Zimbabwe -- The day a black Mercedes came calling

Suburban Newspapers (NZ) via Stuff (NZ) via shaggy eel | April 4, 2002 | Pat Booth

[Clive]

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[Clive]

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[Clive]

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[Clive]

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[dennisw]

Mugabe the Pol Pot of Africa. Some 1st world nations should assemble a super secret 100 man hit squad to swoop down in Zim and just kill this demon. Don't make a big deal about it. Just do it

[wretchard]

"Where are the fine New Zealand liberals who carried the banners so bravely those years ago and literally went to the barricades for Mandela, asks Suburban Newspapers consulting editor Pat Booth following the death of white Zimbabwean farmer Terry Ford?"

Suffering from an attack of selective memory as befits loyal members of the Party. The Party is always right. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Liberals have no memory of past Party mistakes. The thought cannot be conceived. Their minds have been permanently rewired. In the words of George Orwell:

Take for example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government. . .

It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink.

Get with the program, fellas.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Again, I ask: Where are the fine New Zealand liberals who carried the banners so bravely those years ago and literally went to the barricades for Mandela, for the oppressed and beaten blacks and coloureds of apartheid South Africa? Why are they silent? Is there some form of unrecognised racism?

The Perils of Designer Tribalism

[backhoe]

Where are the fine New Zealand liberals who carried the banners so bravely those years ago and literally went to the barricades for Mandela

I want to know that, too. The silence- nay, complicity- is thundering.

dennisw, it would not take 100 men.... 10 good ones could do it.

Unfortunately, it would not solve the problem. People largely get the kind of government most of them want- Mugabe is a symptom, not the disease itself. More's the pity.

[xm177e2]

If white people don't belong in Africa, do black people belong in Europe?

[wita]

self censored comments.

[RushLake]

Perhaps the New Zealanders with balls were lost at Gallipoli in WWI and in the desert in WWII?

[Woodkirk]

Do we have a picture of Squeak ?

[Clive]

[CatoRenasci]

Mugabe and his minions are, as Churchill described Hilter, dirty little guttersnipes.

The real question is: what is to be done?

All of our efforts to influence American government, and I've written letters and emails for years, seem unavailing, as if the US is determined to see Zimbabwe, and soon South Africa, sink to a level of barbarism that would - I'd say make the Gracci blush, but the allusion is lost on most people today - be on a scale with Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. I dispair truly, which is why I alwasy council whites to get the hell out, to save oneself and ones family at the expense of property and position. I'm open to suggestions.

[SunnyUsa]

I've got a real problem with this "new format" when pictures like that show up on the main thread....

Not everyone wants to see something like that - and I would think most people would give a warning
and hyperlink it so that people can choose to view that disturbing picture if they wanted to see it.

Many times my children are nearby as I sign on to FR and that's the last thing I expect to see as I just scroll through the main page.

[maica]

Hiding pictures like that is one reason why situations like what is going on in Zimbabwe can happen. You can look at it briefly or study it, but it should be known.

[SunnyUsa]

Not everyone wants to sign on to FR and be "greeted" with the pictures on the main page of a bloody, charred corpse.

If everyone's fine with it, then so be it. That's my honest reaction to it.

I am a registered nurse, so I'm not unusually squeamish in anyway.

I just have a complaint about this new style forum that shows all the pictures (like that one) to the main thread - where people have NO Choice but look.

It's not my call, but I find it offensive and disrepectful to those who come to FR for their news & interests to see an extremely gory picture to make a point.

I personally would've hyperlinked it, and warned people. I have chosen to see unpleasant pictures many times when people post it and warn - then it's my choice....and I certainly can GET The POINT of an International tragedy without being shocked.

[maica]

I am a registered nurse, so I'm not unusually squeamish in anyway.

I am a registered nurse, also, and I hate the sight of blood! :) Here is my point and it is not personal to you but for consideration by readers of this forum.

We live in a world where headlines can be made around the world because a McDonald's manager killed a rat in front of children.
Where other children can play graphic video games (paid for by their parents) constantly - gaining skills usually taught to soldiers.
Where other children shoot each other for a crossed look (in my hometown.)

I just think we do not do ourselves any favors when we try to pretend reality can be hidden.

Apparently in New Zealand the photo of the dog caused a lot of reaction. The actual man that the dog was grieving was not as memorialized as the dog.

[~Peter]

Perhaps you should remove your head from the sand ....