Cruel Hindsight

Map of Afghanistan

In a previous posting I briefly reviewed a book published in the Marxist Regimes series that gave an overview of then Marxist governed Ethiopia.1 In that review I mentioned that The Marxist Regimes series was stunningly oblivious to the signs of the imminent implosion of Marxist regimes worldwide. That the alleged value neutral approach basically led to obliviousness to the serious structural, institutional and economic problems of those regimes and tended towards moral capitulation in the face of evil and atrocity is also clear. The book about Ethiopia by Peter Schwab was an outstanding example of moral obscenity given its celebration of a vicious regime and its fawning over Dictator Mengistu.

Sometimes Lessing is less:

Doris Lessing and the Afghans



Doris Lessing



One of more annoying features of modern life is the writer who becomes involved in a worthwhile cause and then uses it has a platform to pontificate about stuff they know little about. A classic example is Doris Lessing. Now Doris Lessing is a very well known writer who in 2007 won the Nobel Prize for literature. Unfortunately Doris Lessing aside from writing well written books has also shown a less than sterling intellectual sense about certain matters.1