The Ukraine Crisis: The Case for Russia

The narrative given by most mainstream Western media outlets in relation to the current crisis gripping the nation of Ukraine runs something as follows: A former Eastern Bloc country and subject nation of the old Russian Empire with yearnings for economic growth and democratic freedoms of the sort practiced by Western European nations experiences a sudden and popular revolutionary ferment and by means of a constitutional coup unseats a ravenously corrupt president backed by Russia which then mobilizes its armed forces to intimidate the military of its smaller neighbour which it ultimately threatens with invasion and occupation.

The subtext behind this appraisal posits the Russian Federation as headed by a former KGB ‘thug’ named Vladimir Putin; a man not so much as imbued with dictatorial tendencies (since that would pre-suppose that he had at least some redeeming democratic tendencies), but one who is comfortably and unabashedly authoritarian in nature; who sits atop a kleptocracy, where the operation of the rule of law is but a figment of the imagination of Russia’s present written constitution.

The threats supposedly posed to Ukraine by an aggressive Russian state is to many Western –and Eastern- European eyes redolent of the tactics utilised by the Soviet Union which was willing to trample under foot any dissenting nation wishing to jettison itself out of the orbit of its larger, more powerful neighbour. It was Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the Soviet-era and it is Georgia and Ukraine in the post-Communist era.

The big, bold, bad bear of the east it would seem carries the same mark of the communist beast. It may have changed the colour of its fur but underneath it all it remains the same; something his critics are often quick to remind was confirmed by Putin himself when quoting him in 2005 as having said that the fall of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the century”.

That unflattering condensed portrait may be considered to be a faithful rendition of the orthodox view of Russia today.

But is it the whole truth? The Western eye has for long gazed eastward simultaneously perplexed and horrified by the foreign policy inclinations of the Russian state. In 1939, Winston Churchill characterised it as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

Yet, whether Churchill’s words were referring solely to the thinking behind the communist regime alone or, on the other hand, to an overarching, historically continuously unpredictable system of thought patterns held by successive Russian leaders, they spoke more from an instinctive standpoint rather than any form of enlightened and empirical examination.

To understand the present crisis in Ukraine just as should be the case in understanding any crisis of this sort, one must place it within its proper context: the historical, geo-political and economic forces which have collided to create the situation.

Thus, it is important to understand at least a distilled history of what makes Russia different from the West even after the fall of communism and the importance to Russia of Ukraine with which it shares a common border as well as a common heritage.

It is also of crucial importance to understand the long-term foreign policy objectives which the United States, at the helm of a military empire named NATO, is pursuing in relation to Russia, and, as far as can be discerned, the role of the United States and the European Union in colluding to precipitate the crisis that has ensued.

The meaning of Ukraine, literally ‘the land on the edge’, while suggestive of a patronising attitude and hegemonic policy is also informative of the Russian psyche of insecurity. Understanding Russian sensitivities about its security and the historical difficulties it has found in protecting itself against external aggression through its vast and open borderlands is of the utmost importance.

This also gives an idea about why the style of Russian governance has tended towards autocracy. Despite a post-communist constitution providing for a clear separation of the powers of state and guarantees of personal freedoms, Russia, while no longer subject to the totalitarianism of the Soviet era, is clearly far from operating along the lines of a liberal democracy.

But the claims by Ukrainian separatists that they are somewhat naturally inclined to practice Western notions of a representative democracy while the Russians are inherently receptive only of governance bearing the trappings of autocracy is a slanted and ethnicized perspective that is wide of the mark.

It is true that the civilization of Kievan Rus bore vestiges of consultative government which in the course of time could have metamorphosed into a fully-fledged democratic tradition, but it was a loose confederation of princely states including that of Novgorod – a state readily identified even by non-Russians with modern Russia- and cannot be claimed solely as the inheritance of modern day Ukrainians as it is also the inheritance of the Russian people.

An appreciation that Kievan Rus, part of which was situated in modern Ukraine, is the cradle of Russian civilization is thus critical in understanding the strong attitude held by Russians towards Ukraine.

The reason why Russia has a leader such as Vladimir Putin can also be explained by an examination of the past.

There have been several key moments in Russia’s history when it could have turned away from autocracy and leant towards notions of the law governed state of the sort which aspects of the governance of Kievan Rus promised.

But the Mongol invasion and crucial events such as the ‘Years of Trouble’ which followed the death of Ivan The Terrible, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the chaos during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin all played out in such a way that the need for ‘strong’governance came up trumps.

It is the fear of descending into chaos which has prompted acquiescence to ‘strong government’, in Russian parlance expressed as Zhelesyana Ruka (Silnaya Ruka) which roughly translates as ‘rule by the iron fist’.

Such mentality is at the heart of the formation of Russia given that the chronicles state that the feuding eastern Slavic tribes invited Rurik, a Viking king to rule over them so that order and not chaos be allowed to prevail.

It has even been argued that the legacy bequeathed to Russia by Mongol invasion and governance; that of autocratic rulership, is somewhat analogous to the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

If an increasing number of Russians are privately tired of Putin being at the helm of the affairs of state, most are still thankful for the decisive role that he played in bringing order to the chaotic state of affairs which resulted during the post-Soviet era when Boris Yeltsin occupied the presidency.

It was during Yeltsin’s time in office that assets of the Soviet state were sold off at knockdown prices and acquired by those who became known as the ‘Oligarchs’.These men perpetuated their wealth through fraud, bribery and murder.

They enriched themselves while the vast majority of ordinary Russians, totally bereft of a protective state apparatus, desperately improvised the means of ensuring their survival. In the chaotic transformation from the controlling Soviet state to an unregulated free-for-all, cowboy state of laissez faire economics, many literally starved to death.

It was Vladimir Putin, the anointed successor of Yeltsin, who put a stop to this state of affairs. The rape of Russia’s economy and the plundering of its assets, a great deal of which were secreted outside the country was brought to an end. The economy was stabilised.

Putin then took on the Oligarchs. His message was blunt, “You can keep your ill-gotten wealth, but do not interfere with the political direction of the country.” Those who did not heed this warning like Vladimir Guzinsky and Boris Brerezovsky were forced to flee the country, while others such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky at one time reputed to be the richest man in Russia and the head of the Yukos Energy Corporation was stripped of his wealth and Yukos nationalised.

While the West viewed his actions against Khodorkovsky as having been in contravention of the norms of due legal procedure, many Russians applauded Putin’s actions as those of a patriot who was standing up for Russia’s interests.

With Khodorkovsky at the helm of a body controlling a vast amount of Russia’s natural resources parts of which potentially, perhaps even inevitably would be sold to Western commercial interests, Putin was not going to countenance the control of these resources effectively falling into the hands of foreign interests.

The need to protect Russia from external efforts geared towards its destabilisation and potential domination by the West is based on fears which are not ill-founded.

There is evidence that the thrust of American policy towards Russia is based on a desire on the part of the United States to effect the destabilisation of the Russian Federation as a continuum of objectives conceived at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union.

A plan formulated by the influential political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski involved a strategy aimed at containing and then destroying the military capability of what remained of the Soviet Union. The idea would be that Russia would be reduced to a peripheral status which would be used to service the energy needs of the West.

There had been an agreement between James Baker, the US secretary of state of the day and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader that in return for allowing East Germany to re-unite with West Germany, NATO would not extend its reach into Eastern Europe. This agreement was of course not adhered to.

Russia has seen NATO and the European Union expand their spheres of influence by co-opting most of the Eastern European states which were members of the Warsaw Pact and is naturally wary of having NATO bases right on its perimeter.

That the conflict between Georgia and Russia was set up by the West to test the resolve of Russia is now beyond any doubt. Mikheil Saakashvili, the irascible Georgian leader prompted an incident which led to a short, sharp and brutal beat down by the Russian military.

The incursion into Georgia and the threatened incursion into Ukraine, while seeming to be aggressive manoeuvres by Russia are arguably defensive measures. The fears that the Bolshevik regime had about Western capitalist encirclement is replicated contemporarily by the actions of the United States which Russia views as aggressively pursuing a similar policy.

America’s deployment of nuclear defensive shields in locations such as Poland, Bulgaria and Turkey which the United States reassures Russia is aimed at defending against Iran’s non-existent nuclear capability, as well as from rogue missiles launched from North Korea, must be taken into account when judging Russia’s actions. Such assurances are clearly disingenuous as the reality of their being deployed against Russia would be apparent to any neutral bystander.

Indeed, putting American sincerity to the test, the Russians offered to share the burden of placing radar technology in Azerbaijan on the Russian border with Iran, but this offer was met by a resounding silence from Washington.

The implications of such a policy are clear: That the United States seeks to create an advantage in the ultimate scenario; namely that in a war with Russia, it will have the capability of mounting a first strike at a nuclear armed rival with the assurance that it will be protected from retaliatory strikes.

It is arguably a dangerous policy which on examination presents the United States in the mould of the aggressor rather than a party on the defensive. The danger here is that as the United States nears a the situation where Russia becomes locked in by the Ballistic Defence Shield programme, the Russians will be tempted to use a pre-emptive strike option if and when it is drawn into a grave crisis with the United States.

Lacking a significant access to sea routes on all points of the compass, the crisis in Ukraine affects Russia’s vital interests to the extent that any threat that it could be severed from the only route that it has to the Mediterranean ocean is one which cannot be countenanced.

Russia believes that it is being targeted because it is the only country other than China which is capable of defying the United States and which in fact has frustrated American goals on a number of occasions.

Russia stood by while the United States and NATO waged an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and looked on wearily as it invaded a country near its borders: Afghanistan.

The Russians were clearly duped by the United States into supporting the United Nations resolution which led to NATO’s war in Libya, ostensibly conducted to protect innocent civilians from being slaughtered but in actuality a pre-designed plan geared to effect the overthrow of Colonel Muamer Gaddafi.

Putin’s sleight of hand in diffusing imminent American military action against the forces of the government of President Bashar Assad in Syria was an excellent demonstration of statecraft which frustrated the objective of giving advantage on the field of battle to the so-called Free Syrian Army action and other avowed Islamist insurgents and not the publically stated aim of protecting innocent civilians or of punishing the regime for unleashing chemical weapons, which were blamed on the Assad government, but of which no tangible evidence of the Syrian government’s culpability has been presented.

The Russians were not going to be fooled again.

As with the case of Georgia, there is ample evidence available which makes it clear that the crisis in the Ukraine was a manufactured event bearing the hallmarks of manipulation by the United States.

What effectively can be considered to have been a coup d’état against an elected leader was executed against President Viktor Yanukovych between February the 21^stand the 23^rd.

It was a culmination of a prolonged period of agitation referred to as the ‘Euro Maiden’protests which despite the impressions given by the Western media was not a widely supported movement and in fact was spearheaded by a hardcore of far Right radicals including members of a neo-Nazi militia named Pravy Sektor (‘Right Sector’) who with the connivance of the main opposition parties were tasked with protecting a rent-a-crowd brigade drawn from the ranks of Ukraine’s unemployed who were bussed in from areas around the country.

When events took a more violent turn, Pravy Sektor members armed with guns, laser weapons and Molotov cocktails were at the heart of it. This was a deliberate escalation designed to portray disorder and a sense that things were out of control to discredit the Yanukovych government.

Most Ukrainians, whatever their ethnicity and apathetic about the state of affairs of their country, simply were not a part of the protests.

Yanukovych, whose election was considered legitimate according to independent election monitors, was removed by means which did not follow the procedure for presidential impeachment as laid down in the Ukrainian constitution.

It was a coup which was apparently encouraged by the United States government; evidence of which surfaced through the dissemination of intercepted wiretaps of an early February conversation between Victoria Nuland and the United States ambassador to Ukraine.

The footage catches Nuland in her inelegant brand of English decrying the caution of the European Union in their attitude to the Ukrainian issue. It is apparent that she felt that that institution was not being forceful enough in persuading the Yanukovych government to bow to Western pressure to move away from Russian influence.

But Nuland was not only raging about the EU’s lack of aggression. She can be heard to be actually handpicking the people who would become members of the so-called ‘interim government’ installed after the overthrow of the Yanokovych government.

The sight of United States government figures such as Nuland and Senator John McCain meeting with opposition figures and giving succour and encouragement to anti-government protesters bear witness to its blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation.

McCain himself is a representative of the International Republican Institute, a body created under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy during William Colby’s tenure as head of the Central Intelligence Agency which has a remit to do what the CIA did, namely that of instigating regime change, only through private means.

The IRI may be one source through which the funding of foreign groups opposed to governments not to the liking of the United States can be channelled. And if not providing funding, since there are Ukrainian opposition figures with huge amounts of wealth available to perform such task, it can provide the necessary directions in terms of strategy.

The United States certainly has a history of financing destabilisation in Ukraine. NGOs such as Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy utilized funds emanating from the government and channelled them around the country in order to foment what came to be known as the ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2004.

Another disclosure adding great weight to the belief that the series of events leading to the removal of Yanukovych were planned and executed by covert actions is that of the intercepted telephone conversation between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister who had recently been in Kiev, and Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign minister.

In it, Paet informs Ashton that the sniper killings in the square which had been the focus of the protests had been carried out by “someone in the new coalition”. The snipers were shooting at both police and protesters. This is the classic modus operandi of a secret third force mounting a ‘false flag’ operation and seeking to discredit an opponent by laying the blame on them.

Keen on putting up appearances before the foreign news media, Yanukovych had actually restrained himself from taking a hard-line against the protesters by sending the police out to confront the protesters unarmed, a fact to which he alluded during this last press conference.

However, events eventually overwhelmed Yanukovych who lost his nerve and fled. He was presumably threatened and reached the conclusion that his safety could not be guaranteed if he continued in office.

The fear which presumably overcame Yanukovych becomes appreciable when considering the sort of people now ascended to the interim governance of Ukraine. And it is all the more disturbing that the United States and the European Union have failed to publically register their protests, or at a minimum, to express concerns about the appointment of those whose political stripes bear the unmistakable marks of the extreme political Right.

While Russia has placed a great deal of focus on the presence of xenophobic and anti-Semitic neo-Nazis among the appointees to the new government, the United States appears to be downplaying these concerns.

For instance, the new minister of defence belongs to Svobada, meaning ‘Freedom Party’, whose members are the spiritual disciples and worshippers of Stephan Bandera, the World War Two-era Ukrainian fascist leader who headed the Galician Division of the Waffen SS. The leader of Svoboda has in the past talked about liberating Ukraine from what he described as the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”

Yet, Victoria Nuland, herself Jewish, happily consents to pose with the leader of this party. And Senator McCain who shamelessly posed with members of the imported, mercenary death squads in Syria does the same with Svoboda Party members.

The present state of affairs has an element of the surreal about it. It all seems rather strange when, as reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israeli Army veterans instructed by Svoboda activists are leading street-fighting units in clashes with law enforcement bodies during the agitations which led to the overthrow of an elected government.

The members of Pravy Sektor and Spilna Sprava which Israeli news outlets have described as “Fascist” and “neo-Nazi” have met with the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine to give assurances that they are “no longer anti-Semitic”.

The United States, of course, has a history of dallying with extremist groups in order to combat those who stand in opposition to its objectives. It utilised neo-Fascist groups in Western Europe via its Gladio operations to neutralise the influence of the political Left during the Cold War-era and more recently, has given support to Islamist groups in the Lebanon, Libya and Syria in order to pursue overarching foreign policy objectives.

The presence of neo-Nazi elements who are also Russophobes naturally strikes a chord of concern among the ethnic Russian population. One of the first decisions of the newly installed government was to ban the use of Russian in parts of the country. Ethnic Russians are unlikely to have their confidence reposed in the minister for food and the anti-corruption minister who are Ukrainian ultra-nationalists.

The Russian decision to intervene in order to protect the ethnic Russian population, while difficult to justify under the strict tenets of international law, does have more than a veneer of justness about it given the illegal removal of a head of state and because of the genuine fears held by a section of the population.

The intervention in foreign nations under the ‘Right to Protect’ doctrine is admittedly a policy utilised by Adolf Hitler regarding ethnic German populations in the Sudetenland and Danzig. However, it was revived in recent times as a legitimate basis for the sanctioning of foreign intervention by the United States.

The coup against President Yanukovych was a concoction encouraged, and from the chronology of available evidence, engineered by the United States and the European Union. The deadline given by the EU to Yanukovych concerning the offer of a bailout was designed to precipitate the unrest that transpired.

It was not a popular wave of unrest which caught on to 45 million Ukrainians who are concerned about the levels of corruption across the political class of their nation. This has contributed to the economic malaise which may be set for an even worse turning due to Western efforts in removing an elected government and installing an unelected one.

Russia is unlikely to step in to bail out Ukraine given the recent course of events. The economic deal that Ukraine has with Russia is a largely fair one which takes Ukrainian interests into account including a subsidy in the cost of gas.

The International Monetary Fund on the other hand can only offer Ukrainians a dose of painful austerity measures: the removal of gas subsidies, a cut in pensions and a devaluation of the national currency.

The EU would also be unlikely to provide a panacea for Ukraine’s financial ills. With bailouts given to Greece and Portugal and with the economies of Italy, Spain and the Netherlands looking distinctly shaky, support from member nations of a substantial package to Ukraine would be lacking.

The United States, itself under strict self-imposed budgetary constraints, is unlikely to come to the rescue given the difficulty of justifying such aid in a situation that is largely of its making.

The wider, long-term solution to this geo-political quagmire surely lies in steering a course which sees Ukraine develop along the lines of Finland during the Cold War-era. The Fins supported Nazi Germany when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union which led to Finland acquiring Russian land.

The deal reached after the war’s end, and one which endured and from which both nations profited, was that in return for Soviet respect for Finnish sovereignty, they were to remain neutral: not to join NATO or the Common Market and to renounce claims on Russian territory which in effect led to an effective marginalising of Finnish ultra-nationalist groups.

In the same way, Ukraine should give up hopes of NATO and EU membership and marginalise those far Right and ultra-nationalist groups which are being given a say in the running of its government.

At the same time, the United States should cease its efforts geared towards destabilising Russia’s borderlands. The sanctioning of the coup in Ukraine in which ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazis are given significant access to power has nothing to do with the urge to spread freedom and democracy and everything to do with an overarching policy of diminishing Russian power and influence.

There also needs to be an open public debate in the United States regarding the spread of the ballistic defence shield program which would enlighten the American public about the offensive capacity that it poses to a potential Russian foe and hence, the inherently mistrustful atmosphere that pursuing this provocative policy will continue to breed.

There are a number of geo-political situations which conceivably could lead to a World War Three situation, and the United States long-term policy toward Russia is one of them.

(C) Adeyinka Makinde (2014)

Adeyinka Makinde is a London-based writer.

Friday, February 13th 1976: Remembering the Day General Murtala Muhammed was Assassinated

General Murtala Ramat Muhammad

The first inkling that I had of anything occurring that was out of the ordinary was when a teacher entered our classroom to whisper a cache of words into the ears the teacher who was writing on the blackboard.

It might have been a geography class and the person instructing class 5B that morning of Friday the 13^th at Command Children’s School, Ikeja may have been Miss Essien. She remained still as a look of concern came over her features.

The lesson resumed, but then another teacher entered to quietly exchange words in front of the class as we looked on in perplexity.

An announcement was soon made for all the pupils to gather in the assembly hall. We trudged there in orderly formation in our all-green uniforms which on this day would not be bearing the brunt of the wear and tear of children’s horseplay at our break times.

There would be no football today, no rolling around in the grass or jumping from the concrete edifices that seemed plentiful at our site, a second establishment of the formerly named Army Childrens’ School.

In the teeming assembly hall, the wall of sound quickly evaporated as our headmistress, the sternly and formidable Mrs. Kukoyi regretfully announced an astounding piece of news: school hours would not be going the full distance on this day.

We were we were grouped according to our standard transport arrangements. Those of whose parents served in the Nigerian Navy had a special school bus which every morning would make a journey from the Naval Dockyard in Apapa, stopping at a number of residential districts and military barracks before heading northwards onto our school which was situated within an army cantonment.

I remember it as something of a lengthy stay in the assembly hall before we embarked on our strange, almost surreal mid-day journey back to our homes. The roads were clear and the journey home exceptionally fast; this, a remarkable thing in the normally chaotic circumstances of Lagos city traffic. Something was definitely in the air. But what it was, I don’t recall being told either at school or in the bus.

No specific announcement had been made about the reason for this masterpiece of confusion. But at home it was finally mentioned to me that a military coup was underway and it was not certain who would emerge as the leader of the country.

The previous July, during the school holidays, a ‘bloodless’ coup had taken place. General Yakubu Gowon who had become the head of state back in 1966, had been overthrown while attending a Commonwealth nations summit in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.

The import of a second coup occurring after only six months was not lost on my young mind. Nigeria was the as it is now a volatile country and as a current affairs-following and history-obsessed youngster, I was well acquainted with the fact that two army mutinies in 1966 had led to a protracted, bloody civil war which began in 1967 and ended in1970.

The cantonment on which our school was situated, I would learn later, had been a staging post in the macabre events of the second mutiny of 1966. This was the counter-coup staged by officers and men from the Northern Region and led by Lt. Colonel Murtala Muhammad who had succeeded General Gowon in 1975.

The Ikeja cantonment was one of the sites where the Notherners had seized the keys to the armouries and exacted what they considered to have been justified retribution against Eastern Region-originated soldiers for the earlier mutiny which had claimed a disproportionate amount of political and military figures from their region. The victims, drawn mainly from the Igbo ethnic group, were subjected to various acts of torture and summary execution.

From my window view on the bus heading home that mid-day, all had seemed quiet. I did not notice any tanks or armoured carriers or columns of troops at any point from our departing the cantonment or on the roads and flyways which led home.

At some point, as the day drew on into night, the news flittered through that General Muhammad had been ambushed and assassinated by a group of military officers earlier that morning while on his way to work.

This was shocking, frightful news.  I remembered the morning just over a week earlier leaving home to wait for the school bus as my father sat in his naval uniform watching the loudly calibrated TV set while Muhammad delivered a national broadcast announcing his intention to create an additional seven new states to Nigeria’s twelve. My father had worked with Muhammad a few years earlier while posted to London as the Deputy Defence Adviser at the Nigerian High Commission.

Muhammad had been a genuinely popular Nigerian leader. His style reeked of simplicity. He dispensed with the extravagant ritual of travelling with motor cycle outriders and sirens blaring. The Mercedes Benz staff cars utilised by senior military officers were by edict replaced by the more modest Peugeot 504.

He projected a determined, no-nonsense approach to the affairs of the state. This was encapsulated in his inaugural address to the nation when he asserted that “this government will not tolerate indiscipline. This government will not condone abuse of office.”

He was bold in his policies such as the sacking of thousands of civil servants to promote efficient governance and the retrenchment of many soldiers of Nigeria’s heavily swollen and unsustainable post-civil war army.

“Gone are the days when we will ever bow to any so-called super power,” he defiantly intoned at an Organisation of African Unity conference held in Ethiopia in January of 1976.

Africa had come of age Muhammad had insisted, and his support of the Soviet-backed, Marxist MPLA party of Angola was hugely influential among the African nations, although it brought with it expressions of concern from the United States. Nigeria’s support for the frontline states which bordered Apartheid South Africa became more pronounced under his regime.

But as I grew older and learned more of him there were disturbing aspects to the man who I had grown to idolise. The second mutiny which he had led in July 1966 had witnessed the slaughter of a great many soldiers and civilians from the Eastern Region.

During the ensuing civil war, it is acknowledged that the massacre of civilians in Asaba, a part of the former Mid-Western Region which was populated by ethnic Igbos had been conducted by troops under his command.

There were claims that for all his later battles against Nigerian corruption, he had enriched himself by lootings which had occurred in the Civil War. Muhammad filed a libel action which was pending at the time of his death.

Yet, the reputation of Muhammad appears largely undimmed now as it was in the aftermath of his death. The international airport at Lagos, not far from my old school, is named in his honour. And the 20 Naira note of the Nigerian currency is adorned with his portrait.

I recall seven days of national mourning during which the regular pattern of TV programming was cancelled and mournful music was played on largely static TV broadcasts which bore his portrait and later pictures of the arrival of his body in his native Kano for burial according to Islamic rites.

I had been greatly excited by the visit of Pele, the legendary Brazilian footballer, to Nigeria. He had been due to play in a special match on Saturday, February 14^th between the nations two top teams, Enugu Rangers and the Shooting Stars of Ibadan. The idea, if I correctly recall, had been to play for both sides during each half.

In the following weeks came the public executions. These were common enough spectacles for Nigerians during the post-civil war crack down on armed robbery when the convicted were tied to posts behind which were placed sand-filled drums and shot to death by a firing squad at Lagos’ Bar Beach.

The first batch of those who were condemned to death by a military tribunal included Major General Illiya Bisalla, the minister of defence, whose features were mutilated by a team of overzealous executioners. The second, in May, featured the key putchist Lt. Colonel Buka Suka Dimka, an officer of the Army Physical Training Corps, who had made an eccentrically-laced broadcast which purported to impose a curfew from “dusk to dawn”.

After the coup had been crushed Dimka had been apprehended, it was alleged, while slightly the worse for drink and in the company of a “lady of ill-repute.”

In the coming months, there would be numerous commemoration items: mugs, tea sets, plates, photographs and the like. I wore a much cherished T-shirt with his uniformed visage. A couple of years later as a secondary school pupil, I would make a trip to the national museum where his bullet-ridden black Mercedes Benz had been put on display.

What I came to understand as time developed was how important a figure such as Murtala Muhammad can be to a relatively young, turbulent and fractious nation such as Nigeria. If he himself had been at the centre of the ugly and destructive series of tribally motivated bloodlettings in the 1960s, the purposeful course of his brief time in power may have been partly motivated by a need to make amends.

There were mistakes no doubt. He was by nature an impatient man and for some who had known him intimately, his war against indiscipline was tinged with deep irony because they detected in aspects of his character a lack of discipline.

What his guiding principles were in terms of an overarching philosophical viewpoint are not known. He was trained in the field of soldiering and it was the accident of Nigeria’s history that he was earmarked to play a key role in its political evolution.

But from his deeds including the decision to weaken the hold over Nigeria by the three old regions, we can assume he was a nationalist by sentiment, and his role in defying the wishes of the United States over Angola, that he was pan-Africanist in his foreign agenda.

It is only within the realms of imagination and guesswork that we can contemplate on what he might have achieved had he lived and applied himself longer to his role as the leader of a nation.

But it is fair enough to say that Nigerians have often felt that all the leaders who have followed in his wake have lacked the sort of purpose, the resolve and dynamism required to take the troublesome Nigerian bull by it horns.

The more reason why I ruefully remember the day Muhammad died thirty-eight years on.

(c) Adeyinka Makinde (2014)

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London.

COMMENTARY: Blair’s Instincts on Iraq Were Woefully Wrong

One of the striking images in recent television drama history was arguably that of a fictionalised Tony Blair being arrested and flown off to the International Court of Justice to face the charge of being a war criminal.

Alistair Beaton’s satirical ‘The Trial of Tony Blair’ was a biting look at what could happen to the former prime minister whose legacy ultimately appears to be inextricably tied to his role as the key decision-maker in committing the British armed forces to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The fact that this decision was predicated on the highly publicised but false allegation that the regime of Saddam Hussein had a stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction and was an action undertaken in circumstances where many of the key players involved in formulating Resolution 1441 have gone on record to assert did not, to quote the then serving  British ambassador to the UN, contain  “automaticity" and "hidden triggers” which would lead to military action, have made Blair the seemingly enduring subject of public controversy and inquiry.

He has been subjected to the most devastating forms of moral obloquy emanating from religious clerics to anonymous Internet trolls.  Some of his public appearances have been subjected to the most extraordinary disruptions. In 2012 whilst giving a speech at the University of Hong Kong, he was threatened with arrest by a Briton who claimed that he was liable for “crimes against peace.” 

The same year, while giving evidence at a public inquiry, an intruder approached him and branded him a “war criminal”; adding the unproven allegation that Blair had received a multi-million pound bribe to make the decision to go to war.

More recently, while dining out with members of his family, he faced an attempted citizen’s arrest undertaken by an ordinary bartender, one Twiggy Garcia, who had been inspired by a website named arrestblair.org.

But has Blair been hard done by? Is it all overkill, and to quote a journalist recently writing for the London Evening Standard newspaper, “disproportionate”?  That opinion article was after all prompted by the aforementioned attempted citizen’s arrest.

It was an event which some may have found distasteful because Garcia’s actions, in their line of reasoning might be construed as the trivialisation of a serious matter, or, alternately, as the progression to the near extremities of an unjustified atmosphere, conducive to his seemingly perpetual demonization, which over the years has been built around the reputation of the former prime minister.

For instance, one of the most enduring of photo-shopped items to have made the rounds on Internet discussion forums, blogs and avatar images of choice has a joyful Blair taking a ‘selfie’ with an enormous conflagration representing the destruction wrought by the Iraq war in the background.

It has often seemed to have taken on the appearance of an all too easy-to-join bandwagon in which any nondescript individual can have his or her say, or even go further than mere words.

The soon to be released report based on an inquiry by Sir John Chilcot –five years in the making- promises to bring his decision yet again squarely into public focus.

The results may likely not satisfy those on either side of the argument, but it will be interesting to see were the discourse will head: Will the narrative ultimately be that of Blair the good; a useful ally of an American nation in pain over the infliction wrought by the falling of the twin towers or Blair the dupe; the useful idiot in an enterprise which was hatched years before by US policymakers?

For some, the ramifications of Blair’s decision to join in the attack on Iraq are to be considered to have been one of those difficult decisions to have been made by a statesman and about which opinion may remain divided but without rancour.

This view is justified specifically given the supposedly amorphous qualities of international law.

To others, Blair got off lightly from a colossal deed which sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands; perhaps millions. He has not been brought to account and is effectively a ‘fugitive’ from justice.

Mr. Garcia is not alone holding such sentiments. Indeed, he is in distinguished company.

After his retirement and been shorn of the straightjacket of the constitutional convention which demands a strict neutrality in regard to political issues, the late Lord Tom Bingham, once the senior law lord, criticised the decision to go to war in Iraq as having been “a serious violation of international law.”

As it happens, so too have eminent figures in the legal establishments of both the United Kingdom and the United States. Geoffrey Bindman Q.C., an expert in human rights law, and Professor Francis Boyle, an international law expert at the University of Chicago have gone on the record to say as much.

There have been a number of attempts geared towards making Blair legally accountable for his action. In 2002 for instance, efforts of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament through a judicial review to obtain a declaration that Resolution 1441 did not authorise military action against Iraq was rejected because the decision to take military action was “beyond the court’s purview”.

In other words, actions taken in defence of the realm are part of the Royal Prerogative and are thus non-justiciable. While inroads have been made in recent times to ensure that prerogative powers are in principle reviewable, the court was alluding to the fact that a number of powers exercised under this ancient mechanism are inherently political in nature and the judiciary would be compromised by intervening in matters of the like.

The legal action taken by CND, mounted before the actual decision was taken, serve to remind of the widespread concerns held about Blair’s urge to follow George Bush on this ill-fated foreign adventure.

Another application for judicial review based on human rights doctrine and the specific provision concerning the ‘right to life’ which is incorporated into United Kingdom legislation was also rejected four years later.

The applicants had asserted that the refusal to hold an independent inquiry into the deaths of British soldiers had breached a procedural obligation which itself followed on from the substantive breach in committing the British armed forces to an invasion and inevitable loss of life without taking reasonable steps to ensure that such invasion was lawful.

As has since been ascertained, Blair took the decision to go to war with a backdrop of the government’s legal advisor, Attorney-General  Peter Goldsmith’s opinion revolving form a firm ‘no’, to ‘doubts’ and to a ‘yes’.  To many, the journey to the final opinion smacked of political manipulation.

And manipulation was indeed the order of the day.  In a leaked memo, the serving head of MI6, the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, Sir Richard Dearlove advised Blair that President Bush had resolved to attack Iraq even though the case for the existence of weapons of mass destruction was “thin”. Such lack of evidence would provide no barrier, Blair was further apprised because, according to Dearlove, “intelligence and facts were being fixed (by the United States) around the policy.”

Blair himself stood up before Parliament to assert that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programme was “up and running”; following this with the infamous utterance that these weapons could be deployed “within 45 minutes”.

Through false leads which spanned supposed Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from the West African country of Niger to the use of flawed intelligence provided by assets such as the Iraqi defector code-named ‘Curveball’, the spectrum of evidence which Tony Blair relied on to make this far reaching decision of state has been discredited beyond doubt.

So much so that what is left for defenders such as the Evening Standard columnist Matthew d’Ancona, is to defend Blair’s decision on the grounds that his “instincts” were right and that contemporary events in Syria prove this.

It is, of course, an arguable point as to whether intuition can validly form the basis of what should be the sober means involved in the expression of statecraft. But even if one were not to relegate it to a level akin to that of basing decisions of state on a reliance on horoscopic astrology, Blair’s instincts, or more accurately, his acts of contrivance, were surely woefully wrong and misplaced.

The regime of Saddam Hussein was already severely weakened by a UN administered embargo and a strictly enforced ‘no-fly zone’. This embargo ensured the scarcity of medicines and the subsequent deaths of half a million Iraqi children.

Blair’s cooperation in the subsequent invasion has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands –if not millions- emanating from the initial military incursion, the occupation and subsequent guerrilla war fought against the coalition forces as well as the de facto civil war which has intermittently raged between the Sunni and Shia communities to varying degrees of intensity.

This fratricidal conflict was aided by a United States-constructed policy of initiating death squads in the tried and tested manner of its Vietnam War-era Phoenix Program and the miscellaneous programs run by various Central America governments in the 1970s and 1980s.

A simple deductive analysis based on logic and a mathematical body count demonstrate that Iraq was a more stable country under the Saddam regime and that there is a severe imbalance between the amount of lives lost post-invasion compared to that during the Saddam era, ‘blood-thirsty’ dictator though he may have been.

Another matter which may not addle the conscience of Blair and his defenders is the rise in births of babies afflicted by congenital conditions which is the outcome of the use of chemical agents in the munitions utilised in the war and occupation.

The Nuremberg Principles refer to the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances” and “participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment” of any of the aforementioned acts.

The ascertainable facts which form the background to the war in Iraq arguably point to a prima facie case for Tony Blair to answer in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

It is simply not good enough to argue that Blair should not be put in the same category as a Wilhelm Keitel and an Alfred Jodl because they were part of the totalitarian Nazi regime and Blair from a nation with traditions steeped in liberal democracy.

A person who robs another while enrobed in fineries is no different from one dressed with an eye mask and stripped jersey. A rogue is a rogue.

The Gleiwitz Incident, the precursor to the German invasion of Poland was a less sophisticated manufacture of a justification to wage war than offered by the Blair and Bush administrations prior to the commencement of conflict with the Saddam-led Iraq. But in both situations, the start of hostilities was predicated on a ruse and represented in each respect an abrogation of the international agreements guiding the handling of either issue.

Blair’s retort to his would be arrestor was to invoke the current conflict in Syria:

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about Syria?” he is said to have told Mr. Garcia.

The implication here by Blair and his supporters is that the consequences of inaction may just be as perilous as is the case with taking positive action. Such arguments may also be suggestive of a ‘White Man’s Burden’-form of obligation on the West and as well as an inevitable ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t’-form of repercussion.

As it turns out that conflict is one which could not have reached the present levels of depravity without the active overseeing of the West of the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Turkey to arm Sunni extremists in the ongoing attempt to overthrow the secular government of President Bashar Al-Assad.  

The actions of the West have stimulated the Syrian Civil War which is aided by at least one group that is the legacy of Blair’s war in Iraq; the Al Qaeda-affiliated ‘Islamic State in Iraq’ brigade.

Part of the legacy of the War in Iraq has been an inflammation of the Sunni-Shia schism and the increasing marginalisation of Christian populations in Iraq and now Syria.

The evolving standards by which statesmen are judged for their decisions as regards the promulgation of international wars as well as the conduct of internal ‘Dirty Wars’ make it clear that Tony Blair’s decision which led to the deaths and mutilations of countless civilians and of the loss of 179 British military personnel in Iraq should not be treated as an unremarkable foreign policy decision on which people can merely offer polite agreement or disagreement.

Though the futile gesture of performing a citizen’s arrest on Blair may have fallen short of what is perceived to have been the ‘breakthrough’ action all those years ago when a British bobby solemnly placed the former Chilean head of state Augusto Pinochet under arrest in London, there are those who remain hopeful that the likes of Tony Blair will someday be held to account for having participated in the engineering of a war under false pretences.

The weight of moral logic and the existing corpus of jurisprudence demand that no less is the case.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2014)

Adeyinka Makinde lectures in Public Law at a university in London.

Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco: Anatomy Of An Assassination

 Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco

A photographic look at the assassination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Madrid on 20th December 1973. Blanco was the designated successor to the ailing Spanish dictator who appointed the admiral as his prime minister. His death, while provoking reprisals from the Franco regime, is nonetheless seen as a pivotal moment in the process of transition from dictatorship to democracy. (Photos are from archival sources and from the writer's collection taken during a trip to Madrid in 2011).

 The Admiral is greeted by El Caudillio

 San Francisco de Borja Church on Calle de Serrano, where Blanco unfailingly attended daily mass (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 After church his motorcade headed south along the Calle de Serrano enroute to his office on Paseo de la Castellana, a one way street (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 Approaching an intersection, the motorcade made a left at Calle de Juan Bravo which is also a one-way street (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 Then another left on Calle de Claudio Coello (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 A few yards just after Calle de Maldonado intersects with Calle de Claudio Coello, a cache of high explosives has been deposited under a marked area by E.T.A., the Basque separatist group (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 E.T.A. had dug a tunnel from a room at 104 Calle de Claudio Coello, which its operatives rented posing as sculptors. This ensured that their drilling would not arouse suspicion from neighbours and passers-by (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

 Blanco's motorcade had to slow down at the point of the bomb because E.T.A. had double-parked a car. A line was also painted across the street on a wall to ensure that the look out could time the decisive moment to precision. 80 Kg of GOMA dynamite caused an enormous explosion 

 The explosion was powerful enough to send Blanco's car, an armoured Dodge Dart, hurtling 20 meters into the air. It cleared the 5 storey church, landing on a balcony on the opposite side. It led to opposition sniggers that Carrero Blanco was Spain's first astronaut. This picture is the recreation of the blast in Marxist filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo's movie Operacion Ogro (1978)

 A thirty-five foot hole was left at the blast site which rapidly filled with water and sewage

 Carrero Blanco lying in state

 Plaque dedicated to the late Admiral at the site of the explosion (PHOTO: Adeyinka Makinde)

© Adeyinka Makinde (2013)

Floyd Mayweather: The Aesthetics of African-American Boxing Style

A common enough description of Floyd Mayweather by some followers of the sport of boxing is of being an extremely capable but ultimately ‘boring’ fighter.

Mayweather, by implication, does not provide such persons with a style which is pleasing to certain sensibilities.

The presumed characteristics of a ‘boring’ fighter may perhaps be summarised as one who is not predisposed to initiate attacks; does not take risks, and, rather, is concerned and preoccupied only with his survival.

The ‘boring’ fighter sets traps, he holds, he runs; he frustrates and ultimately stifles the opposition. As a loser, he is a ‘spoiler’ and as a winner, little more than a ‘thief in the night.’

This sort of complaint is of course nothing new to the sport. When Ezzard Charles assumed the mantle of heavyweight champion of the world in succession to the legendary and exceedingly crowd-pleasing Joe Louis, he was burdened by the frequently levelled accusation that his style in the ring was prone to induce a state of tedium among on looking fans.

Such levels of apathy directed at Charles included the action of a newspaper correspondent in leaving blank the intended first few columns of his report of the previous evening’s defence by Charles with the justification that they served to sum up the levels of action, or more precisely, the degree of inactivity which the spectators had witnessed.

An almost effortless propensity for attracting points of controversy both within and outside the ring would render such a stunt as unfeasible in Mayweather’s case; yet, the proposition that he is a boring fighter raises some key issues.

If professional boxing is presented to a paying audience as a spectacle and promoted on the basis that it will serve to entertain, what obligations does a fighter have to ensure that they are entertained?

Granted, the modern game of gloved combat which is governed by rules designed to provide the veneer of civilised oversight in its conduct does not deign to promise quite the level of blood and gore demanded in earlier ages such as in the gladiatorial arenas of ancient Rome.

But there are many fans who condition their satisfaction with bouts exclusively on a fighter’s ability to score knockouts and who prefer duels in which the aggregate of punches landed are of the sort which consistently visibly rattle the brains of one or both of the participants.

Thus the sort of fights often regaled as typifying the ‘exciting’ bout are those which took place between Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward in 2002 and 2003.

And what of the expectations of the fighter? Must he consent to deliberately embark on engaging in contests of great ferocity for the sake of pleasing the crowd? Or must his allegiance be first to himself and ensuring his survival in the ring?

In truth, a balance is often struck between the aforementioned. But the degree to which a fighter weighs up and formulates his offensive and defensive capacities within his overall style may have implications in terms of his marketability among fans, promoters as well as the television and cable networks.

Finally, to what extent are the styles adopted by fighters culturally derived? For if to a greater rather than lesser extent it could be argued that culture, ethnicity or nationality plays a part in the style of a fighter, what interpretation is to be put on negative assessments in this era of multicultural sensitivities and political correctitude?

So far as Floyd Mayweather junior is concerned, it must be stressed that there is no basis for assuming that the designation of ‘boring’ is universally held by aficionados of the sport in which he presently dominates and holds an unbeaten career record after 45 fights.

Indeed, to many, such appellation has a tendency to perplex and even to induce a sense of outrage. For this school of thought, the conception of boxing as an art form which is predicated on the utility of defence is absolutely crucial.

A recourse to the origins of what would develop into the modern sport is instructive. When the ex-pug James Figg set up his school of self-defence for gentlemen of the aristocracy and well-to-do classes, it was touted as offering tutelage in a refined form of hand-to-hand combat that was no less noble than that of fencing.

And when Daniel Mendoza consistently defeated heavier opponents by methods such as ‘sidestepping’, ‘ducking’, and a defensive ‘guard’, he forever changed the idea that the sport could be based solely on brawn and brute strength.

Thus the notion of the boxer as being the scientific practitioner of a sport which was ostensibly based on elemental inter-human violence was established.

For many, boxing was and should be predicated on the stratagem of ‘hit and not get hit’ and in its purest expression the observer can find elegance in brutality.

Its adherents continue, after all, to proclaim it as ‘the sweet science’.

Floyd Mayweather junior is arguably the embodiment of the ethos of boxing as the sweet science. The aggregate of skills which make up his craftsmanship along with the level of imagination and strategy that encompass his ring generalship make him peerless.

To describe his movements as balletic is not to overstate or be clichéd; certainly not if we accept ‘balletic’ as characterising grace and meticulous expression.

His is a symphony of movement; of executing with geometric precision a multiplicity of shifts and turns, of correct pivoting and effective defence via the use of the ‘shoulder roll’.

Mayweather is about intricate swerves and pull backs. He often dodges or parries shots which are lobbed in his direction and is quick to counterattack.

His last fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez provided many examples of this. At one point during the bout, Mayweather blocked a right hand thrown by Alvarez with the tilt of his left shoulder and followed swiftly with an accurately delivered right-handed counter in one seamless motion.

The substance of Mayweather’s boxing ability is plain for all to see. But what is the rationale behind his approach to fighting? And how does one place a value on it from the point of view of aesthetics?

Mayweather has adapted his style to suit the capabilities of his maturing body, and his command of ring strategy as well as his analytic qualities has meant that he has consistently been able to adapt to any style or pre-conceived ploys brought in to each bout by his opponents.

As was the case with Jack Johnson and Muhammad Ali, the rationale of a defence-orientated fighter like Mayweather is to make his opponent complicit in the opponent’s own ‘ass whipping.’

The beauty of overcoming the opposition lies in the way he is subjugated. It must be seemingly achieved effortlessly and it is important to look good while doing it.

Think about the fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in 1974 where Ali imagined himself to be in the process of constructing a masterpiece.

The Ali aesthetic, that of the metaphor of a butterfly: light, fast and manoeuvrable was never more clearly emphasized than in his dismantling of a boxer who represented the unsubtle but effective employment of brute strength in the squared ring.

Ali was first about movement and tapping Foreman on the head. When he tired and settled on the ropes, he blocked and absorbed Foreman's punches under the pretence that they had no painful effect and intermittently threw straight-armed shots which disrupted his opponent’s thought patterns and on occasion even jolted him.

Through it all, Ali never seemed to bend at the knees or contrive to exert brute strength or give the appearance of desperation. And at the bout’s denouement as Foreman wilted and his large frame was slowly descending to the canvas, Ali hovered and watched.

Although possessing the means to complete the job by unleashing at least one punch as his defenceless foe went down, he held back as though not wanting to ‘spoil’ the natural gravitational trajectory of the vanquished Foreman.

The Mayweather style and aesthetic is in many ways a continuum of a fighting method through which Black American fighters have expressed themselves. This method places a high value on fighting slick and on winning by outwitting your opponent.

These boxers of African descent did not invent ‘scientific boxing’ which of course has had among its most effective practitioners the likes of the Iberian descended English Jew, Daniel Mendoza and the Irish-American James J. Corbett.

Nonetheless, many have through the history of boxing developed a version of the scientific approach geared toward defence and an approach to fighting which conveys a particular rhythm and which stresses the importance of style.

This inclination may not be unrelated to vital elements constituting the West African aesthetic of ‘cool’. Referred to as ‘Itutu’ in the Yoruba language, it is a concept which emphasizes the need to exhibit grace and imperturbability not only in trying circumstances but also in expressive performances such as sport and dance.

The tendency of a sizeable number of Black fighters to eschew the path of developing unabashedly attack-minded ring personas was in the past partly conditioned by the prevailing social circumstances in which they lived.

The style developed by Jack Johnson, for instance, was influenced by the peculiarities of the racial cauldron as existed in his day. As a youth, he fought in so-called ‘Battle Royals’ which were contests put together by White organisers that pitted blindfolded Black boys against each other in an improvised ring.

This would shape the future style he utilised in the ring as a professional; a style which erred on the side of canniness.

Johnson was also influenced by the fact that as a Black fighter in his day, a Black did not display too much of an aggressive style in the ring as knocking out Whites was detrimental to business: some Black fighters needed to ‘carry’ their White foes for the duration of the bout in order to stand a chance of winning .

Floyd Mayweather fights in a different era but he fights with a version of the ‘Black pugilist style’ in which the aesthetic of cool is pre-eminent. He follows on in a tradition which has produced the likes of Joe Gans, Tiger Flowers, Jersey Joe Walcott, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Leonard.

It is while bearing this in mind that the comments made recently by the ever controversial Bernard Hopkins can be put into context. Hopkins provocatively posits the view that denunciations of Mayweather’s style of boxing as well as his own stylistic approach in some sense amounts to a racial slur, adding that if the sensibilities of fight promoters and television-cable outlets combine in developing a generally negative view of defensive orientated fighters, it would lead to the indirect marginalisation of a large segment of Black boxing talent.

For Bernard Hopkins, there is no valour in getting hit. Defensive skills are paramount.

The inexorable logic behind the thinking of this Philadelphia-born epitome of contrariness, whose career has served to contradict the lore of boxing that boxers from his native city are often prone to leave their best fights in the gymnasium, is that fighting mauling, crowd pleasing duels of the sort fought by Gatti and Ward do not make for boxers having a long career and indeed do not bode well for their long term health.

Simplistic categorisations of fighters according to their ethnic or national origins are often not helpful. For instance, the previously often touted distinction of American fighters being prone to adopting aggressive styles in contrast to the British pedantic adherence to a more restrained, purist style did not explain the modus operandi of the likes of Jack ‘Kid’ Berg and Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis.

And, of course, for every African-American defensive boxer of repute there is a Henry Armstrong; a Joe Louis; a Joe Frazier; a Tommy Hearns; a Mike Tyson.

The range of styles within those who express a defensive ethos is of course vast. On the one hand, there are those masterful boxers, or ‘box-punchers’ who can combine exceptional defence skills with resounding punching power as did the great Sugar Ray Robinson, while on the other, there are those who tie up opponents excessively or who are considered in the ‘parlance’ of the sport to be ‘runners’.

Mike Tyson once opined that if Jack Johnson had fought in the modern era, he would have “stank the house out.” In between his feints, blocks and jabs, Johnson would often tie up his opponents for long spells and maul them before putting them out of their misery.

But Mayweather, a genius at the defensive game as much as Johnson was, although bearing a commonality in certain elements of strategy, has a tempo of expression which is vastly different from that of the heavyweight Johnson.

In 2010, Mayweather did earn praise from many quarters for showing a willingness to engage Shane Mosley in a number of full-blown  exchanges during which he demonstrated his resilience in the aftermath of been on the receiving end of a rare accurately delivered power punch.

He also decided to ‘mix it up’ on a number of occasions during his bout with Miguel Cotto in May 2012.

But the protests of his father, the man who established the template on which his exceptionally gifted son operates, to damn the praise and return to the style which ensures that his son “never’ gets hit” was surely instrumental in Mayweather junior re-establishing his father as his trainer in place of his uncle Roger.

What makes Mayweather special is that he does not have to duel at arm’s length or ‘run’ from the opposition in order to display his prodigious armoury of defensive skills.

He can feint to deceive, shoulder roll to defend and unleash lightening fast jabs and combination punches within the tightest of spots.

For those aficionados who emotionally connect to the romantic thesis of boxing as the ‘sweet science’, the skills of Floyd Mayweather junior bear testament to the saccharine quality of the fight game as one in which the underlying reality of elemental violence can be suspended in the senses by the exquisite display of boxing ringcraft during which we witness the high-level coalescence of cerebral and physical endeavour.

(c) Adeyinka Makinde (2013)

Adeyinka Makinde is the author of JERSEY BOY: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula.