Zimbabwe – South Africans do care
I’ve watched the events taking place in Zimbabwe over the last couple of days with fascination and amazement – and so to have many, many South Africans. For the first time since we launched our new website we have been actively covering and updating a breaking international story. Our ethos on the DispatchOnline website is to be proudly local but there is something about this Zimbabwe election, even though it is taking place thousands of km from the Eastern Cape, that touches us all.
Our readers seem to agree too because their has been immense interest in the Zim elections with hits flooding into every update we gave posted. Justice Malala writing in The Times and the Dispatch criticises the apparent apathy of South Africans towards the Zimbabwean tragedy, but reading responses to this coverage I have to think that we South Africans care more than we let on.
We posted a selection of blogs from Zimbabwe on our web site and it is moving to read these posts, posts of hope for change, hope to bring Zimbabwe back into the community of nations. It is also moving to read the responses of people from around the world to these blogs.
Like this one:
Im a South African mother from the suburbs, who has been following your elections every minute i can get. I am holding every finger and toe that you get your victory and freedom. For every mother,woman and child your side, Peace be with you all.
((hugs))
A Concerned friend.
Yes, I think South Africans do care. Our foreign policy regarding Zimbabwe may be ambivalent and naive but, as is the case in many countries where leaders lose the foreign policy plot, ordinary citizens can see a simplier truth in these complex affairs and identify with the struggle of Zimbabweans to have a better life, free from tyranny.
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>> ordinary citizens can see a simplier truth
I hear a lot about ordinary citizens caring, but the apathy still reigns. If a government has a policy that is downright inhuman, then surely the ordinary citizen of that country should make a stand and get things changed. Talk is cheap. Real meaningful action is so very scarce. No, I don’t think the ordinary citizen cares – not enough to do anything, and besides there will be a new headline tomorrow to care about…
Mbeki you coward! Open your eyes! I have lost all remaining faith in Mbeki… Bring on the money laundering shower rapist how much worse can he be…scary question!
I am just wondering what is it that our people and the Zim especially want this government to do. I fully understand why South Africa respects the sovereinity of its neighbours and also feel for the Zimbzbweans, but like every nation that is oppressed they need to stand up and fight for their rights like when they did against Ian Smith’s rule. For three hundred and some odd year we were ruthlesly oppressed by the Apartheid Regime and colonialists, no single country lifted a finger except for those who partially implemented sanctions and sympathised with Mandela. We argued in every international forum for full implementation of Sanctions but to no avail. We fought and died for our liberation as South Africans and never waited for some super natural forces to come and liberate us. It will take a strong will from the Zimbabweans themselves to get freedom.
The delegates at Polokwane obviously knew that while Mbeki masquerades as an intellectual, he is in actual fact, a total idiot. The time has long passed that he is kicked out of office for total incompetence. “Ten-Ten”, you were obviously born yesterday. The points that you raise are highly contentious, but that is history now and could be debated on another forum. Fact of the matter is, Mbeki’s supposed ’struggle credentials’ has deserted him. No empathy, no common sense, no nothing and knows nothing…. All he did was sip Martini’s with a monster in Zimbabwe. Indeed, “No Crisis”!!!
Whoever said Mbeki was a Denialist knew exactly what they were talking about.He denies just about every problem the nation and the continent faces. Before I loose count of how many significant issues Mr President-in-denial has denied so far let me share with readers and see if we are all on par; He denied that HIV causes aids (His masterpiece debut, he denied that the crime rate is an issue in SA, he denied that the ANC was devided until he was ousted, now the Zim crisis is his latest release. Anything I left out?
I have always held Mbeki in high esteem, but he has been a dissappointment of late. Certainly from what I can see, despite his education, he has learnt nothing from history. Whilst I agree with ten-ten that the fate of the Zimbabweans is in their own hands! We as South Africans must not be complicit in their own demise! To suggest that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe, as our President has done, must surely rank as the most absurd thing ever said by a serving State President. If there is anything Mbeki owes Mugabe, he must have paid it twice by now!
Africa is in the process of creating an alternative to white based democracy, its called Afrocracy i.e. The man with the biggest gun has to be the bosss!!!!
