Land for Blacks Only - Zimbabwe

[infoterror]

HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- Zimbabwe will not invite back white farmers whose land was seized by President Robert Mugabe's government despite calls by the central bank chief to allow them to help the struggling agriculture sector, state media reported.

"The land here is for the black people and we are not going to give it back to anybody. We are not inviting any white farmers back," Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, also in charge of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement, told the state-owned Sunday Mail.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/07/31/zimbabwe.land.reut/index.html

( Smart man - he's putting Nationalism into action. Throw out the foreigners, and take ownership of your own country. This is the way of the future, not our failed industrial capitalist past, and the only way that any population will survive modernity. )

 

[Hubster]

As a person of eastern ethnic background, I find this report disturbing: segregation is evil, to class people differently can be evil.

Nationalist indeed... why can't people just accept one another for f***'s sake.

 

[Demiurge]

As a person of eastern ethnic background, I find this report disturbing: segregation is evil, to class people differently can be evil.

Nationalist indeed... why can't people just accept one another for f***'s sake.

How oneiric

 

[Kenneth R.]

i find it stupid for the sake of lost economic gain (more farmers = more money for the country). also i find it stupid for the sake of a greater concept of sharing ideas. if we segregate groups into certain areas, these groups will interact less (likely to infoterror's pleasing) but at a loss for the solutions generated from such interaction and teamwork.

 

[speed]

This has been going on for five years. Unfortunately what looks good on paper for a fanatic ideologue like Prozak, is a totally different story than what is actually happening.

Mugabe and his supporters--many of them armed violent gangs and thugs--have been seizing land for Mugabe's own political and economic ends. Supporters of Mugabe are granted or seize land for themselves, shoring up support for a man who should have been deposed years ago. People who refuse to support a crazy old autocrat, have their land seized. Now obviously the most productive, and old White Rhodesian farmers have been threatened, killed, and had their land seized, as well as any intelligent Zimbabwaian. Thus creating a serious famine, as the formerly productive farms are now run by skill-less thugs who have no idea what they are doing. Hundreds of thousands are dying.

This is no Stalin led plan for industralization and modernization which at least appeared as if it was being done for more than the leader's own paranoia, this is the dismantaling and starving of a country for one man's political survival.

 

[the alumnus]

good post speed, your assesments are on target. indeed, this is hardly "the way of the future" as it is reducing zimbabwe into another african failure. agricultural production is declining rapidly. perhaps the way of the future is for all nations to end up like somalia.

 

[The_Isle]

mugabe? Isn't he that guy who siezes for himself aid meant for his people?

 

[Hubster]

How oneiric

And how so? Is it suddenly a bad thing to be positive in this world when everyone is joining the negativity bandwagon?

 

[BlackMetalTyrant]

Thats right, Zibabwe is holding the white man down, jk

 

[infoterror]

As a person of eastern ethnic background, I find this report disturbing: segregation is evil, to class people differently can be evil.

Nationalist indeed... why can't people just accept one another for f***'s sake.

We do, and that's why we're nationalists.

 

[metu]

I don't think that the reality is neather as centralized nor as harsh as you depict, Speed. I agree that the matter of whites being kept out is not the main issue, but they do have elections in Zimbabwe. They know what textile manufacturing means, too. I think that textiles is Mugabe's goal and he has to get rid of the land owners, the feudal sytem if you will, to free up the workers and create an industrial class.

 

[metu]

Altright. I was on a roll and didn't think that post through. Let's discuss Zimbabwe, but let's start with the basics.

These are what I considered to be the most important factors of Zimbabwe according to the CIA World Factbook. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/zi.html

Natural resources:
coal, chromium ore, asbestos, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium, tin, platinum group metals
Land use:
arable land: 8.32%
permanent crops: 0.34%
other: 91.34% (2001)
Birth rate:
29.74 births/1,000 population (2005 est.)
Death rate:
24.66 deaths/1,000 population (2005 est.)
Infant mortality rate:
total: 67.69 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 70.32 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 64.98 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:
170,000 (2003 est.)
Ethnic groups:
African 98% (Shona 82%, Ndebele 14%, other 2%), mixed and Asian 1%, white less than 1%
Religions:
syncretic (part Christian, part indigenous beliefs) 50%, Christian 25%, indigenous beliefs 24%, Muslim and other 1%
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write English
total population: 90.7%
male: 94.2%
female: 87.2% (2003 est.)
Independence:
18 April 1980 (from UK)
GDP - per capita:
purchasing power parity - $1,900 (2004 est.)
Unemployment rate:
70% (2002 est.)
Agriculture - products:
corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs
Industries:
mining (coal, gold, platinum, copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel, wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and footwear, foodstuffs, beverages
Internet hosts:
4,501 (2003)
Airports:
404 (2004 est.)

 

[Iridium]

The literacy rate is surprising.

 

[Planetary Eulogy]

I don't think that the reality is neather as centralized nor as harsh as you depict, Speed. I agree that the matter of whites being kept out is not the main issue, but they do have elections in Zimbabwe. They know what textile manufacturing means, too. I think that textiles is Mugabe's goal and he has to get rid of the land owners, the feudal sytem if you will, to free up the workers and create an industrial class.

Mugabe is much like Idi Amin. That is, he doesn't have any particular goal beyond preventing anyone else from challenging his power.

 

[Majesty]

As a person of eastern ethnic background, I find this report disturbing: segregation is evil, to class people differently can be evil.

Nationalist indeed... why can't people just accept one another for f***'s sake.

LOL@ you listening to Burzum while saying that

 

[Korona]

Mugabe has derailed his country from the path of an African success story into a laughing stock - a country with an economy based on agriculture that has to import food and recieve food aid to feed its people (or not if you oppose Zanu PF). That he can do this in one of the most mineral rich and fertile countries in Africa is surely a text book example of a political system that chronically fails its people.

 

[metu]

The literacy rate is surprising.

It sure is. 404 airports is surprising, too. I wonder how many of those are paved. The most jaw-dropping for me, though, was the 8.32% arable land. Combine that with these agricultural products - corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs - this may be the worst economic plan ever.

Mugabe is much like Idi Amin. That is, he doesn't have any particular goal beyond preventing anyone else from challenging his power.

Maybe you're right. He might be one of those guys who has it in his head that he's the right man for the job, but I don't know. It seems like a tough country to run.

Mugabe has derailed his country from the path of an African success story into a laughing stock - a country with an economy based on agriculture that has to import food and recieve food aid to feed its people (or not if you oppose Zanu PF). That he can do this in one of the most mineral rich and fertile countries in Africa is surely a text book example of a political system that chronically fails its people.

In what ways do you think that Zimbabwe was on the path of a success story? I think that Zimbabwe is dealing with an absolute nightmare of an economy; it's a text-book example of an economic system which fails its people: not a political system.

8.32% arable land.

 

[Lord SteveO]

I think the only way you can seriously look at the country is as one ruled by a dictatorship that doesn't give a damm about anything appart from keeping itself in power.
Whatever the claimed economic policy is, its a failure. You can't have any serious hope of aiming to produce textiles or whatever when you spend most of your time throwing out the people running the farms (be they white, black, or whatever).
Put that together with the governments actions in "cleaning up" the poorer areas by demolishing house in the 1000s and you've got a bad situation.
The solutions is nothing to do with being nationalist or whatever, the place needs farms and food. These have to come from within the country so kicking out the farmers because they're white is just a waste of time.

 

[infoterror]

Nationalist indeed... why can't people just accept one another for f***'s sake.

That might require accepting differentness.

Otherwise, it's injustice to all.

 

[metu]

I think the only way you can seriously look at the country is as one ruled by a dictatorship that doesn't give a damm about anything appart from keeping itself in power.
Whatever the claimed economic policy is, its a failure. You can't have any serious hope of aiming to produce textiles or whatever when you spend most of your time throwing out the people running the farms (be they white, black, or whatever).
Put that together with the governments actions in "cleaning up" the poorer areas by demolishing house in the 1000s and you've got a bad situation.
The solutions is nothing to do with being nationalist or whatever, the place needs farms and food. These have to come from within the country so kicking out the farmers because they're white is just a waste of time.

Again I state that I do not know the true objectives of Mugabe or his government. I fully agree that staying in power is a priority for them, but I think that they have learned from the mistakes of their neighbors. They won't stay in power if the people are against them. Guns are too cheap and borders too porous for the government to defend against a full-scale revolution.

It seems to me that the people of Zimbabwe are waiting to see what happens next. Apparently, they were given many promises of free land. I doubt that they'll get that. One way to make them less likely to revolt over that broken promise is to get them jobs. If the government doesn't get the people jobs, they're sure to be overthrown.

Industrialization and drastic economic reform come at a violent price. We used children; they burned shacks. Who are we to judge?

"The displaced at Hopely are among the poorest of Zimbabweans. They had occupied illegal shanties around the capital, Harare, which were torn down by the authorities in a campaign of urban renewal, begun on 19 May, that left more than 700,000 people homeless."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48770&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE