Island Life: Oliver's Army
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Craig, you said:
might just have made a difference if Mandela and Mbeki had opened their mouths
IOW, you specifically mentioned Mandela as being culpable. Further back you make the claim that Zimbabwe's neighbours were effectively doing nothing.
**Monday, May 8, 2000** - Web posted at 8:30:01 GMT
Mandela expresses anger at Mugabe
CAPE TOWN - Former South African President Nelson Mandela has slammed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, labelling him a tyrant who has held on to power for too long.
Mandela, who launched the global partnership for Children of the United Nation's Children Fund with his wife Graca Machel in Johannesburg on Saturday, said some African leaders had liberated their countries, but had then overstayed their welcome.
"They want to die in power because they have committed crimes. The tyrant of the day can be destroyed by you and I," he said.
He said leaders like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Pompeii, and Adolf Hitler had also been brought down by the ordinary masses.So, neighbours are certainly not silent. If Mandela was saying that in public his private fury must have been immense. Regardless Mugabe ignored him and others.
So, by all means keep condemning the guy and applying pressure, seeking solution, but trying to make out that this is all the fault of black folk who happen to live in the vicinity is a completely screwed thesis.
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He said leaders like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Pompeii, and Adolf Hitler had also been brought down by the ordinary masses.
Eh? Masses?
Alexander the Great: Alexander died after twelve years of constant military campaigning, possibly as a result of malaria, poisoning, typhoid fever, viral encephalitis or the consequences of alcoholism.
Julius Caesar: Assassinated by Brutus, and other senators.
Pompey: Assassinated by the court of the Egyptian king.
Adolf Hitler: Committed suicide as the Third Reich fell apart around him.
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He said leaders like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Pompeii, and Adolf Hitler had also been brought down by the ordinary masses.
I was with him until he said this, which is mostly utter bollocks.
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Thanks Kyle for doing all the work on that one.
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A letter to the editor in todays Press dedies all fault after the magnanimous act of Rhodesians in allowing majority rule & then calls to allow white africans only to entre NZ or any other white commonwealth country -Fraak.
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Don:
I stand corrected on Mandela, but would you care to mount a similar defence of Mbeki? Seriously, I'd love to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but I'm not seeing it.
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well you lot would think that, because thats what you are trained or brainwashed to think let me tell you you are wrong on all two counts there is no monster in harare he is by kicking out tyranguai taking out the garbage. and the gangs are causing trouble in this country because iwi hapu and whanau encourage them to go to war against each other then to attack the pakeha we tell them to be like that through kapa haka and learning iwi martial arts, then when all the tribes have met over the last thirty years the conclusion that war is the solution. there is a lack of an iwi parliament in this country the gangs are part of our war on this illegal state the NZ government.
we thought at the passing of Tukino Te Heu Heu that the whakaminenga would encourage iwi hapu and whanau from that time onwards to carry out this war start anywhere hit the governments tax collectors. the dairies, medium to large businesses, do home invasions, murders, and the latest one the land claims we are going to bankrupt this government and send all the british back to england and the gangs are part of that iwi army. then there are the normal iwi guys and girls out there quietly slaving away for you ungrateful invaders in the call centres, coffes shops, as cleaners, labourers etc there are hundreds of thousands of them they will also come and visit you what are you gonna ban them from wanganui's main street as well doubt it, any way these lot are worse than the gangs because they know what to do when the iwi hapu and whanau give the call to go to arms they will be packing and ready to die are yous.
in fact all your tangata whenua workmates are all related to the gangs, they have brothers or and sisters in the gangs. ask that policy analyst iwi guy down the corridor whether he knows any gang members, he might say no but he is lying we are all related to them so yeah on with this war. so watch it they might come and visit you and yours. out with the british in with justice and indigenous ways of managing society.
all you wollies on here who support this anti indigenous stance have no grounds for feeling this way. there will be no indigenous army led by willie apiata and co to do anything to mr mugabe, he is a democratically elected indigenous spokesperson for his people whom has great respect amongst iwi, the previous british system of the country is very much still a big part of the infrastructure of zimbabwe, which has been shown to cause great upheaval in a decolonising country so we have to be patient everything will work out, we need actual evidence that what the western media has been reporting as to what is happening in harare and the countryside of zimbabwe is actually happening and is not the inner workings of the departing multi national tobacco companies and their mates the land stealer's. having mr mugabe there has been a godsend for the country what we see on the news is hyped up media designed by marketing magnates to sample their products and you all fall for it hook line and sinker.
firstly mugabe gave the previous regime 20 years grace to move their people out after the british were supposed to get out of harare which they did not do. by then he had gained a sizable advantage in the parliament to begin passing a series of land reforms. the promised legislation, which had gotten his party elected initially and like aotearoa it too had an mmp system were what caused the consternation of the west, the nz media included. when the legislation came into effect in 2003 the british thought that mugabe would never go through with it and that his party would lose face and the people would abandon the Zanu PF party (which in swahilli means the independence and self-determination of zimbabwe party) as they did not have full control of the purse strings then these were held by the bourgeois british tobacco companies and the huge trillions of dollars worth of resource stripping infrastructure they had built there of which the indigenous peoples of zimbabwe got not a cent. their excuse was that it would take them thirty years to dismantle, this was too long. the people of zimbabwe were impoverished beyond all human capabilities and the state Mugabe inherited from the colonisers was very much still in british hands his people wanted to be free from the three hundred year slavery imposed upon it by your ancestors under the invaders much like they have done to this country, what a dreamer you are.
hey its all very well for you to sit here and design an attack team to take out mugabe but we know that yours is really the voice of unreasonableness of jealousy. jealousy at losing your perceived perch as the top of the heap, aye no more the dominant force never will the strongest rule just the courageous and we know that the point of your topic is stupid and based on ignorance and plain fool hardyness. the indigenous people of zimbabwe are not starving sure they are dismantling your fellows useless capitalist system in the country preferring to create a free and collective peoples parliament, they will probably create councils of elders, and whanau communities free from central rule, where communities are enabled through changing the land law from individual ownership to collective communal ownership as is what we will do when we get you mutharfukkers out of aotearoa or rather guardianship where each community are able to sustainability provide for itself.
karena puhi
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Sometimes I'm tempted to make a macro to produce my 'enable sense of humour' instructions at the press of a key...
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Sometimes I'm tempted to make a macro to produce my 'enable sense of humour' instructions at the press of a key...
I stopped reading that one. I got through a whole couple of paragraphs, but if someone is going to forget about the shift key on their keyboard, they need to be making sense at some stage in their post.
If anyone cares, it was about when they linked gangs to managing society.
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LOL!
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but would you care to mount a similar defence of Mbeki?
No. But I don't see his actions or inactions as much different from leaders in most of the rest of the world. Your attack was less on one person and more on a whole sub-continent. Re-colonization is just round the corner as a conclusion to your position. c.f. the letter in The Press referred to above, not the first time I have heard that view expressed in this country recently.
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karena puhi
A few years ago, you had a point, but it has gone beyond that now. Take the word of the indeginous Zimbabwe refugees.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=116&objectid=10518237Mugabe takes on the Chinese Communism where "Freedom Fighters" is an inhereted status, like "Peasant" & "Landlord" in Communist China. This gives a whipping boy for all occations & explains why 17yr olds are "Freedom Fighter" today.
I know it's prob because my maori cousins are Ngai Tahu but Dads side are all selfmade multi-millionaires, Mums side are lower middle class with great potential about to be realised. TRONT are the biggest Sth Island Corp.
You wanna start something? - Keep it up there thanks.
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BTW, rather interesting op ed in the New York Times that's worth a look. Not sure I totally agree with it, but definitely food for thought.
Of course, South Africa could use its economic power to draw Mr. Mugabe’s rule to an end in weeks rather than months. Yet Mr. Mbeki has steadfastly refused to act, providing a protective cloak for Mr. Mugabe’s repression. And just a few weeks ago, even as opposition members were being tortured, Mr. Mbeki visited Zimbabwe, allowing himself to be garlanded at the airport and displayed on state-run TV with a broadly grinning Mr. Mugabe. In the United Nations Security Council, where South Africa currently has a seat, Mr. Mbeki has opposed attempts to put the political situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda.
If Mr. Mbeki’s cost-benefit calculus has been such that he hasn’t seen it necessary to take tougher action, perhaps it’s time to change that calculus. Perhaps, for example, now is not the time for you to book a safari to South Africa. Or for you, or any institution that manages your funds, to make new investments in the country.
Most important, there is the FIFA soccer World Cup, for which South Africa is to act as host in 2010. That may seem like a long way off, but South Africa is already investing huge amounts both financially and politically, for what is supposed to be its triumphal coming-out party. Maybe Zimbabwe should become to the South Africa-hosted World Cup what Tibet has been to the Beijing Olympics — the pungent albatross that spoils every press conference and mars every presentation with its insistent odor.
I'm quite literally in two minds about sports boycotts, and there's part of me that says South Africa isn't exactly short of economic and social problems of its own. But still worth mulling over.
Meanwhile, here's an even more god-awful thought what happens when the Zanu-PF thugs stop doing over opposition supporters, and start looking for food? And what happens when the election bribes stop flowing?
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Wow! I've just been watching (live on Al Jazeera) (via Triangle/Stratos) Morgan Tsvangirai's press conference. He seems quite impressive. I'd be hiding in a safe house somewhere but no, he's back home talking to the global media.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai briefly left the Dutch Embassy in the capital of Harare Wednesday, holding a news conference at his home before returning to the embassy.
Well, I can't say I blame him. I was almost expecting Mugabe's henchmen to throw caution to the wind and beat him up in front of the world's media anyway. (Since they have God on their side)
Also interesting was that after talking to the media he gave his first one-on-one interview to Al Jazeera. -
Just to make myself clear - Mugabe horrifies me because he is hurting his own people. I certainly did not mean to imply that *if* a similar situation arose in NZ, that it would be in the context of a Maori uprising or revolution and therefore, pakeha would be hoping to be rescued by our old allies.
Quite to the contrary . If I had a picture in my head of a monster dictator here, he would be a white, losing his hair, authoritarian, silver-tongued devil, who would preface every nasty move with those immortal words "for your own good."
In that event, I'd be heading for the hills, north of Waikeremoana.
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Quite to the contrary . If I had a picture in my head of a monster dictator here, he would be a white, losing his hair, authoritarian, silver-tongued devil, who would preface every nasty move with those immortal words "for your own good."
Like Winston Peters? :) OK, snark aside I'd rather not imagine New Zealand as the Zimbabwe of the South Seas. I know there's the hyper-partisan nutroots who will go to their graves absolutely convinced that Helen Clark is the Stalin of the Liarbore Dykeocracy, and John Key is Ruth Richardson in man-drag who won't rest until Rangitoto is turned into a giant concentration camp for non-rich, non-white non-heterosexuals. To heck with 'em. There's enough to go on with without cranking up the hyperbole generators and shadow-boxing with figments of the imagination.
In that event, I'd be heading for the hills, north of Waikeremoana.
Well, I'd go a little further. Got some Ngati Bondi whanau who would be getting a visit, welcome or not, and taking my chances with the Australian immigration authorities would be on the agenda. And that's another aspect of the tragedy in Zimbabwe -- the people who are in the best position to get the hell out and never come back (well-educated, relatively affluent and skilled) are the very people Zimbabwe will need most when this nightmare is over.
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"I tell you what, we are martial arts people, we know how to defend ourselves - a chair, a dustbin -anything can be a weapon"
Or even a banana.
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Just as an aside Rob, your gravatar looks nothing like Will Smith.
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Very good - I'm glad I clicked through before archly pronouncing he looks like Hancock.
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Thanks Paul.
Yours looks nothing like Deputy Dawg.
Andrew: Will Smith perhaps looks a bit like Herbie Hancock....
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Rob:
23 seconds of genius:
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Paul
You beaut. It's one of my all time faves as well.
I shamelessly cribbed that line about the Magna Carta in a university debate once: it was a demonstration debate on how not to do debate.
Some of the best lines were on the radio shows though 'I thought my mother was a bad cook but at least her gravy used to move about.'
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I feel Michael Laws should be somewhere at the head of the column - I can see him heroically splashing onto the beaches of the Zimbabwe coast under withering fire.
His mascara running down his ashen face.
karena puhi
A few years ago, you had a pointAnd he still does, it's at the top of his white hood.
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Anyone else hear dueling banjoes in the distance reading about the missing Korean student and Japanese tourist, around Westport.
It doesn't get much more serious than murder, but what the motivation might have been is chilling.
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Here's a thing, Shep - the day after that story broke, I noticed someone hitting an old blog entry of mine about some unfortunate behaviour from white power gang members in Westport. They were looking for a particular name...
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