
Portugal Dominated Angola for Centuries. Now the Roles Are Reversed - benbreen
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/europe/angola-portugal-money-laundering.html
======
eighthnate
What an odd assertion. Most of the elite and leadership ( especially business
) in agola are portuguese. It's just the angolan political elite and
portuguese business elite plus a handful of chinese oil companies that
dominate angola. It isn't angola dominating portugal. It's portuguese
businessmen and angolan political elite dominating and robbing angola of its
wealth and moving it to europe.

------
icebraining
Not Angola, but the cadre of family members and generals that rule the
country. It's a daily shame for many of us Portuguese, seeing how our
governments grovel to them and keep silent while Portuguese citizens (even if
they're also Angolan) are made political prisoners. Our self-respect indexed
to the barrel of Brent.

I really hope they can move on, but my Angolan friends (both emigrants and
living there) aren't hopeful for the short term.

~~~
andrepd
Yes, not Angola, but the select Angolan crony elites which basically bleed the
country dry for their benefit, with the blessing of the western world. The
same can be said about a couple handful of other African countries as well.

------
personlurking
Here's a graph of all the political and corporate interconnections, from a
popular book and documentary (afaik, only published in Portuguese), called Os
Donos Angolanos de Portugal (the Angolan Owners of Portugal).

[https://i.imgur.com/Fb0ZWRG.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Fb0ZWRG.jpg)

And another one, sans politicians, from a sister publication, Os Donos de
Portugal (The Owners of Portugal)

[https://i.imgur.com/NBJHcB7.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NBJHcB7.jpg)

------
donquichotte
"On her Twitter account, Ms. dos Santos identifies herself with just one word:
entrepreneur."

It makes me vomit a little bit in my mouth to hear a super corrupt
billionaire, daughter of a guy who has been president in a country for 38
years, calling herself "entrepreneur".

EDIT: she was invited to the London School of Economics to give a lecture.
WTF? What's next, Kim Jong Un giving a lecture in democracy?

~~~
nl
On her Instagram account (linked from the NYTimes article) there's this pic:
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BWnuoDFlGC1/?taken-
by=isabel_dos...](https://www.instagram.com/p/BWnuoDFlGC1/?taken-
by=isabel_dos_santos.me)

What does she use to get that weird, almost photoshopped like effect?

~~~
todd8
The strong front lighting reduces shadows, for example on her face, that
normally provide visual clues about the depth of her features (e.g. how large
her nose is) this tends to flatten a persons features to a degree as pointed
out by rangibaby.

The overall focus in strongly divided into foreground features and very
blurred background features. I haven't played around with the ability of the
iPhone 7+ to do this blurring algorithmically, but it is very commonly done
with SRL cameras by choosing a very shallow depth of field. This is done by
using a large aperture, say f2 or f2.8. This wider open lens allows more of
the outer, more curved, part of the lens to collect and focus light onto the
image, and due to the geometry of the optics this makes the range of the scene
that remains in sharp focus much shallower. (See,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field)
.) Notice particularly, the excellent bokeh formed by the blurred lights in
the background.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh))

Finally, a flash combined with a wide open lens can overpower the exposure, a
problem for film's limited range of sensitivity (film speed). Cameras can
compensate for this by using insanely short exposures, like 1/8000 second,
and/or adjusting the exposure sensitivity for a few individual shots (film
cameras require changing film rolls to change sensitivity, but today's digital
cameras can automatically change the sensitivity on a per shot basis). To me,
the picture has a frozen, surreal aspect that can come from a high shutter
speed.

All of these effects, which can be done with the appropriate camera settings,
can also be simulated with enough Photoshop work. This particular photo could
have just been produced serendipitously, especially in this age of unlimited
snaps from cell phones that never run out of film, but it looks more
professional to me. Consider the careful edge lighting that separates the hair
from the background. (See [https://www.slrlounge.com/5-ways-to-separate-your-
subject-fr...](https://www.slrlounge.com/5-ways-to-separate-your-subject-from-
the-background/) )

------
aaron-lebo
Kind of crazy just how late it was decolonized: 1975. You don't really think
of 20th century Portugal as having remnants of empire.

~~~
eighthnate
> Kind of crazy just how late it was decolonized: 1975.

Actually it was fully decolonized in 2002.

Independence didn't lead to real independence. Europeans, americans, russians,
etc fought over "independent" angola for 37 years after 1975.

The last foreign troops "officially" left in 1989.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War)

> You don't really think of 20th century Portugal as having remnants of
> empire.

Portugal officially returned macau to china in 1999. Now that is shocking. A
small nation of 10 million keeping territory from a nation of 1.4 billion
until 1999.

[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Macaus-Return-to-
China-3537...](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Macaus-Return-to-China-353703)

Also portugal kept gao from india into the 60s.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa)

It's pretty amazing how such a small colonial power stayed under the radar for
so long.

Most european empires still have overseas colonies. The french still have
colonies all over the world. The british just renamed their the
"commonwealth".

And former european colonial powers still exercise power over much of africa,
middle east, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict#Battle_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict#Battle_of_Konna_and_French_intervention)

It's now under the banner of "democracy and freedom and etc" rather than to
bring "civilization". European colonization just got rebranded. That's all.

~~~
danmaz74
> The french still have colonies all over the world

They're not colonies if their inhabitants are full French citizens (which they
are AFAIK). Are the Hawaii a US colony?

~~~
MisterPC
Semantically no, but in reality it is. Like many parts of the US, if they
hadn't been flooded with American citizens they would have eventually regained
their independence.

Not that I think independence is necessarily a good thing.

~~~
Hasknewbie
>> Semantically no, but in reality it is.

If you're still including French oversea departments in that statement, then
you are out of your depth here, I must say. Do you know people from the French
Caribbeans or Reunion? I do. If you had said they feel under-represented, not
supported enough by their government (relative to other regions), or victim of
racism, you would have been correct. But talks about being 'colonized'? I have
basically never heard that. This is not even part of the discussion for them.

This is supported by their local political landscape: independentist-leaning
parties are either anecdotical in size, or have changed their position on this
topic. Hell, there are more overt secessionist parties on the French mainland
itself (Britany, Corsica), which should tell you something.

This is also a weird remark to make, since France is known to still be very
much a neo-colonial power that often interfere in their former colonies'
politics, and seldom for the better. So if you're looking for nefarious
colonialist behaviour, it's there, just not in their oversea departments.

~~~
MisterPC
No, I wasn't making any remark about French colonies as I was replying to a
direct question about Hawaii.

I actually think unification is preferable to independence. Independence
mainly seems to benefit the people in control.

------
jk2323
Portugal is a small country. I did not see any serious investments going on,
anything besides their "golden visa" program. A rich guy may invest 500k there
to get his residency but serious cash is stored in the UK, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, USA. But isn't this the case for most African countries?

OT: A much more interesting woman than Ms. dos Santos, also from Angola:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba)

OT2: Actually most of the oil in Angola is in an obscure enclave:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinda_Province](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinda_Province)

------
whipoodle
> _“And suddenly they were able to help us and to buy things that we cannot
> buy,” he said. “It was like a housekeeper buying your house. That is
> awkward.”_

Good lord. Come on.

~~~
pm90
Yeah I found that statement rather classist/racist

------
southphillyman
This is really interesting, especially in light of all the alleged racism in
Portugal.

As far as the corruption in Africa, are there any good books that explain why
this is so common in Africa? Is this simply a post colonial pattern that can
be found through out human history or is it unique to the recent situation in
Africa?

------
JamesBarney
Anyone interested in reading more about Angola and the U.S.'s involvement
should check out the book "In Search of Enemies" by John Stockwell who was a
manager in the CIA, and involved in the Angola operations.

------
dandare
> Angola is often listed as one of the world’s most corrupt nations. And
> Portugal has been singled out for its laxness in reining in money laundering
> and bribery...

The end of story.

~~~
dang
Would you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN, especially on
inflammatory topics? This never serves thoughtful discussion, which we're
hoping to see in HN threads.

------
guico
And here's yet another major publication resorting to click bait...

------
supremesaboteur
> late stage capitalism

Much later than the capitalism in most advanced economies ?

~~~
nl
"late stage capitalism" is a reference to a view that capitalism inevitably
leads to a system run by oligarchs. Or something like that - it isn't exactly
used consistently[1]. Originally it was a Marxist term, but I don't believe
many people use it in this original meaning[2].

It's a pity, because everything else in that poster's comment made sense, I
think this detracts from their point.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/late-
ca...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/late-
capitalism/524943/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism)

~~~
sageikosa
Pegging "capitalism" into a teleological historiographic narrative (aimed at
justifying non-capital producing collectivist dictatorships) has been around
for so long that its retro chic again.

~~~
andrepd
That wasn't at all my intention. But nor is it unreasonable to argue that
capitalism as it is practiced today cannot sustain itself indefinitely.
Nothing teleological or prophetic about it.

~~~
sageikosa
To my ear that's like saying evolution cannot sustain itself indefinitely. As
long as there are generational selective pressures on imperfect replicators,
evolution will continue.

Without a superstructure of omnipresent social domination to hinder or disrupt
it, capitalism will be used where countable savings for investment and idea
that promising accountable returns find themselves together.

Here's a thought to explain my defense of capitalism: capitalism doesn't cause
corruption, but like anything else it is destroyed by corruption. Capitalism
is used by the corrupt because it is so good at identifying that which the
market values and in delivering it.

