One-tenth

Africa, of course, doesn’t matter. It is the ghetto of continents. Why is that? We know it has natural resources -- why else would it be exploited by colonial capitalists? Well, it matters because of its resources, of course. Of course. But in terms of politics it doesn’t matter. In terms of the people there. They don’t matter. Why is that?

Well? Do they? What have you done, that would make anyone believe you think it matters -- that they matter, those people? Complain? Talk about conspiracies and racism? And did all your herculean verbal contortions make a difference? To the people there, I mean? No. So shut your mouth. There’s enough wind blowing, enough hot air. Global warming, don’t you know. You’re the cause.

Take Rhodesia for example. You’d know it as Zimbabwe, but it doesn’t deserve that name. Rhodezabwe, then. We’ll compromise. And its Big Man ruler, Mugabe. What a Hero of the Revolution. A Marxist revolution, but who’s counting. You have been brainwashed into thinking that he was a really cool dude for twenty years, from 1980 to 2000, and then all of a sudden went bad when he nationalized all the white-owned land and gave it to his corrupt cronies. It’s not the land-grab that’s bad, necessarily. How can anyone own land? That’s crazy talk. It’s what he did with it that’s bad -- we can agree on this.

He turned Zimbabwe from a profitable asset into garbage. Starvation? Rampant. Mugabe accuses Tony Blair of using chemical weapons to cause drought and famine in Africa. The country has an 85% unemployment rate, and as of June the annual inflation rate was 11,000 percent. By the end of the year it should have an inflation rate of 1.5 million percent. You see it right. World records are always something to be proud of. It also has, incidentally, the lowest life-expectancy -- and I don’t mean only among whites, so that’s bad then: at birth, 37 years for men, 34 for women (down by 29 years in a decade). Everywhere else, women live longer. I guess rape is a risk factor.

But it’s not even what he did with the land that’s bad. It’s who he is, and always has been. He didn’t all of a sudden go bad. When he was still a revolutionary he said a multi-party system was a “luxury,” and that if Zimbabweans didn’t like Marxism, "we will have to re-educate them." Marxists are noted for their excellent educational policies. He has stated that his party -- that is, himself -- “will rule forever.” Such confidence is inspirational.

As a rebel he captured 39 government peace-envoys, murdered them and stretched out their bodies along a roadside, so that the country folk he lived off of would get the idea. Don’t mess with Mugabe. See what I mean about education? Those Marxists. Wowwie. Come election time, not-yet PM Mugabe drew up a hit list of fifty "Zimbabwean black bourgeoisie, traitors, fellow-travelers and puppets of the Ian Smith regime, opportunistic running-dogs and other capitalist vultures." Quite a way with words, eh? But don’t worry, only a couple handfuls of voters were murdered, and some missionaries. His presidential philosophy toward opponents, and bystanders? In 1983 he said, "We eradicate them. We don't differentiate when we fight because we can't tell who is a dissident and who is not."

It’s not a lot of blood on his hands, considering. We’ll just overlook the Ndebele tribe. Oh, hadn’t you heard? Yeah, he organized a little jaunt into the lush and rolling countryside where his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, commanded by Black Jesus, killed something between 10,000 and 30,000 members of this minority Zulu tribe. Mostly public executions -- shot in front of their families after digging their own graves.

Mugabe, ever the poet at heart, called this mass murder campaign the Gukurahundi, meaning "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains." I wish English had such a poetic word ... for when I start my genocides. Genocide is such an overdramatic word, don’t you think? Still, they’re only some African tribe, albeit good because they're Christian. You know they don’t matter, because you’d never heard of them -- even if it were going on now, you wouldn’t do anything about it. Am I wrong?

Here's how you know I'm at least sort of right. During the '80s, while President-4-Life ... his own life ... Mugabe was enjoying the perks of national sovereignty, the Community of Nations stood round not just blinking and winking, but nodding.

The New York Times pontificated not long after his 1980 ascension that "Mr. Mugabe has quickly established himself as an African statesman of the first rank." The University of Edinburgh bestowed an honorary Doctorate of Laws upon him in 1984, as must be only fitting, seeing that he was a law unto himself -- a very god, the power over life and death residing in his mere word. The degree was revoked in July 2007. Something must have changed. Likewise, the University of Michigan awarded him the same doctorate in 1990, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst gave him the same honor in 1986. The guy's a regular legal eagle, I tell you. When the Amherst degree was finally revoked this April, African American Studies prof Ekwueme Thelwell claimed the degree had been bestowed on "an inspiring and hopeful figure and a humane political leader at the time," who somehow changed. Queen Elizabeth in 1994 made him an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

Gawd, it hardly seems fair. I'm inspiring and hopeful and humane. How many savages does a guy have to kill around here before he starts racking up the honors? [Insert additional sarcastic comments here.]

Why did Mugabe 'somehow change' in 2000? Well, he started killing the whites, in 2000. That's a change that would make all sensible people sit up and take notice. Those whites, you know -- they're important.

Am I wrong?

Not completely.

Mugabe. A puzzlement, then, to the lefties. To them he is a brilliant orator, a jailed martyr to his cause who formulated his philosophy in the crucible of prison. A promising and inspirational leader who ruled wisely, and bravely faced down foreign threats. Who somehow went bad. Mugabe.

Odd, though, to see a Hitler mustache under an African nose.


Ah. That explains a lot.

Mugabe: "This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold."

Well, one-tenth. That's the literal meaning behind our word decimate. One-tenth. A tithe of blood.

Why is mankind led by scum? Why is wisdom so rare? Why is goodness so rare?

I wept all Sunday long. I'm weeping now. I always weep.


J