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Originally posted by Carver
Zimbabwe's independence came in 1980, less than one generation ago. All land aquired prior to 1980 was stolen by a white minority government. Any white person sitting on a farm in 1979 stole that farm from Africans. In some cases the land may have been stolen originally in 1930 but guess what - buying property known to be stolen (or receiving such property) is a crime in every nation I can think of. So yes, the vast majority of white farmers in Zim are thieves.
Zimbabwe's independence came in 1980, less than one generation ago. All land aquired prior to 1980 was stolen by a white minority government. Any white person sitting on a farm in 1979 stole that farm from Africans. In some cases the land may have been stolen originally in 1930 but guess what - buying property known to be stolen (or receiving such property) is a crime in every nation I can think of. So yes, the vast majority of white farmers in Zim are thieves.
Talks brokered by Britain between the white government and the main black groups led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe respectively lead to elections in 1980, where Robert Mugabe's coalition gained a victory. Mugabe was named prime minister, and the country was renamed Zimbabwe. Britain signed off on the agreement officially recognizing the independence of "Rhodesia" as did all of the aformentioned groups. Part of that agreement stipulated that current legal land ownership would remain legal in the eyes of the new government, with funds raised by land taxes and supplied by Britain to compensate black war veterans. Mugabe's government stole that money and distributed it to members of the ruling party, causing Britain to refuse to continue payments and causing a large amount of unrest amongst supporters of Nkomo who were shafted in the process. Protests were brutally put down by members of Mugabe's specially trained (in North Korea) forces.
Land owned by anyone in Zimbabwe in 1979 has as much legal standing as land owned by anyone in Israel or the United States, or any former colony for that matter. The declaration of independence from Britain was not accompanied by a sudden illegal transfer of lands from any party to any other party, the racial makeup of the country and possession of lands having been the result of actions taken both before Rhodesia became an official possession of Britain and afterwards. Actions taken by the white parliament in the 1920's and 1930s were the most egregious racially motivated land thefts. Once whites were in control they of course insisted on the orderly and legal transfers of titles.
Thus title to the lands of Zimbabwe are legal by agreement of not only the former colonial master Britain, but also the former independent white minority government as well as the current black majority government. Even if these titles were non-existent, lands worked for a number of years by whites de facto become lands which are owned by whites de jure (squatters rights). I notice that no one is being charged with theft here, merely that armed thugs who belong to Mugabe's party are using violence to sieze land with the blessing of the government and the security forces.
Does your joy at the violence being visited on the ancestors of white colonists in the name of justice or vengeance a few generations late blind you to the fact that these people never stole anything, or the fact that most of the people being killed are farm workers rather than farm owners, or the fact that the land is only being given to Mugabe's thugs rather than distributed to landless blacks in general, or the fact that the chaotic nature of this theft is dooming millions to malnutrition at best and starvation at worst?
Do I have the right to throw my neighbors into the street by virtue of the Cherokee blood that flows through my veins and the fact that my neighbors are WASPs? There is a large gulf between history and justice that cannot be filled by t!t for tat action decades or centuries after the fact, as emotionally satisfying as that might seem to someone far from the action reading about it in the comfort of their home built on land doubtlessly stolen at some point in history. That energy would be much better spent preventing these crimes in the first place, rather than visiting historical "justice" long after the fact on the innocent and perpetuating the hatred, especially when it is all a cynical ploy to divide and rule by a hateful man who doesn't give a damn how many have to die for him to remain in power even as his accursed life force diminishes to nothing.
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