I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning when I first heard the news of Robert Mugabe’s passing.
And I listened to the story, waiting for them to get to the bits about the organized thuggery, the North Korean mercenaries, the hyperinflation, and the collapse of the economy with its attendant hypermisery.
I waited through hagiographic hosannas about his “pan-africanism” and “anti-colonial vision”.
And I waited.
And I waited.
Eventually – two minutes into the story – it popped up. For a bit.
Even the NYTimes couldn’t see fit to bury the lede on this one.
A truly evil man. Good riddance.
A truly evil man
You’d never know that listening to NPR’s coverage.
He sounded better than Trump.
What jdm says. I saw the article about his death today, my instant thought was “thank God–now maybe they can have good governance.” Yes, I realize I’m praying for a miracle. It is amazing the degree to which despots can ignore the results of their policies.
Mugabe can’t have been evil.
If you believe that Black people, and other victims of colonialism, have moral agency, you are a white supremacist.
The old saw about not attributing to evil which could just as easily be explained by incompetence would normally be operational here, but Zimbabwe under him went from being an exporter of food to an importer. As part of this effort, he stole from, chased off, and killed the (white) farmers who made Rhodesia successful.
Instapundit included this link to a NY Times article about Black Zimbabweans nostalgic for era of white rule with the following quote: An elderly peasant in another village, Makupila Muzamba, said that hunger today is worse than ever before in his seven decades or so, and said: “I want the white man’s government to come back. Even if whites were oppressing us, we could get jobs and things were cheap compared to today.”
His wife, Mugombo Mudenda, remembered that as a younger woman she used to eat meat, drink tea, use sugar and buy soap. But now she cannot even afford corn gruel. “I miss the days of white rule,” she said.
Nearly every peasant I’ve spoken to in Zimbabwe echoed those thoughts.
I still cant believe all you righties who listen to welfare radio. I read lefties on RCP and other places online but I cant bring myself to listen to those elitest fucks. At least they covered his horrors.
jdm’s comment about nostalgia for Ian Smith’s regime reminds me of the troubles Germany had in the 1990s; millions of Ossies had had misery under the DDR, misery which continued as state owned enterprises were shut down because they were so inefficient. The last prosperity remembered by older Ossies had come from 1933 to 1945.
So Thinkprogress is shutting down. The Center for American Progress is tired of burning benjamins and Thinkprogress and they can’t find a buyer.
Imagine the horror the white supremacists at NPR would feel if they were told that they were going private & had to actually make money, or at least break even. The market for whites with liberal arts degrees who want to be taught hip hop appreciation by a degreed black person ain’t that big.
Mugabe is the quintessential African leader:
He had a taste for Communist dick.
He knew how to tastefully accessorize a military uniform. (Pity people can’t eat the scrambled eggs off an African dictators hat).
He left a flotilla of children (99% of whom never shared his name).
He shoveled millions offshore for his personal use.
He ran the wipipul out of his country, and lived to see his people starve as a consequence.
Dude needs some monmuents.
jdm, Africa is being recolonized by China. I’ve spent considerable time in the Pacific Rim…there are no people more unabashed about their racism than Asians. They’re not enamoured with wipipul, but they hate Negroes.
After a few years of Chinese rule, Africa will beg Western countries to come back and take control…we’ll softly whisper; “no”.
Here’s something interesting from a couple years back, The Case for Colonialism. As expected, as per Swiftee’s comment above, this is not colonialism in general, but Western.
From the editor’s note to the article on colonialism linked by JDM:NAS member Bruce Gilley’s article, “The Case for Colonialism,” went through double blind peer review and was published in Third World Quarterly in 2017. It provoked enormous controversy and generated two separate petitions signed by thousands of academics demanding that it be retracted, that TWQ apologize, and that the editor or editors responsible for its publication be dismissed. Fifteen members of the journal’s thirty-four-member editorial board also resigned in protest.
This is what is called “epistemic closure.”
Robert Mugabe brought equality to his people, as did Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Let’s not lose sight of that.
A couple of few years ago, I read in the college magazine that my Poli Sci professor was retiring. I sent an email congratulating him on his retirement and asking if I could get a retroactive grade increase, since his predictions about Mugabe being an earnest land reformer solely concerned about the welfare of his nation had been wrong and my prediction that he was a socialist who would destroy the nation like every other they contaminated, was correct. I didn’t get it. Turns out the political theory of the movement was correct, it simply wasn’t implemented correctly when Mugabe took office.
This was before Venezuela, another beautiful nation, another flawed execution of the perfect political theory. If only The People would do what they theory says they should do, instead of being pesky individuals.
Indeed, Greg. Everyone is equal in the grave, and Mugabe was responsible for putting so many in there.
Unfortunately, Mugabe’s buddy is running the country now, no doubt skimming off millions into this own account and those of his cronies. To give you an idea of Mugabe’s corruption, here a clip of his homes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpf4MggqPO8
Emery incognito has a point. Despite Mugabe’s championing of equality, he was more equal than others. Same with the Castro family who lives like rock stars in Europe and Hugo Chavez’s brain dead daughter who is worth north of a billion (actual American) dollars.
But they aren’t in it for the money. No, really. You don’t need that much money to live very well for the rest of your life. A few tens of millions will put you in the top 0.001%.
They do it for power, for their ability to make others rich. They do it to be Big Men, to be the person who makes life and death decisions about others.
Spot on MP.
To become Big Men, socialist dictators convince the public that equality is more important than prosperity.