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 ...
They were also in some faraway places long before other European powers set up shop in the area.
"France probably had the most intermarriage with their colonial people" -- I always thought the French were aloof (Vietnam, Algeria, West AFrica) compared to the Spanish.
The French and English and Dutch only came along in the 1600s and the English and French only really made headway in the early 1700s.
Britain’s system was actually ingenious, and probably the reason why their empire outlasted so many others (and kept close ties even after independence). They would take a dominant group (Zulus, for instance), and basically use them to control the situation on the ground in return for a higher standard of living. The legacy of this policy in South Africa is the antagonism between the ANC and the Zulus, who have their own hierarchy; the Zulus have lost some of the status they enjoyed in the colony. When independence eventually came (usually without the violence of Angola or Algeria), many saw benefits to keeping close ties with Britain.
The French intermarried a lot in Canada and Vietnam; I haven’t heard much about it in West Africa or the Caribbean, so probably not much. The Spanish themselves had a lot of intermarriage early on, but to this day much of the upper classes in Hispanic countries is pure Spanish blood. As these countries revert to “native” rule (Cuba, Venezuela), some of those people take the opportunity to return to Spain.
The Turks would do business after Constantinople fell, but for a price; Europe was simply looking for way to bypass them, as you mention. It wasn’t until 1492 that the last Muslim bastion in Spain fell.
When you look at how Spain holds on in Morocco (cities along the coast, like Ceuta), I’m surprised that the whites in South Africa didn’t attempt something similar: stake a claim on land (preferably along the coast for security purposes), and live in a 100% white country rather than attempt to govern as 10% in a black country. Even the part of Morocco that Spain left (”Western Sahara”) is resisting Moroccan claims - they insist that Morocco flooded them with settlers to skew any balloting.
true! The Commonwealth is basically "the club of those who were once ruled by the English PLUS Mozambique" :)
You are so right about the British "divide and rule" policy. They used a lot of proxies which is how a small island once ruled 1/4th of the world.
Though many languages of course translate country names differently — like when I lived in Bruxelles I said I was from Les États-Unis, now I say I’m from Stany Zjedoczone! If you can get your tongue twisted around the latter at the first go, I salute you :-) I wasn’t able to!
You mean he didn’t get them all yet? I’m surprised.
How sporting of them to have show eviction trials instead of just machine gunning the farmers.
In fact I’m surprised all the remaining Whites in the country haven’t all been put in concentration camps or at least forced to have the N-word tattooed on their foreheads so they know their place.
Bu,t I thought only “da white man” were racist? WTH?
Soetoro would love to turn the USA into Zimbabwe.
Some Obama-style redistribution!
Africa wins again.
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