Angola – 27 year civil war

It may not tell you much about Angola, may be it will. On September 13, 2011 Miss Angola, 25-year-old Leila Lopes, took the Miss Universe crown in Sao Paolo, Brazil after impressing the judges with her striking evening gown and insightful answer to the final question about what physical trait she would change if she could. “I’m very satisfied with the way God created me, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family, and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life.” Leila’s poise and her dress choice won over the crowd, and she further enchanted the locals by speaking in Portuguese. She said that she has never had cosmetic surgery of any kind and that her three tips for beauty were to get a lot of sleep, use sunscreen even when it’s not sunny and to drink lots of water. She said her smile was her best weapon in the competition. It is the second time an African woman has won in the 60-year history of this beauty pageant. Miss Botswana, Mpule Kwelagobe was chosen Miss Universe in 1999.

Flag of the former movement and now governing party MPLA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Angola was embroiled in a 27-year civil war until 2002. An estimated 300,000 people died during this period. Others put that figure at closer to half a million. After decades of massacres and destruction, refugee camps filled with mutilated, starving kids and violated women, cover the African landscape. Kidnappers and killer rebel gangs are a threat in many places. Of this coastal country’s over 18 million people, 38 percent live in poverty.  An estimated 2 percent of the country’s population has HIV/AIDS. 

Angola, near twice the size of Texas, has a population of 19 million. Its name derives from the Kimbundu word for king, ‘N’gola’. The first inhabitants were Bushmen hunter-gatherers, similar to Pygmies in stature. At the beginning of the sixth century the Bantu came from the north. Their Kingdom of Kongo in the thirteenth century engaged in agriculture. It included vassal states, such as Ndongo to the south. In 1482, Portuguese caravels commanded by Diogo Cão arrived in the Congo. They brought firearms and a new religion, Christianity; in return, the King of the Congo offered slaves, ivory and minerals. A settlement was established at Luanda. At the time of arrival of the Portuguese, King Ngola Kiluange of Ndongo was in power, and managed to hold out against the foreigners for several decades. Eventually he was beheaded. The Portuguese colony of Angola was founded in 1575 with the arrival of Paulo Dias de Novais, hundred families of colonists and four hundred soldiers. Fort Benguela, another important early settlement was founded in 1587 along the coast. Besides on commerce it relied on slave trade. The African slave trade provided a large number of black slaves to Europeans. For centuries Africa had been a slave “resource” for the Arabs. When Queen Jinga Mbandi came to power, she formed in 1635 a coalition with the states of Matamba and Ndongo, Kongo, Kassanje, Dembos and Kissamas. At the head of this formidable alliance, she forced the Portuguese to retreat.