A Time to Die Quotes

“It's a well-known fact that the only way communism can be made to work is if you have capitalists to pay the bill and manage the show”
― Wilbur Smith, A Time to Die

“Before we commence this guided tour of Mozambiquan paradise of the proletariat, this shining gem of African socialism, will you bear with me while I give you a few facts and figures. Nobody protested, so he went on. Until 1975 Mozambique was a Portuguese colony. For almost five hundred years it had been under Portuguese control and had been a reasonably happy and prosperous community of some fifteen million souls. The Portugese unlike the British or German colonists had a relaxed attitude towards miscegenation and the result was a large mulatto population, and an official policy of 'Assimilado' under which any person of colour , if he attained certain civilised standards, was considered to be white and enjoyed Portugese nationality. It all worked very well, as indeed did most colonial administrations, especially those of the British.' 'Bullshit,' said Claudia demurely. 'That's limey propaganda. 'Limey?" Sean smiled thinly. 'Carefull, your prejudice is showing, nonetheless your average Indian or African living today in a former British colony is a damned sight worse off now than he was then. Certainly that goes one hundred times more for your average black man living in Mozambique.' 'At least they are free,' Claudia cut in, and Sean laughed. 'This is freedom? an economy managed under the well-known socialist principles of chaos and ruination which has resulted in a negative growth rate of up to ten per cent per annum every year since the Portuguese withdrawal, a foreign debt amounting to double the gross national product, a total breakdown in the education system, and only five per cent of children regularly attending a recognised school, one doctor per forty five thousand persons, only one person in ten with access to purified drinking water, infant mortality at 340 per 1000 births. The only worse countries in the world are Afghanistan and Angola, but as you say, at least they are free. In America, where everyone eats three huge meals a day, freedom may be a big deal, but in Africa a full belly counts a hell of alot more'. 'It can't be as bad as that,' she protested. 'No,' he agreed. It's a lot worse. I haven't mentioned two other factors, the civil war and aids. When the Portugese were pushed out, they handed over to a dictator named Samaro Machel and his Frelimo party. Machel was an avowed Marxist. He didn't believe in the nonsense of elections, and his rule was directly responsible for the present condition of the country, and for the emergence of the National Mozambiquan resistance or as it is known to its freinds and admirers, Renamo. Nobody knows much about it, what its objectives are, who its leaders are, all we know it that it controls most of the country, especially the north, and that it made up of a pretty ruthless bunch of characters.' 'Renamo is a South African front organisation, directed, supplied and controlled from Pretoria,' Claudia helped him out. 'Committed to the overthrow of sovereign government and the destabilisation of the southern continent.' 'Well done, ducky, ' Sean nodded approval. 'You've been studying the wisdom and erudition of the Organisation of African Unity and the non-aligned nations. You have even mastered their jargon. If only South Africa had the military and technological capacity to commit half the skulduggery it is accused of, it would not be simply the most powerful country in Africa.”
― Wilbur Smith, A Time to Die

“You understand? ' he asked. 'You understand nothing. You are an arrogant ignoramus from a different hemisphere. You are a citizen of the land of the quick fix, and you come and try your simplistic, naive solutions here in Africa. You try to save a single animal from his destiny, and you end up by killing a female and sending her three cubs to lingering death and condemning one of the finest men you'll ever meet to a cripple.' 'What more can I say? she asked. I was wrong.' 'At this late hour, your newfound humility is most touching.' His low voice lashed at her. 'Sure, you were wrong. Just as you and your people are wrong to try to starve an African nation of thirty million souls into acceptance of another one of your naive solutions, when the damage you have inflicted is beyond repair, will you again say "I'm sorry, I was wrong", and walk away and leave my land and my people to bleed and suffer?”
― Wilbur Smith, A Time to Die

“That is the Mozambique border over there, just beyond the second kopje, only seven or eight miles from here.' 'Mozambique, ' Claudia murmured, peering through her binoculars. 'The name has such a romantic ring to it.' 'Not so romantic. It's just another triumph of African socialism abd the carefully thought-out economic policy of chaos and ruination; Sean grunted. 'I cant take racism before breakfast; Claudia told him icily. 'All right; Sean grinned. 'Suffice it to say that just across the border there you have twelve years of Marxism, corruption, greed and incompetence, just beginning to bear fruit. You have a civil war raging out of control, famine that will probably starve a million people, and epidemic disease, including Aids, that will kill another million in the next five years.”
― Wilbur Smith, A Time to Die

“spills, and the steel girders of the roof arched high overhead”
― Wilbur Smith, A Time to Die: The Courtney Series 7