Word: farber
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...report "Gulf and Angola", published in the Harvard University Gazette of October 6th, I was very pleased to read than Mr. Stephen Farber believes that Harvard's "Primary Strength and influence" in African affairs might "lie in its capacity for teaching and research." Neverthless, as an anthropologist with some knowledge of European and American research on Africa. I found a number of points in Mr. Father's report which raise questions about his own summer researchers and the cogency of his entire point of view...
First, I was very perplexed that Mr. Farber's "hard factual analysis" told an nothing, beyond the mere length of his stay in three African countries and his use of a tape recorder, about the specific nature of his research. For example, a whole series of methodological question remain vague in at least my own reading of his report...
...Does Mr. Farber speak Portuguese or did he use English to communicate with his "Informants"? How much time did Mr. Farber spend speaking with Gulf and Portuguese authorities relative to that of what he terms "Gulf's critics"? who gave Mr. Farber his information on the security situation at Cabinda and the strategic military strength of Portuguese vs. black liberation forces? What are the sources and reliability of all the statistical data on Portuguese and Gulf expenditure in Mr. Farber report? where and from whom did Mr. Farber get his statements on the so-called "official position of the insurgent...
This last question raises a second issue about the language and implicit biases of Mr. Farber's report. Throughout his "Factual analysis, "Mr. Farber talks of the liberation forces as "Insurgents." This is all well and good, but the frequency of Mr. Farber's allusions to "Insurgency" snacks of the "think tank Jargon" which characterized the statements of American social scientists and policy makers charged with legitimizing the war in Indochina. For example, he uses much phrases as the "black insurgent threat," "anti Portuguese Insurgents," "Insurgent triumphs," "Insurgent dam busters," "Crush the insurgents...
...SEEMS THAT the PALC organizers were wrong about Harvard. Commitment to principle by a University is dismissed in the Farber report as useless symbolic action; students are intimidated by Farber's description of a world in which Gulf or some other foreign oil company will always be at Cabinda and, if the "low-level stalemate" persists, white Portugal will always rule black Angola...