Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuściński; March 4, 1932 – January 23, 2007) was a Polish reporter, journalist, traveller, photographer, poet and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Widely considered a serious candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature during his lifetime, he is one of the Polish writers most frequently translated into foreign languages...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth4 March 1932
CountryPoland
conditions gave rare send somebody
Conditions were so hard. To send the news out, telex was the only means, but telex was very rare in Africa. So if somebody was flying to Europe, we gave him correspondence to send after he arrived.
knowledge readership source
Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people's only source of knowledge about the world.
began involved technical
Underground literature only began in the '70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle.
disposal exclusive fly four london president shopping time trips
At that time Uganda had four aircraft, one of which was at the exclusive disposal of Amin. It would fly to London on shopping trips for the president and his entourage. In Uganda there was nothing.
cold context interested people war
People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.
sea independence world
The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise.
talking two moscow
I remember in 1978 meeting two Ugandan captains in the hotel talking Russian. They had been educated in Moscow and since they came from different Ugandan peoples, it was the only way they could understand one another.
italian eyebrows community
Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.
heart literature tradition
The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.
past self assessment
There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.
fall humble fighting
In the tropics the white feels weakened, or downright weak, whence comes the heightened tendency to outbursts of aggression. People who are polite, modest or even humble in Europe fall easily into a rage here, get into fights, destroy other people. . .
past government assessment
In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.
independence months three
I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months.
war hypocrisy long
Amin is the shame of the whole world. The fact that he managed to rule so long and commit so many crimes was only possible thanks to the hypocrisy of the East and the West who were waging the Cold War for world domination.