“He’d started as a “blackbirder” as so many of the older traders had, kidnapping natives to work on the Queensland plantations, and he was frank about his methods too. Make friends with them, invite them on board ship, get them drunk and Bob’s your uncle, By the time they come around they’re out at seaContinue reading “RKS Literature: Australian Blackbirder Slavers (Pat Barker)”
Tag Archives: RKS literature
RKS Literature: Murderous Missionary Ships (Pat Barker)
“Rivers was used to missionary islands where canoes paddled out to meet the oncoming steamer, brown faces, white eyes, flashing smiles, while others gathered at the landing stage, ready to carry bags up to the mission station for a few sticks of tobacco or even sheer Christian goodwill. A cheerful picture, as long as youContinue reading “RKS Literature: Murderous Missionary Ships (Pat Barker)”
RKS Literature: Supressed Memory and a Smack on the Leg (Pat Barker)
“Was this the supressed memory? He didn’t know. Was it trivial? Well, yes, in a way, compared with Prior’s lurid imaginings. A smack on the leg, a lesson in manliness from an over conscientious but loving father. It’s a long way from sadistic beatings, And yet it wasn’t as trivial as it seemed at first.”Continue reading “RKS Literature: Supressed Memory and a Smack on the Leg (Pat Barker)”
RKS Literature: Death and Cartography (Michael Ondaatje)
“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden as if in caves. I wish for all of this to be marked on my body whenContinue reading “RKS Literature: Death and Cartography (Michael Ondaatje)”
RKS Literature: Unbalanced by War (Michael Ondaatje)
“Caravaggio sits there in silence, thoughts lost among the floating notes. War has unbalanced him and he can return to no other world as he is, wearing these false limbs that morphine promises. He is a man of middle age who has never become accustomed to families. All his life he has avoided permanent intimacy.Continue reading “RKS Literature: Unbalanced by War (Michael Ondaatje)”
RKS Literature: Yugoslavia’s Tito: One Day a Hero of the USSR The Next Its Perfidious Enemy
“The class laughed just as unanimously when the geography teacher talked about Yugoslavia. Today Tito is a “sinister and perfidious enemy”; but it was only two weeks ago that we were shown the film: “In the Mountains of Yugoslavia”, in which Marshal Tito was awarded the Order of Victory as our best friend and faithfulContinue reading “RKS Literature: Yugoslavia’s Tito: One Day a Hero of the USSR The Next Its Perfidious Enemy”
RKS Literature: The Necessity of Slave Labour in the USSR and the Future of Socialism (Vladimir Rott)
“The abolition of private property killed people’ s desire to create, to take care of themselves, to seek paths to survival and progress. The most essential part of any country’s gross national product-the contribution of each individual’s enthusiasm-was lost. By sending hundreds of thousands of Soviet people to the labour camps, the state tried toContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Necessity of Slave Labour in the USSR and the Future of Socialism (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Soviet Gulag Sentence (Vladimir Rott)
“Of course this is a very important year 1948. In this year, in the middle of it, I’ll also become a free man. And here, there are two points, listen carefully. Those who are released after their terms inside the USSR can go home on the next train. But here, in the Far East, theContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Soviet Gulag Sentence (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: Treacherous at the Top with Stalin (Vladimir Rott)
“The men who surrounded Stalin quickly figured out the rules of the chief’s game and started playing up to him in every way they could, sniffing out suitable “enemies” in their own midst and helping destroy them. Under such arrangement, those who witnessed and participated in the “purges” at the top could not stay aliveContinue reading “RKS Literature: Treacherous at the Top with Stalin (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: The Bolsheviks Desperation to Maintain Power (Vladimir Rott)
“Once they had seized power in Russia, the Bolsheviks began to direct all of their energy and all of the country’s wealth toward a single goal: to stay in power, to keep power in their hands. Hence the instant rise of the Great Terror, the suppression and destruction of not only actual but even potential,Continue reading “RKS Literature: The Bolsheviks Desperation to Maintain Power (Vladimir Rott)”
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