Redford rider – a word of advice. Youmight be right, you might not, I don’t know. You sound like you have a lot more first and second hand experience than most. However, in TJ & Ernie you are now fighting against uncontrollable online personas. This you can never win. 😉

TJ – there are 12.5 million Zimbabweans. If only 20% support ZANU-PF then we are already in the millions. I’ve personally encountered people in the countries listed previously who praised Mugabe for his leadership largely based on his anti-colonial struggles. You don’t have to go far in South Africa to find people who think that his land reform policies are a good idea. I revile Mugabe and hope that all Zimbabweans, black, white, Shona and matabele can work together to secure a peaceful and prosperous future. However, we must not underestimate the power of the corrosive anti-colonial narrative spouted by Mugabe for 3 decades which have exerted an influence far beyond Zimbabwe’s borders.

yossarian – Hi there! Thanks for the advice. I know that it is impossible to have a discussion with the ‘big hitters’ who are ernie and TJ. I’m not interested in winning – I’d like a dialogue, not an argument.

Mugabe dying will change nothing. There’ll be another puppet along soon. The army controls everything in Zimbabwe.

Which was apparently “liberated” by “I and I”… whatever that is.

I know you know, silly ain’t it? 🙂

My friend’s brother is Ben Freeth who has campaigned tirelessly against Mugabe and has bollocks the size of footballs basically.

I know it’s a over simplified version of the past but I can’t help think that after so much suppression and exploitation by westerners and naturalised white Africans that it’s totally understandable that white farmers would be forced out. I’m also a little reluctant to play the corruption card too strongly when condemning the regime. We are no better.

The man is going to hell, which I think is too good a place for him.

ernie_lynch: Was because Mugabe was black ?

Dunno. Possibly. Why do you ask?

Just wondered…….thought it might be. I was particularly struck with how your father-in-law liked Ian Smith. Now of course it’s always nice to receive a pair of cufflinks as a present, and Mugabe clearly missed a trick there, but as we all know Ian Smith was a committed racist who staunchly believed that the white minority in Rhodesia should have full democratic rights whilst the black majority should have no democratic rights at all.

Furthermore he was in open rebellion against the British Crown, a treasonous offense which at that time carried the death plenty. No country in the world recognised his illegal racist regime. And he was only reluctantly dragged to the negotiating table after years of UN imposed sanctions and the armed struggle.

So on the face of it, one could describe him as a “not a very nice person”. Although I am delighted to hear that he had an another rather more pleasant side to his personalty, and that he generously rewarded his drivers with a pair of cufflinks – I take it your father-in-law wasn’t black ? However as a general rule most people require a little more than a pair of cufflinks to describe someone more racist than the BNP as a “delightful chap”. So I just wondered whether the fact that Ian Smith was white, and Mugabe was black, also came into it. I now see that according to you “possibly”. Cool 8)

Oh no! I am in possession of possibly racist cuff-links 😉 They look like these:

I just reported what he told me about both politicians – he wasn’t openly racist in my company. Her mum, on the other hand… 🙄

A glance at Ian Smith on wikipedia indicates he supported policies of white supremacy in Rhodesia which I could not sanction. Mugabe seems to have turned out to be even more dangerous and ruinous to Zimbabawe.

Oh no! I am in possession of possibly racist cuff-links They look like these:

look you going to get the STW stasi after you if youre not careful…

look you going to get the STW stasi after you if youre not careful…

If you mean ernie and TJ, it would not be the first time. Mods havn’t bother me tho: 339 pages of posts without a single banning. Is that a record? I just don’t have what it takes make “big hitter” status 😉

Lovely cufflinks 🙂

Delightful in fact !

And the “Southern” Rhodesia reference conjures up images of those wonderful halcyon days of colonial rule, before the natives got all uppity and when the Empire was strong, stable, and secure.

I’m quite jealous 😐

it is clear that some ANC leaders have encouraged their followers to attack whites. Jacob Zuma is notorious for singing his personal anthem ‘Bring me my machine gun’ to the delight of ANC supporters. Julius Malema has been found guilty of hate speech for singing “dubul’ ibhunu” (shoot the boer). Surely this is incitement to murder others because of their race just as Mugabe has done?

Yes and no. You’ll find no disagreement from me that Zuma and Malema are scumbags, and it wouldn’t surprise me if a few morons thought that Umshini Wami should be taken literally as a call to race war and had acted upon it.

At the same time, it’s not a call to race war. It’s a struggle song and it’s understood as recalling the liberation movement. The reason why Zuma is so desperate to rake over the MK/ANC’s proud history before 1994 and keep singing the song is precisely because its history since 1994 has been such a massive disaster. It’s much the same as the Soviet obsession with the Second World War right through the 1980s – there wasn’t anything since then to be proud of.

Zuma and the senior ANC don’t want to actually precipitate any widespread changes or disorder – they’ve got their noses in the trough. The very fact that the ANC is being riven by Malema is evidence of this – the kid’s going to upset the apple cart with all this radical talk, and Zuma wants to appear radical without actually endangering the business interests of him and his mates. (I don’t believe that Malema actually believes a word of what he says either – he’s just a opportunist).

Konnabunny- you make some good points. I agree that MK/ANC can be proud of its pre 94 history. To my shame I was not part of it. I was facinated to watch a recent documentary on the BBC on the anti-apartheid struggle – it was the first time that I’d seen any footage of Oliver Tambo speaking as a young man – very moving and put a lump in my throut.

I still feel that singing ‘Bring me my machine gun’ and ‘shoot the boer’ are pretty inflammatory and certainly intimidates white South Africans even if that is not the intent. Perhaps in a few decades it will be as innocuous as some lines in the English or Scottish athems or even La Marseilliase. However, right now it’s not exactly fostering Madiba’s legacy of the rainbow nation. It scares me now just as much as it did when sung by Toyi-toying masses in the 1980s.

It’s has been interesting to see how Zuma has toned down his rhetoric now that he is in power. Sadly, it may mean that having, as you put it, their noses in the trough has actually defused some racial tension. As distasteful as it may be, this could be a pragmatic model when dealing with Mugabe’s successors. Foreign investors in South Africa are pretty influential and persuasive – continued corruption may the price of peace.

* wonders off to fit new Chris King BB to his bike*

noses in the trough has actually defused some racial tension.

Absolutely – it’s gone from a race struggle to a class struggle.