A country destroyed: Zimbabwe
Read it and weep for Zimbabwe, a country that’s gotten so bad that its mainly black population pines for the days of white rule. At least they had jobs back then.
Liberal journalist Kristof is more PC than the people he interviews, who mince no words in describing their lot:
“When the country changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, we were very excited,” one man, Kizita, told me in a village of mud-walled huts near this town in western Zimbabwe. “But we didn’t realize the ones we chased away were better and the ones we put in power would oppress us.”
“It would have been better if whites had continued to rule because the money would have continued to come,” added a neighbor, a 58-year-old farmer named Isaac. “It was better under Rhodesia. Then we could get jobs. Things were cheaper in stores. Now we have no money, no food.”
Over and over, I cringed as I heard Africans wax nostalgic about a nasty, oppressive regime run by a tiny white elite. Black Zimbabweans responded that at least that regime was more competent than today’s nasty, oppressive regime run by the tiny black elite that surrounds Mr. Mugabe.
Kristof laughably thinks a thug like Mugabe would respond to pressure from the world. After all, his white predecessors did:
The tragedy that has unfolded here can be reversed if Mr. Mugabe is obliged by international pressure, particularly from South Africa, to hold free elections. Worldwide pressure forced the oppressive Rhodesian regime to give up power three decades ago. Now we need similar pressure, from African countries as well as Western powers, to pry Mr. Mugabe’s fingers from his chokehold on a lovely country.
Good luck with that, Mr. Kristof. Actually, I hope you’re correct. But that’s not my reading of Mugabe.
One person who did see what lay ahead—and I know it’s not PC to say this—was Rhodesia’s former Prime Minister Ian Smith, white racist and all. In a previous post about Mugabe and Rhodesia, where I wrote about how reluctant other African leaders are to condemn Mugabe, I added [emphasis mine]:
[Mugabe’s] history as a political prisoner of ten years’ duration in the 1970s under Ian Smith’s colonial government also gave him a linkage to Mandela, but their subsequent histories have been far different. Mugabe has been corrupted by power””or perhaps he was corrupt in the first place””and the course of the two countries have diverged significantly as a result.
But possibly the greatest irony of Mugabe’s vile rule is that it’s the Western post-colonial powers such as Britain who are speaking out against him, while his fellow African liberators are mostly silent or “gentle” in their chiding.
And Ian Smith, the widely-reviled final colonial head of Rhodesia and strong opponent of black rule, who insisted that Mugabe’s leadership would lead to the destruction of the country, turns out to have been, for all his flaws (and there were many), better for the country and even for its black population than the liberation hero Mugabe.
In an article in the Telegraph written on Smith’s death in November of 2007, Graham Boynton””who had once been a staunch opponent of Smith””came to the following realizations:
“Although the first 20 years of Mugabe’s rule saw a slow, somewhat even-paced decline, the calamitous collapse has been achieved in little more than half a decade, an extraordinary feat of self-destruction when one considers that it took more than a century for Ian Smith’s white antecedents to carve a modern, functioning, European-style society out of raw African bushveld.
But that has been the story of post-colonial Africa and, although this week’s obituaries will largely dismiss Smith as a colonial caricature, a novelty politician from another age, if you were to go to Harare today and ask ordinary black Zimbabweans who they would rather have as their leader””Smith or Mugabe””the answer would be almost unanimous. And it would not be Mugabe.”
Well, now Kristof has done the asking, and we’ve got the answer.
I have a friend, an Indian-African, whose family was dispossessed and kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin in the 70’s. Uganda has fared better than Zimbabwe, but he has expressed sentiments similar to the Zimbabweans quoted here.
As long as we’re speaking candidly, just which dire predictions made by old time colonialists after the winds of change blew through the African continent after WW2 didn’t come to pass. By and large the place is a basket case.
Kristof was one of the few to even notice that Bush had worked hard to quiet the situation in south Sudan. He even credited Christian missionaries for drawing attention to he problem and keeping the Bush administration involved. He is not quite a smooth fit with the usual hacks on the op/ed pages of the NYT.
Liberal NYT Columnist Admits Racial Spoils System is Road to Destruction
http://www.westernyouth.org/articles/liberal-nyt-columnist-admits-racial-spoils-system-is-road-to-destruction/
though i have put up another piece on that situation as a way to know waht decline looks like. its an interesting article from someone who at the time still lived there
And poor Watson lost his institute trying to be honest… (or really searching without a limit in an honest way to want to help and make a real change. something ideological games were perpetuating)
What happened in Zimbabwe is a nearly literal reproduction of the happenings in Ayn Rand’s masterpiece ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ only much quicker and more purposeful. In this case, Atlas was simply shot rather than waiting for him to shrug.
The excuse for arbitrarily taking property by force and giving it to people who would not make good use of it was the same racial grievance system that is used as an excuse for affirmative action and racial quotas in this country.
If the average member of one race has more than the average member of another race, then supposedly the government must take by force from some and redistribute it to others solely on the basis of race.
Marxism inverts the parable of the talents…
The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-28)
13 “Therefore stay alert, because you do not know the day or the hour.
14 For it is like a man going on a journey, who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them.
15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.
16 The one who had received five talents went off right away and put his money to work and gained five more.
17 In the same way, the one who had two gained two more.
18 But the one who had received one talent went out and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money in it.
19 After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled his accounts with them.
20 The one who had received the five talents came and brought five more, saying, ‘Sir, you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’
21 His master answered, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’
22 The one with the two talents also came and said, ‘Sir, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more.’
23 His master answered, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’
24 Then the one who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed,
25 so I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’
26 But his master answered, ‘Evil and lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I didn’t sow and gather where I didn’t scatter?
27 Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received my money back with interest!
28 Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten.
29 For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.
30 And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'”
(Matthew 25:13-30).
in the bible they say to move the wealth to the able who will increase it and so there will be more and so some for all.
but, if you take it from the able, and give to the less able, you will regress… you will starve.. gnashing and living in a hell.
notice how all marx did was rewrite Matthew
“To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.”
Matthew 25:15
To each according to his ability, and to each according to their needs – Marx
Marx basically antithetically reformed christianity into its anti christian form.
ergo why so much of liberalism takes on things from the devil. the devil is the antithesis to the thesis they wish to break (that they dont believe).
in essence, they become that which doesn’t exist and they make it real.
Originally produced by a local branch of the National Liberal League as the Valley Falls Liberal (1880-1883), Harman changed the title after he assumed sole editorship in 1883.
what is that referring to?
Lucifer the Lightbearer was an individualist-anarchist journal published by Moses Harman in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
so Alinsky giving lucifer the credits page is just topping his hat to the people he follows. and he laughs how some believe that he believes in satan..
but funny thing is, that by setting themselves up as antithetical, they become in all kinds the same thing as if there was such a following. they accept the same tenets, the same desire for power.
to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven.
The mission of Lucifer was, according to Harman, “to help woman to break the chains that for ages have bound her to the rack of man-made law, spiritual, economic, industrial, social and especially sexual, believing that until woman is roused to a sense of her own responsibility on all lines of human endeavor, and especially on lines of her special field, that of reproduction of the race, there will be little if any real advancement toward a higher and truer civilization.”
showing that all this started with the women… free sex, and all that stuff they TEMPTED them with.
and Marx is just following the bible… same neurolinguistic phraseology in the eden story.
and the same tempting of women to betray her mate.
and what was the outcome when women betrayed their own?
banishment to hell..
to be so puirile to not see abstraction and confuse it with fairy tale, is to miss what a hell on earth can be, and its eventual creation.
sad thing they dont get is that god doesnt have to exist for there to be hell. and no hope
Pingback:How come 140 million Americans pay nothing and get to vote on everything « Sake White
“It would have been better if whites had continued to rule because the money would have continued to come,” added a neighbor, a 58-year-old farmer named Isaac. “It was better under Rhodesia. Then we could get jobs. Things were cheaper in stores. Now we have no money, no food.”
Today Zimbabwe, tomorrow Detroit.
Timely piece and add the following news item to it.
HARARE, Zimbabwe — The U.S. Embassy says Congressman Donald M. Payne is ending a two-day trip to Zimbabwe without the audience he sought with President Robert Mugabe.
Payne expressed disappointment Friday at what appeared to be a snub. He is a member of the congressional committee on foreign affairs and heads its African subcommittee.
Payne met with civic leaders and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition head, on a trip to assess the fragile year-old coalition with Mugabe.
U.S.-Zimbabwe relations have been strained over Western criticism of Mugabe and human rights violations in the southern African nation.
Zimbabwe also announced Friday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be Mugabe’s guest of honor at a trade fair later this month.
Over and over, I cringed as I heard Africans wax nostalgic about a nasty, oppressive regime run by a tiny white elite. Black Zimbabweans responded that at least that regime was more competent than today’s nasty, oppressive regime run by the tiny black elite that surrounds Mr. Mugabe.
Geez, how arrogant and condescending can you get? He talks about “cringing?” How about he shove his friggin PC sensibilities back on the shelf, shut up, and actually *listen and take seriously* what his respondents are saying? You know, the ones that actually had to live through it? Criminy, I saw enough of this attitude back in college. 😛
colagirl: yes, I noticed that PC thing too. Kristof is a liberal, after all.
But at least he wrote the article, and quoted the people. He didn’t find the one black person in Zimbabwe who likes Mugabe, and quote him instead.
I’ve been following the situation in Zim for several years. It’s tragic, and even worse is that our MSM refuses to bring any attention to the atrocities that are committed by the gov’t there.
I love the fact that Kristoff, dumbest white man on the continent last week, took his kids along. Lucky for him and them that nobody in the Mugabe security force tumbled to him.
Zimbabwe, the California of Africa.
But at least he wrote the article, and quoted the people. He didn’t find the one black person in Zimbabwe who likes Mugabe, and quote him instead.
Good point, neoneo. I guess we should be grateful for small favors.
I have a friend who was in the Rhodesian army and travels back there and to South Africa occasionally. On his return last time he showed me a Zimbabwean bank note worth $25,000,0000. He said it wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread.
Time to get into gold anyone?
What’s wrong with Zimbabwe? They have more millionaires than any country in the world.
The Brit paper “Telegraph” does good obits. More like 2-3 page bios on the subject. Bishop Muzorewa died. First black PM of Zim. Not commie enough for his Methodist co-religionists and other peace&wonderfulness buttheads. Sure got shoved down the memory hole.
You see the same thing in Washington, DC. Remember the “chocolate city” controversy? DC, outside of the NW quarter, is a violent, ugly slum. It didn’t used to be that way.
Behold the typical clueless liberal, who doesn’t understand why an oppressive white who still manages to deliver on basic needs might somehow be preferable to an equally oppressive (if not more so) black who doesn’t. But at least Mr. Kristof did go on record with the story.
I ran into a (white) Zimbabwean a while back at a resort in Bali. When she said what her nationality was, I commented that Zimbabwe was “a good place to be from”. She laughed grimly at the jest, agreed, and said she was strongly considering moving to Australia or Canada. She would have liked to come to the U.S. but she had checked into it and been told that since she wasn’t a nurse or computer engineer, she had around zero chance for a U.S. green card. Oz and Canada were more accommodating, though. At least she has a place to run to and enough resources to start again. Lots of Zimbabweans, especially blacks, don’t. Shame on Mugabe for ruining his country, and shame on the libs and other African dictators for tolerating his misrule.
I’m appalled by the white supremacist views that most of you are still displaying. No wonder why Mugabe will still be able to garner support among all the black intellectuals including myself, the people who count in African politics. The bloody British had to be fought tooth and nail so Africans can have their human dignity and rights. Now the same evil oppressors and their accomplices (US, Aussies, etc) have teamed up to destabilize the African economies, including Zimbabwe to advance their supremacist views, and make the point that Africans cannot rule. Unfortunately, these shady tactics that they have used for many years, and in other continents as well, will not work. Africans demand and will obtain justice this time. The British plundered Zimbabwe and murdered millions of Zimbabweans. Of course, Zimbabwe was not a special case. The British murdered and plundered many peoples around the world. It is interesting how such a murderous and evil race can stand today, and point the finger at poor African leaders who are trying hard to rebuild societies that have been subjected to hundreds of years of such brutality. Shame on yourself, Britain and all the rest of you. You are still stark in the old days but the times are changing. South Africa and Zimbabwe (indeed the whole of Africa) will need to be liberated economically from the choking grip of the white capitalist. I will be returning to Africa shortly to wage a swift campaign to effect this – it is time for a revolution across the African continent . The final frontier of the liberation struggle.
Afrikman: Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out. And I can think of millions of worthless parasites you can take with you.
White farmers ‘being wiped out’
Entire young white South African generation has left the country
Ritual sacrifice of children on rise in Uganda
Sorry, I don’t have any links handy about Detroit.
Fair enough, and I won’t waste any more time trying to educate you about reality.
Oops. Looks like Neo deleted Afrikman’s last post. Aw, c’mon. I was having fun!
Rickl: “afrikman” seems to be one of the few people on earth who will defend the vile Mugabe. His accusation of racism against commenters here would be laughable if it were not so vile as well (“afrikman” seems to be commenting from Canada, by the way). And he’s planning to return, like Lenin returning to Russia, to ruin what’s left of Africa.
It is an ominous thing that the reverse racists (for want of a better term) have co-opted accusations of racism in their attempts to immunize some of the world’s worst tyrants against all criticism. Obama—though not one of the world’s worst tyrants, but certainly one of America’s—is in that vein as well. It is a transparently pernicious thing to use the fight against the very real problem of racism to try to protect vile tyrants from valid criticism.
And now Africans have had them for the last 40 years. How’s that working out for you?
Oh.
So…we’re to blame for Africa being a basket case? Right. And in your view, without our “destabilization” efforts, Zimbabwe would be an economic powerhouse, is that right? Please try to argue that — we don’t get many laughs around here.
Here’s a reality check: how was Africa doing before colonialism? Even worse than now, right?
And a bonus question: whom do you blame for, e.g., Rwanda? You’ll have to work hard to blame us for intertribal genocide, but I’m sure you’re up to it.
Bottom line: Africa is and will remain a basket case until and unless Africans own up to their own shortcomings, and stop blaming everyone else for them. You’re running your own tab.
I believe that should read ” trying hard to build societies,” not “rebuild.” Not that it matters; poor African leaders are in fact trying hard to become wealthy African leaders, and clearly don’t give a rat’s ass about building their societies.
Just what the doctor ordered. More political upheaval and uncertainty, well known drivers of economic growth that exert a siren call luring in foreign investment. For the record, against what exactly are you proposing to rebel? Africa is now run (after a fashion) by Africans.
Hank Johnson wants to offer you a tip: make sure you have equal numbers of people on either side of Africa, so it doesn’t capsize.
A very good view of Africa is in the book “DARK STAR SAFARI” by Paul Theroux. He served there in the Peace Corps in the 60s. He decided to go back and revisit the continent. He started in Cairo and traveled native style (foot, cab, jeepney, truck, traina , and bus) to Capetown. What he found was a continent generally worse off than during his time there 40 years earlier. The blame seems to lie with corrupt, kleptocratic governments, NGO aid groups, and missionaries. The governments have kept the people from engaging in any meaningful enterprise, and the NGOs and missionaries have tuend a vast segment of the population into dependents on their largesse.
When he was in Zimbabwe, there were still a few white farmers hanging on, but the hand writing was on the wall. Mugabe redistributed the farms seized from productive white farmers to blacks who knew little or nothing of farming. The producers are all gone now and the country, once quite prosperous, can’t even feed itself.
I saw the same thing in Kenya in 1997. Once a very prosperous country it was in a process of slow decay because Moi’s kleptocrats kept people from building any successful enterprises.
Things are starting to go downhill in South Africa, the hope of African renewal is beginning to decay. This from Shrinkwrapped’s blog:
http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2010/04/western-white-guilt-and-suicidal-moral-masochism.html#comments
“Nelson Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize because when South Africa gave up apartheid he led the way to a peaceful transition and eschewed revenge in favor of enabling the emergence of a functional multi-ethnic democracy. This is now failing in South Africa. Governance in South Africa has been poor and the economy is failing its people. It is now a nation descending into magical thinking, splitting, and paranoid delusion.”
It is to weep. Anyone who has been to Africa knows it is a continent with boundless resources and hard working people who, if provided with decent governmment and free markets, could have a prosperous future.
J.J. formerly Jimmy J.:
Great comment. Zimbabwe is Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged come to life. Now South Africa is going down that same path.
The United States is still a couple of decades away, if present trends continue.
rickl,
Yep, Mugabe’s plan is basically what Obama thinks would be nice to do here.
I keep telling people to look at the history of Chile under Allende, Peru under Garcia, Argentina under Peron and a number of other leftists. It’s the same old plan. Make things more fair with more equal economic outcomes. Has failed everywhere its been tried. Yet the left keeps thinking that they can make it work. Aaarrrggghhh!!
“Rickl: “afrikman” seems to be one of the few people on earth who will defend the vile Mugabe.”
Actually, I know a lot of people who defend Mugabe, on the same grounds they used to defend Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, et al… “The capitalists used their conspiracies and witchcraft to sabotage what would have been beautiful workers’ utopias.” Such a marvelously convenient excuse, since the only way to disprove it is to eliminate all democracy from the world (to prevent “capitalist corruption”) and see if socialism can then be used to construct a true paradise. Even if it can’t… well, too bad there’s no other alternative left, right? Might as well keep trying socialism until it succeeds, no matter how many starve in the meantime, because there’s no more free countries to run off to.
It’s like the cargo cultists, who eventually declare that all the seeds for next year’s crops (or even the next generation of children) must be sacrificed to the Cargo Gods before their shiny silver birds drop the magic boxes full of holy treasure. If you don’t do it, you must be forced to do it anyhow or else your holding out will doom us all! And, once everyone makes the sacrifice either willingly or unwillingly, if the Cargo Gods’ never come, then the tribe is doomed anyhow, making the desperate people very easy to control, even by the people who doomed them in the first place. No point in seeking revenge when we’re all going to die anyhow; might as well let the priests rule their Hell, on the rapidly disappearing chance the Cargo God will actually come.
Dreadful stuff indeed. Rhodesia was once the breadbasket of Africa, now, it’s on it’s way to becoming a desert, figuratively and literally. They took back the farms but cannot somehow make them work. In the Northern reachs of the continent they make do with slaves, Mugabe and his gang can’t even seem to manage that. Not surprised a bit to hear the man pine for the old days. I worked with a fair number of Jamaicans when in N.Y. and heard the same sentiment from some of the elders that had some measure of stability when the Union Jack still flew over Kingston. Jamaica, Haiti, Zimbabwe…I’ll leave well enough alone.
“South Africa and Zimbabwe (indeed the whole of Africa) will need to be liberated economically from the choking grip of the white capitalist.”
Seems like they’re doing pretty well on that already. But going from ‘the choking grip of the white capitalist’ to self-inflicted economic strangulation and disaster doesn’t seem like much of an upgrade to me.