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My Friend The Mercenary (2010)

by James Brabazon(Favorite Author)

4.05 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1847674399 (ISBN13: 9781847674395)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Canongate Books Ltd

review 1: I am 99% finished with James Brabazon's memoir My Friend the Mercenary. It's the true story of Nick du Toit, a South African mercenary famous for a botched coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. The two men became friends when du Toit was Brabazon's bodyguard while filming a revolution in Liberia. Two thoughts:1) Brabazon befriended du Toit despite the later's heavy involvement in enforcing South African apartheid. This enforcement consisted of a lot of assassinations and bombings, conducted by du Toit personally. There's a fair body of research that suggests men fight not for patriotism but for their fellow soldiers. Brabazon's memoir supports this conclusion - he's friends with du Toit because of the joint struggle they had in Liberia.2) The Equatorial Guinea coup was poorly... more-planned and haphazardly conducted, resulting in its failure. Brabazon is befuddled as to how a professional like du Toit could have dropped the ball so badly. Here I can say I've seen (and been guilty of) this before. Basically, competent people with a history of making things happen decide that, based on their track record / skill set, they can gut their way through a project. Sometimes, this works. Sometimes it fails, and when it does it's usually disastrous. Consider it "Gerrib's law of competency."
review 2: The first two thirds of the book are a journalistic expose on what was, at the time, a virtually unknown civil war happening in Liberia between the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the infamous Charles Taylor, while the last third of the book is dedicated to a Le Carre-esque investigation into the titular Mercenary's real-life failed coup attempt and the parties involved.What is most shocking and striking about the first segment of the book is that the events described are real, and the circumstances depicted accurate. It is always fascinating to catch a glimpse of a reality utterly divorced from my own, and Brabazon is intelligent and nuanced enough to offer no easy solutions and portray the problem of complete poverty and violence in its full complexity and horror. The rebels are portrayed humanly, yet their actions are monstrous. In analyzing the conditions of this and other similar African conflicts, every moral line starts to fade, and i was left doubting the foundations of ethics in general.One thing that amused me however was Brabazon's halfhearted attempts at appearing morally affected, grasping feebly for his Anglican background as the bloodshed erodes his sense of right and wrong. He pretends to question his motives and beliefs reporting this civil war, but in reality he is clearly exhilarated, plainly amoral, and more than a little bit of an adrenaline fueled thrill junky. And that is totally ok, in my book at least. I don't expect totally balanced people to wander into jungles with Afrikaans war criminals and film genocides. His is perhaps the nature needed to learn about these atrocities, and if that's the tool for the job, than so be it.The second part of the book does a 180 and becomes a international conspiracy thriller that left me politically engaged but bored otherwise. It is a very uneven and sudden change of pace, that while interesting in its particulars, and another excellent insight into African politics or lack thereof, was again dull and half-baked as an espionage story. All in all, i would have probably rated this book lower were it not for the fascinatingly extreme realities it recounts... less

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