Lady Iro Hunt pictured in the
1980s. (Photo credit: Giorgos Lanitis).
Greek-Cypriot heiress Iro
Myrianthousi who was the publisher of Lagos This Week.
She was the niece of the
Greek-Cypriot business brothers A.G. and C.P. Leventis who established a large
trading firm in Nigeria and several other West African countries. She trained
as a social worker in England before becoming the proprietor of the Lagos-based
magazine.
Photographed in the 1980s.
NB.
There was apparently a
"tug-of-love" between Sir David Hunt, the British High Commissioner
to Nigeria (1967-1969), and Lieutenant Colonel Emeka Ojukwu over Myrianthousi.
Many, including the author
Michael Gould, have speculated that much of Ojukwu's antipathy towards Britain
emanated from the love rivalry with Hunt which Ojukwu lost.
Michael Gould: " I feel
he was very distressed to hear of Iro’s marriage to David Hunt, and I think
much of his antipathy towards Britain during the war emanated from the fact
that he and Iro had had an intense relationship, and that his sentiment for
Britain was coloured by this union ... There is definite acrimony between Iro
Hunt and Ojukwu, because he always sends her Christmas cards, signed with his
love, and she gets very agitated on receiving them because, as she said, of the
way he behaved towards Hunt during the war. Ojukwu seems to have come to terms
with the past, but Lady Hunt is in an unforgiving mood, even intimating that
Ojukwu’s vitriol towards Hunt led to his health being undermined."
John Vorster, the Prime
Minister of Apartheid-era South Africa (left) and Yitzhak Rabin, the ex-Chief
of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces who was Israel's Prime Minister.
John Vorster’s four-day state
visit to Israel in April 1976 was the first visit by a South African premier
for over 25 years. South Africa had been one of the first countries to
recognise the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Among the places Vorster
visited was Vad Yashem, the Holocaust Museum. He also visited the town of Bethlehem.
At Vad Yashem, Vorster had said "I cannot understand how that tragedy
happened. I feel what you have built here is Israel is the answer to that
holocaust."
This was ironic because
Vorster had been a Nazi sympathiser who was a member of the neo-Nazi Ossewabrandwag
which empathised with Adolf Hitler. Vorster was also a commander of the group's
militia who were known as Stormjaers (Stormtroopers). According to the
book Apartheid: A History by Brian Lapping, the Stormjaers “adopted
the Swastika badge, gave the Hitler salute, threatened death to the Jews and
provoked fights with army volunteers.”
Vorster was detained by the
British for being a security risk during World War 2.
At a state dinner, Rabin
toasted "The ideals shared by Israel and South Africa, the hopes for
justice and peaceful co-existence."
The visit elicited
speculation that both countries would strike a deal related to the supply of
arms and weaponry by Israel to South Africa. These included the Kfir or Lion
Cub jet fighters and possibly anti-insurgency weapons.
By the late 1970s, it was
understood that both nations had been engaging in a secret collaboration on
nuclear weapons. In 1979, the Apartheid regime tested a nuclear weapon in the
South Atlantic using a delivery system which they had developed with the Israelis.
The South Africans also supplied Israel with uranium for its nuclear
establishments.
NB.
. General Moshe Dayan made a
secret visit to Pretoria in 1974 to enquire as to the possibility of Israel conducting
an atomic test on South African territory.
. Shimon Peres had made at
least one secret visit to Pretoria over the question of nuclear cooperation.
One accounted visit occurred in early 1976.
. Apartheid South Africa
initially resisted formally entering diplomatic relations with Israel because
of Israel's connections with many African states during the early years of
decolonisation. However, after the United Nations General Assembly vote in 1974
which declared Zionism to be a form of racism, South Africa, in an act of
solidarity, sent an ambassador to Israel in November 1975.
. Israel abstained from UN
votes which condemned South African Apartheid.
Quotes:
. “there is a certain
sympathy for the situation of [white] South Africa among Israelis. They are
also European settlers standing against a hostile world.”
- Seymour Hersh in his book The Samson Option.
. "Israel and South
Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a
predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples."
- Official Yearbook of the
Republic of South Africa, 1978.
. "(The blacks in South
Africa) want to gain control over the white minority just like the Arabs here
want to gain control over us … And we, like the white minority in South Africa,
must act to prevent them from taking over.”
- General Rafael Eitan, Chief
of the Israeli Defence Force (1978-1983).
. “The people of South Africa
will never forget the support of the state of Israel to the apartheid regime.”
- Nelson Mandela, shortly
after his release from prison in 1990.
Franz Beckenbauer, one of
football's greatest ever, has passed.
His career coincided with the
golden era of German football during which he won every honour coveted by
footballers: the FIFA World Cup (both as player and manager), the European
Nations Cup and the European Champions Cup.
He was also one of a number
of European and South American greats who tried to turn football into a major
part of American sporting culture by joining Pele at the New York Cosmos.
Beckenbauer was significant
not only as part of the generation of West German players who built upon the
post-war World Cup triumph at Berne in 1954, he also played a part in
developing the possibilities associated with the role of a ‘libero’, a position
excelled at by a select few including Armando Picchi, Gaetano Scirea and Franco
Baresi.
If Paul Breitner and Gunther
Netzer represented the rebellious face of German football, then Beckenbauer was
their ideological opposite. Where Breitner was a self-professing Maoist,
Beckenbauer was for the bourgeoisie. He was explicitly a supporter of the
politically conservative Christian Social Union of Bavaria which ruled the
state of Bavaria for decades just as Beckenbauer, "Der Kaiser", ruled
the roost as captain of both the national team and Bayern Munich.
It was a testament to
Beckenbauer's power and influence that Bayern Munich accepted his
recommendation that Udo Lattek take up the reins as manager of Bayern. Lattek
then led Bayern to three consecutive Bundesliga titles, one German Cup and the
first of three consecutive European Cup titles.
Beckenbauer had an elegant,
imperious style of playing. He had industry and was resourceful. Above all he
was a tremendous leader of men.
He had many career highlights
but the one which sticks with me most is of the one-armed Beckenbauer, hand in
a sling, doggedly playing to the last minute in the losing effort in the FIFA
World Cup semi-final in Mexico when West Germany lost 3-4 to Italy in a game
which was dubbed the "Match of the Century".
