De Oliveira presents a thoroughly researched overview of one of the more obfuscated African nations, providing many excellent insights. But, his writing style is convoluted, while too often he doesn't elaborate on the many small remarks he puts in as matters of course while describing a larger narrative. Mostly, these are issues an editor should have taken care of, and take away from the accessibility of the book.
Oliveira makes the point that post colonial Angola is the only African country where the Creole, the power brokers between the colonial masters and the colonial subjects, eventually became the elite. Also because there was a colonial elite to begin with, the Portuguese themselves being handsoff with the administration of their dominions, whether in Angola, Mozambique or Brazil.
But, perhaps more importantly, specifically for the post-independent resurgence of nationalism, driven by the descendants of these Creoles, with the scramble for Africa in the late 1800s bringing in much more Portuguese than just the criminals that were sent to this formal penal colony, they suffered a relative setback in late colonial times, having to compete for civil service jobs with literate, and white, Portuguese subjects, thus creating an early breeding ground for wanting to return to their former greatness.
Urbanized Angolans, covetting their Portuguese connections, contrasted themselves with the 'savage' Africans from the hinterlands, which was emphasized by the most remote parts of Angola not even being formally integrated into a more centralized system until as late as the 1950s, education in these regions typically being taken care of by American and European missionary posts.
So, it was eventually the elites from very different parts of the country and thus with very different backgrounds, who first pitted themselves against the Portuguese and then against each other, each having very different ideas about their own position in the world, while not considering Angola as anything but a contingent piece of land.
Shortly after Portugal's retreat, two of the three movements remained, propped up by Cuba and South Africa, and the two countries themselves eventually faced off, in Angola, in 1988.
Peace agreements were signed in 1991, followed by elections in 1992. UNITA, operating from the countryside, expected an easy win. But, after high level defections, the tables turned, UNITA lost to the MPLA operating from Luanda, the capital, taking up their guns again, and reigniting a civil war that lasted ten more years and only ended with the death of UNITA leader Savimbi.
Angola was left with a president who tightly controlled his sphere of influence, focussed on exploitation of oil and diamonds, facilitated by Western companies, while having access to a very tight security apparatus, but unable to provide basic services in a country where agriculture had all but ceased to exist.
With UNITA out of the way, the MPLA dictated what it meant to be Angolan; a product of a Portuguese colonial history with no meaningful precolonial antecedent. With the capital at its center, Angola had become the republic of Luanda.
Already during the war that followed independence, the state aparatus which the MPLA controlled, was backed, or rather, undermined, by the president's setting up of a parallel system with the sole purpose of managing and controlling oil production. Technocratic, but also corrupt, the system remained in place after independence and is what effectively defines the state.
The Portuguese, before independence, for a bit over a decade, oversaw a period of huge growth, the country hosting the second largest contingent of foreigners after South Africa, but in 1976, all this had broken down, most foreigners having left after the start of civil war.
Fascinating, of course, that an exceedingly communist regime tolerated, even supported, the success of an exceedingly capitalist oil industry. While the MPLA was backed by the Soviets and the Cubans and the oppositions by the Americans and the South Africans, Angolan oil was managed by the French and Americans and shipped to the rest of the world via South Africa.
But after the country exchanged socialism for crony capitalism, SONANGOL, the state's oil company, went from strength to strength, at the turn of the century employing 9000 people in the second largest company in Africa.
All as the president's private vehicle for control.
After the war ended in 2002, the need for money in rebuilding the country and placating the former opposition grew significantly. With oil prices not yet having risen steeply, Angola was short on cash, but the many conditions set by Western institutions for providing funds were balked at and nothing happened, until China became willing to invest without conditions in 2005.
As a result, though not as efficient or cost effective, the state has been responsible for a wide array of infrastructural development projects, many with reasonably positive long term benefits, though many also with no clear long term plan or reasonable budgets, larger amounts available for spending also meaning more money being absorbed, appropriated, by those involved.
Not surprisingly, white elephants, large but pointless infrastructural projects, are plenty.
The poor are not included in the process of urban renewal and though lots of foreign expertise is flown in, the state dictates the nature of change, with the elite directly benefiting from the individual projects through 'partnerships' and kickbacks.
Perhaps surprisingly, there is virtually no desire to manage skills transfers to replace the expensive expat crowd. On the other hand, this is fairly typical for other oil-rich states as well.
Not surprisingly, with the state having ample income, development organizations have little leverage to set the agenda and, since the war, have been marginalised. Meanwhile, the state pays lip service to the language of development politics, without actually implementing meaningful political change.
What makes the post colonial, post civil war, politics of Angola unique is that, with the help of huge amounts of oil money, the state, that is mostly the president, managed to reinvent itself several times, while also being able to create some meaningful change, if disproportionally small in relation to the money spent, for the vast majority of the population. Yet, these reinventions has as their sole objective the entrenchment of the ruling class, even if the core of this success, driven by the national oil company, was and is the responsibility of a small group of competent professionals.
With the president at the center, the elite have traded power for money.
In business, Angolan incompetents partnering with foreign companies or foreign managers, get rich on the spoils. Though often beneficial for the foreign players, long term risks are huge, with no legal recourse available, sometimes the outcome being death or being expelled from the country.
And, typical for elsewhere in Africa as well, investment horizons are short, months, not years.
So, as a result, commercial agriculture and manufacturing, processes that take years to come to fruition, are avoided, virtually everything being imported from abroad.
More recently, Angolan business has moved abroad, with the most popular objective being Portugal, where towards ten percent of the country stock exchange is in the hands of the Angolan elite.
The author never says it, but Angola is a truly fascist state, and trying to become more so; everything is of the state and of the state. But, the MPLA's fascist tendencies have resulted in an inclusive, if unequal society where, for now, civil war based on ethnic differences is unthinkable. But, the political situation is ever more precarious, lacking the economic inclusion so desired by the masses.