Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe has for the last 2 years or so been at or near the top of the news agenda. Its has certainly been a regular subject for the UK media. Therefore in my opinion its only right that it should have its own thread here on ARRSE, especially as some (though not the majority) of the those being persecuted are UK passport holders and a significant proportion of refugees from Mugabes rule turn up on these shores. So, views/opinions etc please.

 

Under no circumstance should you mention ANYWHERE on a UK site that the coloured inhabitants of a nation are being racially abusive and down right "Hitlerite" to the white inhabitants.

Do you not read the BBC, do you not realise that racism is only racism when it is whites doing it to blacks?

Do you not realise that it is all the whities fault for enslaving the African people? (even though it was African tribes that sold other Africans to the British in the first place)

Desist this diabolical thread immediately or I shall be forced to inform Tony.

Waiting for the moderator, waiting, waiting, waiting..........

 

Wot?

My only complaint, is that this thread already exists on current affairs, so......

ORG, find the thread, type an opinion (a printable one) and we can get back to debating Zim  

 

Where, I just looked and could not see ???

I'd say that the last one was printable, just not BBC fashionable.

And a pretty good reflection of what is happening in Rhodesia

OOps

 

I'm sure you meant  South Rhodesia ORG, as I have problems with justifying the existence of the bunch that proclaimed UDI, then come running home to Mother, when it all goes t1ts...  

Anyway, my mistake it's in the Int cell

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb1/YaBB.pl?board=news;action=display;num=1029670919

 

Yep, got it, read it, agree with Woopert.

I see that you are a bit of an expert on Africa (not sarcasm, as I am sure that this it what you would expect from me!), so I surmise that you were either bought up there as a colonial or have spent a lot of time there in whatever capacity you may be in at the moment (slime by any chance?)

But, I still stand by what I said. Racism is racism, but it only ever seems to be accepted as so when it goes in one direction. Trying to push it the other way in the UK is like trying to push water uphill. Unless you are AAC, you just can't do it (sorry )

The argument of history will only wash so far. In my limited knowledge of Africa, setting a precedent by the current events (and the time line), gives me permission to take a house in Berlin (after all, they bombed my Nans house), cut the legs off the Bergermeister of Bavaria (after all, my granddad lost his right leg to Rommel) and to send my Polish next door neighbour back to his home land to kick the Ruskis out (pre 1941 borders).

Could take it back a bit further and demand compensation for all slaves from all of the black African tribes that forcibly sold other black African tribes into slavery, etc, etc.

My row wasn't a black/white one, it was a "holier than tho" one when I see some of the garbage that states like Zim come out with when referring to the "colonial powers".

Yep we were Cnuts, yes we were nearly as bad as the Nazi's, but where does the line stop?

It seemed to have stopped for the Krauts around about 1950. That’s when we stopped persecuting the Germans for what they had done to us and others. Now they are one of the most "respected" nations in the world whilst we (some of us!) are still feeling guilty about something we started 300 years ago!

Not PC, not BBC but look at the state of the nations that we didn't influence or have abandoned.

I can see them now, those great nations of errrrrm, still thinking, still thinking ???

 

I can see Prodigal sliding in on this one....

OK, Zimbabwe is the debate, let's crack on  

 

Hello boys, I'm back..........

ORG, you are completely correct about black racism, they are equally as bad and some tribal groups are extremely racist about other tribal groups.

I think the white guilt thing stopped a couple of decades ago to be honest. The only people who trot it out are those using it to meet their own personal agenda (Mugabe being one of them).

Yes, what is happening in Zim is dreadful but similar things have happened in Africa in the recent past, and no one has noticed. As I have said before, the other powerful nations in Africa (S Africa and Nigeria, for example) need to sort this one out. We haven't got the resources to keep sorting out African problems.

 

Yes, compassion with african suffering is fine but they are not europeans, they don't think along the same lines and hence the answer to their problems is not properly addressed by using western monetary methods.  Look at what the aborigines did with the cars the government gave them...  An article I read in a big foldy-out paper suggested that things in Africa will never change due to the mindset of the average citizen.  The writer said that they actually prefer things the way they are.  No-one ever becomes really solvent because of the sharing of goods and posessions and tribal systems.  They just put up with it because they know that everyone suffers.  Ricky Gervais made a comment in answer to the fact that some African women walk 15 miles a day to get water.  'Why don't they fu#king move then!"  Was his answer.  Bit uncharitable maybe but representative of how we might tackle the same problem.  Surely we should only have to demonstrate how to dig a well once?  Prodigal is right, the African nations themselves need to address the problems.  But can they?  Sod it, I'm posting this  

 

I have spent a lot of time in Southern Africa, both on BATTs and secondments to the FCO. If I had my way, I'd use much of Africa as a nuclear testing ground - and use the rest for chemical and biological warfare testing.

The ordinary people are great (but will rob you blind); its the leaders like Mad Bob Mugabe who are complete and utter cnuts. Not only do they nick their national treasuries, but HMG sends blokes like us down there to train their forces in more efficient ways of wiping out any dissent.

Mad Bob has as a house guest a charming fellow called Mengistu who was behind the 'Red Terror' in Ethiopia where amongst other things he was responsible for the murder of Haile Selassie (so I guess he isn't on too many Rastas' chrimbo card lists!)

Namibia looks as if it is about to go the same way as Zimbobwe, with Sam Nujomo being renamed 'Minibob'. He has stated that only Namibians can own property ... except that when he says Namibians, he means black ones; and preferrably those from the Ovambo tribe.

In South Africa, you have a President and a Health Minister that are convinced that HIV/AIDS does not exist and is simply a propaganda weapon invented by the whites.

As for the rest of the place ... just talk to anyone that has been on secondment to the UN in the DRC or Sierra Leone!

 

Oh dear, I promised myself I wouldn't bore you all with my African stories, but I'm afraid I'm going to.....

Yes, they do have a 'mindset' about possessions being shared out, that the individual has a duty to share his good fortune with  his wider family and friends. This might shed a slightly different light on why, if someone gets into a position of power, he helps out his extended family and friends with jobs, perks etc etc, It's not corruption, it's his duty.

I watched an interesting programme (last in a series) about the historical, geographical and evolutionary reasons why Africa remains underdeveloped when the first humans came from there, migrated and became successful elsewhere. There are good sound reasons to do with natural resources ( eg, game, animals that could be domesticated - there are no native animals that can be domesticated in Africa - cows and horses were introduced from the European land mass), poor soil, tsetse fly and disease being the primary reasons.

In addition to these naturally occurring constraints, there continue to be social constraints on the education of, and attitude to, women. I will relate a tale which illustrates this neatly. However, I need to be careful, as my father still lives and works in this country.

A report was drawn up after this particular country had achieved stability after suffering years of drought and civil war. The aim of the report was to identify reasons why the people who had survived, had survived - what had they done that was different to the others who had died? My father contributed to this report and he told me that some of the findings had been suppressed, because the new Government didn't want the world to know that:

1. 75% of the widows that existed at that point in time were under the age of 15
2. In African society men have first call on food and water, before their wives and children. Not all of them follow this rule, but a good many do. Some wives had been actively 'running in' their husbands to the soldiers who visited, looking for recruits, telling them where he was hiding. They did this to get rid of him, so what little food they had could be given to their children and themselves. In some cases, the women murdered their husbands, so they could access the food.
3. After the war, they found that many widows were refusing to remarry (absolutely unheard of). In fact, in many instances the traditional structure was turned on its head. The guerilla army (which consisted of both men and women, boys and girls) had managed to continue educating their young soldiers in the bush. But they found that the young lads didn't concentrate on their studies, whereas the young girls did. So after the war, these girls were finding jobs as clerks, translators, administrators, teachers etc and were able to support themselves financially. Not only were they refusing to remarry (why? they would only have had to hand it over to him indoors, to go and spend at his favourite bar, whilst he was getting his eyes kohled and his hair plaited!!), BUT they were also having children and refusing to live with the fathers! They formed female communes and they looked after each others chidlren whilst they went out to work.............

And these were the primary reasons why these women and children had survived the years of privation, in different tribal groups and on different sides of the warring factions.

In Somaliland (I'm pretty sure it was there, might have been the Sudan) women have recently started a 'sex strike' in order to stop their men from fighting a long protracted war. The women on both sides of the war are doing it - you fight if you insist, but you will have no sex if you do. Maybe not surprisingly, it is already having an effect - both sides have agreed to a truce to discuss a treaty.

So, to go back to the original thread, a regionally based solution is much better than an external white solution.

 

I know that neck of the woods too ... of course a driving factor there which you didn't mention for the strike by women is the continuing practice of female circumcision which the luvvies here and in the States seem to think is a perfectly acceptable "ethnic practice".

Definitely not something you'd want to subject your daughters to!  

Oh and for the 'redistribution of wealth' - are you sure that's how you want to describe those Nigerian 419 Scams I get in my email on a daily basis?

 

Coudn't agree more about female circumcison, strange how male circumcison doesn't remove their ability to enjoy sex....but that's not why these women have had their sex strike. Although  I would love to see them continue the motion (so to speak...) and try and get that banned.

Redistribution of wealth Nigerian style  - you gotta hand it to those boys, they try every scam in the book!!!