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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:16
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No, he's a minor violater of human rights. Is he a thug? Yes. Does he torture and murder people? Yes. Is he in the top ten of the worst dictators in the world? Not a chance. And compared to past dictators, the guy is tame.
Let's put it this way. If China's president went to the funeral, would you be spitting bullets? I'd wager not, even though the dictatorship in China is probably the worst in the world today. But then, China doesn't steal white people's farms. |
Last time I checked, China's president wasn't a Catholic, and neither are most of the top dictators. The RCC has a means of censuring Mugabe, but they don't.
Mugabe's violations are not "minor." If they were, he wouldn't have the huge file at AI that he does. Funny that you consider torture and murder and rape "minor."
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
If they were, he wouldn't have the huge file at AI that he does. Funny that you consider torture and murder and rape "minor." |
#1, AI isn't perfect. Their cultural biases make it into their reports.
#2 The existence of torture, murder, and rape isn't sufficient to induce such venomous rhetoric for most people. After all, I don't hear such vitriol about say, the NYPD. Okay, there's a certain quantitative difference between New York and Zimbabwe. That's what I'm getting at. I can think of five countries in North Africa alone off the top of my head that are worse violaters of human rights than Zimbabwe: Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, and Mali. Then there's the rest of Africa, plus the Central and Eastern Asia, the Middle East, etc.
So I still have to wonder, when there are all these other countries with far worse human rights records which go without comment, why is it that Mugabe is the target of continual hate fests? Given he's far from among the worst dicators in the Africa, let alone the world as a whole, the only difference between him and the rest is that he is Black and that he is victimizing whites (among others).
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atomant
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Aussie, no longer lost in Africa
Jul 2002
time: 15:16
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
#1, AI isn't perfect. Their cultural biases make it into their reports.
#2 The existence of torture, murder, and rape isn't sufficient to induce such venomous rhetoric for most people. After all, I don't hear such vitriol about say, the NYPD. Okay, there's a certain quantitative difference between New York and Zimbabwe. That's what I'm getting at. I can think of five countries in North Africa alone off the top of my head that are worse violaters of human rights than Zimbabwe: Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, and Mali. Then there's the rest of Africa, plus the Central and Eastern Asia, the Middle East, etc.
So I still have to wonder, when there are all these other countries with far worse human rights records which go without comment, why is it that Mugabe is the target of continual hate fests? Given he's far from among the worst dicators in the Africa, let alone the world as a whole, the only difference between him and the rest is that he is Black and that he is victimizing whites (among others). |
Mugabe killed 15,000 of his own citizens during the matabeleland massacres in the mod 80's. These people were not white. Does he qualify as a suitably brutal dictator now?
Further, the use of state machinery for rape, murder or torture pretty much negates the comparison with NYC. WHen based on your 'five other countries' analysis, it sounds like mugabe is (to quote Dr. Evil) the coke lite of dictators "Just one calaorie, not evil enough."
Having lived there, I can assure that his victims are not all white, 99% of them are black. I humby and respectfully request that you look at www.zimbabwesituation.com to gain a greater insight into the situation there. Not every event in the world is cast in black, white or even red.
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Seeker
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London Ontario
Jan 1970
time: 00:16
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The race issue in Zimbabwe is a creation of Mugabe's propaganda, swallowed by our media.
The main victims of Robert Mugabe have not been the microscopic white minority, many of whom were able to escape via friends and money.
Mugabe's victims are the black african people of his country, the MDC party supporters, the ordinary food-buying zimbabwean, NOT some pith-helmeted mythical colonial elite who no longer exist in that country.
The idea that people hate Mugabe because 'he targets whites' is erroneous and contains the latent racism of the idea that somehow the ordinary blacks supports or condone mugabe because he is 'one of them'. Pure tribalism and projection of tribalism.
Yes there are and have been worse dictators. But mugabe is happening NOW. And also, the striking thing is the suddeness of zimbabwes fall, the distance from where it is now in terms of democracy, food, safety, medicine, etc and where it was even a few years ago. Sudan has always been a place where life is nasty, brutish and short. Zimbabwe used to be a place people went to for fun, with thriving businesses, courts, hospitals, etc.
We are wired to look for narrative as a species, so it's natural that a 'fall from grace' like the case of zimbabwe strikes more of a chord than sudan, not to mention that sudan simply hasn't had much media exposure yet to talk about what with Iraq and all.
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Wycoff
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Would Africa be better off it it were still run by colonial powers? I'm sure that there are some parts that would be (provided the colonial powers act according to today's standards of respect and not like the Beligians in the Congo)
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:16
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
I'm sorry, but I find the 'not quite as bad as the next despotic thug' argument quite unconvincing.
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I could continue, but I think the gist is fairly clear. |
You also miss the point. I'm not arguing Mugabe should be ignored. I think all the dictators should be overthrown. However, as I have written in this thread repeatedly the reaction and vitriol to Mugabe is disproportionate to the man's actual crimes when compared to other dictatorships that actually exist: SLORC, the PRC, the DPRK, and on and on, etc. Hell, there's virtual silence about SLORC, and they have been committing genocide against the Karen people for over a decade, as well as practicing slavery. All anyone ever hears about, though, is the former President's daughter being held under house arrest. UNITA in nearby Angloa has killed over one million people!!!! Where's the outrage!?!
But Mugabe, this is the guy that people act about is if he were the anti-Christ. In absolute terms, yeah, Mugabe should be swinging from a lamppost. By African despot terms, he's a school-yard bully.
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Wycoff
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara Unless you were Black. |
Come on now Che, do you believe that colonies administered by the EU would have the same problems that the colnoies of the early twentieth century experienced? There's a gut reaction against colonialism, but I think that's largely because of the way colonies were run. Times have changed, and I imagine that things would be much different. They couldn't be worse than the current situations in some countries.
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Wycoff
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Biafra.
Western Europe created the situation in the first place. I hardly see how they could be expected to make it better. |
They could do things like foster civil society, help create stabilized democracy, help introduce the notion of non-tribal/ethnic politics, general nation building things. I'm not advocating that they actually go into Africa, I just think that Africa would be better off if they did.
edit: Also, I'm sure that EU administered colonies would be much better at food and resource distribution than are the current states... probably would be better at containing the AIDS problem and addressing environmental concerns as well.
Last edited by Wycoff on 10-04-2005 at 21:13
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Wycoff
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara That's true. It's more likely the case, however, that Europe would do to Africa what they've done in Yugoslavia, keep the peace and take the wealth. |
Even if things are as you say, I'd bet that in 50 years Kosovo or Bosnia would be better places to live than Sudan, Zimbabwe, DR Congo, etc. Ensuring peace and delegitimizing political violence are prerequsites to the development of a country. If those things are missing, a country will never be able to right itself.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Wycoff
Would Africa be better off it it were still run by colonial powers?
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No. The Portuguese, for instance, treated their colonies (as the Belgians did the Congo) as a great cashcow, with little investment or development of infrastructure.
Even after the colonial powers moved out, they were still happy to encourage despotism (as long as companies at home profited from it) in 'strategic' areas such as Zaire, Nigeria, South Africa, Namibia, East Africa- and the Europeans were in some cases simply replaced by the U.S. and the Soviet Union playing an African version of the Great Game.
Sorry, che, I still don't buy it- how many people do you think have died as a result of Mugabe's policies, both through political oppression and ethnic cleansing, and his ruinous handling of the economy and his regime's encouragement of kleptocracy ?
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09-04-2005 21:54
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