Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe and the West

* Update 15th September 2009 at bottom of page...

Lets be honest, there's not one Englishman with something nice to say about the African. In fact as far as the situation in Zimbabwe goes, I cannot recall a more available source of the story than the BBC, and the BBC seems these days to either report on fairly lightweight entertainment stories or else they are reporting on Zimbabwe in a fairly one sided way. Focus on Africa BBC's African report seems fairly anti-Mugabe. Is this wrong? After all Mugabe is a dictator. He sports a Hitleresque moustache in pursuit of development of the cult of personality. He has youth camps full of Hitler Youth style structures, with a heavy emphasis on brutality. Engages his organised thugs in street battles against dissenters or opposition or reactionary elements. This being reminiscent of Hitler's pre war running street brawls in the suburbs of Berlin with Communist opposition. In these ways and many others one can draw parallels between Mugabe and other dictators, which definitely proves by comparison Mugabe to be a dictator. He's our new Iddy Amin. He's our new African dictator, whom we can condemn and exile. He's the past repeated. What is going on exactly? Why is Africa full of strife? Why such a potential filled continent cannot shake its basket case image is an long accepted mystery. No one seems to be motivated in the slightest to look deeper. What with all the oil and diamonds, I thought the African nations would be our masters and not the other way around so to speak.

Africa has a long unfortunate history of being abused. First by the Arabs then by us, and then self abuse learnt from such sources as the Belgium occupation of congo, what with all their arm chopping and so on. So it was that Africa's every resource and her people were stolen by outsiders and taken away. Slavery has a special relevance to Africa. Even since the days of a thousand and one arabian nights, one can find mention in literature of black slaves in the royal houses of Arabian and Persian masters. Same same with regards to Westerners. We founded North and South American plantation with Black African slavery and so on. Young Englishmen unsuitable for civilised life back in London, hit the high seas and after selling a cargo of blacks, came home to Yorkshire with a chest full of gold. All her history Africa has been literally raped and slaved killed and maimed -primarily by outsiders. You could say Africa's interaction with the outside world is best described as constant rape pillage and plunder of Africa by non-Africans. African history is tragic sad and incomprehensible. Apart from the Jews, I can not think of any other more unfortunate people other than Africans. One explanation for this demonstrated history of vulnerability to exploitation of African resources and slaves is the notion of the nation-state and all that is implicit in that concept. The other idea being bandied around these days was even unfortunately given pseudo credence by a Nobel prize winner recently when he essentially claimed in his book that Africans have excellent physical attributes, but feeble intellect...

The Nation-State: The notion of a geographical area with stated boundaries, known as a territory. Within the territory dwell a people. That people agree to identify themselves as part of the culture within the territory which submits to the administration of a ruler law maker king or prime minister. The people work, they sacrifice some of their revenue to contribute to the central pool of funds known as the treasury. This funding source is then employed to shore up the nation state by ensuring programs and organs of community function are initiated and perfected in the interest of the inhabitants of the nation-state. So one day some bad guys arrive from a far away land and attempt to kidnap a few hundred people of the nation state. But luckily the inhabitants paid their taxes, chose to raise a full time army paid for by those tax contributions for the purpose of protection of the nation state its territory and its people. So the army deals with the attackers, and the nation state and its inhabitants go on to live a prosperous life unmolested by slave traders and fortune hunters from across the waves and the sand dunes.

But hang on. Hold your horses! The Africans didn't develop nation states! That's why they got abused by outsiders...By and large African people fended for themselves village by village, or even as individual families. So when the slave traders come along and kidnap your wife, there is no army to react for you. No defined territory, no tax payers, no army = vulnerability to attack. How can the gangaweed militia ride their camels into your country and terrorise your community at the point of a Kalashnikov if you meet them with organised and funded force of your own? (Yes the Zulus did a good job at nation state building - but most africans did not and they have been behind the eight-ball ever since in terms of competing with the nation-states that have agendas for African diamonds oil and minerals.)

IQ: Are black people less intelligent than other races? It certainly is easy to assume that lack of intelligence prevented Africans from organising themselves into functioning nation-states as their competing neighbours and their en slavers did. Then again the richest woman that I ever heard of is African American. Oprah Winfrey is one of the most intelligent people in the world - a woman and black. But there is anecdotal evidence to suggest general racial characteristics. All the best athletes are black, while all the asian kids at school were the smartest. White people and indians seem to fit some where in between those to extremes of the spectrum. But not all asians are smart and likewise many blacks cannot run the hundred meters in under 25 seconds! The area is gray and hard to answer with conviction. This year 2008 I conversed with an African delegate in Switzerland. He struck me as logical and competent. When I asked him what had held Africa back so badly, he replied: "Malaria in Sub Saharan Africa is the main problem." I said, surely there can be a cure for malaria soon? He replied:

"There can be no vaccine as Malaria is a parasite and vaccines only work on diseases and some viruses."

But still Asia is full of tropical lands and these nation-states in South East Asia take constant measures against dengy fever and Malaria and generally do a good job at minimising and controlling the prevalence of new cases and of eradicating mass outbreaks. You should see how organised the Malaysians are I said, They spray the valleys and jungles bordering city areas with a white fog which eliminates mosquitoes. To which he rejoindered that African countries do the same, but that Africa is a much larger area to look after.

So, Mugabe controls Zimbabwe an African country. He is black the majority are black, but most of the big big farms in the territory that actually give Zimbabwe her reputation as the "Bread Basket" of Africa owing to her immense productivity upon fertile agricultural lands - most of it is owned by white Zimbabweans. Then Mugabe makes a controversial move and steals the farms from the whites. Lately BBC and others have been advocating the notion of allocation of farming land without ethnic racial or religious basis for the selection of farm owners or operators. These critics say Mugabe is wrong to act in a racist way against the white farmers and that in 2008 Mugabe ought to run a government at worlds best practice and to avoid racial discrimination. Well that would be all well and good, however Africa has been enslaved for too long and Mugabe has raised the profile of African issues by his eye for an eye action against white interests in Zimbabwe. This is unfair on the individual white farmers, but what amazes me is the unwillingness of England to include the hundreds of years of English abuse of Africa in the judgment of Mugabe and his actions. Surely history must be included as a major factor when making a judgment about Mugabe's racial discrimination. Surely we do not propose to simultaneously hold Mugabe to high standards when we did not care for those standards for our own behaviour towards Africa in the years gone past. Mugabe in my opinion is seeking to raise Pan African affairs and elevate them to a higher profile on the world stage, so as to get the fight for greater dignity and respect for Africans into the television sets hence the consciousness of the living rooms of you and I and tom dick and harry around the globe.

It is true that those who bitterly struggle against us, initially incur our wrath, but that after a period they earn our respect. Case in point? We the West refused to sell commodities to Japan back in the 1930's so Japan who sought to raise their poor living standards through an industrial revolution, to a level on par with the West decided that since we wouldn't sell them iron ore etc, that they would start to fight for what they needed. Nowadays we respect japan and do big trade in any commodity japan wants be it iron ore or uranium. Through bitter resistance and fighting - even though we beat them and even though she paid a heavy heavy price - we came to respect Japan and accord her the dignity of a self respecting nation state. Similar things happened with Germany who saw the harsh terms of the Versailles treaty as a hit below the belt so Germany too fought for the right to be a valid dignified nation state and they now sell us BMW and Braun, MP3 and Aspirin.

As soon as Japan got feisty, we - who would barely trade with her anyway, responded by reducing even further the level of trade we supplied to Japanese productive industry. Same Germany. Example? The Hindenberg Zeppelin, that magnificent craft that symbol of modernity, "Oh the humanity" She vaporised after crossing the Atlantic. This may not have happened had she been filled with Helium gas from Texas (Non Flammable), but because we didn't trade with Germany very much Germany had to pump the Hindenberg full of flammable Hydrogen gas, resulting in some big fireworks.

Because we stopped supplying commodities to these countries, terrible inflation occurred. You may have seen pictures of Germans in the Weimar years (the 1920s) going to the shops to buy a loaf of bread, pushing a wheel-barrow full of money! That's inflation the likes of which Zimbabwe is seeing now.

If we would resume trade with Zimbabwe, then the terrible inflation in that country would begin to alleviate and come to an end. Normal trade with Zimbabwe ended a long time ago and since then, Zimbabwe has experienced Weimar years style inflation.

Who is Mugabe? This savage holds something like six degrees, has studied at Oxford, spent time in prison in relation to his political activities in the 1950s and according to Wikipedia, never socialised with other kids at school preferring the company of the priests who ran the school or the library where he did a great deal of reading.

Mugabe and his supporters claim Zimbabwe's downfall has been caused by neo imperialist forces that affect the country mostly in the form of economic aggravation.

Two things stand out about the situation. The first is the odd but consistent way that even impoverished Zimbabwean's speak English quite well. When news camera's ask a disheveled rag clad man who is selling milk bottles full of petrol on the side of a dirt road what he thinks of this or that, he replies in English language. This is obviously genuine and shows that the people of Zimbabwe speak English as a widely used national language.

Secondly, a widely held view is that Africa's problem lies in the notion that once a jungle freedom fighter emerges and takes office he grows accustomed to the good life and then succumbs to luxury at the detrimental expense of his country; the shiny black mercedes limousine in the dirt street syndrome that is displayed so well on the feature film about Idy Amin. However, all evidence I can see points to an ascetic Mugabe who shunned the mercedes in favour of the jail cell. In fact Mugabe took his law degree while in jail. Along the lines of Stalin, Mugabe is reminiscent of the ascetic authoritarian leader. Mugabe then is not a savage who won the lottery, rather a Stalin styled dictator.

Another interesting and peculiar thing, is the way the rest of Africa's statesmen regards Mugabe. Yes publicly they denounce him somewhat, in order to satisfice their obligations to the vested interests overseas, but privately they envy Mugabe for his unwillingness to bend to Western influence upon his country. This theory is borne out by the fact that although we Westerners have been encouraging the African Union to militarily intervene in Zimbabwe, the African union has proven ultra reluctant to pursue that course of action, and this is because they the black men and women of other African governments see a black man when they see Mugabe and they empathise because in one form or another this is the theme of their very own lives.

Conclusion? African nations such as Zimbabwe are undergoing adolescent turmoil.

UPDATE September 15th 2009

So I was in Starbucks today and I noticed they have these fair trade chocolates in bowls on the counter, and I was pleasantly surprised for a moment until I realised they were charging $1 for TEN GRAMS! That's got to be like $100 a kilo. And who wants ten grams of chocolate? Its more of a do gooder feel-good thing I gather. Further I heard that Australia is now generously offering the unity government of Zimbabwe 5 million dollars of food from the Aussie government and 1 million dollars of food from the world bank. I see this as a kind of trick photography, where we make ourselves look generous when we really are continuing to destroy the Africans. What Zimbabwe needs from us in my opinion is nothing other than normal trade relationships, the likes of which we have with Japan or Germany..