User:Katangais/Liberation Lingo

While rebels in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Angola were happy to take Western reporters with them, the Southern African movements, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the guerrilla wing of the South African National Congress, Namibia's South West African People's Organization, SWAPO, and Zimbabwe's nationalist movements, ZANU and its rival ZAPU, the Zimbabwe African People's Union, never allowed Western reporters near their operations. So the accounts of the wars against white rule in Southern Africa were entirely one-sided. The international press based itself in Johannesburg and Salisbury, the capital of Rhodesia, now renamed Harare. Their language and perspective were mostly that of the white regimes. So the rebels were described as Communist terrorists, their attacks denounced as atrocities. The armies of white-ruled Africa were said to be defending innocent civilians and freedom....Besides, the [nationalist] movements issued regular if wildly exaggerated bulletins describing the glorious victories of the struggling masses against the racist imperialist capitalist regimes. According to their figures, the armies of Rhodesia, Portugal, and South Africa would have been wiped out several times over. So Western reporters ignored them. Did their one-sided picture have any effect on the outcome of the war? Probably not. But skewed reporting creates layers of perception. Africans saw the Western media as biased against them and their cause. The rest of the world, including the British government and most commentators in Britain, came to believe in the late 1970s that "terrorists" could never win an election.

— Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society

Heroes' Acre, Zimbabwe.

Writing an article on an asymmetrical Third World conflict—especially one of the hundreds of minor bush wars and insurgencies waged around Africa and Asia since World War II—is difficult. Between the relative scarcity of sources (and in the case of Francophone or otherwise non-English speaking country, English sources), the wildly contradictory reports, confusion surrounding the military situation in undeveloped regions, and the propaganda being generated by both sides, it can be frustrating when that ever-present bogeyman of reliability rears its ugly head: systematic bias.

The term "systematic bias" has been generally associated with an disproportionate Anglo-American focus and the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in the West, but I am confident the problem is just as acute on any regional topic where a group of local contributors are congregated. Systematic bias doesn't just manifest itself in the way content is presented, but in the vocabulary and wording: loaded language used to further political aims is becoming increasingly common on Wikipedia, especially on articles concerning tactical military operations and affairs, where politics has no business being mentioned except as a footnote.

This is an especially thorny issue in Southern Africa, where most of the current ruling parties came to power after a prolonged military conflict: South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia all underwent some form of armed insurrection before achieving independence or majority rule. It is therefore understandable that Southern African bush wars are considered integral parts of each country's history in general and those of their ruling parties in particular. Loaded language takes on a special significance in this context because the armed struggle has been afforded an almost mythical, sacred status. Questioning or criticizing the struggle is frowned upon; hence, it is described in the noblest of terms. This is an example of systematic nationalist bias and I've encountered it so much over the past few years I've even given it a name: "liberation lingo". Thus, the guerrillas that toppled the previous colonial or white minority regime become "freedom fighters". The war that brought them to power is the "liberation struggle", "freedom struggle", "liberation war", or some variation of the phrase, since the country was ostensibly liberated from the indefensible evils of institutionalised racism and/or colonial imperialism. Their movements are described as "liberation movements" and "liberation parties". In the euphoria which surrounded the independence/emancipation of these states, foreign media sources have also been quick to pick up on this language as well.

For example, Google Books returns 32,000 hits for South Africa's African National Congress being described as a "liberation movement" and 9,180 for anti-apartheid activists and guerrillas being described as "freedom fighters".

Do I disagree with the use of liberation lingo?

While accepting that it is common to describe the various Southern African conflicts and struggles in that kind of language locally, as noted above, I cannot likewise accept it here on Wikipedia.

Terrorists and bush bandits

For about thirty years between the Baixa de Cassanje revolt in Angola and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, when the liberation lingo phenomenon was arguably at its strongest, a parallel terminology was utilised by the outgoing white governments under siege. This type of language is now largely defunct because the victors have written the history books. However, it is no less contentious from a Wikipedia perspective. Rhodesian and South African public sources and state-controlled media identified the guerrillas as "communist terrorists", and their campaigns as "terrorism". Insurgents in Lusophone colonies were described more commonly as "bush bandits" or simply "bandits", which appears to mirror a common trend in Latin America. Literature sources from these three countries at the time may reflect this.

Use of the term "terrorist", interestingly, is no longer prevalent even among the white Rhodesian and South African communities where it was previously popular; in the myriad of veteran literature which has mushroomed in the past twenty years, former white combatants of the bush wars now prefer the more neutral terms "guerrilla" and "insurgent". "Bush bandits" ironically remained in use in both Angola and Mozambique following independence, and was used in an official context to denote UNITA and RENAMO, respectively.

From a neutral Wikipedia point of view, neither "terrorist" nor "bandit" should be used in reference to an insurgency; this language is just as skewed as liberation lingo. "Insurgent", "guerrilla", "militant", "partisan", "rebel", and "cadre" are all acceptable alternatives. "Separatist" can also be applied to SWAPO, FLEC, and the Caprivi African National Union (CANU) when referencing the Namibian War of Independence, Cabinda War, or the Caprivi conflict.

General rules of thumb

The quote by Richard Dowden is at the top of this page for a reason. He demonstrates how the use of loaded language implicitly supports a one-sided narrative and how this was detrimental to reporting on the topic of Southern African wars at large. I'll be the first to admit that I've broken the rule of NPOV before, simply because I had to get through so much POV in my sources—ranging from outright prejudiced accounts to subtle partiality on the part of a specific author—some of it inevitably stuck to my contributions. In years past I've described the Rhodesian Bush War as "Zimbabwe's liberation war", I've called SWAPO a "liberation movement" and Bishop Abel Muzorewa a "collaborator", and I've described ZANU's armed wing (ZANLA) as "terrorists".

Fortunately, since then I've learned to be much more discerning, and it's gotten easier to mine valuable data from a given source while filtering out the fluff.

The following are my general rules of thumb for avoiding contentious labels where articles concerning Southern African conflicts are concerned:

• 1) Refrain from describing wars as "liberation struggles" or "freedom struggles".

• 2) Refrain from describing guerrilla movements as "liberation movements" or "liberation parties". Regardless of whether that's what they call themselves, or what the UN calls them.

• 3) Refrain from describing any combatant as a "terrorist" or their activities as "terrorism", unless an explicitly terrorist action targeting only civilians was conducted, such as the Saint James Church massacre.

• 4) Refrain from describing guerrillas as "bandits", which is mainly an issue on Angolan and Mozambican articles. The term is a loaded one and implies confusion with petty, unorganised criminals rather than politically motivated rebel forces.

• 5) Refrain from describing black African supporters and officials of the colonial and white minority governments as "collaborators", "collaborationist", or "sellouts".

• 6) Refrain from describing any combatant groups or individuals as "freedom fighters". Not even Nelson Mandela.

Communism-related labels are a bit iffy. South Africa's National Party caught a lot of flak during the apartheid era for denouncing its political opponents as "Marxists" or "communists" without apparent discrimination. Furthermore, communism may have a very negative connotation in some countries (see Red-baiting) and editors from those countries may perceive the term "communist" as an example of loaded language.

I believe it's perfectly legitimate to describe a movement or individual as "communist" if they clearly identified as such. For instance, ZANU, SWAPO, Angola's MPLA, and Mozambique's FRELIMO were all explicitly Marxist until the 1990s. ZANU's Robert Mugabe declared he was a Marxist as late as 2013.

Some might take these proposed guidelines as a personal affront to what they perceive as a genuine liberation movement and its associated heroes. For instance: "We can't even describe Nelson Mandela as a freedom fighter? Really?"

I understand where "liberation lingo" comes from, and of the highly emotive attachment many people—especially Africans—have to that period of their history. However, the use of such loaded terminology is typically discouraged in an encyclopedic context.

According to "Contentious Labels" under the Manual of Style:

"Value-laden labels—such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, terrorist, or freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion—may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. Avoid myth in its informal sense, and establish the scholarly context for any formal use of the term."

The purpose of Wikipedia is to present a neutral point of view, without pushing any perspective, no matter how seemingly moral or correct it is, on our readership. That is the essence of WP:DECISION. Besides, there's no need to explicitly call Mandela a freedom fighter if the reader can arrive at that conclusion on their own by reading the facts presented to them, as per WP:MORALIZING and WP:ASF.

So, when is liberation lingo appropriate?

Liberation lingo is appropriate in specific contexts on Wikipedia, such as attributed quotes and viewpoints.

• Incorrect:
  • Sithole Simba was a Kamangan freedom fighter, liberation movement leader, and champion for the anti-colonial cause.
• Correct:
  • Sithole Simba was a Kamangan revolutionary and nationalist. Described in TIME Magazine as a freedom fighter and champion for the anti-colonial cause, he also served as chairman and chief executive of the Kamangan Revolutionary Front during its campaign for that country's independence.

As demonstrated, asserting that somebody else had the opinion that Mr. Simba was a freedom fighter is not the same as asserting the opinion he was a freedom fighter. That is also in keeping with the generally correct use of assertions in the manual of style.

Liberation lingo is also appropriate when used to describe proper nouns. For instance, "Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa" is the name of an actual association. Discussion of Liberation war as a concept is also acceptable as per WP:WORDISSUBJECT.