West condemns Mugabe, ignores other Africa despots

what proportion of your posts on this BBS are some hypersensitive rant on China in response to me? Lately pretty much 100 percent, right?

It's quite obvious that yuantian was banging on the tired "evil imperialists" drum that Netizens like yourself frequentlly bring to the party- and it's also clear - if one has read anythign about the Zimbabwe situation, that China has played a major role in the situation, from both possibly blocking UNSC action as well as being a major backer of Mugabe (probably the only one besides S.A. of any international consequence). Hell just a few months ago China got caught embarrassingly shipping arms over to him which the US asked it to stop.

I was able to put two and two together - you're not because you're so Chi-happy you go into your bot subroutines and start screaming racism and blahblahblah. Just put my posts on ignore if you hate them so much.

 

I don't even want to respond to other parts of your post before I sort this one out with you first.

You made the claim. Now you back it up. Quote the "evil imperialists" posts that I "frequently bring to the party". Don't try to divert the topic here again. Find my past posts to back up your claim. It's just as simple as that. I am waiting. Don't be long.

 

I said you "and the other botnetizens" - do you honestly think that the other botnetizens don't post about this all the time?

 

Okay, I am confused. We allegedly single out and attack countries like Iraq and Iran because they have oil. But we neglect Darfur because it doesn't have any oil (so say the critics).

So now we criticize a regime that doesn't have oil, but the critics don't like that either? So no matter what the US does, people are just going to pull out the good old "oil card."

What a freaking joke. How about people stop defending Mugabe? Can we agree on that?

 

No offense taken, my good man! I would agree that Mugabe's initial rise to power, as it was in South Africa and all around the continent, was motivated by the desire to rightfully overthrow white-led, minority governments in the name of self-governance. It's a shame that so many of these movements have given way to black despots with no intention of helping their people, but Zimbabwe is important and I'll note that soon.

This isn't a very sound question as it's way too hypothetical to be compared to the current situation in Zimbabwe. I assume that most peoples relish any form of self-reliance and accomplishment. Nobody would prefer a foreign peoples come in and dominate their way of life and country, especially with racist tones, which is what led to African peoples over-throwing white rule. And they were wholly justified in that. But when Robert Mugabe came to power, he did not exclude whites from government or the public sector. Whites were allowed to own businesses and that includes farms. The scenario you're proposing, in which Europeans do not control European farms, has never happened. Would those farms remain a stabilizing economic force after a change at the political helm, like in Zimbabwe?

Here's the bottom line regarding Zimbabwean land redistribution under Mugabe: white owned farms, forcibly seized by violence and government intervention (that was rejected in a referendum by voters - we've seen how those turn out in that country), were a major facet of a largely agrarian economy. White families had held the farms for generations and had intended to do so. Once their land was taken away with no compensation and given to less-qualified, undertrained blacks with little experience in agriculture, the farms dramatically, and predictably, reduced production. As I noted, a long-term drought did not help matters.

I agree with you that it's unlikely we'll ever see a true result from this past spring's election. However, most independent election agencies condemned it on the basis of Morgan Tsvangirai's legitimate victory even after a month of unreleased results and vote doctoring on the part of the Zanu-PF. Mugabe is in his 80s and it's likely he won't live much longer. However, I've read that due to Zanu-PF's control of the military, it's unlikely that the government and policies would even change after Mugabe's death. He has begun putting safeguards like that into place for when the time comes.

International intervention is unlikely, and mercifully, to happen. A war would cause humanitarian displacement that no country in southern Africa is ready to deal with (especially South Africa, which is preparing for the 2010 World Cup and nearby Angola, which is emerging from a long civil war). And with no economy to speak of, it's unlikely that sanctions will have an effect for the average Zimbabwean. What it will take is for countries and their rulers, despotic or freely elected, to recognize that Mugabe harms all of them in many types of ways. Thabo Mbeki is the one that needs to realize this the most, as his government is viewing 2010 as South Africa's coming out party. He can't afford to continue backing Robert Mugabe while his own country suffers from an influx of poor, uneducated Zimbabwean refugees who are scapegoated by native South Africans.

 

Just about the entire continent of Africa is a write-off. I think even distant early humans knew it, which is why bunches of them left several hundred thousand years ago and threw the keys to those who stayed behind. "Take good care of the place", they probably said (assuming we had developed spoken language at that time).

Unbeknownst to those who stayed, a strange confluence of geography and lack of domesticable animals would accumulate in a severe technological and socio-political disadvantage when the folks who left several hundred thousand years ago stopped back in to visit. Seeing the place in relative shambles, the "colonials" set up shop but were indelicate in the treatment of the native persons which resulted in them eventually getting kicked out.

Hooray, the colonials were gone, but the socio-political disadvantage was still present and they were not equipped to maintain the infrastructure that had been set up. Hence the disarray. No amount of money or food can be thrown at the problem to fix it in its current state.

TLDR version: High-tech takes over low-tech, doesn't spend the time to bring low-tech up to high-tech; then leaves low-tech to fend for themselves. Big mess. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Even if all the african despots were overthrown, puppet governments would have to be set up to get the countries back on their feet. I'd say that would be a preferable outcome to what is going on there now, but no one wants the hassle...

 

What a load of garbage. Are you blaming geography and a lack of domesticable animals as the reason why Africa hasn't progressed? That's absurd. It is an incredibly resource-rich place (oil, gold, coal, iron ore, etc). It has been run into the ground by horrible governments, a lack of education, and violence. Really, the only two places that worked in sub-Sahara Africa were Rhodesia and South Africa -- both former British colonies. Rhodesia went to crap when Mugabe's regime took over decades ago, and South Africa is headed in that direction now, with white flight occuring at a rapid pace. When you toss out rule of law, property rights, and order, you get Zimbabwe (not Rhodesia) and modern day Johannesburg's city center (not Sandton). It's called a disaster.

 

No problem, it's been my pleasure. I think that the focus is so intent on Zimbabwe now because the situation there has been almost a perfect storm as of late; rigged elections, economic calamity, and a humanitarian crisis all intersecting to create a regional sink hole. The country encompasses many problems that have plagued African nations and it's all happening at once, which makes the world really take notice.

To note, I was focusing on land redistribution so much because yuantian was asking me hypotheticals and also because it stands as a major catalyst for the economic collapse that we see now. I agree that having so much arable land in the hands of such a small minority was a noticeable issue. In my mind, what caused what could have settled domestically into an international issue was Mugabe's haste to seize white-owned land and the way that the eventualities of such a move were seemingly not thought upon. With whites owning most of the land throughout generations, they knew how to work on and with that land and how to be successful at it. By stripping whites of their land, without due compensation and handing it to inexperienced blacks, Mugabe was asking for disaster. Reports of white farmers even being murdered during seizure raids surfaced, showing how vile the process was. The grievances against minority whites owning so much land may have been legitimate in Africa, but Mugabe failed to recognize that even though they were relics of a racist system they were largely responsible for a lot of the self-sustaining economic prosperity that Zimbabwe had enjoyed post Rhodesia. Another significant factor in my opinion is how it was such an about face by Mugabe on the subject of race relations. When he came to power in the 1980s, he was not against co-existing with whites in Zimbabwe's government. Ian Smith was even allowed to live in Zimbabwe after he left the Zimbabwean parliament in the 1980s. Mugabe was even made into an honorary knight by the Queen of England in 1994. But once he dramatically began to persecute whites and eventually turned on his own people, his reputation of a champion of black Africans was done. As I mentioned, the old Robert Mugabe, the general who lead Zimbabwe to independence and presided over one of Africa's true success stories, is gone and has been replaced with a much more sinister despot who is not beneath killing his own people to prevent them from choosing their nation's destiny. I believe this is what leaders like Thabo Mbeki have trouble stomaching. On one hand, they appreciate what Mugabe did in the past. On the other, I can't believe he isn't disturbed by current day Mugabe and the problems that his country now faces due to the disaster of Zimbabwe.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. To criticize Mugabe while completely ignoring other despots of the immediate, post-colonial age is wrong. But the West would run a risk by doing that, lest the dictators there portray us as completely anti-African in those countries which is not something we need.

 

Bro, this is straight up racist. You support the atrocities of Mugabe because he has taken from the white man and "given" (?) to the black man. Shame on you

 

If you want to go further back, it is the fact that agricultural development was wayyyy behind Europe and Asia. That the east to west alignment of eurasia which allowed good food crops to spread quickly. Africa is north to south alignment, it is much more difficult to spread crops due to climactic differences. So, several thousand years head start the eurasian continent had.

Once agriculture is perfected, you allow for specialization in the population--ie not everyone has to be going out and getting food, they can work on other things such as social structure and technology. So there. Otherwise, answer this: Why didn't Africa colonize Europe? Why didn't the societies of North and South America take over Europe?

 

Excellent post. Very informative. Hopefully South Africa will not implode like this.

 

Its not just the spread of agriculture but the spread of technology and ideas. Ideas tended to spread easier across the Eurasian Continent because it is a big land mass relatively easy to move across with relatively similar climate from one end to the other. OTOH Africa has vastly different climates and is difficult to cross due to the Sahara and central jungles. Ideas and technology like, how to work iron, gunpowder, language, and mathmatics spread across Eurasia due to trade routes, migration and conquest the same thing though was difficult in Africa and until the 15th C. couldn't happen in the Americas or Australia.

 

I think Jared Diamond's ideas are too general and inadequate wrt Africa. Africans did have access to firearms and gunpowder way before the Imperialist era went into full gear. Some tribes even made their own rifles. The slave trade wasn't a one sided affair for a long long time. Several African kingdoms flourished under profitable land routes with the Arabs. The limitations of invading and occupying meant that Europeans were more interested in overseas trade than conquest until the 1800s. Not every rock in the New World had stores of silver or gold inside it.

The scientific revolution and enlightenment era gave Europeans an unprecedented boost in research, productivity, population growth and class upheaval. Without a respectable middle class, the drive for overseas trade wouldn't have been as profitable, and the risk taking and ideas to make the trips safer wouldn't have been as rewarding.

There's a cultural aspect that explains how the Europeans leapfrogged over other races and ethnicities. But its relevance to the current topic at hand is very limited in that it could only partially explain how the Africans were oppressed and brutally exploited for several decades, which set them back and created the seeds for political turmoil in the region. We normally think that war or conquest are the prime causes for devastating a nation(s), but economic cold wars and strategies are equally devastating despite the lack of bloodied battlefields.

There isn't a clearly defined cause to Africa's problems, nor is there a silver bullet solution. Even the West's approach of carrot and stick aid to ideologically favorable or willing nations isn't the only viable right solution. China is pouring billions in labor and infrastructure into any African regime in order to efficiently extract it's resources. Who can say that's an immoral solution when the results are clearly in everyone's face while the fruits of aid or draconian loans from NGOs like the IMF or World Bank are as stable as sand castles?

While this sounds like I'm encouraging non-interference by more fortunate nations, the fact is that everyone is in a globalized economy so any action or non-action by us will still have consequence in Africa. A move that might be beneficial to poor Africans, such as eliminating aggy subsidies will force a response by powerful lobbies in the West. At that point, one can claim that capitalism trumps moral ideology, or at the very least, Africa's prosperity is on a very low rung in our totem pole of priorities.

That is the root of Africa's frustration with the West: our halfassed approach of help or aid all while claiming that our leaders knows what's best for them and their future. Europeans might feel guilty for their colonialist ties, or tied into some twisted obligation like the French, but they do their damnest to exploit African resources as if none of these circumstances are any bit related.

So while there aren't any clear cut solutions at hand, I think there are some aspects the West should admit that would make the situation more realistic. One would be how we have no clue on how to realistically help Africa. Another would be how our moral superiority is strikingly inconsistent (as the OP's article suggests) and is a weapon that needs some serious sharpening.

Otherwise we will lose popular support from the average African. They might even look towards China as their realistic benefactor. Their ideology isn't appealing, and unsavory if the Chinese's partner is a cruel despot, but at least there's visible action, kept promises, and the lack of smug browbeating over what's right and what isn't.