Anyone know more about this?
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29032
Why hasn’t there been more outcry? Because nobody cares about Africa? Is there anything at all that can be done? (No, not really.) What do we do, light a candle for all this suffering, and then go back to our lives?
As awful as that is, I think most are focused on the dying people. It’s kinda drecky (the story, that is) but still chokes me up.
genie, I haven’t seen anything except for that article.
I disagree with Mojo about a focus on dying people. Most media and actvists are simply ignoring Zimbabwe. Aside from the people killed, the famine they have created and nurtured will likely kill many thousands. However, with some exceptions, opinionion leaders continue to ignore the cause of the problem – Mugabe’s regime.
Note that Robert Mugabe was a featured speaker at the recent UN conference on world hunger :eek: , where he was cheered :eek:. Mugabe was also invited to some sort of meeting just a week or two ago by some New York City politicians.
I suspect the problems caused by Mugabe’s government are getting less attention than they deserve, because:
Funny, that seems to be a reversal for the bleeding-heart liberal. Usually they care more about animals than people.
Seriously, though. The author of the article that genie posted claimed that she was the only one who inquired further. It seems that there’s enough outcry to go around for both the people and the animals, dontcha think?
Part of the point of my title was that a) there are people starving in Zimbabwe and b) as if that wasn’t enough, there’s this too. However, I haven’t really heard much about the people–no one seems to care about that, either. (I mean, I knew about them before, but the outcry has been nil.) We haven’t, as far as I know, had any topics here in GD about this, and I’ve wondered why. Why doesn’t anyone seem to care about this awful, awful situation?
If I’m not mistaken, I’ve read something about journalists, even foreign ones, critical of Mugabe’s regime being arrested in Zimbabwe.
This may explain a lack of articles to a certain degree.
Strangely enough, the only person to write much on these boards about Zimbabwe was a white African racist, whose user name I have forgotten.
Two previous GD threads on Zimbabwe, the second started by december ( I assume you forgot you started one ). the racist december referenced was janL, but I don’t think his contributions on the topic were worth much. I seem to recall another one or more that may have been lost in the big crash, you I won’t swear to it - Might have been a tangential conversation in a non-explicitly-Zimbabwe thread or a Pit thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=131447&highlight=Zimbabwe
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112686&highlight=Zimbabwe
Two previous GD threads on Zimbabwe, the second started by december ( I assume you forgot you started one ). The racist december referenced was janL, but I don’t think his contributions on the topic are worth much. I seem to recall another one or more that may have been lost in the big crash, though I won’t swear to it - I might be remembering a tangential conversation in a non-explicitly-Zimbabwe thread or a Pit thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=131447&highlight=Zimbabwe
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112686&highlight=Zimbabwe
december: Yo’re thinking of janl. He wasn’t just a virulent racist, he was also a hollow-earth proponent - two kooks for the price of one.
He also thought I was out to get him-he kept accusing me of “slander”.
Remember that?
Hehehe…memories.
Thanks for reminding me of his name. I had indeed fogotten that I was the OP of a Zimbzbwe thread. janL was very concerned about the people of Zimbabwe, I think because he was opposed to their marxist government, so he said. (He may have also been down on Black governments in general.)
The point remains that liberals on this board have not made Mugabe’s goverment a major focus.
i have family there…or at least i did.
they’re leaving. while they can.
except for my cousin. he flies aid into sudan for the red cross, he wants to stay and be there to fly food in to his own people when the time comes.
The same class of people who removed Rhodesia as a country can’t stomach what they helped create. Don’t mention it, it never happened. We had nothing to do with it. We still feel good about ourselves.
Ah yes, December shoe horns it all into his two perennial obsessions.
How about a more parsimonious explanation.
American media, responding to its consuming public, gives only crisis driven attention to the outside world.
Crisis driven attention is defined as some immediately relevant to American interests (narrowly defined as American soldiers in place, American folks on the ground or so living connection; alternative being high-level policy interest deliberately driving attention).
Africa does not, as a whole, get any attention at all, positive or negative, ex-South Africa in some circumstances. Prejudice, ignorance and plain slovenly lack of interest all rolled into one.
Reading non-English press, I have gotten rather more. On Zim, on Cote d’Ivoire etc. etc. etc. Perhaps December may wish to advance (no doubt in his ideologically driven manner) an explanation of why Mali’s successful elections went unnoticed in the US?
As for 45/70: Rhodesia was a nasty disgusting racist state, the Smith regime and its fellow travellers in great part created Mugabe, his attitudes and obsessions.
Not too sure what a ‘liberal’ is, the term has a different meaning in Europe. I assume it is someone who is socially involved.
When you care about suffering, you’re a liberal?
Why are they quiet on issues regarding Africa?
The Liberals seem to have cared in the past, when it was a case of ‘those poor darkies being oppressed by white bastards.’
Granting independence was seen as the road to happiness for Africa. Rhodesia was heralded as the prime example of how things would turn out for the good, once independent.
Kind of a ‘noble savage’ notion
Having been proven wrong in their assumptions and ideals, it is quite natural for ‘The Liberals’ to keep their mouths shut and look the other way.
I can imagine that, after decades of shouting that the Bad Whities should keep their paws out of Africa and leave it to the Africans, it must be hard propagate that the Big Bad West should intervene, at least in some cases.
Maybe, in their eyes, that would be giving in to the old racist claims, that the ‘darkies’ would not be able to run a country by themselves? Claims they have been fighting all their life.
Emphasis added.
My what interesting thoughts. Utter ahistorical rubbish.
(a) Much of the mess that is Africa is a direct result of colonial policies, borders and political interventions;
(b) A further input is quite clearly the Cold War mucking about by both the Soviets and the Western Colonial powers, feeding arms and money to the very worst folks.
© The situation in Zim is a direct result of the very worst of both. “Rhodesia” was an apartheid state worse in many respects than South Africa, the guerrilla war to overthrow the Apartheid regime, nasty and unforgiving all around. The settlement, good in the short run, ultimately unsustainable leaving an unreconstructed racialist minority in control of much wealth, while also letting the most radical-racialist members of the majority use it as a steak to beat on political drums. No healthy work-out was arrived at c. 1979, contra the much healthier if not perfect work-out c. 1990 in SA.
(d) Western intervention is hardly what is needed, what is needed is for domestic polities to coalesce and mature on internal standards and time frames.
Thank you for refuting your own post.
And this one.
The ‘noble savage’ will work it out for himself, probaly during the course of next week. Meanwhile we’ll look the other way.
Refuting my own post, my dear old man? How so, it was my point. Oh I see, you’re confusing South Africa, the country with Southern Africa, the region. I do know it is so terribly consfusing to keep it straight, but the adjectival modifier should help.
Not the same bloody deal at all. South Africa, ** the country **, gets some attention for the following reasons, in order of importance
(a) an actual economic presence on the world stage, with global scale companies (e.g. SAB took over an American beverage co. last year, IIRC, and has global ambitions generally) and a relatively diversified economy of some weight;
(b) long image presence on global stage, formerly negative, now much more positive in political terms
© greater accessibility and comfort for the developed world journalist/traveller with near first world infrastructure in many if not most places.
Clear enough?