While reading about the toilet that Mugabe has flushed his country down, I couldn’t help but fantasize about doing something really terrible to him. However, I realize that, in the words of P.J. O’Rourke, it’s one thing to tear down the shithouse and another to install plumbing. If you were to send him to hell, how would you go about fixing the country?
Thanks for your help,
Rob
If you are George W. Bush you send in a massive group of incompetent sycophants with cargo containers full of cash proceed who drive around in large convoys talking big and getting in the way.
Now, if you actually want to be intelligent about it…well, you’ve have to admit that there is no simple or straightforward plan to fix Zimbabwe. The once reasonably modern infrastructure of roads and electricity has not been well maintained and is desperately in need of rebuilding. The economy was traditionally based on agriculture (tobacco and cotton being the largest exports) but because of the “land reforms” instituted by Mugabe the land is no longer under the control of skilled farmers; a revitalization plan would have to include an intelligent repartitioning or collectivizing of arable land and education in methods of agriculture for food and export crops. The nation’s other natural resource is minerals, which is considerable and could be used to buoy the economy until agricultural exports can contribute, but the nation is going to need a large influx of capital to repair infrastructure and to provide basic necessities.
Talking about money, the monetary system in Zimbabwe needs to be trashed and a new currency–probably pegged to the Euro–instituted, at least for the near term. Then there is basic medical, transportation, and educational services to get the population capable of maintaining a stable government and economy. At the same time, you want to avoid making the mistakes that post-colonial efforts at aiding sub-Saharan Africa have shown to be ineffective. Building massive housing projects or hospitals which require a high level of infrastructure sustainment or require dramatic alterations in lifestyle have been a waste of time and money across the entire continent. The aid offered needs to be applicable and consistent
Frankly, this probably can’t be done under a democratic government; you would need to install an autonomous governing body with some marginal representation from the public similar; in short, a return to colonialism which would be undesirable by Zimbabwe’s neighbors. (The post-WWII occupation and governance of Japan is a good model for this.) So the cure might be worse than the disease. Latin America is rife with the repercussions of United States policies of regime change (not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan), and despite well-intentioned efforts to fix problems in former colonies in Africa and East Asia, the nations of Europe do not have a good record in intervening in the affairs of former client states. (One might point to Taiwan as an exception to this, but Taiwan was strategically important during the Cold War, and frankly the standard of living has risen dramatically since the older KMT government has been replaced.)
Rather than ventilating Mugabe, the best policy is probably to suggest that the Industrialized nations are willing to provide aid to a regime that is prepared to behave in a legitimate, civilized fashion, and let events take their course. Direct intervention in internal affairs in opposition to an established government has rarely worked out to our benefit unless we’ve been willing (as in Japan or Germany) to literally build the government from the ground up.
Stranger
I’d re-colonize it with British people, call it Rhodesia again, and institute all of the same exact policies that Rhodeisa had in place. It worked for them. Yeah, it would be racially inequal at first. The racial equality would come later. America was racially inequal for most of its history - if we in the U.S. can eventually give blacks full civil rights after outright slavery (which Rhodesia never practiced, by the way,) then neo-Rhodesia could do it too.
Elect a fair, transparent government. Make it easy for private businesses to thrive. Protect property rights, especially for the poor and for small business owners. Create a paid, accountable police force and a fair justice system.
Easy, right? But don’t count on it happening. It’s much easier for the foreign governments who prop up unpopular regimes to cut deals with undemocratic governments. Alas.
Better the white devil we know than the devil we don’t, eh? People have suggested it before, possibly you or possibly others, I don’t know. It’s such a bad idea that I don’t even know where to start arguing against it- or if it’s even worth bothering.
What can I say, the place was economically successful under Ian Smith and there weren’t people being massacred in the streets. Racial equality would come in time. Why do people have the idea that a stable, prosperous nation with minority rule is somehow inferior to a nightmarish hellhole of violence, starvation, corruption and decay with “majority” rule?
An opposition candidate was elected president before Mugabe transparently stole the election. So you’ve got the real president all ready. Offer aid, and, if necessary, military aid to keep the military in check if necessary.
This one is easy.
We could send them Obama, but we need him worse than they do. How about Jimmy Carter?
I’d take some baby steps to try to restore the agricultural economy. I’d invite back farmers and give them a sweetheart deal (free) as a tenant farmer and then over some time give them an option to buy back the land at fair market value. I would definitely tie in food productivity into the ability to buy back the farm. I’d also give them a sanctuary of a small house in South Africa that when and if the next insane dictator comes into power, they could at least bolt to a safe refuge.
In case you don’t remember, racial equality wasn’t something that simply “came with time” in America. Our very first step towards racial equality was the most traumatic event in our history- a civil war. Gross political inequality is not something that just works itself out over time, but rather something that cuts such deep rifts in a national physche that it takes centuries for it to stop fucking stuff up.
The bad crap that is going on in parts of Africa is not because white left, it’s because they came in the first place and continue to muddy their hands by propping up bad leaders for their own material gains.
This idea is so stupid that it is hard to believe there exists a person in the world who would seriously suggest it as a plan of action, so I assume it was a joke or at the very least an exaggerated expression of frustration with the situation in Zimbabwe.
In the unlikely event that there does exist a person who believes this would be a practical solution, here are a few points:
These sort of ideas frustrate the hell out of me. They always show a complete lack of empathy with other people. A quick “how would I feel if this happened to me?” reflection would instantly relegate the idea to the trash can as completely unworkable.
This “solution” basically boils down to setting things back thirty years and seeing what happens this time round. “Racial equality will come later” is said as if one day it arrives in a neat little FedEx package. It doesn’t. It comes in the form of increased pressure, political and otherwise, that gradually chips away at the authority of the minority that controls the country. Often this pressure is violent. In other words, exactly what happened the first time round. At some point you’re going to end up with a proper democratically elected government for your “racial equality” plan to come to fruition. This is exactly what Zimbabwe had for a while. It is exactly what many other African nations have, and they are doing just fine in comparison (the best example being Botswana in my opinion). So what is this “solution”, but an instant replay of the current situation?
Zimbabwe is pretty much the same story seen all over the world at one point or another: a person so convinced they should remain in power (either deluded into thinking they are doing good, out to loot the country or scared that removal from power means they will be held accountable for their actions) that they are willing to destroy the country rather than see it in other hands. Zimbabwe needs strong democratic institutions, not the replacement of one dictatorial regime with another.
There is no shortage of potential leaders in Zimbabwe that have the ability to lead Zimbabwe, one of which would have won if the election was fair. If you are going to force regime change, why not place that person in charge? Comparing “a stable, prosperous nation with minority rule” to “a nightmarish hellhole of violence, starvation, corruption and decay with ‘majority’ rule” in the context of trying to resolve Zimbabwe’s problems is disingenuous. “Minority rule” and “majority rule” disguise the true nature of these arrangements: the one is in practice a guaranteed dictatorship for the majority of the population, the other refers to a democratically elected government where all citizens have had a say (I do not consider Mugabe to be a “majority” ruler since it seems pretty clear his government does not represent the “majority”). The ideal solution is “a stable, prosperous nation with majority, in other words, democratic, rule”, and it is excluded by these comparisons.
I’m inclined to agree with Argent Towers, actually.
The simple fact of the matter is that Zimbabwe was NOT a third-world hell-hole when either the British Government or Ian Smith were in charge.
However, I believe that what [del]Zimbabwe[/del] Rhodesia needs is a representative Government which has both White and educated African MPs, military personnel, police officers, doctors, engineers, etc.
The problem with your first point, Driver8, is that the United States of America has never had a majority Government made up of Non-White Minorities. Most of Africa has, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa (with the exception of the Belgian Congo) was arguably a better, more peaceful place as a result.
We can’t change the fact that Colonisation happened. I personally don’t think it was all bad and that many of the current problems in Africa stem from the Colonisers leaving too early or from the wrong sort of people being left in charge (and I don’t mean “People unsympathetic to Western Interests”, I mean “Nutters who follow the advice of Witch-Doctors and kill or deport all the people who are actually growing the country’s food”).
There’s no easy fix, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say to someone like Great Britain: “You started this, you fix it.” And if that means turning Zimbabwe into a Dominion (with a democractically elected parliament, but with oversight from the UK while the situation is sorted out), then that’s fine with me.
People are so conditioned to view any kind of racial inequality as the absolute most rank evil on the planet - worse than starvation, war or mass murder- that I think some people have a knee jerk reaction to any situation involving a racial injustice, to treat it as if even a nightmarish, violent, decaying shell of a nation would be preferable one with minority rule. This is why the word Rhodesia makes people so upset - the psychological disconnect between their racial conditioning, and the reality of the situation which is that the current government in “Zimbabwe” has persecuted white farmers, slaughtered thousands of their fellow blacks, and created a situation that even the most liberal and cultural-relativist people have to admit, is a nightmare.
'Cause that has worked so well in all of the other former realms of the once mighty British Empire. :rolleyes:
Colonization was not all bad–it certainly limited some barbaric cultural practices in India and China–but the “success” of maintaining the Empire was dependent upon strictly autocratic rule and making a profit from (and generally at the expense of) the country in question. Once it became impossible for the British to do this due to colonial revolt, unprofitability in trade in the post-WWII world economy, changing perception of what was permissible in the rule of other nations, et cetera, the Empire ate itself and it was all the British could do to extract themselves cleanly and with working economic relationships. The Partition of India, the political charlie-fox that is the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia, and the French experience in “trying to bring civilization” to Indochina and Algeria should put paid to any notice that colonizing is a good solution to internal economic and social problems.
Stranger
Or perhaps most people just realize that repeating colonialism is not going to solve problems that were made possible by colonialism.
The problems happened because the colonials left.
Maybe if they had never come at all, there wouldn’t be problems. Maybe not. We’ll never know. It’s irrelevant. What matters is that there are problems - big ones - here and now - and the best solution, I think, is to do the equivalent of a System Restore on a computer, if you’ll pardon the very weird analogy. Return to last known configuration that worked properly. Rhodesia.
No, they happened because they came and used the land and the people to make money and took everything valuable they could find, and set up the government and other institutions to support what they were doing rather than to provide actual government, democracy, or rights to the people living in those countries. Those things did exist insofar as it wasn’t unprofitable for the trading companies involved, but no farther. Then as the most aggressive parts of colonialism faded away, they were replaced with strongmen who knew that as long as they kept the right Western palms greased, they could go on running the country pretty much the same way the colonial powers did.
So yeah, surprise, it went to shit went they left. It was always going to do that. Turning Zimbabwe into a cash cow for Britain again won’t solve any of those problems.
If by “cash cow” you mean, restoring a stable government, productive agriculture, and a high standard of living - which was what Rhodesia had - then fuck it, it’s better off as a cash cow if that means no more massacres and starvation.
As much as I respect you Marley - I always have - we’re not going to see eye to eye on this, I’m afraid.
Are you still talking about Zimbabwe here?
Because if you mean the USA, I tend to agree with you.
Ha ha ha, that’s real funny. Thanks for that contribution, it sure helped add some clarity to the discussion.