Samizdata

Many of the commentariat in my previous post on the ongoing horror that is Zimbabwe indicated that the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) were a poor choice for me to suggest sending arms to in order to oppose the ZANU-PF tyranny. The MDC are purely a movement dedicated to bring about change democratically via the ballot box, right?

Then please explain this rather inspiring outburst:

The people of Zimbabwe have a right to defend to themselves and to rise up against the oppressive Mugabe regime, Tendai Biti, the MDC member of parliament, has said. Speaking in a radio interview with SWRadioAfrica’s Violet Gonda, he said leadership would emerge to direct popular uprisings.

“I can’t tell you by who, but I can assure you that there will be decisive action against fascism and I can tell you that the next few days are going to be interesting,” said Biti.

Pressed to identify the leadership, Biti replied: “I can’t tell you – and the hundreds of Central Intelligence Organisation officers who I know are listening to me right now – about who is going to provide the leadership, who is going to do what, and so forth – but what I can guarantee you is that the anger is overflowing in the veins of the average Zimbabweans. They will defend themselves. The time for smiling at fascism is over.”

Sounds to me if someone would just provide them with enough guns and a few truck loads of ammunition, these boys are well and truly good to go. Well Godspeed, gentlemen, may you all soon be celebrating together in Harare whilst Mugabe hangs from a nearby lamppost.

The Globalization Institute’s crack of dawn email of links continues to arrive, every week day, and continues to be well worth getting.

One of the recent links thus promulgated was to this editorial, from Kenya.

First few paragraphs:

With all the money they get as emoluments, one would have expected that our Members of Parliament would strive to ensure that they do an honest day’s job all year round.

But a report on their performance released yesterday shockingly says that the legislators only did 57 full working days the whole of last year. Allowing for public holidays, weekends and the days Parliament was in recess, this translates to less than two months of work.

Yet, these are people who are enjoying a salary package of Sh500,000 and other perks. They are the people who have been entrusted with articulating the needs of their people in Parliament.

Despite this, the study conducted by the Institute for Civic Affairs and Development says, there are some MPs who never brought any Bills to the House, never contributed to any and never raised a point of order.

In plain terms, this could be called incompetence.

One of the more depressing and destructive assumptions now rampaging about the world and doing damage to it is that the basic job of politicians is to pass laws. The more laws they pass, the better they must be doing.

But would Kenya really be a better governed country if all its members of parliament were to bring Bills to the House, instead of only some? Is it really the ultimate criticism of a politician that he never tries to pass any new laws. If politics means passing more laws, then maybe Kenya is lucky that it is not getting as much politics as it is paying for. There are far worse political vices than laziness.

I get the rough idea. Kenya’s parliamentarians are not the greatest, and I am sure that is true. But this is a very bad way to explain what is so wrong with them.

Here are the first two paragraphs of a BBC report about a report, from a Commission:

The UK-led Commission for Africa has urged wealthy nations to double their aid to the continent, raising it by £30bn ($50bn) a year over 10 years.

African leaders need to root out corruption and promote good governance, the commission’s final report says.

I cannot help suspecting that there may be something of a contradiction there, between paragraph one and paragraph two.

Is the way to root out corruption to double the amount of money you are chucking at it? This, it seems to me, might be problematic.

I mean, how do they intend to persuade Africans to refrain from being corrupt? Bribe them?

There was debate here about just how bad the situation is in Africa in general, just how corrupt African governments now are, and just how pointless and/or harmful it may now be to send them charitable aid, etc. But I take it that no one will claim that matters have improved very much, in particular, Zimbabwe during the last decade.

Up to 70 per cent of Zimbabwe’s workforce, some 3.4 million people, has fled the country to escape the political oppression and collapsing economy under President Robert Mugabe’s rule, according to research by an independent church study group.

The South African-based Solidarity Peace Trust said that most of them had crossed the borders into neighbouring countries, with an estimated 1.5 million skilled and able-bodied workers arriving in South Africa to seek work to support families left behind in Zimbabwe.

“An estimated 25 to 30 per cent of the entire Zimbabwean population has left the nation,” the Peace Trust reported.

“Out of five million potentially productive adults, 3.4 million are outside Zimbabwe. This is a staggering 60 to 70 per cent of productive adults.”

Zimbabwe’s economy is in its most dire crisis since independence in 1980.

But do not worry. Some skilled workers are about to go to Zimbabwe, in the form of a visiting England cricket team.

Which might explain why someone thinks it worthwhile to place adverts featuring this website, next to the Telegraph piece quoted from above. I cannot think of any other reason to want to visit this dreadful place.

Looking for ZIMBABWE flights? Book your cheap holiday or business trip dates? Check availability for all airplane tickets and flights to ZIMBABWE airports, then compare discount airfare rates to find the cheapest airline tickets and ZIMBABWE air travel from Kelkoo UK.

Book your cheap holiday or business trip dates? That would be a real fun holiday. And business? What on earth business might that be? Nothing very civilised I should imagine. Selling cheap bus journeys out of the damn place, perhaps.

What a horror story. Death to Mugabe. Seriously, the sooner that stubborn old bastard drops dead the better, from whatever causes God (in the insurance sense of that much overused word) chooses, the better. This will probably be the next good thing that happens to this wretched country, and if he is as stubborn about clinging on to life as he is in clinging on to his idiotically destructive policies and damn the consequences, then the people of Zimbabwe could be in for a long wait.

I know that many who read this blog might feel that I ought to be angry about those cricketers, but honestly, I cannot see their visit making much difference one way or another. After all, nobody in a position actually to improve matters in Zimbabwe seems at all inclined actually to do that. In South Africa, for example, the big debate now seems to concern whether or not to be nasty to the millions of refugees from Zimbabwe, not about whether anything can or should be done to improve things in Zimbabwe itself.