Zimbabwe Begins Destroying Vegetable Gardens

[french]

The United Nations estimates the campaign has left at least 1,5 million people homeless in the winter cold.

Read full IOL article here

 

And see the bottom of the page for related stories. It breaks my heart to see such a wonderful country being destroyed by its president - how can he do this to his own people? And where is the US in all of this? Nowhere, as expected.

 

Just when you think things can't possibly get worse in Zim, they do. That madman should have been removed from power years ago.

 

Shocking.

[Lonan3]

The United Nations estimates the campaign has left at least 1,5 million people homeless in the winter cold.

Read full IOL article here

 

And see the bottom of the page for related stories. It breaks my heart to see such a wonderful country being destroyed by its president - how can he do this to his own people? And where is the US in all of this? Nowhere, as expected.

 

Just when you think things can't possibly get worse in Zim, they do. That madman should have been removed from power years ago.

 

Shocking.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Quite simply, if Zimbabwe had enormous stocks of oil, the USA and it's allies would have ensured the lunatic's removal long ago. As it is, the people with the means to do anything will continue to stand on the sidelines, wringing their hands and tut-tutting without actually doing anything. It is disgraceful that a human tragedy of such proportions can be allowed to go unchecked but, until public opinion is roused to such an extent that the future political careers of various leaders are threatened by their inaction, nothing will be done.

[Mortal Wombat]

The man's an ape. He should be put in a zoo. A small one with no windows and no other animals.

[french]

Certainly. I've entertained the hope that someone would go and assasinate him. What about a suicide bomber - it would be a worthwhile sacrifice and I'm sure Allah would approve?

 

Anyway, I can't think of anything I can do to change things. I feel like a helpless onlooker.

[Rog]

The West can not interfere in this case as unlike Iraq there is no obvious danger presented to the UK or anyone else outside of ‘Zimbabwe’ and that apart Mugabe is actually seen (though God alone knows why) as something of a hero – maybe it’s because Africans being by nature tribal see the presence of a powerful tribal leader flexing his muscles as being a useful model to keep the tribes over which they rule in better order.

 

There is another factor. He would be bound to play the ‘race’ card – that is obvious by all the groundwork he has done by establishing himself as the victim of GB when all that GB has done is stupidly continued to throw tax payers money where tax payers money should never go – outside of the country that the taxes are paid in.

 

The US is likewise stymied with the number of blacks that they have in their population There are enough factions playing the ‘po’ little black bo’ card at the best of times, just imagine the uproar if those had the sight of the US invading an African State and usurping even the most outlandish piece of ‘human’ excrement – there would be rioting in the streets and cries of ‘colonialisation’ every street corner.

 

The there is China to consider. Mugabe is establishing very strong trading links with China and remember, ‘Zimbabwe’ is one of the worlds greatest exporters of Chromium, a vital metal for modern industry, not to mention vast reserves of copper. I really can’t see China standing by with one of its key resource sources being taken over by the US which is precisely how it would be played.

 

There is only one viable way forward for ‘Zimbabwe’ and that is by the tribes who live on that piece of land to sort out the mess or themselves.

 

It was, like the rest of the new African ‘states’ so much better all round and especially for the natives, when it was under colonial rule.

[Lonan3]

It was, like the rest of the new African ‘states’ so much better all round and especially for the natives, before it was under colonial rule.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fixed it! B)

[Rog]

 

It was, like the rest of the new African ‘states’ so much better all round and especially for the natives, before it was under colonial rule.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fixed it! B)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hardly. History dosn't indicate that.

 

European colonial rule left the countries with intact infrastructures, working governments, viable and prosperous economies, and so muchg more, all of which has simoply been left to decay back into the jungle by the people to whom it was given.

 

They deserve to live in the way that they are willing to sustain. We should simply keep out other than trading with them.

 

We gave them a bed - they have made it in the manner that suited them or that they were capable of doing - let them now lie in it.

 

No longer our problem.

 

End of story.

[Lonan3]

Okay, so you take free - if wild and savage - tribespeople. You enslave them and cram a strange religion down their throats. Then you draw up arbitrary borders to create a 'country' and introduce a system of government that is totally alien to them.

You, naturally, resist any attempt to have them treated as equals - or even as human beings - whilst you make use of all the resources their land has to offer for your own profit.

Finally, when the rest of the world condemns you for what you've done, you try to shrug off any responsibility for it and, when they get it wrong (remembering that the people are rather new to the idea of 'democracy') you step aside and tell everyone how you did your best for them.

British imperialism, whilst it may not have been quite the force for evil that it is presented as nowadays, still has a lot to answer for and I would suggest that the British government ought to be a damned sight more pro-active when it comes to helping to sort out the mess that its former colony has become.

[P.K.]

I disagree. The Africans want to be the ones to sort out Africa. The last international effort in Somalia ended in disaster but at least a good movie came out of it. That is why international pressure is on Africans to sort out the Darfur civil war. If the British Gov tried anything around Zim then Mugabe would immediately cry "Told you so" and tighten his grip still further. The only ones who can sort out Mugabe are his neighbours and when the starving refugees start crossing their borders they will have to act.

 

But rog is right in that they still split across tribal boundaries as well as nationalistic ones. Rwanda is proof of that.

[the-rhymes]

But rog is right in that they still split across tribal boundaries as well as nationalistic ones. Rwanda is proof of that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

And we don't?

 

We have too much European smugness, we have been ripping ourselves apart for ever.

[P.K.]

And we don't?

 

We have too much European smugness, we have been ripping ourselves apart for ever.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't recall ever saying that Europe has not suffered from tribalism but in any event you may be smug but I'm not. Way off this topic but one of the main reasons for the formation of the EU was to prevent European wars breaking out again. In that it has been very succesfull. One of the reasons states like Bosnia, Serbia, Turkey etc etc want to join the EU is because it makes another war between them highly unlikely.

 

There is an African Union which was created to do a sort-of joint EU/UN role (as far as I can gather - I know very little about it) for sub-Saharan Africa and they are trying to do things like put observers into Darfur. But beyond that I don't know. As an organisation they don't seem to have put much of an act together.

[the-rhymes]

I don't disagree with those points regarding the EU but I do think a lot of Europeans/Westerners have some kind of superiority complex.

 

Simply looking at our own history dispels many of the common misconceptions about tribalism, savageness, ethnic and religious barbarism.

 

Even within the UK we struggle with 400 year old tribal divisions.

 

Mugabe, stood up against colonialism he radicalised half of the population of his country and promised them the world. He couldn't deliver and then left his revolutionaries with nothing. Now he feels threatened so he his lashing out trying to save his skin, using his followers to attack anyone who disagrees.

 

This has parallels to British tactics in Ireland just before partition. Turning disaffected, brutalised and unemployed British solders from WW1 loose in Ireland in a last ditch attempt to retain power.

 

I'm simply saying that some people don't acknowledge our own transgressions and disregard Africa and Africans as uncivilised.

[P.K.]

Wednesday night! Still, I might return to this topic later......

[Rog]

Okay, so you take free - if wild and savage - tribespeople. You enslave them and cram a strange religion down their throats. Then you draw up arbitrary borders to create a 'country' and introduce a system of government that is totally alien to them.

 

Right – let’s deal with the slavery. The various tribes have been fighting and taking slaves since time immemorial and either used the slaves themselves or more often first sold them to the arab slave traders who took them back to the slave markets of the Middle East or later to the White Slavers who took them to the US.

 

Now the strange religion. The first strange religion that they were faced with was of course isalm and the second, unlike islam which was mandated, was for the most part offered and owing to the tremendous benefits of Christianity over islam was accepted as a marked improvement.

 

A system of government that was totally alien? You must mean civilisation rather than tribal survival. As it now seems to be that the latter is the government of choice if not by nature so this would account for the decline in the newly independent African states.

 

You, naturally, resist any attempt to have them treated as equals - or even as human beings - whilst you make use of all the resources their land has to offer for your own profit.

 

And how do you deduce that? Because the working conditions that the people faced were crap? Because a variation of the class system was in place (and still is)?

Consider the working conditions in the UK during the Victorian era – that was the ethos that was first taken to the colonies and as in the UK that did change over time.

 

If colonial rule had been allowed to continue then by now although somewhat behind modern day Europe my belief is that conditions would be no worse than in some of the former Communist states that are joining the EU.

 

Finally, when the rest of the world condemns you for what you've done, you try to shrug off any responsibility for it and, when they get it wrong (remembering that the people are rather new to the idea of 'democracy') you step aside and tell everyone how you did your best for them.

 

Actually the Rest of the World doesn’t condemn what was done by any of the colonial powers, nor should they.. Not so sure about the French colonies and what the French left the former colonies with, , but that’s another matter.

 

There’s a dam lot to be proud of regarding our colonial past, not ashamed of as some of the left wing bottom feeders try to persuade us that we should be, but proud.

 

British imperialism, whilst it may not have been quite the force for evil that it is presented as nowadays, still has a lot to answer for and I would suggest that the British government ought to be a damned sight more pro-active when it comes to helping to sort out the mess that its former colony has become.

 

Rubbish. They took what was fair, couldn’t manage with it, and now must find out what a kind of life style they can cope with. Sad to say it is so very much worse than what they were given.

[Lonan3]

"Segregation was enforced rigorously everywhere. Visiting the country in 1955 (Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe) Sir Hugh Greene encountered Sir Godfrey Huggins, then the Federation's Prime Minister, who told him that white and black MPs were forbidden to dine together at Parliament House. Nothing had changed since the time of Rhodes and Jameson. A factory manager told Greene that:

I had a friend from Northern Rhodesia down here the other day who said what a relief it was to see a really good flogging again."

 

From The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, Lawrence James, 1994 p.612