"Please come back" - Mugabe

[Q Classic]

No, Pekka, it's not that I think your reply was wrong.

I just wanted to make a snarky comment, and you had to go and ruin it by bringing logic and facts into the discussion.

WTF is wrong with you?

[Pekka]

What is this? I always bring facts and the truth to the table. This is a habit of mine. You know, I don't know why you are surprised this time. I think you have been slacking reading my threads man... you should pick it up again you know.

[Q Classic]

Pfft. Reading involves so much headwork. I can't wrap my head around it.

I think the supercitizen would be that much more super if he fibbed once in a while. Like the Dear Leader.

[Pekka]

What does fibbing mean?

[OzzyKP]

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Caligastia
He won't even give them back their land, he wants to lease it to them!

Land their ancestors STOLE!

[DinoDoc]

Why ask the thieves to come back then?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Land their ancestors STOLE!

All land was stolen by the current owner's ancestors at some point.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
All land was stolen by the current owner's ancestors at some point.

This was a little more recent in history. The colonization of Zimbabwe is only a little over a hundred years old. Conceivably, there are people alive today whose parents were the ones who were killed and robbed of the land. Definately people's whose grandparents were the victims of colonization. And, considering it didn't take place all at once, but occured over decades, there may even be people whose land was taken that are still alive.

[Dinner]

Indeed. The Bantu expantion occured by killing the Khoison and pigmay populations which had previously inhabited much of Africa. If those people hadn't been virtually wiped out they'd likely want the Bantu people to leave their land.

The fact remains that the white farms were virtually the only farms in the country which produced surpluses which could feed cities and even export. Without that agricultural production has crashed. This has combined with corruption, Mugabe's dictatorial nature, and severe economic mismanagement to crash what was once one of Africa's strongest economies. Now Mugabe even uses food aid as a weapon by denying it to his enemies and giving it away to his supporters.

Five years ago Mugabe found the whites a convient excuse to blame the country's tumbling economic performance on but I think even his biggest cronies can now see it was Mugabe's lawlessness and eratic policies which crashed the nation's economy.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The fact remains that the white farms were virtually the only farms in the country which produced surpluses which could feed cities and even export.

So theft is acceptable if it's profitable? It's only theoretically inefficient theft to which you object?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
All land was stolen by the current owner's ancestors at some point.

This was a little more recent in history.

And the latest theft was even more recent.

The colonization of Zimbabwe is only a little over a hundred years old. Conceivably, there are people alive today whose parents were the ones who were killed and robbed of the land. Definately people's whose grandparents were the victims of colonization. And, considering it didn't take place all at once, but occured over decades, there may even be people whose land was taken that are still alive.

And of course Mugabe was just giving the land back to those people.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Oerdin
The fact remains that the white farms were virtually the only farms in the country which produced surpluses which could feed cities and even export.

So theft is acceptable if it's profitable? It's only theoretically inefficient theft to which you object?

What's the point of stealing someone's land if it means you starve?

[Dinner]

The "theft", or conquest as most people would think of it, happened in the late 19th century and is ancient history. The fact remains that a compromise free government was supposedly set up in 1980 when white minority rule ended and a modern liberal democracy was set up. Mugabe destroyed all that with his expropriations, authoritarianism, and his ignoring the country's own supreme court rulings. There was a whole modern legal framework created which the black majority had the deciding say in so it is more then a little unfair to claim that Mugabe could toss out democratically installed legal systems and make himself absolute dictator based upon something which occured in the 19th century.

[chequita guevara]

You forget, Oerdin, that the white minority was supposed to give up it's land, with them being reimbursed by the UK and USA in return. We (the US and UK) renegged on our end of the agreement. We broke the contract.

Kuci, I agree it was a catagory of stupid that reaches Dubyan levels, but most of those blathering on about Mugabe stealing poor, innocent white people's lands, have a fetish about private property. By pointing out that the property was stolen to begin with, and only recently so, (and is not ancient history any more than the Civil War is ancient history in America) it undermines their arguments.