Posted on 06/02/2011 7:47:24 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Zimbabwean farmers attend a meeting of white commercial farmers in capital Harare
Zimbabwe's Supreme Court heard a case on behalf of three farmers who claimed the constitution excluded confiscation of their land because they bought their properties after the colonial era ended with independence in 1980.
The Supreme Court did not agree and quickly dismissed their application.
One of the farmers, Colin Cloete, a former president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union at the height of often violent land invasions seven years ago, was one of the applicants.
He, like many of his colleagues, has been arrested, harassed and appeared in court many times, to try to stay on his farm.
Like most surviving white farmers, the cost of going to court to try to fight his eviction has been unaffordable.
Looking back over the long and difficult years, Cloete, now 58, said his struggle to remain on his farm did not make economic sense.
“Economically we should have moved off then, at the beginning, as we would have been 10 years younger and that much more energetic,” said Cloete.
Cloete said he had begun looking looking for a house in Harare, not least so he could move his possessions to safety.
He said the land invasions launched after Mr. Mugabe lost a referendum in 2000 had hurt him and Zimbabwe’s economy, and no one had benefited from this except the elite in the ZANU-PF Party.
“We are treated like second-class citizens, we are treated like we are still just visitors to this place. My father was born in this country, before Mr. Mugabe, but I am still a visitor,” said Cloete.
(Excerpt) Read more at voanews.com ...
0bama wants to emulate Mugabe, but he is as innumerate as he is intemperate..
If we call Burma “Myanmar” and Ivory Coast “Côte d’Ivoire”, why don’t we call Germany “Deutschland”?
I think the cultural stamp of the Portuguese was why East Timor has been granted independence/recognition (from Indonesia); while the Portuguese lost the colony, the people (mostly Catholic) could never fit in the larger nation. They had nothing in common with Indonesians at that point.
Unfortunately a growing number of people have similar stories; in fact now women are also the “beneficiaries” of these programs. I always remind my sons that most things they see around them were invented and/or manufactured by men; because of the diversity in my neighborhood, many of their friends are Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or from the Asian subcontinent, so the whole “patriarchal” thing is always reinforced outside of the home as well. My Hispanic wife in fact encourages it.
I have a bowl made in East Timor, it is stamped on there, it must have been made in the 1930’s or earlier, it was my grandmother’s. There are depictions of Asian and Oriental people on it.
Only on Hawaiian birth certificates.
On average we 'lose' MORE than that EVERY DAY from CHOICE.
Africa Wins Again.
Most of them are Asian/Oriental, but they are Christian & speak Portuguese. Look at the names of their leaders in the news; the roster could be in Lisbon.
You’re right; in another century, when all of the “Euro-Americans” have disappeared from this continent, the New Americans will wonder how so many people silently watched America’s Holocaust...
However, Cote d'Ivoire technically was always Cote d'Ivoire in English (officially!) hence it seems to me to be preferable.
Of course, whatever you personally want to call it unofficially is your (and my) choice -- I call them Burma and Ivory Coast too at home.
And do remember my point was that it is not historically true that after "reversion to its older name the country reverts to the slit trench"
Yes, the cultural stamp in the case of East Timor. The difference between Indonesia and India is that Indonesia is dominated by the Moslems while India is dominated by Hinduism which is more a meta-religion than a religion. Hence Catholic Goans could feel more at home in India than Catholic Timorese in Indonesia
The Portuguese mostly had the right idea when it came to colonies -- these were places that were first and foremost to spread the religion, secondly to become Portuguese and thirdly for commerce.
For the English, Dutch, Belgians etc. commerce was #1 and that's why the Dutch legacy in Indonesia is pretty minimal to nonexistent.
I was reading on the circumstances in which Brazil became "independent" from Portugal and they are strange -- neither side wanted it and Brazil was technically not even a colony but one integral part of the Portuguese kingdom (or a sister kingdom - can't remember exactly).
The British cultural influence was also good -- they establised infrastructure and their language. The French, not so good, they established infrastructure and their language but never really let go, hence Vietnam, Algeria, West AFrica etc....
The Dutch and Belgians were the worst -- blind, naked capitalism which gives capitalism a bad name -- robber barons in the case of the Belgians in the Congo (why do I suddenly hear a Billy Joel song in my head? ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
Talking of Germany — I wonder if there is any other country that has so many different names in different languages? Germany in English, Deutschland in German, Niemcy in Polish, Allemagne in French, Saksma in Finnish, Volkiejte in Lithuanian and Ashkenaz in Yiddish (I think — not sure about the latter).
The problem is that many are still tied to this land. They are Africans, white but African.
Technically most Timorese are of the same “race” as the peoples of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Polynesia — I forget the term. Quite a few are almost pure-blood Portuguese (like their ex-President or foreign minister or something) and most, I’m guessing, have a lot of Portuguese blood — the Portuguese mingled!
Brazil was a strange situation because a Portuguese prince became their first king (though the monarchy didn’t last very long). Britain probably best prepared their colonies for eventual independence, while France probably had the most intermarriage with their colonial people (going back to the Canadian natives). You’re also right that Holland & Belgium were probably the most unloved colonizers. Spain’s influence seems to have been the strongest on its colonies in terms of an indelible imprint on the people; that may be because so many Spaniards themselves became the governments of the independent colonies, and to this day form the upper/ruling class in most of them.
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