Customer Reviews

Mandela, Mobutu, and Me: A Newswoman's African Journey

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4 star:		(4)
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Lynne Duke has written an engaging account of her first-hand observations in Africa during the years she served there as a Washington Post foreign correspondent. Her discussion of the evolution of South Africa and the personalities of Nelson and Winnie Mandela are probably the most fascinating parts of the book, and her work is also deeply touching and informative when it describes the impact of revolutions and war in central Africa (the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda). The book is detailed enough to suit the African scholar, but also accessible and personal enough to engage and inform non-scholastic readers. While detailed and well-documented, it goes beyond dry facts to bring home the rich African culture and the dramatic, sometimes shocking and heartbreaking realities of life on a war-torn continent.

Do not be fooled by Mike Dowling's assessment of the book. Had he bothered to look beyond the title before purchasing, he might have realized that "Mandela, Mobutu and Me" was not a history book.

This book allows you to view Africa within the specific frame of reference of a distinguished WashPost journalist, at the top of her game. Readers visit the front lines with Duke, laugh, cry and pontificate as the author describes her struggle to reconcile the many conflicting realities of South Africa, as well as the continent. She weaves her own personal reactions together with informational cues, to give even less informed readers a well rounded, balanced sub-text of the Africa we see daily in the news and within pop-culture, but know so little about. Avid readers will fly through it, but it also reads easily for those who take their time.

I know Ms Duke personally and can safely say that she put a lot of care into crafting what has resulted in a highly entertaining, enlightening memoire from her experiences abroad. Her understanding of race-relations and Afro-politics are unparalleled. Duke is certainly a power player at the Washington Post - for those interested, she currently writes for WP Style.

This book is a must-read!

Mandela, Mobutu, And Me is a phenomenal book. Lynne Dukes is an excellent journalist. I regret that I missed her at the Harlem Book Fair this past July because I would have personally told her how much this book has meant to me. The book made me laugh and cry and helped me catch up on some important history on Africa. I find myself referring back to the book quite frequently especially when I hear a report on any of the countries discussed in the book including South Africa, Congo-Zaire, Angola and Rwanda. This book offers an incredible wealth of knowledge and a fresh prospective on these countries as well as important events that have occurred in recent times. It also discusses Africa leaders whom we all should have some knowledge of and America's "only when we can profit" policy toward Africa. I was especially impressed with Dukes candid thoughts on Africa as African-American woman. I thought there were very few African-American women like myself who still have a love and connection to Africa in spite of all the negative reports we hear about Africa. This book has allowed me travel to a place that I have yet to visit but is so much a part of who I am today. Thank you Mrs. Dukes for making this journey possible.

For the readers who were disappointed by Duke's personal journey commentary, try reading A Continent for the Taking by Howard French. The two books have some overlap, but French, a writer for the New York Times, takes more of an analytical approach. His style is a bit more dense and less breezy than Duke's but engaging nonetheless. As for Duke's book, I, too, was initially put off by her personal commentary but as I moved through the entire book, I began to appreciate it as a memoir of her experience of a time in a radically different place than what most of her readers will probably ever know.

Mandela, Mobutu, And Me is a phenomenal book. Lynne Dukes is an excellent journalist. I regret that I missed her at the Harlem Book Fair this past July because I would have personally told her how much this book has meant to me. The book made me laugh and cry and helped me catch up on some important history on Africa. I find myself referring back to the book quite frequently especially when I hear a report on any of the countries discussed in the book including South Africa, Congo-Zaire, Angola and Rwanda. This book offers an incredible wealth of knowledge and a fresh prospective on these countries as well as important events that have occurred in recent times. It also discusses Africa leaders whom we all should have some knowledge of and America's "only when we can profit" policy toward Africa. I was especially impressed with Dukes candid thoughts on Africa as African-American woman. I thought there were very few African-American women like myself who still have a love and connection to Africa in spite of all the negative reports we hear about Africa. This book has allowed me travel to a place that I have yet to visit but is so much a part of who I am today. Thank you Mrs. Dukes for making this journey possible.

MANDELA, MOBUTU AND ME by Lynne Duke is a fascinating book about what is really happening in Africa. She covers the end of apartheid in South Africa and the election of Mandela as President after he was released from prison in 1990. She also covers the hearings of Winnie Mandela at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was designed by Desmond Tutu to heal the wounds left by apartheid. Winnie Mandela had been accused of getting young men in her Mandela United Football Club to torture and kill other young men who disagreed with her. Even in the face of many witnesses who had seen what happened and the parents of tortured and missing youths, Ms. Mandela maintained her innocence. Desmond Tutu begged her to apologize, and, begrudgingly, she finally did. It also became apparent that even though the white ruling population participated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they were not convinced that blacks were able to run the country. Many of the former rulers also believed that they were justified for the horrors they imposed upon the black population.

Ms. Duke covers Rwanda and the horrors of the genocide that was committed by the Hutus against the Tutsis, giving the history behind the enmity of the two tribes caused by colonizers from Europe. Her vivid descriptions of the mass graves and other horrific scenes of death and dying, as well as the interviews with refugees, made the war exceptionally real and not just something to read about in a newspaper. Then there was the war in Zaire, now named the Democratic Republic of Congo. This country was the center of what she called "the world war of Africa" because so many African nations were involved. Even though the war has ceased, the disturbances continue, causing hardships on the populace.

It was a well written book that flowed smoothly and rather than just giving dry history and current events, Ms. Duke also delved into the lives of the people who were living the horrors of apartheid, war and genocide in Africa. She had several interviews with many of the common people of the areas she was visiting. She did not let the United States and Europe off the hook for not intervening in the situation when they had no problem intervening in the same kind of European disasters. She quoted from a speech by former President Clinton, who claimed not to know of the genocide, but she showed that the genocide was common knowledge. At least 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda. It was also refreshing to hear her commentary on how Africans view African Americans. She gave the good and the bad of both sides of that issue and gave a wonderful explanation of why she prefers to be called "African American." I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned a great deal about Africa - things that I had always wondered about but had only the US press to rely on for information rather than a first hand account.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

I've just finished reading MANDELA, MOBUTU, AND ME by a delightful person,
Lynne Duke. While the major portion of the book is on
South Africa, and there are bits and pieces on Angola, Namibia, Zambia,
Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, the second most important focus, with parts or all
of seven chapters, is Congo. Those are chapters 1,5,8,9,10,14,and 15. Duke
was a journalist for the WASHINGTON POST, and this is the usual sort of book
these journalists have written, with experiences in Africa mixed with
personal reflections and analyses of what they have seen. Her contacts in
Congo (RDC) seem to be mostly in the period 1996-98. She is an Africa
American woman with a wonderful attitude, lots of smarts, and a big heart.
And the book is easy reading.

I think Duke does a good job of describing the difference between South Africa under Mandela and Zaire under Mobutu. As she says, they are complete contrasts. Mandela was a consensus builder who tried to navigate the huge ethnic differences within his country. Mobutu just robbed his country and included his political enemies in the corruption. Along the way, the reader gets stories of Angola, Zimbawee, and Mozambique. Africa faces some huge challenges such as housing, medical care (including taking care of AIDs paitents), and jobs. South Africa is showing the way by making incremental changes in this direction. Zaire under the late Mobutu chose the other course of sucking the resources out of the country for the enrichment of its leaders. Hopefully, countries in Africa will chose the South African route.

This is a nice read on an American journalists experience in Africa. More readers need to know of the daunting tasks facing the African people. It is through Duke's book and others that readers can understand Africa's challenges.

Lynne Duke's tale is en expert view of my country's recent history and with deep thoughts and soft suffering, I read this entire masterpiece like drinking healing water.

I am Rwandan. Survivor of the 94 genocide. Having worked for the UN for years since I was 21, known so many actors in the military, humanitarian, press, spies, killers, survivors, refugees, culprits, a few good men, nationally and internationally, I see clearer when I realize that Lynne can put in words our ordeal and severe suffering which we can indecently call the ordinary life in the Great Lates.

Amazing is the magic Lynne Duke provides when she makes you laugh while revisiting the sadest part of a human life inside the Rwanda refugee tale given in this book.

Thanks to Lynne to help us, Rwandans, Africans, Blacks, understand that the world is not really a mere living hell. At the end of this book: You just love this woman-and-a-half, Lynne - The Knife - Duke.

What a horrible book! It took a Google search to prove that Ms. Duke actually wrote for the Washington Post. If you read this book, you might have the same doubts . . . but the Post did accept her byline. I hoped to read about recent trends in Africa. The title suggested I would get insight into Nelson Mandela, who overlooked 27 years in prison to rebuild South Africa, and Mobutu Sese Seko (Kuku wa za Banga), a ruthless despot whose plutocracy bled the resource rich nation of Congo dry. Instead it was a self-serving, egocentric view of an African-American woman as she tried to fit the paradigm of Africa politics into her own narrow prejudices. I hoped to learn more about the history of post-colonial Africa, but this book was a waste of time.