Zimbabwe...

[Boerseun]

Times LIVE - Secret paper sanctions invasion

Cry The Beloved Country, indeed.

Such a pity Zimbabwe doesn't have any natural resources, like, uhm... let's say, OIL.

Then the world would actually give a shit.

[Eclipse Now]

No no no! An African country with oil? Do you want them to have even more pain? I mean, if they had oil, America might want to 'bring democracy to them!'

(What I imagine the average Zimbabwean might say)...
"No, please, don't 'bring democracy to me'... anything but that! Haliburton already have enough money don't they? We don't really need to have America invent WMD's in our backyard, and manufacture a war to test their new bombs, and then after invading divide up our natural resources amongst their companies, and then have their multinationals sue us for lost productivity because of the war THEY started!

[Michaelangelica]

*
Saturday 17 Oct 09

Fri, 16 Oct 09

Duration:
27 mins

Zimbabwe's unity government on the rocks as Morgan Tsvangirai suspends cooperation ZANU-PF * Botswana goes to the polls * And township anger in South Africa over poor service delivery

Download 13MB (right click & "save target as")

BBC - Podcasts - This Week in Africa

http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countr....do?id=1011273

[UncleAl]

Zimbabwe now is America by 2015, possibly by fourth quarter 2010. Remember the Weimar Republic and buy your wheelbarrow wallet while you can still afford it.

[maikeru]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

This is an informal poll, so informal that there are no options!

What I want, is for you to tell me, briefly, what your impressions are of Zimbabwe, under Robert Mugabe's rule.

The only catch is that I don't want you to Google anything at all - I want to hear from you off the top of your head what you know about the situation in Zimbabwe.

The reason I'm doing this is simply because I'm interested in the common international perception of this specific issue, I don't want any ready-to-eat instantly-served pret-a-porter microwaved downloaded google opinions; I want to know what you know about this issue. Will I know if you cheated? Hell now! But you will be forever consumed by guilt for lieing to me...

They have $100 trillion dollar bank notes and we don't. I'm jealous.

[Pyrotex]

[***SYSCMD: MEMDMP "mugabe,zimbabwe" /ORD=0,/T,/M-]

(HISTORY) Rhodesia, Cecil Rhodes, Rhodes Scholarship, diamonds, Boers, the Boer War, Winston Churchill.

(RECENT) Robert Mugabe, president, warlord, tribal chief, tribal mentality.
Mugabe won what appeared to be a democratic election in Zimbabwe, by blaming the economic ills of the country on the past abuses of the white settlers and colonialists, though the economic ills at that time were not all that bad.

Like other "tribal mentality" African leaders of the 20th Century, he began giving the best jobs (and large gifts) to members of his own tribe, ignoring or marginalizing the others. This led to a decline in national infrastructure as roads, electricity, water and other essentials came under the management of political cronies who were incompetent to manage. This led to most tax funds being siphoned off for personal use.

Like other "tribal mentality" African leaders, he believes in the use of force, threat and extortion. Political dissidents and opposition parties have been decimated, destroyed or driven underground. Their leaders have been exhiled, imprisoned or murdered.

Like other "tribal mentality" African leaders, he engages in an unceasing campaign to blame all problems on others, typically on countries that criticize him and on those within his own country who do not support him. He has given special blame to the whites still in Zimbabwe, and has instigated a "reform" by which white owned land would be "returned" to black citizens. This is being enforced by violence.

Like other "tribal mentality" African leaders, he is totally unable to make good on any promise, and unable to comprehend how easy it is for others to see through his lies, excuses and lack of integrity. So the economy is in total collapse because no one is actually "in charge". The appointed leaders have no more concept of "cash flow" than a mosquito understands the human circulatory system. So the land reform is in total collapse because the new black "farmers" have no more concept of managing a modern farm than a cocker spaniel understands how dogfood is made, packaged and transported.

Like other "tribal mentality" African leaders, he mistrusts anyone who is intelligent and well educated. So the medical system is in total collapse and cholera and other infectious diseases are running rampant, because doctors cannot be trusted; he replaces them with his cronies. So the educational system is in total collapse, because teachers and professors cannot be trusted; he replaces them with his cronies. So the legal system is in total collapse, and social disorder has destroyed all vestiges of cooperative effort anywhere.

Rhodesia was a thriving and relatively wealthy country before it declared independence from the British Empire. It was largely white owned and white ruled, though the creation of a large, efficient black bureaucracy (like that created so successfully in India) was well underway. Who knows--in another generation, Rhodesia may have been ready for independence.

But Zimbabwe was and is not. It is no longer a "country" at all, but the fiefdom of an ignorant, tribal-minded, warlord who understands nothing of governance, law and legitimate rule. Zimbabwe is a country imploding. It is a country under the dictatorship of famine, disease, violence, chaos and fear. It is the ultimate expression of tribalism writ large.

Zimbabwe. Congo. Ethiopia. Somalia. Sudan. Nigeria. These are the festering sores on our global human civilization. Tribalism is an infectious disease and it kills just as effectively as a cholera epidemic. There is no known cure. The only rational response is to enforce quarantine. And wait.

[***END SYSCMD]

[Essay]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

There is no known cure. The only rational response is to enforce quarantine. And wait.

Well on that happy note....
I must agree about the "tribal mentality" perspective though.
I didn't realize this was an old thread and just read the first post, and then started typing.
Oh well, I'll go ahead and post this anyway....
===


Below is one hour of ...recalling various stuff... writing while watching Craig Ferguson.
===
ZIMBABWE:

The horrors of destitution ...the violence of desperation....

Is inflation still 32 million percent with empty shelves in the stores? ...or was it billion percent?

I don't know what Mugabe has done specifically, but it's like a tribal rivalry thing isn't it? ...and it's devolved into an extreme of the "haves" and the "have-nots." Wasn't this the place where he was "clearing out" the slums on the edge of the cities--sort of outlawing them--and literally bulldozing peoples homes (shanty/scrap walls) and chasing them out into the countryside with whatever they could carry despite their injuries?

I know lots of fleeing folks become refugees (with no rights) in South Africa, if they survive the robbery and rape on the way across the border. Lots of folks cross the border just to get commodities to sell back in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, was Rhodesia, borders S. Africa on Indian Ocean coast of Africa ...South of the southern Rift Vally countries and Tanzania ...and the Great Lakes.
[That'll be fun to check on a map later.... I confess I've been looking at an atlas lately, but focusing on Nigeria and Ethiopia]

Doesn't that name, Zimbabwe, mean "Stone House" or "houses of stone" ...since the pre-contact cultures, that were wiped out by disease after European first contact (13-1400?), built great stone cities?

I usually catch part of DemocracyNow! on PBS (praise be to PBS...).
The last I heard there were gangs of teens going around and attacking the few remaining anglo land owners and burning/destroying their property to drive them out. Locals move in to squat on the land, but nobody is farming at anything above a subsistence level.

No wonder they had an epidemic last year(?) of cholera(?). I wonder if that is still going on....

But the vast arable lands of Zimbabwe are sitting idle. They used to be intensively managed (I think) and now sit naked and barren--no ground cover, and probably virtually exhausted and sterilized by chemicals--I wonder if they will have some dust bowl problems as their Spring/Summer proceeds. Biochar would help reduce dust-bowl problems....

I was recently thinking....
This might be a good place to introduce subsistence biochar use--making your own charcoal out of local detritus, instead of buying/making regional, big-tree charcoal--to at least make the squatter's lives a bit healthier and less tenuous ...and help the land and planet in general.