http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20021214-41643100.htm This stuff sounds like it's taken word-for-word from a Hitler speech about Jews. Very scary... Alex
At the very least his political theory is pretty much the same. Steal from a hated minority and give it to those loyal to you...use that minority as the scapegoat for economic and social crisis. Still... even if he initiated a wholesale genocide of whites in his country, it wouldn't be any different from what has been going on over in the Congo for years now. Except that the victims are white. It makes better press, obviously.
Amazing. Leave it to Robert Mugabe to make sympathetic figures out of Rhodesian settlers. Truly a remarkable feat.
Yeah, and the conflict in the broken up Yugoslavia is why France '98 was such a disaster. Or maybe you're making a racist inference that all black Africans or alike.
Funny you should say that, as the cricket world cup is due to take place in S. Africa next year, with Zimbabwe hosting a few games (including one or two England games. Oops.). The world governing body the ICB is to review whether Zimbabwe is fit to host these games.
Or maybe it was a badly phrased opinion that most of the countries being mentioned with a view to hosting an African WC - are in a similar mire. Oh but it's racist to suggest Africa has a problem, when by and large it does, especially with regard to hosting the world's second largest sporting event.
No, he's right. The mere suggestion that a continent rife with bloodshed, religious conflict, slavery, a rampaging AIDS epidemic that governments refuse to acknowledge, civil war, pestilence, lack of even basic civil liberties and virtually devoid of suitable venues which can only be provided using monies which ought to go to the 2/5 of the population which is chronically malnourished, or else forfeited from the monies routinely stolen by various kleptocrat officials and military officers is i9nherently a product of bias. Yessiree, only a raging racist fiend would conclude that these conditions might legislate against hosting a world cup. Ya caught me.
I agree. Again, who's idea is it that Africa is ready to take on the responsiblity of a World Cup? This is not like the Rugby or Cricket World Cups, its only the biggest event in the world. Jeeze, they couldn't even hold a Miss Universe contest without a near disaster breaking out! It is not just because of the unrest and the closeness to the mideast that give me the jitters. Only Morocco and South Africa could have even the bare bones of infastructure to host such an event. Back to Zimabwe. What Mugambe is doing is horible, but because this is taking place in Africa instead of Europe, the UN will never get involved. Pure and simple.
A World Cup in Africa would be disastrous on so many levels. It's shocking that it's still being given serious consideration. Even if an African country was awarded the WC, I'd bet even money it would be moved . Perhaps to the United States? Hmm. Maybe we should get behind South Africa 2010.
What's that cyber-law about a thread being useless as soon as someone brings up a comparison to Hitler? This thread, by definition, ties the world record for "Quickest to Futility." If Alex or anyone else can't see a difference between a black leader in postcolonial Africa speaking out against whites, and Hitler in 1930s Germany speaking out against Jews, well... Oh forget it. Of course he can't see it. In any case, your indignation towards Mugabe now seems oddly racially suspect. The guy has been screwing over his black populace for a while...now that he's going after whites specifically, Alex is all bent? Anyway, here's an African perspective just for balance, (not that The Washington Times should ever be doubted! ) It's a bit old, from 2000, but the controversy was beginnng to heat up. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/lf41/na/may00/nacs0501.htm "In early April, 2000 the Zimbabwe parliament went ahead and passed an amended constitutional provision authorising the government to acquire land for redistribution without paying compensation. The provision envisaged compensation to be paid by Britain (which pocketed the revenue from the land acquisition by Rhodes' BSAC in the 1890s), but London has said it won't pay any compensation. As the situation has fast deteriorated into nationalistic (some say racial) positions, and more white farms have been "invaded" by blacks (usually singing and dancing as they move into the farms), America has suspended assistance to Zimbabwe's land reform programme. Not that it matters - despite promising 20 years ago to help, America has so far contributed only $1m to land reform in Zimbabwe. At the time of going to press, the European Union was expected to announce its own measures against Zimbabwe, and Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was trying to mediate between Harare and London. All said, the International Herald Tribune, (in a report on 28 March 2000) appears to see what Britain and its supporters pretend not to see: "In a country where farming is the single largest generator of foreign exchange," the American newspaper said, "nearly a third of [Zimbabwe's] most productive farmland remains in the hands of 4,500 white farmers, and almost half of all land is owned by the country's 70,000 whites. Racial economic inequities persist despite Zimbabwe's transition to majority rule."
Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" Are the white Zimbabweans living there today any more personally responsible for the crimes committed by their ancestors, than German Jews were for the crimes Hitler accused them of? Besides, I didn't say it's the same thing (even tho it is), I said he's using the same type of language in his speeches. He may have been "screwing over" his black populace, but he wasn't committing the kind of wholesale genocide that many of his neighbors have been committing, and that he seems about to commit, so it didn't get as much press. And German Jews were richer by comparison than their Christian counterparts when Hitler took power. It wasn't an excuse for Kristallnacht, the Nuremberg Laws, and state takeovers of Jewish businesses then, and it's not an excuse for Mugabe's thugs to steal white-owned farms today. Alex
Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" If you think Alex's indignation seems "racially suspect"...the opinion of one person on a soccer website is nothing compared to the entire sum of U.S. and European mass media and foreign policy. Most of Africa's day to day nightmares can be found in three or four sentences, tacked to the end the 'World News' section in the papers. The idea of Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans is enough to provoke the U.N. to action and to invoke the name "Hitler" when dispensing it's political rhetoric against the Serbs. But it hasn't made press in the Congo for a decade. The death toll is in the millions, and the carnage is drawn very much along ethnic lines. Rwanda was ignored and has been all but forgotten. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know. But I just think it's way too easy to claim that the discrepancy comes down to Race. The economic stability of most southern African nations depends on a stable Zimbabwe. There are still a lot of English pounds rapped up in the region, and many of the white colonists still have family ties throughout Britian and the Commonwealth. So obviously Britain and it's press will view a kooky, racially motivated Mugabe as a very negative thing. Since most Americans (even black americans) have closer ties culturally, economically, and politically to Britain than to any Sub-Sahara African nation, we tend to agree. I don't know Alex, but I think his reaction has more to do with Nationalistic and Cultural factors than with Racial ones.
Bill, I think you just got "Lotted". It's a typical ploy of the left to twist words and imply things that aren't there. You are guilty of a thought crime, the next liberal weapon in their war against decency. The thing is, though, that your thoughts are implied by them to fit their agenda.
Re: Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" Dude, the racist crimes by whites in Zimbabwe were NOT committed by the "ancestors" of these farmers. It was these farmers themselves! Or are you suggesting that all these poor displaced farmers have come into the business since 1980? Or perhaps you think that these farmers are "liberal" whites, happy about the democritization of "their" society, and now unjustly being stabbed in the back by their black brothers? Try again. These are zealots and a$$holes to a man. Mugabe may be one just as much, but comparing this at all to Nazi Germany is simply moronic. PS: What's up with not being able to say "a$$hole?"
Re: Re: Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" You mean, do I think they're pretty similar to white South Africans (younger ones anyway)? I would imagine a lot of them are--again, especially the younger ones. By the way, many blacks hate Mugabe as much as the whites do. Nice generalization there. It's not exactly the same, but it's similar. Mugabe seems a hell of a lot closer to comitting genocide than the white-rule government in Zimbabwe ever was. Besides, the only moronic thing is not recognizing that statements like this do look like they come word-for-word from a Hilter speech: "The more they work against us, the more they express hostility against us, the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin here," Mr. Mugabe said at the opening of his ruling Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party's annual convention. Alex
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" Alex, have you read Mein Kampf? Hitler was tying inherent Jewish degeneracy to all sorts of evils. Here, Mugabe is making a specifically political argument, saying, "If these particular farmers who represent 2% of the population, yet have controlled 60% of the land (and nearly 100% of the "good" land) for a century, which they got through terrorism and held on to through blatant discrimination...if they keep mobilizing as a group to keep the land reforms from moving forward, and if they keep calling on all the absentee land owning bastards in Britain to wield political power against us from abroad, well, it's going to be "negative" for them." Face it, the Hitler analogy is totally baseless, unless you see any negative comment directed at one's political enemies as Hitleresque. Do you really think the present white population of Zimbabwe is guiltless in having kept back full citizenship rights for blacks until 20 years ago? You think all the guys who worked so hard to keep that for happening for so long...they all just picked up and left, leaving behind some mass of liberal whites happy with the turn of events? There may be a minority of non-racist whites there, but does anyone really think a century of cultural brainwashing can be swept away that quickly? No way.
Re: Hey, Mud Hen! Neat trick with the html in between the letters... Oh, and you gotta love it when moderators so closely follow the law of the boards: "Passionate discussion without personal attacks." Good work, loser.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" Are you honestly naive enough to think that if all the whites were kicked out of Rhodesia and Mugabe got his way, things would be any different? 2% of people would still own 60% of the land, except they'd now no longer be white colonists, but Mugabe's "war" buddies and cronies. If you're among the 95% of the people who didn't have land before and don't have it now, do you care about the difference? Do you feel better because you're getting screwed over by your own kin instead of "foreign occupators?" Also, how do you account for the fact that during Ian Smith's rule, food shortage was unheard of, and yet famine is a way of life now?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Mugabe threatens white "enemies" And negative for the people that starve to death because there are no skilled farmers left. A small % of the population should control the majority of the farm land. That's called efficiency.