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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 10:06:21 GMT
When is a coup not a coup? When it happens in Zimbabwe?
Not sure if it is PC or not but I for one hope it IS a coup and that the Mugabe clan are sent off on a permanent holiday somewhere cold and wet, just as long as it is not here. Perhaps Incirlik airbase? The Mugabe clan remind me of the Marcos clan who also received their P-45's at the point of a coup. What is happening in the world?
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 15, 2017 11:50:03 GMT
I think many could have foretold this outcome. One good thing for Zimbabwe is there is no religious argument internally; they just need to sort out their rules and start growing stuff (they're very good at that) to sell to all the other Dictators to feed their troops.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 12:18:43 GMT
I think they USED to be good at growing things, these days they are living off exports from South Africa.
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Post by scouse on Nov 15, 2017 12:28:26 GMT
I think many could have foretold this outcome. One good thing for Zimbabwe is there is no religious argument internally; they just need to sort out their rules and start growing stuff (they're very good at that) to sell to all the other Dictators to feed their troops. Religious argument no, tribal argument Hell yes and as was seen in Rwanda, that can be just as venomous. As for growing stuff, they've either killed off or scared off the white farmers who were good at the actual growing of stuff. |
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Post by racingteatray on Nov 15, 2017 12:30:34 GMT
I think they USED to be good at growing things, these days they are living off exports from South Africa. It's a very fertile land in principle. They can turn it around.
Question is whether the Croc is any improvement on Uncle Bob. I suspect anything is better than DisGrace, but it would be somewhat surprising if a President Mnangagwa changed the basic political and economic approach to any great extent.
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Post by scouse on Nov 15, 2017 12:33:03 GMT
I think they USED to be good at growing things, these days they are living off exports from South Africa. It's a very fertile land in principle. They can turn it around.
Question is whether the Croc is any improvement on Uncle Bob. I suspect anything is better than DisGrace, but it would be somewhat surprising if a President Mnangagwa changed the basic political and economic approach to any great extent.
It'll still be an African Socialist shithole. They won't. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 13:48:20 GMT
With a LOT of luck the new regime will open up and ask for assistance from South Africa in particular. A long shot but all they have left. No doubt the EU would like to loan them money they cannot afford and then get them deeper into the crapper with a situation like Greece. "Cannot repay your loan this month Sir? Not a problem, we will just lend you/force you to borrow more money you cannot afford".
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Post by Big Blue on Nov 15, 2017 14:21:44 GMT
With a LOT of luck the new regime will open up and ask for assistance from South Africa in particular. A long shot but all they have left. No doubt the EU would like to loan them money they cannot afford and then get them deeper into the crapper with a situation like Greece. "Cannot repay your loan this month Sir? Not a problem, we will just lend you/force you to borrow more money you cannot afford". I think China has already done that.... |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 16:15:31 GMT
Yes I should have remembered that, always someone on the pinch.
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Post by PG on Nov 16, 2017 17:20:46 GMT
Whoever initiated or looks to profit from the "non-coup" (the political equivalent of a non-breakdown), clearly would not have done it without the blessing of the Chinese - who pretty much own Zimbabwe these days as they have lent them so much money in return for mineral and land rights.
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Post by johnc on Nov 16, 2017 17:39:21 GMT
We had relatives who were farmers in Zimbabwe. They had their farm taken from them forcibly and were very lucky to leave with their lives. The farm land is now totally overgrown and all the hard work many years ago to clear out the tree roots etc is slowly but surely being reversed as nature takes over.
It was an awful lot of hard work to make the land suitable for farming and the feeling of the descendants of the farmers (who now live in the UK) is that no-one wants to put the effort in to return the farms to their former glory. Partly because they can't be bothered and partly because of the gangs and criminals who would just take what they wanted - I suppose that helps breed the can't be bothered attitude. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2017 20:51:56 GMT
It seems that his butship is refusing to cooperate thus far, perhaps he will have to have an 'accident' in the 'shower' and break his neck.
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Post by johnc on Nov 17, 2017 7:59:40 GMT
I suppose it is just that many of the African countries have not had the structure, infrastructure and modern laws for anything like as long as the likes of the UK and they are just at a different stage in their cultural development (at least in so far as we consider our kind of society to be the current pinnacle of development).
I had some South Africans who were clients and had come here to escape the repression as they saw it. Eventually they went back because they felt things were getting better but they said something to me which I will always remember: SA is a country where they lock up all the good people and let all the criminals walk about free. He then went on to say that he had lived in a gated compound where he had bars on all his windows, barbed and razor wire on all the perimeter walls and armed guards at the gates and patrolling the community. He also didn't go out at night.
I am sure if you went back in time in the UK, many hundreds of years, Robert Mugabe and his behaviour would perhaps not be dis-similar to those in power here. |
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Post by ChrisM on Nov 17, 2017 8:23:51 GMT
..... he had lived in a gated compound where he had bars on all his windows, barbed and razor wire on all the perimeter walls and armed guards at the gates and patrolling the community. He also didn't go out at night That sounds like how one of my former colleagues described Liverpool to me in the 1990's ! Most South African countries seem to be run on a system where everyone accepts that there are a few rich, corrupt people in charge of the nation and everyone else lives in poverty, often in fear of their own lives if they don't do what is excepcted of them by their local leader(s) |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 11:12:14 GMT
The tribal system will take a long time to banish, if ever but it is what is needed if they are to have a proper peace and work together.
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Post by racingteatray on Nov 17, 2017 13:37:00 GMT
We had relatives who were farmers in Zimbabwe. Same here, but they read the wind early on and left (as did my mother who had moved there) pretty shortly after UDI. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 17:34:48 GMT
My father had some pretty wild ideas, one of which was to move to SA, shortly after Zimbabwe came out of the ashes of Rhodesia. His thinking was that the status quo would never change. Oops. He also had plans to move to a certain Caribbean island but shortly after he announced his palns a volcano pretty much destroyed the island. The belief was that the island heard about the move and did something about it.
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Post by scouse on Nov 18, 2017 12:40:57 GMT
We had relatives who were farmers in Zimbabwe. Same here, but they read the wind early on and left (as did my mother who had moved there) pretty shortly after UDI. And here, only mine went to South Africa.... from farming thousands of their own acres and cattle, his sons are now working on someone else’s sheep farm in New Zealand having fled the crime in SA |
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Post by Ben on Nov 19, 2017 17:26:05 GMT
I spent much of the weekend reading about 20th century Africa on Wikipedia. A truly sobering experience given all the tragedy and atrocities that happened.
Mugabe appears to be a Grade A asshole. Glad he's gone.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2017 17:47:04 GMT
In the beginning there was also another black party, ZAPU but after the end of minority rule Mugabe ruthlessly cut Joshua Nkomo and the ZAPU party out and renamed themselves as ZANU PF. He was always just as ruthless with his own people and in many ways is just as much a Pariah as Adolf Hitler. The loss of life can only be guessed at but it is probably not PC to suggest that as many black people are killed by other black people as whites. I know PC be damned.
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Post by Ben on Nov 20, 2017 12:04:29 GMT
In the beginning there was also another black party, ZAPU but after the end of minority rule Mugabe ruthlessly cut Joshua Nkomo and the ZAPU party out and renamed themselves as ZANU PF. He was always just as ruthless with his own people and in many ways is just as much a Pariah as Adolf Hitler. The loss of life can only be guessed at but it is probably not PC to suggest that as many black people are killed by other black people as whites. I know PC be damned. But it is a true fact. Many of these power-hungry dictators were seeking absolute power under the guise of nationalism, and committed atrocities against their own countrymen because of differing political opinions or simply because they weren't of the same 'group'. |
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