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Post by Nathan on Jul 4, 2005 14:57:04 GMT -6
It was with much disgust that I first heard of the Zimbabwe "government's" destruction of its own citizens' homes and lifes. The acts of the "government" where thinly vieled lies saying they were illegal housing sites. Even if such a thing were true, the disregard for basic human rights is, again, disgusting. While it may not be politically correct to say so, the Zimbabwe government is composed of nothing more than fucking sons of bitches. I do hope they burn in Hell (or somewhere) for the atrocities they are committing...
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Post by olorix on Jul 5, 2005 4:59:44 GMT -6
If I am allowed to post here, Grand Chancellor, I thought it would be a good place to tell you about something happening down here in New Zealand that directly relates to this. Our cricket team is about to tour Zimbabwe (which is another big cricketing nation, and this will be followed by a Zimbabwean tour here, and it's starting to become a big issue. The conundrum is by us going there, we are allowing Zimbabwe to earn millions of dollars in revenue, but if we don't go, we will probably be expelled from international test cricket (i.e. we can't play cricket on an international level properly anymore). And it looks like history is repeating: In 1976, because NZ allowed a rugby team to tour Apartheid era South Africa, 22 African Nations staged a walkout at the Summer Olympics of the year, and in 1981, our Government allowed a South African rugby team to tour here, which resulted in riots here that put relatively put protest events Seattle and Genoa back into the Stone Age.
And the sad thing behind all this is that people don't remember that historically, South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) both had far worse and intrinsically White racist governments (South Africa until nearly 1994), yet the international community never seriously acted (with some exceptions, like the embargo on Rhodesia, but still, the place was running fine with the restrictions).. and Mugabe's government really only started getting media attention when they started doing land reforms on white farmers land, which really does make me wonder whether the the Western world has really changed their beliefs over the past 50 years.
But definitely, this recent stuff is awful, and let's all hope that Mugabe's regime collapses and makes way to a nice, progressive independent democracy and things can return to normalcy in the place and let the poor Zimbabweans actually have a government that doesn't lurch from one extreme to the other.
Peace,
Olorix
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Post by Nathan on Jul 5, 2005 12:25:31 GMT -6
You are certainly allowed to post here. My door's always open here.
That cricket thing is tricky, i heard some snippets about it while in England. For one thing, the NZ touring Zimbabwe shouldnt be impacted by politics... its sport, just like the Olympics... there should be no political side to it... but by touring Zimbabwe, as you said, the oppressive government will get millions in revenue... I don't know if there is an answer to this... easy or hard.
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Post by olorix on Jul 5, 2005 23:01:10 GMT -6
For one thing, the NZ touring Zimbabwe shouldnt be impacted by politics... its sport, just like the Olympics... there should be no political side to it... but by touring Zimbabwe, as you said, the oppressive government will get millions in revenue... I don't know if there is an answer to this... easy or hard. Well, the problem is, that was the excuse (That sport and politics 'shouldn't mix') given by the government here at the time, but in reality the government was very supportive of the apartheid regime, and ironically was only allowing SA to tour NZ and vice versa in rugby as a political statement. The same thing happens with Cuba (the current world champions in baseball, from what I've heard) and the United States refusing them to play baseball with them, doesn't it ? |
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Post by Nathan on Jul 5, 2005 23:10:33 GMT -6
Well... the US refuses anything Cuban... period. And I'm sure the fact that a "communist" nation is better at the "American" pasttime is rather embaressing... Though from what I gathered in Britain... cricket and rugby are not even close to be dominated by British teams.. and all the old colonies are whooping their asses.
But yeah... I was saying ideally sports and politics shouldnt mix. Thats a shame about NZ using rugby to make a statement about aparthied.
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