African Democracy
Pundits and politicians have been sounding off, lately, about the cruel dictator Robert Mugabe and the imperfection of the democratic process in the Zimbabwe elections. On NPR, Dan Schorr--that thing that would not die--blames George Bush, because if he had not got us into a war in Iraq, we could be intervening in Zimbabwe. I think I shall not be misunderstood as expressing approval of the President or his war, if I point out that in an oil-rich state in the Middle East there was at least some possibility, however remote, for advancing the interests of the United States and those of our allies, but in Zimbabwe not a ghost of a chance. For Schorr--and the entire American Left--Americans should be sent to fight in die only in wars that could never do their country any good. We are back to Frost's famous definition, that a liberal is someone who would not take his own side in an argument.
Americans over 40 would do well to recall how a stable and prosperous country known as Rhodesia was bullied by smug Europeans and Americans into holding bogus elections that propelled a Red Chinese backed terrorist named Mugabe into the presidency of the renamed Zimbabwe. Dan Schorr was an enthusiastic proponent of the revolution, and on the eve of the election Schorr could only express his disappointment with Mugabe: "Whatever credit Mugabe deserves for having led the liberation struggle against Ian Smith and his white supremacists pales when placed next to his misdeeds of the last ten or fifteen years. The Mugabe of 1980 was a hero. The Mugabe of 2004 is a despot." Pales is perhaps not le mot juste in this situation.
Prime Minister Ian Smith, a man of great ability and integrity, was demonized in the American press and by the absurd Jimmie Carter and his lackey Andrew Young, who played a major role in destroying Rhodesia. I am sure they are both shocked, simply shocked by the recent election. As long as the democratic process produces candidates like Jimmie Carter and now, the reductio ad absurdum, Barack Obama, we can count on an endless succession of Mugabes propped up by US taxdollars before being ejected by US troops.
The Left would like us to believe that the 1980 election was a perfect example of the democratic process, unlike the current election in which government employees had to fill out ballots under the watchful eye of their superiors. And the election of 1980? Setting aside the fact that the two principle rivals for power--Joshuah Nkomo and Robert Mugabe--were both violent terrorists, it was a farce. Everyone was surprised by Mugabe's victory, since Nkomo was a national hero. At the time, Sam Francis told me of intelligence reports he had seen. Mugabe's men, apparently, went through the bush telling everyone that Mugabe was a witch doctor who can read minds. "You can go into the polling place and think you are casting a secret ballot, but Mugabe knows and Mugabe will punish." This is a new twist on democracy, even on African democracy, once defined as "One man, one vote, one time."
So let us get this straight. Schorr was right to support the terrorist witch-doctor Mugabe in 1980 and is now right to call for armed intervention to overthrew him, after the 28 years of misrule that anyone with even half a brain knew would be the result. I wonder if Schorr and his ilk have ever noticed the opinion poll, done some years ago, in which the citizens of Zimbabwe, when asked who was their country's greatest political leader, put Ian Smith at the top? Smith, as we all have been told, was evil in advocating racial separation, but, if he could return to Salisbury and run for office, he might ask: "Are you better off today than you were in 1979?" Who, apart from Schorr and other Leftists, could possibly say "Yes"? If blacks were second class citizens, they at least had some legal protections and were not starving to death. Today, conditions are so bad--especially after Mugabe turned loose the goons who are murdering white farmers and stealing the farms that fed the country--that many Zimbabweans are fleeing to South Africa, the paragon of postcolonial Africa, where they are given a warm welcome indeed. The tale of the beatings and robbings inflicted by blacks upon blacks has not received much attention in the US, but some of the incidents have been reported on.
Is there a single Leftist in America--or for that matter a single conservative politician or employed journalist--who is willing to say: We should have left well enough alone? Whatever curse British rule inflicted on Africa, the lot of post-colonial Africans seems infinitely worse. In South Africa, the regime established by the comparatively benign terrorist Mandela is now falling into the hands of a thug of Mugabean proportions. But the former British colonies are somewhat better off than places like Congo or Rwanda, to say nothing of the subjects of such lovable characters as the gourmet of cannibalism, the Emperor Bokassa or the self-described "reluctant cannibal," Idi Amin. Yes, yes, the people of postcolonial Africa, for all their troubles, enjoy freedom and democracy. Yes, the freedom to be robbed and raped, murdered and eaten. I remember the TV series "V" in which man-eating reptiles take over the earth. When some of the human rebels protest against the rough methods practiced by Michael Ironside, he replies: "I may bring down the neighborhood, but at least I don't eat it." I can think of no more fitting epitaph for Ian Smith
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I suspect that the spineless creatures who demanded "free" elections in Rhodesia were primarily doing so out of their need to assuage their own guilt. National interest--that is to say, basic reality, acknowledged and coped with---scarcely entered into it. It was all about their feelings, and it has been all about their feelings ever since 1950 or so.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
Bush has already created an African command. Obama will likely use it with Daniel Schorr, his wraith or those of his ilk whispering in Obama's ear. Mugabe, actually for my take, the ultimate face of liberalism in an African context, has likely earned the ire of his liberal counterparts in the West because he has revealed the facade and falseness of democracy. They would continue to hide their nefarious schemes behind it.
Such would not be beneath McCain, but one senses that his shallow but seemingly pugnacious ego would first like to punch the Russian bear in the nose. Of course, the bear would never let him get that close to its nose. Even when it seems to sleep, the bear has an eye to the matter and a sharp claw at the ready.
@2robert m. peters
Last time I checked its was the western alliance whos pointing misslies at Russia, supporting terrorism in it bounderies and neighbouring regions, restricting travel visas for Russians to travel inside the EU, NGO's trying to overthrow the government and control its economy and trying to Balkanise the country.
US and Europe have for decades been trying to destroy christian heritage and nationhood. Through there islamic proxies they have genocided the Serbs and are planning to do the same thing to Russia.
Begging your pardon, Mr. Fleming, but former President Carter's diminutive first name is spelled with a "y", not with an "ie".
So if he were still alive, Waugh's biggest challenge in writing "Black Mischief II" would be in making his satire keep pace with the preposterousness of reality...
This sort of thing suggests the extent to which the pro-Obama, conservative isolationist crowd will find their hopes for peace cruelly dashed, should the Great Transcender win the throne.
By "pro-Obama, conservative isolationist crowd" I realize I'm speaking of a very, very small group -- but it's still perplexing to me that such a demographic exists at all.
James @ 3
You and I agree; hopefully, there was not a misunderstanding. Perhaps I did not do a good job with the intended irony in my post.
G.S. @ 6
Is there such a crowd?
@7robert m. peters
Sorry I thought you were with the Edward Lucus crowd. Just read a comment on Russiablog.org before I read this this article of a comment on a review article of the new cold war were he/she was talking about the west being week because its launching wars in the middle east and the russian bear is going to invade the Baltic states and destroy them blah blah blah.
Micheal Averko who sometimes posts comments on this website posted some good critical points about the book but failed to mention the author himself is a propagandist Rothschild stooge who works for David Rothschilds Economist magazine.
I think western governments are distracted with a Russia/China axis. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was set up after NATO bases were setup in Central Asia. The only real threat to western civilisation is demographic and cultural not military which we have welcomed through mass immigration.
Mr. James @ 9
I suppose I lead a sheltered existence here in the uplands of the Louisiana wold; I do not even know who Edward Lucus is. I agree with you about the demographic danger; it is very real and quite present.
Lucas is a British establishment/NWO/rothschild crony propagandist whos hyping up a fictionalised supposed "threat" whos are forign correspondent for Lord Rothschilds Economist.
http://www.russiablog.org/2008/06/fear_and_loathing_at_the_econo.php#more
Lord David Rothschild was the main shareholder of the former Yukos oil company which he bought up cheap through his front man in Russia former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
You could say Lucas is in the press division of the Rothschild network as George Soros is in foreign affairs.
I had a good friend in college from Rhodesia. Before it turned scary, he used to tell countless stories of the absurdity of the Mugabe regime. He earned a Master's degree from UCLA and afterwards applied for residency here. He was denied and then moved to Australia. Imagine, an English speaking, law abiding, white male with a Master's degree, why would we want another one of those here?
I haven't read Ian Smith's book, 'The Great Betrayal', but from what I know of it, it must be the world's biggest 'I Told You So' ever written.
Smith died last November. He predicted that the starvation and brutality in 'Zimbabwe' would cause a rebellion. We'll not see his like again soon.
I barely remember news reports of events in Rhodesia during the 70's when I was a child. It was from an account written by a Texan who had served in the Rhodesian army (I think it was Michael Peirce) and published in 1983 in the old Gung Ho magazine, that I first learnt to distrust the media at the tender young age of twelve.
I remember as a child seeing on TV a Rhodesian army unit on parade in Salisbury, marching in proper British form, and thinking what a superb group of men they must be. They were the kind of man who in previous generations had built the British empire, a kind of man which in our day is sadly passing all over the Western world.
Those who are interested in Smith can go to Youtube and watch the video about him called, 'A Bit of a Rebel'.
A terrorist Mandela? May I ask you why?
I never can remember how to spell President Carter's nickname, and I am not sure that one can have an official spelling of a nickname. I think I shall persist in my error. The sex-neutral Jimmie is so appropriate to a man of his foolishness and ineffectiveness.
Some day, I should tell the story of two US ex-soldiers I met in Charleston. They were Vietnam Vets and, though black, were serving as mercenaries for white regimes in Africa. They hated the communists and hated tyranny--both were Jeffersonian--and they thought they could best serve their American ideals by fighting for Rhodesia.
This is a good example of the danger of couching everything in terms of 'rights.' A regime that is materially better for the people under it is painted as utterly evil solely because it does not meet the liberal 'rights' requirement. This also works the other way. An evil man like Mugabe will actually be praised by liberals for fighting for 'rights' while at the same time being a brutal murderer. 'Rights' excuse him from his blatant moral evil. This is ideology at its best and liberals at their worst.
After Obama is elected, I'm sure we'll get a nearly lethal dose of democratic nation building in Darfur, and who knows were else. On the radio the other day someone said that Obama will be the first president who has made more trips to Africa than to Europe. An ominous sign, indeed.
Didn't President Jimmuh Peanut once describe Mugabe as the George Washington of his nation? I seem to remember a big hug between the two, caught on camera. The Nobel Laureate "statesman" Carter should never be allowed to live that one down. As a Georgian myself, I recall that, back before all the hagiographic rehabilitation of Carter began, he did more harm to image of the South than a Neyland Stadium full of so-called Bubba's (who are at least decent and honest citizens, who mind their own business, at least, as concerns people an ocean and a continent away).
@16M.A. Roberts
Actually theres a relative of his who was somehow involved in the rigged election in Kenya that spiralled the country into crisis with violent riots and scores of people killed.
I dont know why Americans didn't vote for Ron Paul. Its there own fault for having these two candidates as there only option. If Bush was running again for president I would vote for him over these two clowns other than Iraq and Kosovo his other foreign policy hasn't been bad.
I dont know why Americans didn’t vote for Ron Paul.
_______________________________________________
Because Americans have been "properly Reconstructed", and want communism, good and HARD - which is what they're going to get under either McCain or Obama.
Thomas Fleming wrote: "..anyone with even half a brain knew would be the result..".
Exactly so. The mistake you make, is to believe that the people who rule this world are fools. They are certainly no fools. They are liars. Their purpose never was to build a stable democracy in Zimbabwe, or in other African countries for that matter. Their purpose was all the time to wreck havoc in Zimbabwe and drive the white people out of Africa, in preparation for the world revolution. So its no need to say 'I told you so', because The Powers That Be have obtained EXACTLY what they wanted in Zimbabwe. We have seen The Powers That Be playing these games for decades if not for centuries, and we should recognize their games by now.
"Pro-Obama isolationist crowd..." as one poster coined above. It could be an oxymoron of sorts if Obama starts printing the money expanding America's already astronomically ballooning unfunded liabilities to keep 'his promises' with 'our' currency and future.
When the big boys print money it causes the inflation they don't feel, since they get the fiat paper first. But they want us frogs boiled slowly so we don't jump out of the pot. Government is different, simply in *not being that smart. Plus they do it at another order of magnitude inevitably due to us masses. In other words simply put, if you print 1 million dollars for one person yes it's inflationary. But if you print only 1 dollar for 100 million people that's still 100 times *more inflationary.
If that is something Obama doesn't come to grips with and subsequently inflation goes bonkers and the dollar isn't worth anything even at home? Well, that's when ALL the (appropriate) distance of the world comes (inappropriately) CLOSE. And so by definition it's hard to remain 'isolationist' even in one's own backyard at home.
Never mind along the border, people might want to start putting up huge fences around their own homes. With signs hanging outside on the walls, abutting the moat, 'Pro-Obama isolationist' - for the salutary p.r., directed at those contemplating scaling the walls for the supplies possibly therein.
If Obama on the other hand saw the 'light' prior to death and became a conservative, then a pro-Obama isolationist would no longer be an oxymoron of sorts. Right now with the system unchanged. The mentality is apparently to fight inflation via that other patent oxymoron - 'military intelligence'. As exemplified by the other candidate Attila the Hun, Jr. a.k.a. John McCain the other crazy Ashkenazim proxy. ... He's not even a native born member of this country. So if he can violate the rules and become el'Presidente. There's no reason that Arnold, the Governator shouldn't be in-line next for the hallowed office.
But who would elect him now in ostensibly Mongol america. You know, y'Arnold's an apparent European. Maybe it might be possible if y'Arnold converted to Islam?
I was, conincidentally, having just such a discussion with my wife today. Mugabe was known as a Marxist thug at the time of the election. His disdain for democracy was palpable; seen in his rage five years later when whites voted overwhelmingly against him. It is an irony that the majority white country that trailblazed "wars of liberation" the US, nonetheless fails to "export" the fundamental premise of that revolution, the rule of law and disdain for despotism--epitomized in the voluntary abdication of power by G. Washington. It is quite instructive that in none of the "black/brown" revolutions that has followed since ours have the leaders of the revolution followed the example of G. Washington.
And I must simply say of this . . .
"For Schorr–and the entire American Left–Americans should be sent to fight in die only in wars that could never do their country any good. We are back to Frost’s famous definition, that a liberal is someone who would not take his own side in an argument."
. . . absolutely priceless.
An outstanding piece.
I recall a Russell Kirk column published in National Review (late 60s or early 70s) that predicted what would happen to Rhodesia and South Africa should "democracy" replace white rule. Kirk even went so far as to call the would-be black leaders "witch doctors," who would destroy whatever civilization existed on the Dark Continent.
People forget that Ian Smith was a hero to many conservatives and that Mandela was known to be a Marxist terrorist who killed innocent women and children.
Can anyone imagine today's NR saying something negative about Mandela or positive about Smith?
It's only a matter of time before the same thing has happens to Rhodesia happens to South Africa for largely the same reasons. At first Mugabe was benign to the white community of Zimbabwe, leaving them alone while he ruthlessly destroyed Natabeleland while no one was looking in the mid-1980s. Then as the economy deteriorated and people began to be upset as his rule and joined the CDM to challenge Mugabe's ZANU party, he looked for scapegoats and found them, the whites who controlled land.
So in South Africa, when things get bad and the ruling ANC party is being challenged, no doubt the ANC, no matter who is leading it, will turn against the white community and force them out of the country and turn South Africa into a place of pure despotism like Zimbabwe is now. By then Mandela will be long gone and no one on the continent will dare criticize the ANC for taking from the whites and giving to the poor and destitute of Soweto. That's why South Africa is doing nothing while Zimbabwe melts down and thousands of refugees pour across their borders (only to be beaten by Xhosas). They want to able to act like Mugabe and hold on to power someday too and blame colonialism and apartheid for making them act so brutally.
"Ian Smith and his white supremacists"
Don't you just love how everyone the leftists think is insufficiently PC becomes a white supremacist? What does that even mean?
Humor: African Democracy is like the leader nominally Catholic who only eats people on Friday because he doesn't like fish. (More humor): come to think of it that's like democracy in the West except they 'cook' it better, a slower boil. ... 'Hmm,' says us on the menu, 'this is relaxing. ... Wow, is this an onion or a bar of soap?'
The white liberal elite is mainly interested in tearing down anything that doesn't fit their definition of 'equality', and they have no interest or personal exposure or investment in the aftermath. If terrorists take over, so what. The exact analogous thing happened in the US, on school busing. Once the schools were 'integrated', the liberals didn't care that they became hellholes.
@Shahin
Here is just a capsule of the activities of the "Great Man".
"Mandela was convicted of terrorism in 1963 and freely admitted at his trial, "I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation."
As economic sanctions, and especially an oil embargo brought about the end of the white regime in South Africa, Mandela was released and became the ANC leader. The ANC's terrorist arm, which Mandela headed in 1963 -- called Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) or Spear of the Nation -- continued waging terrorist attacks with arson, political murder and robberies.
It was at this time that the recently freed Mandela told cadres from a Umkhonto meeting in Venda, "It was always my view that the armed liberation struggle is based on and grows out of mass political struggle fought by the oppressed." He called for the total defeat of "the white minority."
DEAL-MAKING NELSON
In those days, Mandela crafted all kinds of deals with Cuba, Libya, Iran, North Korea and the Palestinians. Now with armed struggle ended, he continues close friendships with Fidel Castro, Muammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat and the other little tyrants who helped the ANC to its victory. "
Many thanks, Djordje. Any additional info will be welcome too. Didn´t Mandela murder a policeman, for instance?
Djordje:
Mandella may planned sabotage or even assassinated some officials.If you call him a terrorist, you have broadened the definition of terrorism to the extents that we can label Ghandi, Washington or anyone else who stands against an oppressive or imperialist regime as terrorist.
First of all, it remains to be seen that the old South Africa was an "oppressive or imperialist regime" as compared with, for example, with South Africa today. Secondly, "may have planned sabotage or even assassinated some officials" is a dandy way of referring to the killing, raping, and looting that characterized the ANC's actions, much less the charming behavior of Mrs. Mandela, whose goons killed the black opposition by putting burning tires around their necks. Yes, Mandela was probably no Mugabe or Mao, but he is bad enough even in what he admitted to, much less what he was widely accused of. In the American Revolution, by contrast, it was the British government that deliberately murdered civilians, not George Washington. It is true that the rebels practiced merciless retaliation against Tories, especially in places like the western parts of the Carolinas where the war was a true civil war, but that was not the action either of the Continental Congress or of General Washington. The argument here appears to reflect a double standard that excuses criminal violence so long as it serves a national liberation movement against an imperialist, read white European regime. Next he will be defending Hamas.
31. This fellow is utterly ignorant of George Washington and the American War of Independence.
Apartheid was a system of legalized racial segregation. Apartheid legislation classified inhabitants and visitors into racial groups (black, white, coloured and Indian (or Asian). Under Apartheid, South African blacks were stripped of their citizenship. The apartheid government practiced detentions without trial, torture, censorship and massacres - eg. Sharpeville Massacre and Soweto uprising were 200 to 600 student were killed-
The Apartheid regime is the symbol of racism around the world.
Finally, I agree that there is "a double standard" in the definition terrorism.
By the way, did you know that the French partisans who were fighting in France against the Nazi's occupation of their country, were called terrorist by the Nazis?
I doubt that Soweto can be called a 'massacre', and I hear that the rioting and murder in Soweto is still going on just like it was back in the 80's. The difference now is that the black government refuses to enforce the law or even attempt to keep the streets safe anywhere in the country.
I would like to have a vote on who is more stupid and offensive, the hysterical and dyslexic bigot Horace Grady on the Obama thread or the hysterical and bigoted anti-racist Shahin here. Since South Africa was a "racist" regime, he is arguing, that justifies the ANC's terrorism. May I suggest to Shahin that he go to South Africa and do a little humanitarian aid to the re-oppressed natives. But he should make sure that his parents have tickets bought in advance so that when they go too tell his murderers they forgive them, they can have the 14 day advance price. Go way, both of you, and play with people your own age.
This reminds me of another Shahin I once ran into, a neoconservative who wanted to talk about tradition and community, ripped off Clyde Wilson's ideas and (suitably denigrating Prof. Wilson along the way) and represented them in Irving-Kristollian language, and voila, a PhD and a new star in the firmament of Hell. I wonder if it is the same guy?
I was in South Africa-Rhodesia in 1979-80. Rhodesia was a nicer place than SA, despite the war, as it had more of a British colonial laid back nature. It is just amazing how thoroughly the forces of "majority rule" have wrecked that country in the last three decades.
Under Apartheid, South African blacks were stripped of their citizenship.
Before whites came to South Africa, there was no country in which blacks were citizens in the modernsense. The region was inhabited by warring tribes. The cities, the mines, the industry, the agricultural surplus of South Africa, all were the products of white (or if you like, Western) civilization. Take away that civilization, and modernity and progress collapse.
The apartheid government practiced detentions without trial, torture, censorship and massacres - eg. Sharpeville Massacre and Soweto uprising were 200 to 600 student were killed-
All of which are routinely practiced by majority rule African governments, as well as mass starvation, throwing dissenters to the crocodiles, and cannibalism. Yet none of this causes very much moral outrage among Western liberals.
Southern Africa was truly the clash of civilizations. Either Western civilization or African civilization was going to triumph. There was (and is) no middle ground. The losers would (and did) end up becoming second class citizens, if you like. We can see that happening today in the rainbow nation to white South Africans.
The problem for Western liberals is this does not fit into the script. "Liberation" and "majority rule" are supposed to lead to democracy, not dictatorships and failed stated. Since the reality does not fit the ideology, the reality is jettisoned.