Zimbabwe: The Happiest Place on Earth

Imagine if you could a place where money was of no worth. A place where the money given to you was more valuable as an agent for starting a fire, rather than being able to actually spend it. This is the current status of Zimbabwe, whose inflation rate has reached 1600% according to the BBC. Now exactly what does this mean and who the hell cares?

Inflation is the term used to determine the increase in the amount of money available in the market, without having an increase in services. This is why 2 months ago my fast food dinner bill was 10.78 rather than 11 bucks even now. Stupid inflation. So what does this have to do with Zimbabwe oh Wise Holder of Knowledge?

It means that if any country in the WORLD needed a violent revolution to rid itself of incompetent and corrupt leadership, it is frekin Zimbabwe. I came upon this conclusion as I was interested to know who is second place in the worst economy sweepstakes. The answer didn’t kinda surprise me, it was Iraq,what did was the rate of inflation 40%. Lets repeat this for those not so good at math, Iraq: brink of civil war, terrorist attacks, Iranian influence, Turkey about to invade, inflation at 40%; Zimbabwe is at SIXTEEN HUNDRED PERCENT.

Who in the the hell is in charge of their country’s money? Is it a baboon? You can tell me if it is , in fact it would make me feel better in some strange way. I mean reasonable people can disagree on a variety of subjects, ice cream, religion, what to be for Halloween, if the University of Southern Cal operated by the Devil, but to refute that violent action not be taken against a government this ineptly stupid? Balderdash. (For those keeping score I am still unfamiliar with the type of language that will get me censored hence the old people speak)

Many will say, that is Africa. The history of the Continent has not been exactly the best when it comes to public relations, as all we hear about are famines, pestilence, revolutions and genocides. You are correct ladies and gentlemen, but it was not always so for Zimbabwe. Well for Zimbabwe maybe but not what it used to be called was Rhodesia. A colony that the Brits were really looking forward to keeping and making it a success.

To be sure their were problems of social unrest though not as serious as the country of South Africa with the Apartheid, but there were enough to cause concerns since the White Minority held all the power and money. So it came to be that Rhodesia became splintered into two countries North became Zambia and the South became Zimbabwe. This of course skips over the White Minority Government putting down democratickish uprisings. Some of which were legitimate, while others not so much.

So it was that in the year 1980 Zimbabwe became a country under the once rebel leader and now Executive President Robert Mugabe. Hailed as a hero for his freedom fighting/insurgent campaign depending on how you look at it, he became “responsible” for the citizens of the newly formed country. Instead he saw that the white minority, while without political power still held the financial reigns. While we can agree social reforms are indeed necessary they must be taken with responsible and good natured intentions that are fair to those who need help and those you are “taking” the help from.

Mugabe’s policy was, whites have the farm land which makes them rich, kill or force them away and then my people will then be rich. Problem solved. Except not really if you give it to people who don’t know what in the hell they are doing with the farmland. Not to mention the fact that the rest of the International Community would have a problem with such a ridiculous and short minded policy. What had happened is the economy went into the tank and what had been known as the “Breadbasket of Africa” is now known as the Happiest Place on Earth.

Pakistani Politics

Welcome one and all to the inner thoughts of a tormented genius that cannot help but observe and mock the absurdity of what the Human Being is capable of doing to one another. Though one may look to all corners of the globe to find such degradation of human worth, it seems as though the Middle East is often the poster child for such behavior. While the blog-o-sphere is full of either neo-conservative sites striving to destroy the people and their culture, as well as liberal hippies who seem to think if we smoke the proverbial peace pipe all will be fine; I have an altogether different take: The people there need to make smarter decisions.

Case in point is the obscenely stupid, arrogant, and power hungry arrival of Benazir Bhutto. This formerly exiled leader of Pakistan had been kicked out, and kept out, because of mismanagement of government and corruption. Now, in the Middle East this is common place and will be further discussed for my soon to be loyal and devoted readers, but the events of the last couple of days shows how incompetent Bhutto is.

For those who don’t know, Pakistan’s problems stem from them having fundamentalist Muslims who favor the ideals espoused by Al Qaeda and their buddies the Taliban. As such the have very, lets be polite and say quaint views of what the roles of women should be in their society. Here comes the shocker; being the head of the government and telling these “men” what to do isn’t in the list. For those of you faint of heart, please take a moment to recover as I am sure this is a revelation for most of us.

So when news came out that Bhutto would come back and have a power sharing deal with current President Perves Musharraf, these groups were none too happy. They then fell back on what has become the stereotype of what Muslims do when they are angry and launch death threats and blow stuff up. To make matters worse, the level of mistrust and disdain between Musharaf and Bhutto is so high, that even after Musharraf told Bhutto, and I will paraphrase, “People are trying to kill you, give us another week or so before you come back” and yes she ignored this plea and came back anyway.

Of course the outcome was a bombing that killed almost 140 people went off the other day, aimed at trying to kill Bhutto and was unsuccessful. Well does this mean that she believes Musharraf and will work with him to try and stamp out the violent fundamentalists who use Islam as an excuse to do horribly nasty things to people while feeling they are ordained by Allah and thus avoid guilt? No, because that would make sense, instead their are claims that this is Musharraf attempting to get rid of her as well as counterclaims that Bhutto set this assassination attempt up herself in order to garner sympathetic support.

While this may seem a tragic and ridiculous plot line to a bad Steven Segal movie, which is redundant I know, this is what passes for an average political day in the life of a politician in the Middle East. And while we in the West believe that it is a local problem and that there is no need for us to take notice, please consider this, the citizens of Pakistan have decided that these events are not the result of evil men planting bombs, nor a former exiled leader in a rush to build a following to garner more power, nor even a President who is so desperate to keep power he places personal power over national interests, they blame us my friends. For we are the ones who do not seem to care about their plight, leaving people in charge who do not care that the county becomes a cesspool of death and destruction, so long as they can have the title of being in charge of it.