It seems that Mugabe's troops, acting under his orders, are comfiscating farmlands managed by blacks, plowing under their current crops and planting maize in order to fill the government's grain silos. http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060605/wl_csm/ozimfarm The economy is a complete mess in Zimbabwe. This policy is only going to promote misery and starvation.
This makes me ask, are there any success stories in Africa? What will it take to get the countries there on some sort of civilized track?
Zimbabwe was, until about five years ago. The country below it is doing fairly well for itself, considering it's still an emerging democracy.
I'm currently reading Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari. It's truly depressing reading. He was a teacher in Uganda and Malawi in the 60s. Things are much worse than 40 years ago.
What happens to the place in 2043? (*Rimshot*) Off the top of my head? Botswana. Tunisia. Ultimately, it depends on your yardsticks and context. Is a "success" judged relative to western standards, or African ones? If the latter, what's the measure of success? Literacy? Self-sufficiency? AIDS rates? Or perhaps even cute little nice-to-haves like representative government and merely low-key corruption? Colonial rule. No, I'm serious.
Botswana is one. I think Mali is another although it may strickly be in terms of a country adopting democracy peacefully. No way. Colonial rule has been a big part of the problem. The same with the cold war. Instead of supporting countries trying to be democratic, like Mali, we keep pouring tens of millions into places like Uganda where Musevini [sic] finally had a quasi-democratic election after seizing power in the mid-80s. And the colonies split up the "countries" in ways that cause many of them to naturlaly have "internal" conflicts. I don't see how the US or Britain or France is going to help the problem because for the last 100 - 200 years they have been major contributors the problem. I don't want to take blame away from people like Mobutu. But let's face it, Mobutu's reign wouldn't have been 1/2 as long as it was if the French weren't bailing his ass out with paratroopers or the IMF doing nothing about the money being funneled off by Mobutu and his psychophants from copper, diamonds, etc. I don't think they have any desire to sort out the problems, just get what they want. With Angola, they aren't going to raise a stink of alleged govt (MPLA) attrocities cuz the US and others just want the oil. Or with Eritrea and Ethiopia, I'm not sure there is much interest in anything. So they're not willing to enforce the rulings that Ethiopia said they'd stick too. I don't want to say these problems "are all white imperial crackas" fault. But they have had their fingers in the cookie jar and I fail to see how they're going to make anything better given how much they've done that's opposite.
OTOH, 45 years of apartheid seems to give most people in South Africa respect for the rule of law and democracy, since white South Africans had it and everybody else didn't, rather than the usual fiefdoms colonies were. Plus some wise leaders (Mandela was a communist, but realised that ship had sailed and set South Africa on a liberal course). Ethnic tensions also aren't as bad as they should be, although Zulus and Xhosas get into spats now and then.
The ruling party Zanu-PF has announced that it is extending Mugabe's mandate by 2 years. The government feels there have been too many elections recently and so the country needs a break.
Blaming Whitey for Africa's problems is like blaming Israel for the problems of Middle East countries. It's just easier than facing the real problems.
One big problem with Africa is that alot of the governments (not all) but a lot have corrupt dictatorships in charge.
Exactly. The problem is that (especially in Zim's case) the governing parties (ZANU, ANC, SWAPO, et al) are liberation groups and aren't truly parties of democracy. In practically all cases in Africa, it's just been one dictatorship replacing another, so I'm not very optimistic anout Zim's prospects even when Comrade Bob kicks it.
Problems is, Zimbabwe's now so messed up that "what happens next?" is almost an irrelevant debate. No matter how bad the next guy, he's not going to be as bad as Mugabe. In time, Mugabe's story will be written up by history in the same tone as the stories of some of the worst despots in modern times. Beyond the monstrous, callous kleptocratic nature of the regime and the woeful impact it has had on ordinary Zimbabweans, the biggest story in this whole issue is the way in which Africa has failed - abjectly failed, mind - to handle its own issues. South Africa's appeasement of Mugabe, in apparent service of some high-minded and utterly foolish belief in "African solutions for African problems", is a particularly nasty stain on that country's - and the wider continent's - post-colonial history.