03/05/07 - 10:22:58 am
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ZimbabweImagine taking a poor person, likely born and raised in a bustling urban center or township, putting a pole in their hand with some thin yarn, a rock for a sinker and a paper-clip for a hook. Say you gave this person a private pond and said, "Here you go. Fish." In fact you push them into the pond so the fish get acclimated to the foreign person.
Of course, this person, who had very little to speak of except battle wounds from gang violence that you brought him into earlier on. His very own pond. His very own place to provide.
What a nice thing you have done.
This is what happened to black Zimbabweans after the redistribution of white-owned land. People drove the whites out (and with them the only major knowledge of working farms), and the government took the food for the military, took the machinery for parts and other personal resources and handed over the deed to the barren, ravaged land. The new farmer, very excited knows nothing about farming, but he has land.
And now the government, who gave them nothing much in the first place are pulling away subsidies and will likely evict current tenants for poor production.
So now imagine after the person in the pond fishing with deplorable materials, who hasn't caught a fish in a really short amount of time and you cut the bait. In fact imagine yourself clocking the guy in the side of the head and pulling him from the pond, throwing the makeshift fishing rod at him and driving him out.
Then you can imagine being the Zimbabwean government.
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