In former Rhodesia the honorable Mr. Gabriel Mugabe has his stooges still perform the show of “recounting” the ballots of an election he has clearly and deservedly lost - at last. The time until the “counting´s” results will finally please him his bullies spend by raiding offices and bureaus of whatever opposition and independet observers there are left in this once beautiful country. And his People´s Republic Chinese pals and accomplices - yes, the ones who are going to host the Olympic Games very soon now - are sending a ship with weapons and ammunition (to use against whom? you have three guesses…).
How much longer will this guy Mugabe abuse the patience of his country, his people, the free and freedom-loving part of the world? How much longer will we allow our patience to be abused? How much more patience do our politicians have? How much international patience is acceptable - if any? Was this, that has happened all the years since, what well-meaning, do-good and blue-eyed Western politicians had in mind for Rhodesia when they drove out by force Ian Smith and a democratic (though white-minority) government and handed the country over to ZANU PF and Mr. Mugabe`s soon-to-be violent and fascist-like rule in 1980? Is what Ian Smith later called “a Great Betrayal and a Dreadful Aftermath” not really a consequence of Western politicians´ short-sightedness and irresponsibilty? Have Western politicians learned, have they changed since then? I wonder. Really. I wonder.
Oh, by the way - if Mr. Mugabe can finally make himself and his party the winner of this (no longer so) recent “elections” after all, why not let him host the next Olympic Games? I guess such an offer would really make him reconsider and become a kinder, gentler, less brutal and more democratic person (that was part of the idea why the Games where given to Bejing, after all, wasn´t it? Worked so well with Bejing and Tibet, should not fail its result with Mr. Mugabe and Zimbabwe then, should it?). Consider this IOC, will you? No, please, I was not serious, this was just sarcasm, really!
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There’s no defending the illegal regime of Ian Smith. In a unilateral declaration of independence predicated solely on letting a tiny, transplanted minority reap the benefits of a whole nation while denying a voice to its indigenous people, he maintained a system Europeans of the feudal age would have instantly recognized. And he did so by means of state terror and torture. To call Rhodesia between 1965 and 1980 (or anytime before that, really) a “democracy” is a wholly perverse use of the word. Rhodesia was not a democracy; it was in effect a racially-based plutocracy. It was a modern Sparta. That Smith was allowed to live on in Zimbabwe, sit in government, and die of old age is a jaw-dropping testament to the power of human forgiveness.
That said, I’ve read recently that the best thing Mugabe could have done for his country would have been to live long enough to complete its transition to majority rule, and then pass away. I think I’d agree with that. The man is a monster. While I don’t advocate the course of action, I will say that better men have fallen to assassins for lesser slights.
When will the people of Zimbabwe finally be free?
@loneprimate: no doubt we differ a lot on political questions :-)
In my view former Prime Minister Ian Smith has been grossly misjudged and vastly underestimated - not the least as a result of publicized opinion. As for the “tiny transplanted minority” they built a prosperous and energetic state in Southern Rhodesia, built it with their own energy and diligence and engagement - and reaped a great part of the benefits, that is true. But unpopular as “trickle-down” theories are the welfare of anybody in Rhodesia was better, than it is today under Mugabe´s dictatorship. Even an 18 year old - like I was then - could foresee the way Rhodesia was gone once Ian Smith´s government was pressured out by outside forces. And if I had to choose between what was a very constitutional and lawful system and the ZANU dictatorship that followed - ah, well.
And what if Mugabe has to go finally - I seriously doubt that any kind of real democracy will follow - just somebody to replace the head gangster, I guess.
Hi, M. :)
I don’t dispute that the European settlers established Rhodesia as a modern state in the Westphalian sense, and used their contacts to establish trade and industry with the world. What I, and world, object to is that having done so, they refused to share that state and its advantages with the bulk of the population on the basis of race. The vast majority of the people of Rhodesia — the REAL people of Rhodesia — were in effect subjects, not citizens. The unavoidable implication was that they were inferior in all regards, simply because of the colour of their skin. That’s unacceptable and when Rhodesia broke away from Britain on that basis, the world was correct in its response. Say what you want about Mugabe… what has he to learn from Smith? How to divide a nation? How to exclude those different from oneself? How to fail at true democracy? How to disenfranchize those of another race? Well, clearly, Mugabe studied Smith’s example very well indeed.
And in my observation, the only thing that “trickles down” is urine. Anything more valuable than that, people tend to cling to and refuse to surrender a gram they don’t have to, regardless of how hard others had to work to secure it for them. Rhodesia was a case in point. The British regime there had generations to raise the educational standards of the native population to Western levels, but they didn’t. It was in their interests to keep them ignorant, and then to blame them for their own unsophistication. They finally got fed up and took what was due them, but without many of the skills to maintain the infrastructure, and today’s Zimbabwe is, in part, the result of that. Though that said, they’ve had nearly 30 years to improve things and they haven’t made much of a go of it, like, say, Singapore has.
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