Posted on 06/19/2004 3:10:36 AM PDT by Clive
Paralysed Saturday 19 June 2004
Dear Family and Friends, I have been trying to think of a word that most accurately describes life in the small Zimbabwean town in which I live. Lots of words come to mind, many of which are unrepeatable but I think the most appropriate ones are paralyzed and exhausted.
Taking my soon to be 12 year old son shopping for a pair of long trousers for his birthday, we stopped in the middle of the road along with all the other pedestrians and cars and stared at a little parade of school children passing to commemorate what was World Environment Day.
It was a very cold and windy morning and empty packets, bags and other litter swirled and accumulated on the kerbs. Some who stopped to watch were the men who push great hand carts piled with firewood they have cut from trees on the newly liberated farms. Others who stopped were the women who carry 20 litres buckets filled with little fish they have caught in nearby dams, again from newly liberated farms.
There was one thing all of us who watched the parade had in common - we had all just survived a month of drinking the most foul water that both looked and smelled like sewage. For weeks we had been complaining to the Municipality. The water is green, we cried, it smells, we shouted, it has "things" floating in it.
None of us had dared to walk through the streets carrying posters saying "we demand clean water" or "we refuse to pay to drink sewage" so we did nothing, boiled the water twice and prayed that diarrhoea would not paralyze our children.
For over a month the entire town had suffered and now we stood staring at a parade commemorating "Environment Day". The irony was staggering.
As we stood on that street corner I looked at scores of people and I suppose the most common expression on their faces was exhaustion. There were no smiles and there was no chatter, just a sort of paralysis. Having lived here all my life I suppose the most striking thing about my home town is the silence. You seldom hear people laughing, seldom hear people talking in the street. The most dominant feeling is one of suspicion and of people looking over their shoulders to see who is listening.
When the parade had passed my son and I crossed the road and went into a big clothing shop. It was mid morning and we were the only customers in the entire shop. Eager sales staff, desperate for a buyer surrounded us. One escorted us to the rack of trousers, another hovered and held the coat hangers, another accompanied us to the fitting room and waited outside and two more sat at tills empty of customers. "How's business?" I asked. "It is paralyzed," came the response.
We are a town and a country paralyzed and exhausted. We listen to the incessant propaganda on State radio and then to the horrors reported on Short Wave Radio Africa and it is like living in two different countries at the same time.
We hear that the Governor of the Reserve Bank is in America, England and South Africa urging Zimbabweans to send their money home through his new systems, but we know those same people will not be allowed to vote when it comes to election time.
We hear of new fighter jets being ordered and wonder if it is the Zimbabweans in exile whose money will pay for them.
We hear that inflation has apparently gone down to 450% and yet the price of bread, maize and milk continue to go up.
We hear of a bumper harvest and yet we see the empty fields and we are tired, so tired of it all.
Until next time, with love, cathy.
It is indeed a dire situation.
Without the West that these "leaders" procalim to hate so much these clowns would be as you said back to prehistory. I can only imagine a 700 series Benz being pulled by donkeys in the presidential motorcade.
I cannot think of who wrote it, but what he said is that failure on the part of post colonial Africa would probably benefit it in the long run. These phony countries set up by the Europeans are not conducive to good government, smaller is better. But I don't hold much hope for Africa because in the developed worlds quest for raw materials Africa will again be the battleground between powers and the cycle begins anew.
For sure.
Plus, the people facing the gravest danger of mass murder in Zimbabwe is not the whites, but to people of the Mbedele tribe. Mugabe is a Shona.
As for the comparison with Jews in Germany, most did get out in the time. The biggest holocaust losses were in countries like Poland that were quickly overrun by the Nazis.
Why doesn't she just leave?
It is her home. That's where she's from. Why should she leave?
Time for white people to give up on Africa, at least that part of it. I wish the President would give favored immigration status to victims of the Mugabe regime, surely they would assimilate into the US better than just about every other group we let in.
The problem is that Mugabe has not done anything (in the eyes of leadership) that would warrant appointing asylum and refugee status to many white Zimbabweans. Also, Canada, Australia and New Zealand do have such programs. US has LOTS of Rhodesians living here that came here after Mugabe took power. However, a lot of farmers are poor and what are they going to do here? I know one man who was a royal horticulturalist in Rhodesia then he was in the Rhodesian army, and now he's one foot in the welfare office. It's not as easy as people think. Personally, I'd stop all illegal immigration that way there'd be enough spaces for people who really do have legitimate reasons to immigrate here.
What do you think the chances are that she, and other people in her situation can solicit help from the armies of the world to take back that country? You can be certain that the European nations don't want to, and I strongly doubt that the US would get involved. We'd have race war overtones here, and besides, we've got our hands full with the Muslimes.
That pretty much leaves Canada and Australia to do the fighting, and I doubt that's going to happen. The biggest difference between what happened in South Africa and the United States is that over here, our European ancestors killed off most of the original inhabitants.
We face the same problem with those who would re-conquer from the Southern flank.
I wish someone would get some courage and dspatch Mugabe to the hereafter. I promised I would never wish AIDS on anyone but I have to admit I secretly wished HE was the family member with AIDS.
For the same reason German Jews left Nazi Germany.
Does anyone know of any charitable organizations working on helping the non-indiginous population emigrate to somewhere else?
AIDS will destroy black Africa. Even if we parachuted mass quantities of anti-HIV drugs all over the continent, very little of it would reach those afflicted. What the Black Plague did to Europe, AIDS is doing to Africa.
It is concentrated there, but it is affecting the entire planet. Places we never dreamed of.
<< Sounds so similar to the Jewish People who didn't leave Nazi Germany.
>>
Death wish.
And child abuse.
<< We hear that inflation has apparently gone down to 450% and yet the price of bread, maize and milk continue to go up.
Dear Cathy,
Now it makes sense.
If you think 450% inflation will result in prices ceasing to rise, you are a Democrat abroad.
Please stay in Zimbabwe, as you have every intention. Live a life of fear and privation in an overweening state.
Take up arms against no man. Die on your knees.
It's what dependent personalities do.
your pal,
me >>
You got it.
Figgered her to a T.
Your # 19 has it about right insofar as the Belgiums are concerned.
But you missed the contributions of the execrable french and the obscene irresponsibility -- in Africa and everywhere else they ever set foot -- of every other dead and decadent bloody Euro-peon colonialist.
And that the bloody british cut and run from their every outpost of empire -- and responsibility.
But the rest of your post is pure BS!
The word "savage" didn't back its way into the English Language -- and the feller who ascribed the stone age to Africa's was being very very generous indeed.
The Chinese have landed. I think Mugube will make a deal with them: prop up my dictatorship for my lifetime, and I will hand over the country (and its mineral resources) when I'm goneMugabe hires China to farm seized land
Half of confiscated plots are not being workedAndrew Meldrum in Harare
Thursday February 13, 2003
The GuardianZimbabwe has turned to China for help in restoring its agricultural productivity after two years of land seizures which are largely blamed for causing a famine now threatening more than seven million people.
In a tacit admission of the failure of President Robert Mugabe's land seizure programme, a Chinese state company, the China International Water and Electric Corporation, has been awarded a government contract to farm 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) in southern Zimbabwe.
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