Nic White, 8 Harry Wilson, 7 Michael Hooper (c), 6 Ned Hanigan, 5 Matt Philip, 4 Rob Simmons, 3 Taniela Tupou, 2 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 1 Scott Sio
Replacements: 16 Folau Fainga’a, 17 Angus Bell, 18 Allan Alaalatoa, 19 Rob Valetini, 20 Liam Wright, 21 Jake Gordon, 22 Noah Lolesio, 23 Filipo Daugunu
Date: Saturday, November 21
Venue: McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle
Kick-off: 19:45 local (08:45 GMT)
Referee: Paul Williams (New Zealand)
Assistant referees: Ben O’Keeffe (New Zealand), Angus Gardner (Australia)
TMO: Nic Berry (Australia)
England v Ireland
A bit after lunch, we’ll sit down on the couch (not too comfortably; we don’t want to fall asleep), and we’ll go to England. It’s basically Group A’s final as neither Wales nor Georgia threaten to top the group after their poor results last week.
England did not particularly set the world on fire vs Italy or Georgia, but they’re solid, experienced and well-rehearsed. They stubbornly follow their game plan to the point that they seem bewildered when it does not work. But it’s mightily efficient against most teams. Will it be enough vs Ireland? A better question would be: can Ireland win in Twickenham without Henderson, Furlong, Carbery, Larmour, Ringrose, Henshaw, Sexton? Irish coaches, like most, are conservative and have not really blooded new players.
For all the deserved praise and success that Ireland enjoy at club level, numbers simply dictate that they don’t have enough players to step in when the starters are injured. Not only will Ireland start with three inexperienced players in key positions (FB, FH, SH), but also with predictable centres and a pack that won’t impress England. And then the bench should make a big difference. There was an interesting analysis of the coming game by Irish legend, Shane Byrne, in Planet Rugby; he knows his stuff better than I do, but unlike him, I can’t see anything but a win for England.
Whose round is it now?
England: 15 Elliot Daly, 14 Jonathan Joseph, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Henry Slade, 11 Jonny May, 10 Owen Farrell (c), 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 Sam Underhill, 6 Tom Curry, 5 Joe Launchbury, 4 Maro Itoje, 3 Kyle Sinckler, 2 Jamie George, 1 Mako Vunipola
Replacements: 16 Tom Dunn, 17 Ellis Genge, 18 Will Stuart, 19 Jonny Hill, 20 Ben Earl, 21 Dan Robson, 22 George Ford, 23 Max Malins
Ireland: 15 Hugo Keenan, 14 Keith Earls, 13 Chris Farrell, 12 Bundee Aki, 11 James Lowe, 10 Ross Byrne, 9 Jamison Gibson-Park, 8 Caelan Doris, 7 Peter O’Mahony, 6 CJ Stander, 5 James Ryan (c), 4 Quinn Roux, 3 Andrew Porter, 2 Ronan Kelleher, 1 Cian Healy
Replacements: 16 Rob Herring, 17 Ed Byrne, 18 Finlay Bealham, 19 Iain Henderson, 20 Will Connors, 21 Conor Murray, 22 Billy Burns, 23 Jacob Stockdale
Date: Saturday, November 21
Venue: Twickenham
Kick-off: 15:00 GMT
Referee: Pascal Gauzere (FFR)
Assistant Referees: Mathieu Raynal (FFR), Alex Ruiz (FFR)
TMO: Nigel Owens (WRU)
Wales v Georgia
Now, wake up please, if only for going to the bathroom. In a few minutes, Wales will take on Georgia.
It may look like a dead rubber to many, but it certainly is not. Both teams desperately need to stop the rot. Georgia’s lame defeats to Scotland and England highlight the gap between tier one and tier two nations: the Georgians will want to prove that they belong to a higher level, but it’s going to be hard. Several of their players play in France, but mostly in the bottom half of the Top 14 or in the ProD2. Expect a lot of naivety in defense and a serious lack of skills in attack.
Wales? According to Boris during PMQs, Wales want to avoid going from the Capitol to the Tarpeian rock, but how? Between Scylla and Charybdis, go with the proven and tested, or with the unknown? Oh Boris, shut up, please! Pivac’s rung the changes: no fewer than thirteen new players, some of them quite exciting. As a game it may not be a classic – such is the difference between the two teams – but at least it should bring back some smiles in Wales.
Time for the kebab.
Wales: 15 Liam Williams, 14 Johnny McNicholl, 13 Nick Tompkins, 12 Johnny Williams, 11 Louis Rees-Zammit, 10 Callum Sheedy, 9 Kieran Hardy, 8 Aaron Wainwright, 7 Justin Tipuric (c), 6 James Botham, 5 Seb Davies, 4 Jake Ball, 3 Samson Lee, 2 Elliot Dee, 1 Wyn Jones
Replacements: 16 Sam Parry, 17 Nicky Smith, 18 Leon Brown, 19 Cory Hill, 20 James Davies, 21 Rhys Webb, 22 Ioan Lloyd, 23 Jonah Holmes
Georgia: 15 Lasha Khmaladze, 14 Akaki Tabutsadze, 13 Giorgi Kveseladze, 12 Merab Sharikadze (c), 11 Sandro Todua, 10 Tedo Abzhandadze, 9 Vasil Lobzhanidze, 8 Beka Gorgadze, 7 Beka Saginadze, 6 Otar Giorgadze, 5 Kote Mikautadze, 4 Grigor Kerdikoshvili, 3 Beka Gigashvili, 2 Jaba Bregvadze, 1 Mikheil Nariashvili
Replacements: 16 Giorgi Chkoidze, 17 Guram Gogichashvili, 18 Lexo Kaulashvili, 19 Lasha Jaiani, 20 Giorgi Tkhilaishvili, 21 Gela Aprasidze, 22 Demur Tapladze, 23 Tamaz Mchedlidze
Date: Saturday, November 21
Venue: Parc y Scarlets
Kick-off: 17:15 GMT
Referee: Luke Pearce
Assistant referees: Andrew Brace, Frank Murphy
Television match official: Joy Neville
Scotland v France
Sunday in Scotland. Coronavember. In the old days pubs would’ve been closed. Just like now.
Thank dog for the rugby.
This is going to be an intriguing game, and since Fiji’s games were cancelled, it is in fact the final of the group B. Whoever wins gets to go to Twickenham. Unless, of course, Ireland have prevailed the day before, and Wales wake up from their torpor next week (as it is vs England, they may very well). So strike that, it’s just another game.
Shaun Galthié has named a strong team and with the exception of Ntamack, Bouthier and Cros, it’s the team that dispatched Ireland and Wales rather easily. Shaun Servat and Shaun Ibanez will be happy with their pack, as is Shaun Ghezal with his work at the line out. Shaun Shaun Edwards is not so happy with his pupils as they keep leaking tries, but the other Shauns don’t mind, as they score more tries than their opponents. Speaking of which, Scotland seem a bit weakened with the absence of Finn and his deputy Hastings. But they’ve got a great pack, an outstanding back row (Richie would be the first on my list), and in Hogg the best counter-attacker in Europe (bar Cheslin Kolbe, of course).
I wish I could elaborate but teams have not been announced, so I’ll just predict a wonderful game with plenty of tries.
Shaun Shaun may sulk. I don’t mind.
Oops, here is France. As predicted a couple of days ago.
France : 15. Ramos; 14. Thomas, 13. Vakatawa, 12. Fickou, 11. Rattez ; 10. Jalibert, 9. Dupo,t ; 7.Ollivon (cap.), 8. Alldritt, 6. Cretin ; 5. Taofifenua, 4. Le Roux ; 3. Bamba, 2. Chat, 1. Gros.Bench : 16. Marchand, 17. Baille, 18. Haouas, 19. Willemse, 20. Woki, 21. Couilloud, 22. Carbonel 23. Vincent.
As prognosticated by Flair99
Onna telly this week
Friday 20th November
| Harlequins v Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
| Sale v Northampton | 20:00 | BT Sport Extra |
Saturday 21st November
| Argentina v Australia | 08:45 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Bulls v Pumas | 11:55 | Sky Sports Arena |
| England v France (women) | 12:00 | BBC Two |
| Bath v Newcastle | 12:30 | BT Sport Extra |
| Cheetahs v Griquas | 14:25 | Sky Sports Arena |
| England v Ireland | 15:00 | Channel 4 / Amazon Prime |
| Leicester v Gloucester | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Worcester v London Irish | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Wales v Georgia | 17:15 | S4C / Amazon Prime |
Sunday 22nd November
| Wasps v Bristol | 13:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Zebre v Connacht | 14:30 | FreeSports |
| Scotland v France | 15:00 | Amazon Prime |
| Ospreys v Treviso | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Leinster v Cardiff | 17:15 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Ulster v Scarlets | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
Monday 23rd November
| Dragons v Edinburgh | 18:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Glasgow v Munster | 20:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Tomp, I was under the impression that Italian clubs were in progress, according to some sources on this very blog. I don’t watch any Pro12 so I wouldn’ t know, but if the Italians are shit, as you say, aren’t their only 2 clubs impacted by the Autumn Nations Cup? Haven’t their best players been drafted to play for Italy? Which incidentally made Scotland work pretty hard for their win.
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@Flair – Benetton have done a fair bit of flirting with the sort of respectability that would still be disappointing to any of the clubs with pretensions of being genuinely competitive. Which is most of them whether justified or not. Zebre have always scraped along the bottom though have been a bit more entertaining on occasion in recent seasons while still losing. They do suffer disproportionately for the international breaks (as do the Scottish sides) though I think they spend a bit of them playing each other sometimes. Nevertheless the Welsh sides are very poor at the moment even with their international players and one of them winning without them in the circumstances TomP described is surprising.
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Craigs, OT’s a rugby leagueite so more likely to have been piss in his mouth,
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Deebee, Kriel revealed that? It’s been known about for years. Here’s an article from the Mail and Guardian in 2015 that mentions it:
https://mg.co.za/article/2015-09-10-the-rugby-world-cup-omens-look-good/
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Flair, they’re not very good. Have won one game in 13 between them so far this year.
One thing of note from Sunday’s game was that Benneton’s Kiwi hooker Hame Faiva scored a hat-trick but still ended up on the losing side. The hat-trick tries were the second, third and fourth tries in the game as well.
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I think I’ve found OT
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I know they’re not very good. But on top of that, if 31 of their best players are missing during the international breaks, what would you expect? I guess most teams from Scotland or Wales would be tonked by average Premiership or T14 clubs during these breaks precisely because these mid table teams are the least affected by them.
Anyway…
In the magazine your link refers to, there is a fascinating opinion piece about the non existence of South Africa as a nation. Would you agree with it?
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@craigs
Not chocolate digestives. People who used the word “lunch” were the ones with ideas above their station.
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Not sure when I “migrated” from dinner to lunch as the meal around 12 noon….. I’m guessing school – those who had meals from the canteen still had “school dinners”… but those who brought sandwiches had a “packed lunch”. So, the move started then – definitely completed by end of my Uni days.
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flair, The 3 top Irish sides are a long way ahead of everyone and Leinster lost most of their occasional players to the national side. Connacht are the only team apart from the Big 3 with a winning record in the league at the moment. Scarlets had a mean start to the year but are looking a little better.
I think we’d like the Italian sides to be better but they’re not. Benneton qualified fair and square for last year’s Heineken Cup but finished 5th in their conference in 2019/20.
As to your other question, it has some merit. It’s definitely a state, much like Britain was (is?).
The disgraced Ivor Chipkin wrote a book on a similar theme a few years back called “Do South Africans Exist?” Nation-building takes time (see France, for example). And at different stages of its existence the state of South Africa has been the product of capitalist-imperialist forces, capitalist-narrow ethnic nationalist forces and whatever they have now, It’s hard to talk about nation-states in Africa, where the nation precedes the state, because most all of them are legatees of the European imperial project.
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trisk, had to learn quickly at University what the refectory was. It often got shortened to “fec”. I imagine cos most of the non-public school people there said, “fec, this food’s horrible”.
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OT – my mum never really bought us biscuits and if someone was coming round she got rich tea.
The only time I really had anything beyond that at home was at Christmas was when she made pepparkakor which is the king of biscuits.
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My grandparents owner a corner shop so we had loads of biscuits, cheese, and crates of Kestrel Super.
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About an ATL – I’ve really only watched the 2 Ireland games – so hard to make any comment Scotland, France, Italy or Georgia, and I’m not sure I’m terribly suited to commenting on England or Wales either – I’m a bit of a one-eyed viewer…
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OT – so that was dinner sorted (no not fucking tea. That’s a drink).
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I’m a bit of a one-eyed viewer
Not sure whether I should be happy or worried that someone has read my atls and come to the conclusion above about themselves.
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Sounds perfect, Trisk.
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Trisk, don’t waste any words on Scotland.
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Trisk, I agree, you seem perfectly suited for the ATL.
Who needs experts anyway?
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Thanks for the answer Tomp. Will look for that book.
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Terrible news. Christophe Dominici apparently killed himself today. Only 48. So sad.
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Oh that’s awful.
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Oh man that’s sad news.
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Trisk – monocularism is not a problem (particularly Irish monocularism), but if you’re not comfortable, fairy nuff!
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French MPs learning about Domi. https://twitter.com/i/status/1331263658853281792
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Great player, such sad news.
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Awful news about Dominici, even more tragic somehow if he took his own life. I’m really glad to have seen him play in his pomp for France.
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Saw him many times, both for Stade Français and France.
1.72 m and barely 80kg. Fast as a rocket and so elusive. Simple joys… Poor man had serious depression issues. What a shame.
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Grim news, horrible thing depression
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Dreadful to hear about Christophe Dominici. Always seemed very likeable player.
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flair, I was trying to find a copy of Wallerstein’s famous essay “Does India exist?” for you earlier. Came across it here ( https://is.cuni.cz/studium/predmety/index.php?do=download&did=87612&kod=JMMZ108 ) on page 310 and the essay before (pp 293 – 309) is about 1980s South Africa,. It might be worth a read for you,
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This is a big kick from Ben Healy:
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Thanks Tomp, just downloaded it.
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Flair, TomP just to jump into the debate a bit, I think South Africa is similar to many developing countries around the world that had borders and an ‘identity’ foisted on them by Imperial powers, but that’s largely the story of human history, just at different times within it. If you ask your average person here if they consider themselves South African, the answer will almost always be yes – if you ask them to define what South African means to them, you’ll get a lot of different answers depending on perspective, politics, income levels, education, ethnicity etc. The same is true of most countries in Africa, where identity to the official state is often secondary to immediate ethnic identity and the perceived resources that this brings – Kenya is a superb example of this, whilst Ethiopia’s current war is also rooted in centuries-old ethnic rivalries between the Amhara, Oromo and Tigrayan populations.
A current favourite pastime of radical ethno-nationalists in South Africa is to blame every single problem the country faces from unemployment, corruption and crime to litter in the streets, on the arrival of Europeans (1652, Jan van Riebeek and the Dutch East India Company) and the debilitating impact this had on the ‘natural’ progression of Africans. Many paint a (frankly racist) picture of Arcadian harmony between tribes and nature, when the reality is very different, which is not to deny the savagery of colonialism and apartheid here and elsewhere in Africa.
Many of the nations that now inhabit Southern Africa originally migrated south from modern day Cameroon and DR-Congo (albeit long before white settlers arrived in the Cape, a theory beloved of apartheid apologists) via parts of East Africa. By the early 19th Century, the Zulu nation, forged through warfare, caused huge upheaval that still has consequences today: vanquished enemies fled north, to what is now Lesotho, disrupted and destroyed parts of the siSwati Kingdom (their King still claims large parts of eastern South Africa) and into what is now southern Zimbabwe. The ethnic slaughter by Mugabe’s North Korean trained 5th Brigade in the 1980s was a direct consequence of this migration 150 years previously.
Are we that different to Europe, which has fought many of humanity’s bloodiest conflicts over identity? I don’t think so, just a different starting point. I also firmly believe that the end of major identity conflict in Western Europe (if you exclude the Irish question, the Basques, Catalans, Corsicans and others) was as a result of the Cold War and nuclear weapons, not an epiphany amongst Europe’s leaders after the war. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states unleashed a new wave of ethnic and identity-driven savagery that is still playing out in Nagorno-Karabakh, for instance.
Trevor Noah does quite a funny skit on the South African accent, illustrating how silly it is to use the phrase, which overseas usually refers to white South Africans. We have dozens of different accents that depend on your ethnicity, region, city and even part of city. However, even amongst white Saffers, there are loads of accents. It’s like saying British accent. My wife and her family think I have an English accent, (which is quickly disabused when in England) whilst to me they speak as only people from the Eastern Cape do – much flatter, with drawn out vowels.
There we go, my 5p worth, a bit all over the place, much like the topic!
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TomP – the above is a very, very brief overview, with room for interpretation of events and causes (not Xhosas), especially the timing of events and what led to them, but it’s illustrative of how things unfolded.
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Deebee, please expand.
You can say much the same about the countries of the Middle East. I always use one simple rule in geopolitics: if the border’s a straight borderline on a map, there’ll likely be some trouble ahead.
The European thing is interesting. I tend to agree with you about the Cold War, especially when arguing with maniac British Europhiles I know in real life. Disagree about the centuries-old ethnic rivalries that are frozen things as if they’re the ‘natural’ state of affairs. It’s something that’s stoked for political reasons – see Rwanda and the Belgian imposition of a racial identity etc.
Have been teaching a Czech diplomat in Romania recently and this came up because of the existence of the remnants of Czech colonialism in the Banat – there are 6 old villages there. It’s a tiny group of people and many have left for bigger Romanian cities or even to the Czech Republic.
A much bigger minority is the Magyar. Orban and his thugs have made a big thing about Great Hungary this year (although admittedly they do it every year but this year it’s even louder) because of the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon. He’s giving the Hungarian minorities in Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania citizenship and funding cultural stuff across the border. The representatives of the Hungarian-speakers in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies cause endless trouble.
Czechs and Slovaks have a thing going on. Some have a residual Czechoslovak identity but still insist on their Czechness or Slovakness. The languages are mutually comprehensible and have a shared 75-year history. And in the Czech Republic there’s a solid Bohemian identity and Moravian identity and even Silesian identity. The two countries had different experiences of the Habsburg Empire as the Czechs were Cisleithenian – the Austrian crown – and the Slovaks were Transleithenian – under the Crown of St Stephen, Hungary – and the Hungarian king, who was normally the Habsburg Emperor used to get crowned in what is now Bratislava.
Anyway, that’s to set up a joke I like:
“What’s the difference between Czechs and Slovaks? The Czechs are Germans who speak bad Slovak while the Slovaks are Hungarians who speak bad Czech.”
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Deebee, also I wrote something slightly longer comment yesterday but it got lost.
DR Congo is a state, sort of, but can it be called a nation? And importantly who calls it a nation – someone inside or someone outside the group/polity? I don’t think it can be fixed and doesn’t have eternal innate qualities.
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TomP,
Straight lines are a dead giveaway, but in Africa, many of the colonial borders are rivers, which were used to demarcate colonies. At the Organisation of African Unity initial meeting in 1963 (I think), it was decided to keep the borders to keep the peace, despite them cutting communities and nations in half. Thus, the Limpopo River cuts Batswana communities who lived on both sides into ‘South African’ and ‘Batswana’. The Caprivi Strip in Namibia is possibly the most artificial of the lot – designed purely to give Germany access into central Southern Africa. At Kazungula/Kasane you stand on the new bridge with Botswana south of you, Namibia to the west, Zambia north and Zimbabwe east, all within walking distance. Further north, Angola, DR-Congo and Congo-B get confusing with the enclave of Cabinda located between the two Congos. DR-Congo only has access to the Atlantic because of King Leopold.
On Europe, I did a Honours module on Eastern Europe at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of nationalisms that had been suppressed by the Soviets, more specifically, by Euro-Russians. The Soviet Union collapsed as a state largely because ethnicities that had been absorbed into Russian culture or suppressed found expression in a national identity and flags that pre-dated the Soviet Union: they were seen as symbols of hope against the Soviet system and were ruthlessly exploited by nationalist politicians. 70 years of Soviet assimilation didn’t destroy national identities, it reinforced them when the genie was let out of the bottle.
The Soviet Union didn’t splinter on geographic lines or economic lines, other than those installed by identity. Perhaps if the Soviets hadn’t constituted the USSR along the lines of the 15 identifiable Republics it would have been different, but Yugoslavia suggests otherwise. You need to add to this of course, that this virulent form of nationalism thrives mostly where inequality and poverty, uncertainty and fear are greatest. Czechoslovakia was a more developed and wealthier country than many other Soviet Republics or client states, with a shared pre-Soviet history in the Habsburg Empire. Brexit, Trumpism and Orban are all examples of this being exploited (amongst other factors, obviously).
In SA, the populist-nationalists of the EFF are always at their strongest when the economy is weakest and joblessness highest. That their policies would create the equality of poverty, except for the pigs running the farm, doesn’t matter to people so desperate they’ll reach for stick thinking it’s a carrot, to mangle metaphors. Prosperity and stability is the greatest weapon against violent nationalism, but when this is threatened, so is the acceptance of ‘others’. We’re staring at another round of xenophobic violence here, largely against other Africans and Pakistanis, as poverty and unemployment soar and the government turns a blind eye in its orgy of corruption and internal party factional battles.
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DR-Congo should be neither a state not considered a nation and it barely qualifies under the definitions of a state. which require under international law, that a state should exhibit: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
DR-Congo has all four, but under (c) government, it requires that the state has ‘effective’ control over all territory and the population – the DRC government hasn’t had that since the mid-90s. Neither has Somalia, with Somaliland in the north a far better illustration of a state. You could make a case for several other countries like Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and
the UK, with those bloody Scotsothers, but in the DRC you can’t actually travel from one side of the country, either east-west or north-south by road, if at all.Ethnically, linguistically, geographically and politically, the DRC is in reality four entities, with Kinshasa and the West nominally the capital and seat of power, the four provinces that used to constitute Katanga (until Kabila broke them up as a threat to power) the economic powerhouse with the key copper and cobalt mines, the east a collection of fiefdoms run by warlords with access to cheap labour, cheaper guns and valuable minerals, and the centre-north largely cut off from everywhere else.
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Does that hold true for India and China at the moment?
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I’d love to add something to the conversation about history, nations and borders but am currently staring at the abyss. How does this even work?
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Deebee – I read a book about a guy who tried to motorcycle through the DRC. Clearly not a blog reader as he seemed surprised by the lack of roads when they ran out. He also broke his leg and imposed himself on some locals for a time (his gimmick was to try to have tea with anyone he met which wasn’t always understood).
Anyway, this is fun
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Have you read Tim Butcher’s book, craigs? Something bad like that happened to him but he was trying to navigate the River Congo. I really disliked the book.
David van Reybrouk’s book is good and I like Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja as well. Stearns’ book was an eye-opener for me. The looting of the Congolese resources by 9 (?) other countries during the war(s) very knew about was just one of many war crimes.
A Czech friend of mine went on holiday to Congo for a week. Didn’t get to learn much about the country.
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Does that hold true for India and China at the moment?
I would argue for India it does – there is a gradually rising nationalism fuelled by the BJP as it’s economy slows and stutters. The 10%+ growth in early the noughties slowed to around 7% from 2011 to 2016, and to less than 6% over the last three years, with growth even lower for the next years at about 1.7% (although COVID). Inequality in India is also rising, masked by overall growth rates. Obviously external factors such as the border dispute with China fuels things, and the festering Kashmir issue is easy for the BJP to tap anger from. India has plenty of internal nationalisms to deal with anyway, but they do spike when things go wobbly economically.
China is a world unto itself, with rules unto itself. You can’t compare it with more open societies where lingering jealousies, resentments and fears are able to be expressed.
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TomP, read King Leopold’s Ghost if you want to read about looting. In northern Zambia, on the road between the Copperbelt towns of Ndola and Kitwe, there used to be a massive tree with a link chain around it. It was apparently used by the Belgians on raids into Northern Rhodesia for slaves when they’d run out of able bodied men to work the rubber plantations. Some versions have it that it was a tribute to slaves captured there by Arab slave traders, but to my knowledge from locals, it was Belgian raids they established it for. Very close to the Dag Hammarskjold Memorial, where his plane went down.
There was a very good blog by a Belgian diplomat about 10 or 12 years ago who was being posted back to Europe. They decided to drive the National highway from Lubumbashi in the south to Kinshasa in the north-west. About 2,000km and took them over two weeks because the road has largely disappeared. Great picture of a pig wallowing in the mud in what was the ‘highway’.
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Tomp – it was called ‘African Brew Ha Ha’ by Alan Whelan. The guy is a choob. Mainly because he seemed to launch blindly into an African motorbike trip with no clue and then moan about the privilege.
Haha, my amazon 1 star review from 2010 is still up. See if you can guess which one I am.
I’ve noted down the other authors, cheers. One day I will motorcycle around the world with Mrs Craig’s. Not sure we’ll go to the Congo but we will definitely cover the length of Africa somehow.
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@craigs
You’ll find Ashton-under-Lyne really boring.
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Craigs, it’s one of my ambitions to traverse Africa in our Defender. Mate of mine’s old man did it in the 50s in a Landy, driving from Joburg to Cairo through countries that had literally no roads for hundreds of miles. He reckoned that in every village they broke down in, there was always one guy who could fix it or provide basic parts and tools for them to fix it to get them to the next village or town!
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I’ve read it, Deebs. It’s a harrowing book.
I was looking into Morel who was a Franco-British campaigner/journalist who set up the West African Mail in the early 1900s that led to Casement etc back in May/June. Really interesting life but very confused character.
As if by magic Africasacountry posted this a couple of days ago: https://africasacountry.com/2020/11/congos-white-refugees
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