NLF: National Liberation Fronts, 1960-1970

by Donald C. & Robert Elias Abu Shanab -- Eds. Hodges ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 1972

A round-the-world junket sampling National Liberation Front proclamations in Asia, the Arab world, Africa, Latin America, and winding up in the ""very bowels of the Empire,"" the U.S. and Canada. Having chosen mostly propaganda pieces brimming with revolutionary heroics and argot, the editors add their own anti-imperialist rhetoric and leave the reader at a loss to discover the historical roots of the insurgencies, the theoretical issues involved, and the relations of individual liberation struggles to post-World War II history and world politics. Proclamations from liberation fronts in Southeast Asia do include some glimmer of their programs which propose rather mild reforms -- such as preserving national culture, granting rights to workers, peasants, and local businessmen -- all more in the tradition of bourgeois pluralism more than the Socialism of Marx and Lenin despite the editors' claims. Hodges and Shanab have done a creditable job in differentiating Arab guerrilla groups organizationally, but political differences remain obscured. Among the balkanized African nations, some of the most obscure liberation fronts are presented, for example the Comoro Liberation Front, whose rallying cry is ""All in all, Comoro Must Be Free."" In Latin America two pieces of interest to leftists are the apologetics of a Bolivian Communist Party bigwig for not supporting Che Guevara and the declaration of the Tupamaros, the Uruguayan guerrilla group. Though credited with being ""virtually a fifth column in the mother country,"" the Weathermen are not represented; instead there are statements by the Front de Liberation de Quebec, the Black Panther Party, and the Movement for Puerto Rican Independence. Strictly for the radical Walter Mitty who relishes the rhetoric without demanding political analysis.

Pub Date: March 28, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION