Robert who? The New Republic and Paul Wolfowitz have come up with the same idea. The James Kirchick at the New Republic argues that Robert Mugabe is only President of Zimbabwe because we believe him. But if we don’t, then what’s he going to do?
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, is the legitimately elected president of Zimbabwe. Or at least he should be. … So here’s a question for Senators Obama and McCain. Back in April, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer declared Tsvangirai the winner of the March 29th election, and certified that he won over 50% of the vote. Recognition of him as the duly elected president of Zimbabwe — with all of the diplomatic measures that would imply, specifically spelled out today in a New York Sun editorial — should have been forthcoming, yet the State Department has been reluctant to go that far. With Tsvangirai hiding in the Dutch Embassy for fear of his life, will either of you call upon the United States to recognize him as the elected president of Zimbabwe?
Paul Wolfowitz has less radical, but related idea. Give Zimbabwe a check only if Mugabe leaves. That way the bureaucracy’s next salary becomes conditional on Old Bob’s departure. Zimbabwe ain’t big enough for Mugabe and foreign aid.
The international community should commit – as publicly and urgently as possible – to provide substantial support if Mugabe relinquishes power. Even if Mr. Tsvangirai were to become president tomorrow he would still face a daunting set of problems: restoring an economy in which hyperinflation has effectively destroyed the currency and unemployment is a staggering 70%; getting emergency food aid to millions who are at risk of starvation and disease; promoting reconciliation after the terrible violence; and undoing Mugabe’s damaging policies, without engendering a violent backlash.
The international community should also say it will move rapidly to remove the burden of debts accumulated by the Mugabe regime and not force a new government to spend many months and precious human resources on the issue (as Liberia was forced to do to deal with the debts of Samuel Doe).
Given the strength and ruthlessness of the regime, change will not come easily. Nevertheless, developing a concrete vision for the future would help to rally the people of Zimbabwe around a long-term effort to achieve a peaceful transition. It would give Mr. Tsvangirai important negotiating leverage. And it could attract disaffected members of the regime.
It sounds like a great plan. But in order for it to work, those who decide to give Mugabe the cold shoulder should have confidence in the moral justness of their cause. Because even if the United States recognized Tsvangirai and developed countries closed their wallets to Mugabe, the rest of the “international community”, which is to say most members of the UN and every tinpot dictator on the planet, would continue to call the Zimbabwean dictator “Mr. President”. Mugabe would thereafter mount a soapbox and claim that while Tsvangirai was merely a “colonial puppet”, he was the People’s President. And this kind of ridiculous posturing may have an effect for as long as there are enough guilt-stricken intellectuals in the West who are willing to let their masochism get the better of their intellects; who are willing in spite of the evidence of their own eyes, to let unreason trump reason. Mugabe’s basis for legitimacy — and today his sole basis for legitimacy — is the Colonialism card. On the day the West sticks this card where the sun doesn’t shine in Robert Mugabe’s anatomy, the way will be open to the obvious: a Zimbabwe free of his tyranny.
The final scene at Robert Mugabe’s bunker.
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James:Mugabe is the charismatic leader, but if he died tomorrow would much of anything change in Zimbabwe? He has a circle of cronies who like things as they are, and there was even a story a few days ago claiming that the military was really running the show now.
Jun 25, 2008 - 7:31 pm Richard Fernandez:Offer to cut all money unless they throw Mugabe under a bus, and they’ll do just that. Then what? Tsvangirai doesn’t control the Zimbabwe military, and a statement that we recognize him as president will hold about as much weight as a UN declaration of concern.
Tsvangirai is not going to change Zimbabwe for the better overnight. There’s always the chance a new president may turn out worse than Mugabe. But the point of removing Mugabe is not to guarantee a future but to judge a past and send a signal that even in the Third World, there are limits, pour encourager les autres. Personally I would like to see the final demise of those hoary old argument which ascribe every evil to colonialism. At some point its validity lapses.
Jun 25, 2008 - 7:37 pm CPT. Charles:I don’t see what the big deal is…the Romanians showed the world the proper way to clean a house infested with Marxists.
Is it pretty? No. Does it work? You betcha. Just ask the people of Romania.
To quote Buddha: no mercy for the wicked.
Jun 25, 2008 - 7:45 pm Zenster:What if nobody recognized Robert Mugabe?
I could only assume that it would be due to some brave soul blowing Robert Mugabe’s head off. Anything less would be entirely unacceptable.
Jun 25, 2008 - 7:57 pm Denny, Alaska:Re: Friday’s runoff election. Why isn’t election “monitor” Jimmmmah Carter on scene, decrying all the bad goings-on?
Oh, you mean he can’t blame the U.S. for Zimbabwe’s mess?
Jun 25, 2008 - 8:04 pm Doug Collins:Mugabe is just the chief murderer. Not only his cronies but all the “Youth” will have to be dealt with before anything is going to improve.
His thugs sound like Al Quada without the religious veneer. Once someone has sunk so low there may be no way back. Reconciliation is a vain ideal.
God help the poor people of that country.
Jun 25, 2008 - 8:13 pm Evil Pundit:Denny — Carter can’t criticise Mugabe, because Mugabe is largely Carter’s creation.
Jun 25, 2008 - 8:23 pm Lilith:Personally I would like to see the final demise of those hoary old argument which ascribe every evil to colonialism. At some point its validity lapses.
I totally agree, and I shan’t expect to see a valid topic about how evil China is for buying the Panama Canal, building a refinery in Venezuela, and grabbing “our” chromium and oil resources in Africa.
Jun 25, 2008 - 8:56 pm TW:“And this kind of ridiculous posturing may have an effect for as long as there are enough guilt-stricken intellectuals in the West who are willing to let their masochism get the better of their intellects; who are willing in spite of the evidence of their own eyes, to let unreason trump reason.”
Very well put. And this is a strange masochism. It is not on themselves that the masochist intellectuals and bureaucrats are inflicting pain, but on innocent Zimbabweans. Mbeki is, in particular, a disgrace and he should be vilified right along with Mugabe for his cowardly inaction. Zimbabwe has been thoroughly betrayed.
Jun 25, 2008 - 8:59 pm NahnCee:I keep wondering how many of the people who are currently claiming to be oppressed and starving to death in Zimbabwe gleefully took part in driving the white farmers who were feeding them out of their pathetic little country and then stealing their farms and equipment.
And then suddenly I just don’t care as much, but think to myself what a wonderful thing karma is.
Jun 25, 2008 - 9:20 pm whiskey:Mugabe will never leave willingly. Too many enemies who’d want him dead. He’d end up like Trotsky.
No, he’ll stay in Zimbabwe until he’s dead.
Jun 25, 2008 - 9:44 pm bobal:The last representative of the white government I remember seeing, and I can’t recall his name, it was so many years ago, said they will brook no opposition. Of course he was right, and has been proven to be right, and the South African government is complicite in this as well, but, we must not say what it is forbidden to say, and that is, they can’t handle democracy, not yet, and, we might also add, Habu was right when he said they needed another two hundred years of colonialism. It is forbidden to say that. So, the farce goes on, with everyone afraid to say what the truth is. And the dead bodies pile up in the streets.
Jun 25, 2008 - 10:02 pm bobal:I’ll just go ahead and say it outright. I think Mugabe is just a way station on the road to true barbarism. It’s going right straight down hill from here, to the horror, the horror. Hope I’m wrong, but think I’m right.
Jun 25, 2008 - 11:25 pm bobal:Mugabe is the charismatic leader
Just what, pray tell, is charismatic about that black thug?
Jun 25, 2008 - 11:46 pm Richard Fernandez:What is the “loss of legitimacy” except another word for declining recognition? The Anglican communion is facing a crisis as 250 bishops plan to boycott the Lambeth Conference and attend a rival meeting in Jerusalem. Who can say how far the division will go? Although Rowan Williams and Robert Mugabe are not to be compared, the ecclesiastical rebellion shows how the process of nonrecognition works: once the unthinkable happens once it suddenly becomes thinkable. The first person to yell that the Emperor has no clothes takes a big risk. But the 30th voice to chime in takes no risk at all.
Mugabe may be vulnerable to a kind of “broken symmetry” effect. If enough of his props go, some of his supporters, especially those who remain loyal to him only because he is a meal ticket, will suddenly have second thoughts.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:10 am Mad Fiddler:Almost 40 years ago, National Geographic Magazine had a featured article (Allan C. Fisher, Jr. and Bruce Dale, “Kenya Says Harambe,” National Geographic, Vol. 135, No. 2, February 1969) Part of which — if memory serves — described the forced ejection of the Indian population, which had lived in Kenya for many generations, and formed a substantial middle class. The ethnic Indians comprised most of the merchants, traders, and educated professionals of the country. Evidently, the xenophobia relented later, and ethnic Indians returned to participate. Ironically, history is repeating itself (¡Qué sorpresa!) as the Kikuyu and Luo tribes — which form the two dominant political parties — have been contending for power with some vicious spillover violence against ethnic Indians allied with the ruling National Unity Party of President Mwai Kibaki, by forces of the Orange Democratic Movement (i.e., Luo tribe.)
Meanwhile, the reflexive assertion of a certain mentality is that White Colonialism is solely responsible for the current behavior of native black africans butchering each other, because of the behavior of White European Colonial oppressors. Keep in mind that European colonial rule ended three or four generations back, with the exception of a few isolated countries.
Hmmm.
Couple of problems there.
(1) Black africans were busy selling other black africans into slavery — captured tribal enemies, inconvenient rivals from their own tribes, tedius mother-in-law, etc.— for many centuries before white european nations had any significant traffic with the non-Islamic parts of Africa.
(2) Actually after the collapse of Rome, it was the Islamic culture that became very well established along the north african mediterranean coast, as well as in Moorish Spain until the time of Fernando Rey y Isabela Reina, who ejected the Islamic armies and immediately sent Cristobal Colón out to find a Western route to India.
(3) If the White European Colonial Oppressor model is valid for Africa, why not for India? The British East India Company and the subsequent Colonial government bureaucrats did their share of brutality, contempt, condescenscion, coercion, etc. But India has emerged as a triumphantly robust nation, despite having hundreds of distinct subcultures, with thousands of dialects, a persistent caste system, conflicting religions.
The fact is that each region has a vast history extending back tens of thousands of years into the mists of time, that is FAR more important than a century or two of occupation by Colonial Oppressors. The manifold legacies of tribalism seem to be at the root of much of the continent’s chaos. If the rest of the world simply disappeared, the tribal conflicts would continue. Likewise for the Arab Middle East. Islam has its own birth in extreme violence; it grew and spread by extreme violence WHILE EUROPE WAS A BACKWATER OF DISCONNECTED TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
The Left’s habit of blaming European Whites for the problems of the world want everyone to believe that evil only sprang into existence with the Rise of Europe.
Morons.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:10 am Mad Fiddler:Oops.
“The Left’s habit of blaming European Whites for the problems of the world wantS…”
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:17 am bobal:Did Idi Amin eat human flesh, or just kill two of his wives, that is the question.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:31 am bobal:They are going back to barbarism, there is no creative mass there to make a civilization. They were better off when the whites ruled. There is no creative mass there to run the court house. End of story.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:37 am Ledger:That is an interesting idea.
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:02 am bobal:That was damned well said, Fiddler.
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:03 am bobal:And then suddenly I just don’t care as much, but think to myself what a wonderful thing karma is.
That is very well said too.
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:15 am Ariadne:Writing off loans in exchange for a change in management? That sounds like a wonderful idea to introduce the sort of moral hazard that drow the US mortgage breakdown on a global scale.
Jun 26, 2008 - 2:28 am ChrisPer:No, the gleeful ones driving out white farmers were the saem ones murdering opposition politicians wives. Thats what being ZANU-PF means.
Jun 26, 2008 - 2:31 am Doug:Best to keep things in perspective:
Does death really play favorites?
“Why does it always seems to be “the good ones” who are plucked off without warning or reason? Or, put another way, why does it seem so rare to we read about the death of one of the darker, uglier creatures of the planet?
After all, rarely does the headline read “noted misogynist, homophobe, right-wing hate radio personality and neighborhood defenestrator of baby livestock found dead in his Hummer after eating one too many deep fried jumbo prawns at the Red Lobster buffet” — you know, the kind of stories that really test the limits of your compassion, because while you know you should offer sympathy, you can’t help but feel a bit like cheering.
There are, I suppose, a few ways to look at it. Maybe there really is an imbalance, and in many cases a few too many good ones are taken prematurely and the more toxic ones are left behind because, in a lopsided way, they serve as the more powerful and necessary teachers.
Like Bush, like Rove, like Kim Jong Il or Robert Mugabe, they take us to the darkest places of our psyches so we can, by sheer contrast, understand how vital it is to find the light.
Jun 26, 2008 - 3:12 am Jamie:You think? “
Wow, Doug - that’s amazing. Somehow I thought that BDS wasn’t sinking to that level quite as much any more. Oh, my people!
Jun 26, 2008 - 4:07 am MaMoyo:“I keep wondering how many of the people who are currently claiming to be oppressed and starving to death in Zimbabwe gleefully took part in driving the white farmers who were feeding them out of their pathetic little country and then stealing their farms and equipment.”
I wonder how many of those same whites gleefully wined and dined with Mugabe during and after the Matabeleland massacre. I wonder how many of those white farmers had decent housing and decent wages for their farm workers. Farm workers were trapped in such a sad cycle of poverty, it’s unbelievable. Children were way better off in the remote areas walking 10km to school than live on a farm. Those white farmers were/are not innocent victims. If anything, karma is right for them.
Jun 26, 2008 - 4:21 am MaMoyo:“Just what, pray tell, is charismatic about that black thug?”
Just what, pray tell, does his skin color got to do with his character?
Jun 26, 2008 - 4:24 am Richard Fernandez:Robert Mugabe is only the tip of the iceberg. Corruption and misgovernance in the Third World is so entrenched it amounts to a method. Although it is customary to treat the officials of countries and UN officials with dignity, many are in fact, little better than bandits and frauds. Personally, I can hardly believe it when I hear otherwise intelligent people say “we ought to entrust the safety of the world to the UN” or we should take the people in Hamas at the word. I hope they are lying. It would be more frightening to realize they actually believed it.
Take the recent horrifying ferry sinking in the Philippines, which is a corrupt but by no means the most corrupt of countries. Why did the ship sink. Incompetence and corruption. Will it change? Not in our lifetimes and certainly not while the fiction of official dignity and competence is maintained.
Bob Couttie of Maritime Accident Casebook describes why huge accidents like the tragic foundering of the MV Princess of Stars will continue unabated. First, the authorities investigate themselves and typically find themselves faultless. “Despite the regularity of maritime incidents in Philippine waters there is no full-time independent maritime investigation agency in the Philippines. Marina, the country’s maritime regulatory body delegates its enforcement functions to the Philippine Coastguard, which allowed the vessel to leave Manila as the typhoon was approaching. Both agencies will conduct the investigation.” Second, its corrupt bureaucrats pay only lip service to international maritime regulations.
Jun 26, 2008 - 4:25 am NahnCee:MaMoyo - were they starving to death then? When they had their white farmers? If not, then I will continue to make the case that they were better off with their white farmers than they are now.
***
They are going back to barbarism…
When, exactly, has any country on the whole continent of Africa *not* been barbaric from 1800-on? And I include Egypt in that clump. Africa and its inhabitants have never, ever, evolved into anything approaching civilized behavior, so they can’t possibly “go back” to something less civilized.
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:18 am Mark:It probably goes without saying, but the ongoing work of Claudia Rosett, available just a click away on Pajamas Media, provides a good complement for the Mugabe discussion. The UN provides the world-class stage for the global drama of the no-clothes emperors.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:01 am Mark:Nahncee wrote:
“When, exactly, has any country on the whole continent of Africa *not* been barbaric from 1800-on?”
“Things Fall Apart” is a good insight into some of the dynamics of tribal society (which one would not want to define as ‘barbaric’) meeting modern Western/Anglo colonialism. “King Leopold’s Ghost” provides some documentation of real barbarism.
There are lots of skeletons in every culture’s closets. We’ll never balance the grievance scales. The question is whether we can keep from making new skeletons.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:08 am Zenster:bobal: Did Idi Amin eat human flesh, or just kill two of his wives, that is the question.
As Idi Amin said:
“Some of my best friends are hors d’oeuvres.”
Sadly, it will probably require that a huge portion of Africa’s male population die off before any substantial change will occur there.
Violent tribal misogynism, reverse racism along with simple thuggery are so rampant and entrenched that ordinary law enforcement cannot possibly root it out.
What the criminal justice system cannot do will probably be accomplished by the AIDS virus. With the ANC’s refusal to censure Mugabe, I have lost all hope and patience with regard to Africa’s fate. So many of its ills are self-inflicted that I refuse to waste any pity upon such an overwhelmingly gangster culture.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:14 am Alexis:I don’t think the United States; or even the United States and Europe; or even the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan, and India together have the power to make a refusal to recognize Mr. Mugabe stick. Look at Cuba. Look at Sudan. Look at Iran.
South Africa does have the power. But it won’t use it because the African National Congress likes Mr. Mugabe’s white-bashing. Despite popular sympathy for the plight of Zimbabwe and increasing anger at the number of refugees flooding South Africa, Mr. Mugabe’s policies serve a purpose of consolidating black power and terrorizing white people all over Africa. Mr. Mugabe’s neighbors would not be supporting him if he weren’t accomplishing something useful for them.
Are the United States and Europe prepared to boycott and diplomatically isolate South Africa because of its support for Robert Mugabe? I can’t even take such a suggestion seriously. It won’t happen. This is ironic because South Africa came close to making the decision to attempt to expel the United States and the United Kingdom from the United Nations due to the invasion of Iraq. If South Africa had attempted that diplomatic track, it may very well have succeeded in its goal of diplomatically isolating and expelling the United States. I think the United Kingdom would have caved in to South African pressure and the rest of Europe would have toed the line; even Canada would have turned on the United States given enough international pressure and there may have been international support for secessionist movements within the United States.
I suspect that the South African government orchestrated a wave of mass international protests against the Iraq War starting in 2002 and culminating in the actual invasion. The South African Communist Party was probably the key actor in this international campaign. One of its goals may have been to punish Vice President Cheney for his opposition against sanctions against South Africa in the 1980’s. It is telling that many ANC members interpreted the invasion of Iraq to mean that the United States would be soon invading South Africa; similar rhetoric also comes from Hugo Chavez. It is as if the Cold War never stopped, but merely that the headquarters of Communist opposition to the United States shifted from the Soviet Union to South Africa.
Then, there’s the unpopular subject of race. Mugabe’s invasion of white farms was very popular in southern Africa; as a rule, black people either approved these invasions or didn’t care. Remember, when Afrikaner terrorists attacked commuters from Soweto with booby trap bombs, black political pundits from the Johannesburg metroplex were outraged. They pointed out that while the Americans deserve the September 11 attacks, black South Africans do not deserve such abuse. So, why should white people give a damn when Mugabe brutalizes black people when helping white victims of his regime is politically incorrect? There is no nice way to say this, but if human rights don’t apply to white people, what incentive is there for white people to give a damn about the consequences for those who supported Mugabe when white people were the victims?
The latest slogan among Obama supporters coined by P Diddy is, I kid you not, “Obama or Die”. I don’t happen to regard that chant as a joke. I take P Diddy’s remark seriously. If a thug in Zimbabwe says “Vote Mugabe or Die”, he means it and that means he will murder dissidents. Although Senator Obama may not agree with P Diddy’s chant, and it may seem ridiculous for Senator Obama to disavow a slogan by a rapper he has probably never met, P Diddy’s death threat against those who vote against Obama isn’t quite the kind of change I can believe in. Such slogans hardly take the poison out of America’s political discourse. I think P Diddy knows exactly what he is doing.
Mr. Mugabe’s depredations are saddening, and they show what happens when people acquiesce in tyranny against others. To me, it is noteworthy how P Diddy is now attempting to bring Zimbabwe-style “democracy” to the United States, if only on a rhetorical level at the present time. The “Obama or Die” slogan is not the kind of chant that does credit to the Obama campaign.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:18 am Jay:The past head of the Zimbabwe Central Bank has a doctorate in economics from Virginia Tech. He is a nice man but he is part of the system there. The bureaucrats have indexed incomes so they do not get hurt by the inflation.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:23 am Mark:I assume that the chromium mining is paying their salaries.
The world is a lot tougher than American college students can understand.
Via AP:
“South Africa won the rights to host the 2010 World Cup three years ago. But since then it has been dogged by worries about delays in stadium and infrastructure construction, lack of public transport and the high crime rate.”
FIFA is keeping a smile on its collective face, but its looking ahead to big trouble. Electricity brown-outs are already common.
Perhaps one shouldn’t underestimate the need for the SA government and people to find scapegoats anywhere they can find them at this time. The nation is not going in a good direction. And if the World Cup turns into a fiasco, look for additional histrionics from the government.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:54 am Yashmak:“Like Bush, like Rove, like Kim Jong Il or Robert Mugabe”
Rarely has a combination of names in one sentence so adeptly portrayed such a disconnection from reality.
I wish I knew what the best course might be to follow w/r/t Mugabe. My opinion is aligned with that of some other commentors here, in that I think this is symptomatic of the tribalism in Africa, and is the fruit it bears. Setting religion for a moment, there is indeed an underlying vein of tribalism apparent in ALL recent violence in Africa, be it in Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Zimbabwe. . .
I’m at a loss as to how any organization can deal with this in the short term, or even in the long term. There’s a very real sense of helplessness when it comes to the violence and brutality in Africa. There is a good reason for that. For decades now, the prominent nations of the world have poured assistance into Africa, monetary, food, educational, and otherwise. This long term assistance has undoubtedly made a difference, but not the difference the world hoped. I’m tempted to say it hasn’t been enough, but I think that is inaccurate. I don’t know if ANY quantity of assistance would turn portions of that continent aside form their self-destructive paths.
Jun 26, 2008 - 9:00 am Yashmak:Sorry. . .meant to type “Setting religion ASIDE for a moment. .”
Jun 26, 2008 - 9:01 am bobal:When, exactly, has any country on the whole continent of Africa *not* been barbaric from 1800-on? And I include Egypt in that clump. Africa and its inhabitants have never, ever, evolved into anything approaching civilized behavior, so they can’t possibly “go back” to something less civilized.
Well, yes, one must agree with you there, Lady of LA, it is rough country, so to speak.
Jun 26, 2008 - 9:11 am Alexis:I think it is wise to regard Robert Mugabe as a puppet of South Africa’s African National Congress. Like him or not, Robert Mugabe serves an important purpose for the present regime in South Africa.
Jun 26, 2008 - 11:21 am Mad Fiddler:MaMoyo needs to be a little more specific in posing those rhetorical challenges.
Robert Mugabe was responsible for some eight thousand ethnic Ndebele slaughtered to ensure consolidation of his control of Zimbabwe in 1982-83 after he came to power.
A little background:
The Catholic Church has issued a report “Breaking the Silence - Building True Peace” founded on eye-witness statements from a thousand survivors. (subtitle: “A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980-1988″) The report acknowledges that when Ndebele leader Joshua Nkomo refused to accept Mugabe’s accession to Leadership, Nkomo’s Ndebele followers conducted a “reign of terror” in the territories where they were dominant, murdering several score of white farmers and their families, as well as many more government supporters and officials.
Robert Mugabe is Shona, an ethnic group accounting for at least four fifths of the population. Joshua Nkomo and his “lieutenants” accepted token high posts in Mugabe’s government, and disavowed their links to the Ndebele insurrectionists, but Mugabe was threatened by the continuing rebellion. In 1981 he organized an army brigade with the Shona name “Gukurahundi” which is supposed to refer to the spring rains that strip the chaff from the ripening grain. Of course, only loyal Shona were enlisted, then trained by elite troops sent by North Korea (Mugabe is a Marxist, of course) In December of 2000, international correspondent Anthony LoBaido posted an article for WorldNetDaily that gives some valuable perspective, pointing out that in exchange for the military assistance to Mugabe’s regime, North Korea has had access to Uranium mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, from mines partly under the protection of troops from Zimbabwe.
Most apallingly, the article shows how a crowd of astronomically-wealthy Europeans are financing the bloody struggles in south & central Africa.
I recommend taking ten minutes to skim through the article. It’s a real eye-opener.
Meanwhile, I sneer at the idea that Black Africans are incapable of being just as horrid as any white person. To suggest they lack this capacity is utterly racist and demeaning to Black people everywhere.
Jun 26, 2008 - 11:32 am NahnCee:Fiddler, now the Arabs are going to whine about being left out. Surely they’re every bit as horrid as the Africans and the West.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:10 pm Jrod:Virtually every story out of Africa only serves to remind me how lucky I am to live in the USA, and how delicate the balance remains between freedom and tyranny.
Doug, I know Morford is consistently a perfect example of somebody who craps in the sandbox at recess just for attention, but devoting any additional bandwidth to his banal, self-loathing rants only serves his cause.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:17 pm Jrod:Also, I’ve heard it said that Mugabe’s descent into madness started approximately the same time that he married his second wife Grace Marufu. I wonder how much truth there is to that? Perhaps this is the African version of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; at least Grace seems to have the same expensive tastes and the African Third Estate seems to be just as fed up. Hopefully the African version of the story will have the same ending; and sooner rather than later.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:31 pm Mad Fiddler:Dear Nahncee,
Here’s a link to an NPR article from summer of 2001 describing the continuing widespread practice of slavery in Mauritania.
Despite the government’s having officially outlawed slavery in 1980, the elite of the country seem to have continued, imposing bonded servitude on the children of parents who grew up as slaves in their households. Although the ownership of slaves is seen among the powerful of various races, it historically was practiced by the Islamic Berbers and Moors, who purchased blacks supplied by other black africans. Since then, the masters seem to have perpetuated increasingly submissive slaves by repeatedly impregnating the females, so that over the centuries many generations have been raised up knowing only forced servitude.
More recently, the conflict between Sudanese Islamic tribes and black african christians has produced a steady trickle of stories and documented instances of black Christian women and children being sold as slaves after capture in raids by the Janjaweed Muslims on Christian villages & camps. The two countries most conspicuously shown to tolerate and protect the slave trade and ownership are Mauritania and Sudan.
Islam is supposed to forbid to the faithful the enslavement of other Muslims. Enslavement of infidels is supposed to be end when the enslaved convert to Islam. But in Mauritania and Sudan, the practice is less stringent, so that typically Arab-Berber masters own typically black slaves, regardless of the slave’s faith.
An article by Samuel Cotton also from 2001, gives some background.
But the author seems determined to avoid acknowledging the historical fact that it was black africans who sold other black africans to the slave-traders in the fortified slave-holds along Africa’s coast. Kofi Annan’s West African ancestors grew rich trafficking in ivory and humans for centuries, creating the wealthy aristocracy that persisted long enough to send Kofi to study at Harvard as his entrée into the corrupt United Nations bureaucracy.
I don’t doubt that there were wonderful cities, great kings, sprawling empires throughout Africa’s magnificent lands and reverberating through the African millennia.
Still…
It really is breathtaking to consider the sort of mind that can claim in one breath that Africa is the source of nobility, advanced culture, and shrewd self-government, then turn around and assert that tens of millions of blacks were enslaved by raiding parties of a handful of White Europeans roaming through the interior over the course of a few centuries.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:52 pm Mad Fiddler:Ooops.
“Enslavement of infidels is supposed to be endED…”
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:54 pm Mad Fiddler:To ensure fairness (in spreading criticism among competing groups who each demand recognition) I recommend folks visit Gates of Vienna to read today’s lead article on an Islamic school in Northern Virginia accused of explicitly teaching that it’s okay to kill infidels and steal from them.
The School in Alexandria is identified as “the Islamic Saudi Academy.”
Of course, neither the local authorities nor the historically courageous and bold U.S. Department of State are ready to act to un-fund or de-house the school, regardless of citations by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom for various passages in the School’s textbooks “promoting religious intolerance and violence.”
Hmmm. Could it be posited that to argue against the federal funding of abortions is equivalent to religious intolerance?
Wait. It already HAS been denounced that way.
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:25 pm Doug:“ First, the authorities investigate themselves and typically find themselves faultless. ”
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:26 pm NahnCee:—
NASA was not found faultless, but they repeated the Shuttle sins anyway!
Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in 1962. Now they just confiscate passports and don’t pay wages and torture for fun, but it’s not slavery, you see, because that would be illegal. Although the Saudi’s seem to prefer Filippino, Indian and Pakistani slaves, as opposed to African ones. I wonder why.
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:27 pm Doug:Fiddler,
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:30 pm Doug:I read a couple of days ago of an agency handing the problem off to State because they knew damn well State would sit on it.
Dept of State Arabists.
Black Pharaohs - National Geographic
An ignored chapter of history tells of a time when kings from deep in Africa conquered ancient Egypt.
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:40 pm Doug:
Jun 26, 2008 - 1:47 pm Charles:Lord of the Forest - Philippine-Eagles
OT: In this post over at free republic the writer at national review discounts the the problems with obama’s birth certificate. However, the commentators proceed to post the birth certificate that obama’s team put out and then they compare that to a standard issue hawaiian birth certificate.
there are significant differences.
interesting comments. this one is not going away.
Jun 26, 2008 - 2:22 pm Charles:there are lots o links above to the blogosphere chatter on obama’s birth certificate.
here’s a graphics expert going after obama’s birth certificate.
Jun 26, 2008 - 4:53 pm Lilith:Mad Fiddler: It really is breathtaking to consider the sort of mind that can claim in one breath that Africa is the source of nobility, advanced culture, and shrewd self-government, then turn around and assert that tens of millions of blacks were enslaved by raiding parties of a handful of White Europeans roaming through the interior over the course of a few centuries.
This is sort of like blaming the poppy growers in Afghanistan for the heroin problem, when you’ve got junkies and dealers all over the West creating a demand for the drug. Sure, the slaves were rounded up by their own kinsmen, but it was the cotton growers in the South who created the demand for them.
Jun 26, 2008 - 5:37 pm Doug:“it was the cotton growers in the South who created the demand for them”
4.4% of slaves ended up in the USA.
35% in Brazil,
The rest in the Carribean and So America.
Jun 26, 2008 - 5:48 pm Doug:Moe Berg
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:01 pm Doug:aka - Runt Wolfe.
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:03 pm NahnCee:FRance and Britain imported their share of black slaves into the West Indies, too, from 1450-1900 — 14.1% and 17.7% according to Wikipedia.
MUCH higher than North America/United States’ paltry 4.4%.
Doncha just love it when a progressive slaps down a huge pile of ignorant shit and then steps into it up to her snarky knees? Especially a progressive who makes it a habit to lecture others about how evil they are being?
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:08 pm Doug:Schadenfreude?
Wouldn’t dream of it!
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:19 pm Doug:Much.
Charles,
As the graphics guy points out, that’s a lot more obviously fake than the Rather Forged Docs.
The identical fonts being an absolute giveaway, even w/o the missing background pattern.
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:39 pm Lifeofthemind:What if everyone ignored Mugabe? Sorry Wretchard but this is a stretch to far that even the economist in the joke (assume a can opener) would shun. The problem is that the Chinese, the Arabs, the Iranians, Soros, Putin and Chavez are all pushing to deconstruct the post Cold War order. On any given day two of them will be betraying the rest but that does not mean that traditional diplomacy can resolve these problems. At the same time sizable elements in the West will be testing the envelope for reasons they may not even fathom themselves, such as an atavistic attachment to socialism or grievance mongering. If there was a consensus to uphold basic civilized standards then the isolation of Mugabe would be automatic. The integrity of the institution of the UN was compromised at birth when it shifted from a useful but unsentimental military alliance (theoretically enshrined in the Security Council of WW-II powers) to a successor of the failed League of Nations that was supposed to enshrine Wilsonian idealism. This was a sham at birth when non peace loving totalitarian states such as Saudi Arabia were admitted followed by the authoritarian wave from decolonization. At first it didn’t matter. The high sounding facade of the UN and the Declaration of HUman Rights was maintained even as it was used as a brokerage shop for the bi-polar world. The fact that an increasing percentage and eventual majority of the body were not democracies was acceptable as long as the focus on the Cold War kept Western elites reasonably cohesive. All that collapsed in as after math of Vietnam demoralized the West and the collapse of the Soviets paradoxically increased the complexity of the networked anti-democratic threat and took the lid off Third World thuggery.
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:39 pm Lilith:Doug, from my lat and long of 47N 122W, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Latin America are all “South”
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:47 pm Doug:The point is, Brazil had the highest number, the Spanish Empire second, around 16%, and the USA way down the list @ 4.4
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:07 pm jj mollo:Doug, There is something strangely comparable between the picture of the Philippine eagle and the portrait above. Maybe it’s just the power of suggestion. Why did you post it?
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:23 pm 3Case:“I wish I knew what the best course might be to follow w/r/t Mugabe.”
In a perfect World, bullet in the brainpan, but this World is far from perfect. All that is happening now was predicted back when the place was still called “Rhodesia”. Back then, the place exported 80% of it’s wheat crop, if I recall correctly, and fed a lot of Southern Africa.
Nothin’ like Marxist progress, eh?
Jun 26, 2008 - 8:31 pm Doug:JJ,
Wretchard used to write about the forests.
(and it’s a heck of a magnificent bird!)
What portrait are you refering to?
Jun 26, 2008 - 9:56 pm Marcus Auerlius:Unfortunately, Mugabe is not a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal and will not go away if we ignore him.
We can say he is not president or the chief poobah but as long as there are people willing to supply his thugs with arms and ammunition (even sans that, we have seen clubs & machetes will do just fine) he will remain in place and there will be no “civilized” way of removing him from office. Either he dies at the hands of another strongman’s coup or he dies of old age, I believe it will be the former.
Jun 27, 2008 - 6:54 am Doug:- When Mugabe Was Received at City Hall -
Might Mr. Barron harbor second thoughts about having brought Mr. Mugabe into City Hall?
“Absolutely not,” the councilman said.
“Does he do things that I disagree with? Yes,”
Mr. Barron said.
But he clearly still regards Mr. Mugabe as a liberator more than an oppressor.
“You didn’t care about black Africans when whites were killing them in Rhodesia,” he said. As he sees it, the real reason that Mr. Mugabe has come under strong attack from the West is the confiscation of white-owned farms.
Jun 27, 2008 - 7:08 am Jrod:Speaking of Brazil and its history of slavery and race relations: Brazilian Secret 93 Million Don’t Want to Talk About Is Racism
Jun 27, 2008 - 8:15 am jj mollo:RF himself. But, of course, he’s a cat, not a bird.
Jun 28, 2008 - 6:11 pm Charles:Here’s a wall st journal entitled China’s Export Machine Threatened by Rising Costs
Jul 1, 2008 - 12:02 pm