Mugabe to white farmers: "Oops, my bad"

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Zimbabwe was a relatively small country with intensive farming at industrial level - splitting the farming land up as done is just a catastrophe just as it would be if tried in Denmark.

I am not sure if that is good agricultural practice.

First, planting the same crop/whatnot in a large scale is now deemed a bad thing, because a disease, parasite, or some other thing that attacks the plant will wipe a huge percentage of them out.

Second, these practices are simply not sustainable. It requires dumping more and more synthetic fertilizers into the land and the use of more and more synthetic pesticides. This stuff kills the land and gets into the surface and ground water. What fun.

It's entirely possible that this is why they are failing.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by MrFun



It's really ignorant to simply call a country wealthy by its GDP and economic production when the wealthy of that country were a minority of elitist whites until their party was crashed with the overthrow of apartheid and unfair, exploitative land distribution that promoted mass poverty for the rest of the population.

I think that it is pretty ignorant to think that the solution to those things you mention, is to destroy trade, industrial and agricultural production. Especially if it is done so properly that a country that before could feed themself and export food, now has to import it.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I am not sure if that is good agricultural practice.

First, planting the same crop/whatnot in a large scale is now deemed a bad thing, because a disease, parasite, or some other thing that attacks the plant will wipe a huge percentage of them out.

Second, these practices are simply not sustainable. It requires dumping more and more synthetic fertilizers into the land and the use of more and more synthetic pesticides. This stuff kills the land and gets into the surface and ground water. What fun.

It's entirely possible that this is why they are failing.

If that was what they were doing, then you would be right, but I seriously doubt it. Not being a farmer myself, I although know that shift of crops etc are common practice and I think that the old farmers in Zimbabwe also knew this.

[Bosh]

It's entirely possible that this is why they are failing.

Do you really believe that?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Bosh
Do you really believe that?

You don't think the land deteriorating can be a cause?

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


You don't think the land deteriorating can be a cause?

Lets see, a certain set of farming methods had been producing lots of crops and then we have land reform go in that's so inept that today most of the land that was transferred IS NOT EVEN BEING TILLED and you blame the former farming methods? That's surreal.

Yes over-intensive farming can damage the productivity of land but that tends to be gradual and doesn't result in the kind of country-wide collapse that we've seen in Zimbabwe. After all if it was the farming methods and not the inept government that was at fault why don't we see similar collapses in other countries that use similar farming methods.

Your arguement is basically similar to, say, blaming the problems of the Great Leap Forward on the weather. Yes, weather can cause problems but when the government tries to massively reform a whole sector of the economy and then things go horribly horribly wrong, its almost definately the government's fault.

[Pax]

While I do agree that Robert Mugabe and his government is bad and corrupt. I also believe that taking land back from whites that was basically STOLEN is not necessarily wrong or bad. It's a tough situation that the current whites did not create but benefit from. A better solution is needed that will impower the majority and the country as a whole.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Pax
While I do agree that Robert Mugabe and his government is bad and corrupt. I also believe that taking land back from whites that was basically STOLEN is not necessarily wrong or bad. It's a tough situation that the current whites did not create but benefit from. A better solution is needed that will impower the majority and the country as a whole.

Steal the land from innocent people after it has been cultivated and developed for decades? Sounds fair.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Can someone please tell me how this is America and/or Bush's fault. I'm starting to lose faith in 'poly.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Caligastia


Steal the land from innocent people after it has been cultivated and developed for decades? Sounds fair.

Caligastia,
I definitely am not condoning stealing the land from innocent people. What I said was that the whites are/were benefitting from lands that were stolen from the African people that were already there prior to colonialism. I think it's unrealistic to emancipate/desegregate/deapartheid/grant independence or whatever and still leave the people in the same state as they were before gaining that so-called freedom. It was that way in the USA when they slaves were freed but continued to work on the same fields as there ancestors for the same white master. Black were not really free until over a hundred years later. The same can be said for almost every African country that was subjected to colonialism. They were greated independence but the Europeans still controlled the resources that were ill-gotten gains. It's not fair for the Blacks Africans to take this stolen property back but it's also not fair for the whites to continue to benefit from what was stolen. So what do we have? A ****ed up situation that needs to be resolved. I propose a program that will allow the whites to keep most of the land at the same time giving up a share to the blacks and also promoting programs to educate and provide economic stability to the blacks so that everyone in the country can I have equal opportunities and the country will be stronger as a whole.

[Kuciwalker]

Pax: Americans are benefitting from lands that were stolen from Native Americans that were already there... so should we give the entire country back to them?

[Pax]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Pax: Americans are benefitting from lands that were stolen from Native Americans that were already there... so should we give the entire country back to them?

Read my post. It's more complicated because of the amount of **** america stole and the fact that it would be impossible for America to fully repatriate every family member of a slave, every mexican, every indian, and every chinese person that was subjugated. So we as Americans have programs that will get these groups onto an equal footing with the mainstream. I say that's a great idea. If you read my post you will see that's basically what I'm advocating for Zimbabwe. By the way, the most christian and moral thing to do would be to give the stolen goods back.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Pax: Americans are benefitting from lands that were stolen from Native Americans that were already there... so should we give the entire country back to them?

nah, but we SHOULD gamble enough at their casinos to offset some of the value of the land

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Pax
Read my post. It's more complicated because of the amount of **** america stole and the fact that it would be impossible for America to fully repatriate every family member of a slave, every mexican, every indian, and every chinese person that was subjugated. So we as Americans have programs that will get these groups onto an equal footing with the mainstream. I say that's a great idea. If you read my post you will see that's basically what I'm advocating for Zimbabwe. By the way, the most christian and moral thing to do would be to give the stolen goods back.

I'm not Christian. Spare me.

[Pax]

Maybe you're not Christian but I did consider you to be a decent man of morals with a sense of right and wrong. If I'm wrong please let me know.