Posted on 07/14/2004 7:00:00 AM PDT by ralmar
She left Mozambique more than four decades ago, first for South Africa, where as an energetic, church-going teen-ager she attended boarding school, then for Geneva to study languages at a translation school, before coming to America in the 1960s to marry Pennsylvania millionaire and future U.S. Sen. John Heinz III. (He died in a plane crash in 1991; she married Kerry in 1995.)
Instead of a thatch-roof hut, she can choose to sleep in any one of her numerous homes, including a ski lodge in Idaho and an estate in Pittsburgh. She owns her own jet, manages a fortune equal to nearly a quarter of Mozambique's annual Gross Domestic Product and moves in a pampered world of high-society dinners and fund-raisers. In this world, Africa is a faraway place to which the wealthy send checks to battle AIDS or hunger.
It's hard to imagine what she has in common with people in one of the poorest nations on Earth. Even her memories would strike residents here as hopelessly out of touch with the country's hardships.
In her speeches and writings, Heinz Kerry recalls an idealized world - her hanging upside down from guava trees in her back yard, chasing snakes and bugs, contemplating the balance between nature and human beings while sitting under the starry night skies. The scenes seem torn from The Lion King or Out of Africa.
Which is not to say she didn't witness hardships here. Her family lived in under a dictatorship in which free speech was not allowed. Following her father as he made rounds, she glimpsed the dismal world of black Mozambicans living under the thumb of Portuguese colonialists.
But to many Mozambicans, Heinz Kerry's Africa is not theirs.
After she left, Mozambique slid into three decades of armed struggle - first against Portuguese colonial rule, and then, after independence, in a murderous civil war stoked by South African apartheid forces. More than a million people perished during the fighting.
Thousands of white colonialists - including Heinz Kerry's parents - fled the country's Marxist revolution, losing cars, homes and life savings. The nation's economy collapsed, and more than a decade after embracing capitalism and democracy, the country is still struggling to get back on its feet.
Like many former white residents of Mozambique, Heinz Kerry has never returned here. She has no friends or relatives here, nor any desire to visit. "I have basically not wanted to go back home since, because I just didn't want to see all the kind of changes," she says.
Which makes Heinz Kerry's desire to speak about her African upbringing publicly all the more puzzling for Mozambicans.
"We are proud she is a daughter of the land," says Neo Simbine, 75, a retired black nurse who worked with Heinz Kerry's father. "But you have to live what you say. If she really loves Mozambique and has lots of money, why doesn't she build us a hospital?"
(Excerpt) Read more at peacecorpsonline.org ...
Let me give you an example... Her and her father's behavior, during this period of time in Africa, would be the same as a white doctor in 1940's/50's Alabama, who was a member of "society" (country club member, etc.), opening a clinic in an all African-American community. It just didn't happen during that period in history.
Teresa Heinz Kerry's family was part of an elite and often brutal ruling class in Mozambique. If she or her father would have cared more about the people of that country than their "way of life" (swimming pools, maids, the Clube Naval in Maputo) they would have stayed.
Kerry's camp is attempting to sell Teresa Heinz Kerry as an alturistic woman who came from a background of helping the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teresa Heinz Kerry was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and was a part of an often brutal Portuguese ruling class in Mozambique.
I think this item printed in the Sun is a start, but the press is allowing her to make statments that could not possibly be true.
I don't believe her stories for a second. The Portuguese was just about the worst colonists to begin with. Second of all, knowing people who grew up in African during that time period, the rich were hardly inclined to pay attention to anyone but themselves, least of all black people.
The only mistake that occured in Mozambique was that Mugabe didn't get his brainpan detached from his head.
"We are proud she is a daughter of the land," says Neo Simbine, 75, a retired black nurse who worked with Heinz Kerry's father. "But you have to live what you say. If she really loves Mozambique and has lots of money, why doesn't she build us a hospital?"
Because it would force her to return. I can't think of anything more damning, to be honest. She cut and ran, and while I can't dispute the intelligence of doing that when everything was collapsing, the fact she hasn't done anything since, given her immense wealth.....gee, what conclusions should we draw?
Guess she feels its better to spending millions financing Bush Bashing, eh?
The more we learn about this woman, the less likely it is she will ever be invited to the Whitehouse, much less become our First Lady.
Mozambique used forced labor until 1960. 250,000 Mozambiqans fled the country to go to apartheid S.A. to work in the gold mines every year. Heinz was the African equivalent of a Southern Plantation Owner.
There is one very important thing missing - THE SLAVERY!!!!!Mrs. kerry and family were quite GOOD in Slavery, and only after the revolution in 1960 did her family had to run, the Slaves finally took actions!!!!This is important, because now she wants to be compasionate to Minorities???? What a joke!
Also- the upcoming uproar during the GOP convention, the people and money behind it - strangely again, MRS. Kerry. read up on her funding of the Tides Foundation at www.kerry-04.com, and read about her involvement with MoveOn.org, terror etc
She must be miserable then. After all, what a horrid life of priviledge she has lived at the expense of others.
"We are proud she is a daughter of the land," says Neo Simbine, 75, a retired black nurse who worked with Heinz Kerry's father. "But you have to live what you say. If she really loves Mozambique and has lots of money, why doesn't she build us a hospital?"
Because she couldn't do photo ops on a moments notice.
Through the Heinz Family Foundation, Heinz Kerry has done some giving in Mozambique, including a contribution to a Save the Children program there to help children deal with the trauma of war. Heinz Kerry would give more, a spokeswoman for the foundation says, if she were more confident the money would be managed properly.
Uh, yeah, right.
Heinz Kerry's father, Dr. Jose Simoes Ferreira Jr., was a tropical-disease specialist from Portugual who fell in love with Mozambique during a visit there and, after finishing his studies, decided it was the place to set up his medical practice. Her mother, Irene Thierstein, was the youngest daughter of one of the colony's wealthiest British families.
She's not really one of them.
"I learned about the order and respect, the understanding and generosity that come from living in harmony with the natural world," she said last year when she received the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism at the Johns Hopkins University. "... It was there in the kindness of the people, and in the dreamy lilac hues of the jacarandas that ambled down the avenues like bridesmaids to the altar. It was a profound sense of connection, a sense of all life being knitted together in ways that gave purpose to every individual, every animal and every plant."
Oh, puleeze. Spoken like a true artsy debutante.
Officially, she is an American citizen. "But my roots are African," she told a reporter in 1995. "The birds I remember, the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African."
No, Tereeeza, your roots are privileged, pampered Portugese/British.
To borrow a phrase from John Edwards, back then there were Two Mozambiques. Theresa lived in the white Mozambique of priviledge and reletive wealth, while the mass of blacks lived outside their conclaves at a much lower level of existance.
Mozambique was unique in Sub Saharan colonial Africa in the amount of economic integration between the Portuguese and the natives. Somalia was the same way, farther north, with the Italians. There were a lot of service level jobs held by Portuguese, right down to cook and taxi driver type jobs. This left precious few economic crumbs for those at the bottom.
When the whites fled, there was nothing left. Anarchy even worse than the norm was the result.
My guess is John Kerry picked up some Portuguese for campaigning purposes. That this smattering of Portuguese helped this gigolo to establish some simpatico with Teresa and the rest is history.
The drummer in my daughter's band is from Mozambique. He left 18 years ago. I'll have to ask him next time if he knows anything about Teh-ray-zuh's family doings.
bump
Bye bye fool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.