Posted on 08/14/2005 10:02:31 AM PDT by Clive
Dear Family and Friends,
In a report this week the Washington based Centre for Global Development said that the purchasing power of the average Zimbabwean had plunged to levels that prevailed over 50 years ago in 1953. The CGD, which tracks economic and developmental trends, said that gains made by Zimbabwe over the past five decades had been wiped away in the last six years. The CGD said that the scale and speed of income decline in Zimbabwe was greater than that seen during recent conflicts in the Ivory Coast, the DR Congo and Sierra Leone. These are chilling figures to try and take in and it is very, very hard to see how Zimbabwe can come back from where it is without radical and dramatic changes at every single level.
Ever since the March elections, we have been slipping backwards and the pace has accelerated with each passing week. Inflation is soaring again, almost all basic commodities have disappeared from our shelves, fuel is virtually unobtainable, electricity supplies are erratic and the water, in my home town anyway, has literally been unfit to drink for the last fortnight. The country is in a state of almost complete paralysis and it is utterly absurd that we are sitting here like beggars waiting for a multi million dollar loan from South Africa when right there, on our front door step, nature is again holding out the key to change as summer arrives.
For the last half century Zimbabwe has fed itself from her own fields. We have survived crippling repeated years of drought. We mastered the art of growing crops that we could export in order to earn foreign currency; we filled our silos and warehouses in abundant years to see us through the bad seasons we knew would invariably follow. We built dams and reservoirs and dug wells and boreholes to give us water in dry times. We learnt to grow flowers under floodlights and exotic vegetables in plastic tunnels, to rear ostriches for their leather and to make fuel from ethanol and jatropha.
And now, hah, what shame upon Zimbabwe and her leaders with their masters degrees and doctorates. Now, in 2005, we wait for South Africa to give us food. We have no foreign money to buy fuel. Our fields are unploughed, our lands unprepared for the new season. Every year, as we get poorer and hungrier there is an excuse, a reason why, having produced more than enough food for fifty years, now we can't do it anymore. Our national newspaper tells us that our winter wheat crop has been severely depleted this year because Quelea birds are eating the grain. It does not tell us how, for half a century, our commercial farmers managed to keep bread on our tables and flour in our shops. Instead it tells us that this week the price of a loaf of bread went from four and half to seven thousand dollars and it tells us that instead of going hungry we should eat the Quelea birds that are stealing the national wheat crop. The Herald newspaper tells us we should find ways of catching, killing and canning Quelea birds and then exporting them to Europe for gourmet restaurants. Oh please, what shame, what utter shame.
Until next week, love cathy
How is she reaping the rewards? I don't get it.
My son had to read that one for English class. Interesting use of satire.
Jonathan Swift (1729)
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
I would hope Zimbabweans would care enough to rise up and throw off their oppressors. A population is ultimately responsible for their own government. It sounds like a revolution is long overdue.
It seems unfair to ask me to care more than they do.
bookmarked! thanks.
"Buckle is reaping the rewards that she helped bring upon herself and her country, the former "breadbasket of Africa" (Rhodesia). She should definitely stay there."
Is she one of the lefties who supported the "Freedom Fighters" in the 70's ?
If so, then she should be barred from leaving.
If not, then she should get out and leave Zim to its fate.
Cathy Buckle's father was an activist lawyer, who, along with Cathy and her husband at the time, were active in the quest to rid Rhodesia of the evil white colonialists and turn the country over to Mugabe.
I would leave and leaving isnt cowardly...that is like saying Cunban refugees are cowardly
And there is more meat on the chicken.
Now the Quelia birds have come home to roost.
Dear Cathy,
Either shoot Mugabe or STFU.
L
Umm, I wonder if Quelia birds might be on someone's endangered list?
But I cannot fix the inherant racism that created this problem, nor the liberal idealism that brought it to fruition - and Cathy Buckle, I am told, supported it wholeheartedly.
To hell with zimbabwe. One more example that the only things that comes out of Africa are: disease, famine, civil war, and dictatorships.
We have plenty more on our plate than worrying about a marxist government getting its just desserts.
"Cathy Buckle's father was an activist lawyer, who, along with Cathy and her husband at the time, were active in the quest to rid Rhodesia of the evil white colonialists and turn the country over to Mugabe."
Well, as someone who entertained moving to Rhodesia in the 1970s, I no longer have any sympathy for her personally.
You would have left America for Rhodesia??
I do have one question. Where were the 'right' thinking people when black citizens were being treated like fourth class citizens? It seems to me that the only people who ever thought about addressing the issues were the fringe left elements. Why is that? I've known both black and white Rhodesians. Most of the white Rhodies I've known thought the racial hierarchy 'was it was and how it was supposed to be' and most of the blacks resented not being able to have the same freedom hence how they ended up here in America. It's just amazing. I have lots of respect for Ian Smith but what was with the choice of Robert Mugabe? I know that wasn't his choice (I hope).
I have to dust off my history books to see who/how Mugabe got chosen. Having read some of Ian Smith, he seemed very 'idealistic' to believe he could run that country the way he did indefinately. Sad. Whatever happened to invading countries Ron Reagan-style to stop murdering dictators?!
I had no idea. I can't put it the way you put it but she does deserve some of the blame apparently.
Of course they were natives. In mentioning natives, I possibly should have said native blacks.
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