review of
Mack Reynolds's Blackman's Burden / Border, Breed Nor Birth
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 16-19, 2019

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/618795?chapter=1

The 1st & only other bk I've read by Mack Reynolds was another 1/2 of an Ace Double: The Rival Rigelians (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1670905334 ). In my review of that I wrote:

"Somehow, I seem to've had a bad impression of Reynolds. Vaguely, I thought he might've written trashy spy novels. I find on Wikipedia that "Reynolds was the first author to write an original novel based upon the 1966-1969 NBC television series Star Trek." That's a big turn-off for me but I don't think I knew that. Apparently he didn't write spy novels. I must be confusing him w/ another author. I was probably confusing him w/ Mack Bolan, alias The Executioner, a fictional character who's been serialized in over 600 novels according to Wikipedia.

"Instead, to quote Wikipedia again, "His work is noteworthy for its focus on socioeconomic speculation, usually expressed in thought-provoking explorations of Utopian societies from a radical, sometime satiric, perspective." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Reynolds ) & that's what I refreshingly found in this bk."

Indeed. The Rival Rigelians has as its rivalry the competition between capitalism & socialism as systems for running planets other than Earth. Blackman's Burden & Border, Breed Nor Birth, wch is its sequel, have a similar conflict but one that I found more interesting: various forces trying to modernize Africa against a background of competition between capitalism, socialism, & various nationalisms.

I only sortof 'accidentally' read this bk as yet-another-bk-written-by-a-non-African-about-Africa. The last one that I read that fit that category was Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief (see my review of that here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2312154248 ). In my review of that I wrote:

"Africa's a continent. There're bound to be significant differences between the culture of Egypt & the culture of South Africa, between the culture of Liberia & the culture of Nigeria. It's awkward for me to review this bk. I've read so little from &/or about Africa. I haven't read Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. I have read Melvin B. Tolson's Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, I have read Sony Labou Tansi's The Antipeople, I have read Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley, I have read Fathy Ghanem's The Man Who Lost his Shadow & other bks of, perhaps, lesser relevance such as Isabelle Eberhardt's The Oblivion Seekers, etc..

"The point is that reviewing this bk is awkward b/c it's a parody of an imaginary African nation written after Waugh had spent a few mnths in Africa. Africans get made fun of, the British get made fun of, the French get made fun of. It's my impression that everyone gets made fun of equally & that the Africans don't get mocked any more than anyone else concerned. HOWEVER, I'm not African—I don't really know how an African might respond to this. Of course, there're bound to be some Africans who think it's hilarious & others who think it's racist."

The same, or something similar, might be written about this bk — one of the differences being that I think Waugh is a brilliant writer per se but I don't think Reynolds is. Nonetheless, I think Reynolds's basic premise for these 2 bks is interesting: viz: that various extra-African agencies are formed to try to modernize Africa for various motives & that members of these agencies then form a 'rogue' group that's still working for modernization but no longer supporting the ulterior motives of the countries &/or political systems that they came from.

All of the protagonists are blacks, most are African-Americans. That, in itself, is somehat unusual. Mack Reynolds wasn't black. I wonder what an African-American critique of his characterizations wd be. He has most or all of the characters be college educated. They don't speak in any dialect unless one thinks of one character who goes in & out of beatnik-speak. If he'd had the people molded into stereotypes of 'blackness' these bks might've been insufferable. Instead, these are blacks who've come to Africa because they're descended from it & want to intervene in its development but who're also mostly Americans who don't really feel like Africa is their 'homeland'.

As is often the case w/ adventure & SF novels, these characters are exaggeratedly talented & capable: they might be sociologists who speak multiple languages fluently who can wear disquises convincingly & fight with lethal expertise. In other words, they're a bit improbable.

Reynolds is written about in the beginning of Blackman's Burden:

"Of all the writers published in the leading sf magazines, Galaxy and If, a poll conducted among the readers put the stories of MACK REYONOLDS consistently higher than any other. His stories have an uncanny way of discussing now the questions that will concern everyone ten or twenty years later. Blackman's Burden & Border, Breed Nor Birth are not only exciting to read—they may forecast the shape of events in Africa in years to come." - p 2

""When the great powers of Europe arbitrarily split up Africa in the nineteenth century they didn't bother with race, tribe, nor even geographic boundaries. Largely they seemed to draw their boundary lines with ruler and pencil on a Mercator projection. Often, not only were native nations split in twain but even tribes and clans, and sometimes split not only one way but two or three. It was chaotic to the old tribal system.["]" - p 67

"Crawford continued. "For a time aid to these backward nations was left in the hands of the individual nations—especially to the United States and Russia. However, in spite of speeches of politicians to the contrary, governments are not motivated by humanitarian purposes. The government of a country does what it does for the benefit of the ruling class of that country.["]" - p 64

"["]At the same time the other have nations including Great Britain, France, Germany, and the newly awakening China, began to realize that unless they got into the aid act that they would disappear as competitors for the tremendous markets in the newly freed former colonial lands.["]" - p 65

"The C.I.A. man said evenly, "We've already had reports that this conference was going to be held. I might as well inform you that a protest is being made to the Sahara Division of the African Development Project."

"Crawford said, "I suppose that is your privilege, sir. Now, in accord with the reason for this metting, can you tell us why your organization is present in Africa and what it hopes to achieve?"

"Ostander looked at him testily. "Why not? There has been considerable infiltration of all of these African development organizations by subversive elements . . . "" - pp 76-77

Blackman's Burden is copyrighted 1961 & Border, Breed Nor Birth is copyrighted 1962. Did questions of African modernization concern non-African readers from 1971 to 1982? Did these novels forecast events there? The novel has the "Soviet Complex" & the "CIA" pitted against each other. What was happening on that front in the 1970s? I'd say that in some respects Reynolds was pretty spot-on. Take the example of CIA operative John Stockwell:

"As a Marine, Stockwell was a CIA paramilitary intelligence case officer in three wars: the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Angolan War of Independence. His military rank is Major. Beginning his career in 1964, Stockwell spent six years in Africa, Chief of Base in the Katanga during the Bob Denard invasion in 1968, then Chief of Station in Bujumbura, Burundi in 1970, before being transferred to Vietnam to oversee intelligence operations in the Tay Ninh province and was awarded the CIA Intelligence Medal of Merit for keeping his post open until the last days of the fall of Saigon in 1975.

"In December 1976, he resigned from the CIA, citing deep concerns for the methods and results of CIA paramilitary operations in Third World countries and testified before Congressional committees. Two years later, he wrote the exposé In Search of Enemies, about that experience and its broader implications. He claimed that the CIA was counterproductive to national security, and that its "secret wars" provided no benefit for the United States. The CIA, he stated, had singled out the MPLA to be an enemy in Angola despite the fact that the MPLA wanted relations with the United States and had not committed a single act of aggression against the United States. In 1978 he appeared on the popular American television program 60 Minutes, claiming that CIA Director William Colby and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had systematically lied to Congress about the CIA's operations." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell

"["]Remember the early days when the Congo was first given her freedom? Supposedly the United Nations went in to help. Actually, each element in the United Nations had its own irons in the fire, and usually their desires differed."" - p 127

"We were doing things it seemed because we were there, because it was our function, we were bribing people, corrupting people, and not protecting the U.S. in any visible way. I had a chance to go drinking with this Larry Devlin, a famous CIA case officer who had overthrown Patrice Lumumba, and had him killed in 1960, back in the Congo. He was moving into the Africa division Chief. I talked to him in Addis Ababa at length one night, and he was giving me an explanation - I was telling him frankly, 'sir, you know, this stuff doesn't make any sense, we're not saving anybody from anything, and we are corrupting people, and everybody knows we're doing it, and that makes the U.S. look bad'." - John Stockwell, https://libcom.org/history/secret-wars-cia-john-stockwell

"Patrice Lumumba became the first prime minister of the newly-independent Congo in 1960, but he lasted just a few months in the job before he was overthrown and assassinated in January 1961.

"In 2002, former colonial power Belgium admitted responsibility for its part in the killing, however, the US has never explained its role despite long-held suspicions.

"US President Dwight D Eisenhower, concerned about communism, was worried about Congo following a similar path to Cuba.

"According to a source quoted in Death in the Congo, a book about the assassination, President Eisenhower gave "an order for the assassination of Lumumba. There was no discussion; the [National Security Council] meeting simply moved on".

"However, a CIA plan to lace Lumumba's toothpaste with poison was never carried out, Lawrence Devlin, who was a station chief in Congo at the time, told the BBC in 2000.

"A survey of declassified US government documents from the era notes that the CIA "initially focussed on removing Lumumba, not only through assassination if necessary but also with an array of non-lethal undertakings".

"While there is no doubt the CIA wanted him dead, the survey does not indicate direct US involvement in his eventual killing." - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36303327

Now Stockwell cd be wrong about the CIA assassinating Lumumba or the BBC cd be wrong about their not doing it. Either way, the CIA was meddling in the Congo — thusly providing reinforcement for Reynolds's argument as stated thru Homer Crawford.

& what about the Soviet Union?:

"In the second half of the 1970s, the Soviet Union increased its supply of arms to countries around the world, and in particular to countries in Africa. As one after the other, African countries saw their colonialist regimes toppled by coups and independence movements, choosing a separatist side to support became a way for countries such as Britain and France, as well as the US and the USSR, to maintain their influence under the shifting political situation and maintain their economic interests in natural resources.

"In Ethiopia and Angola, Soviet arms were sent to support Cuban troops who were involved with backing communist separatist movements. For example, following a coup d’etat in 1974, foreign intervention in the civil war in Angola reflected the wider division amongst the super powers, with the United States supporting two of the independence movements (FNLA and UNITA) and Cuba and the Soviet Union supporting another (the MPLA)." - https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/people-politics/the-discovery-of-australia-how-...

Note that Reynolds's bks were written before any of this is reputed to've happened. As such, he was, indeed, prescient. Also note that the US was in there manipulating before the USSR. Some might say that that was prescient, others, myself among them, wd say that that was inexcusable. What's particularly interesting about Reynolds's bks to me is that he doesn't take sides w/ any of these super-powers but instead presents rebels for whom modernization thru such things as equal rights for women, lessened inter-tribal conflict, increased education, increases in oasises, birth-control, improved health care, etc, are really the primary goal — rather than, e.g., a new marketplace for exploitation. Whether such outside interference is really a good idea is still a debatable issue from my POV but at least these bks manage to address such things & still manage to be adventure stories. Is this "soft power"?:

"Can you explain why the Soviet Union saw soft power as an important element of their activities internationally? Why was film in particular significant to the Soviet Union?

"As well as supplying arms, the Soviet Union had sought to spread socialism globally through ‘soft power’ strategies such as offering scholarships to foreign students from developing countries. The idea was that these students would return to their own countries and sow the seeds of socialism there.

"The scheme also emphasised the Soviet Union’s message of internationalism and fair rights for all workers – ideologically in contrast to the United States, where black citizens were not offered the same opportunities for education. Scholarships were offered across disciplines, including engineering, medicine and filmmaking." - https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/people-politics/the-discovery-of-australia-how-...

Reynolds's heros are all Americans who're reasonably well-educated but what was it really like for blacks in the US in the time preceding the writing of the novels? As you can see from this chronology, Reynolds's heros wd've been mostly wishful thinking as of the time his bk was written. HOWEVER, the time of the novel is really in the future where such wishful thinking wd no longer be necessary:

"1950: Ralph J. Bunche, officially a member of the Harvard University faculty although he never taught there, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the 1948 Arab-Israeli peace settlement, becoming the first black to receive this distinction.

"1950: In Sweatt v. Painter the University of Texas School of Law is ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to admit Heman Marion Sweatt. Sweatt enrolls but eventually drops out of the University of Texas School of Law after receiving poor grades.

"1950: The Supreme Court rules in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education that black students admitted to the previously all-white graduate institution must not be segregated within the institution and must receive equal treatment in all aspects of the education process.

"1950: Kentucky’s Day Law is amended to allow black and white students above high school level to be educated together. Berea College is the first in the state to readmit black students.

"1950: The U.S. Court of Appeals requires the University of Virginia School of Law to admit Gregory Swanson, a practicing lawyer. Swanson, the first black admitted to UVA, did not complete his studies due to the inhospitable treatment he received.

"1950: The American Medical Association accepts black members for the first time.

"1950: The first Ph.D. in metallurgy is awarded to a black, Frank Alphonso Crossley, at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

"1951: The first black student is admitted to the University of North Carolina School of Law.

"1951: Princeton University awards its first honorary degree to an African American, Ralph Bunche.

"1952: The first black student is admitted to the University of Tennessee.

"1952: Joseph T. Gier, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is the second black faculty member to become tenured at a predominantly white university.

"1953: Walter N. Ridley, a psychology professor at Virginia State University, becomes University of Virginia’s first black graduate, receiving a doctorate in education.

"1953: Spelman College names Albert Edward Manley as its first black president.

"1953: The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania graduates its first black woman MBA student. Today, Wharton is unsure of the identity of the student.

"1953: Howard Thurmann was appointed dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, the first African American dean at a major predominantly white university.

"1954: The University of Florida is ordered to admit black students by the Supreme Court.

"1954: In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional.

"1955: Martin Luther King Jr., a graduate of Morehouse College, earns a Ph.D. in theology at Boston University.

"1956: Autherine Lucy is the first African American to enroll at the University of Alabama. After riots engulfed the campus, she is expelled for “her own safety.”

"1956: Lila Fenwick graduates from Harvard Law School, the first black woman to do so. Fenwick later led the United Nations’ Human Rights Division.

"1956: The University of Florida College of Law is ordered to admit Virgil Darnell Hawkins following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control. Hawkins withdraws his application as a condition by which Florida agreed to integrate the law school.

"1957: Legislation is passed in Tennessee requiring the desegregation of state universities.

"1958: The University of Florida law school admits its first black student, George Starke Jr.

"1960: Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College hold a sit-in at the lunch counter of an F.W. Woolworth in Greensboro, North Carolina. This spurs a series of sit-ins in the South to demand racial equality.

"1960: Charles Edward Anderson becomes the first black to earn a doctorate in meteorology. He earned his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

- https://www.jbhe.com/chronology/

As such, I think that Reynolds, once again, deserves credit — in this instance for his progressive anti-racist thinking. ( )