Monday, May 24, 2004
Gift of the Mugabe. posted by Richard Seymour
Robert Mugabe's star has fallen in the UK media firmament ever since he fell out with the British government and directed a starved public's anger at the last remnants of colonial ownership in Zimbabwe. He doesn't help his cause by having about the same control over the colonial language as your average New York Times reader. Note this , for instance:The Zimbabwean leader also attacked Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush for going to war in Iraq.
"They knew they were wrong by deciding to attack Iraq, they deceived the world with lies, lies of mass deception, by telling them that there were weapons of mass destruction, and they thought the world was going to be cheated for all time," Mugabe said. "And there you are now, the chickens have come back to roost."
So, now Malcolm X has been murdered twice.
Note the tautology in the first sentence, the feeble attempt at punnery. True, we were fed "lies of mass deception". Still, with the torture revelations coming out of Iraq, I would have thought the old scrapper would be eager to get in there and learn some new techniques. Still, feckless as he may be, Mugabe's grandiose torsions of the English language are still to be preferred to Ian Smith's crisp upper-crust mastery :
Smith said he refused to apologise for atrocities committed while he held office. He said he had no regrets about the estimated 30,000 Zimbabweans killed during his rule. 'The more we killed, the happier we were. We were fighting terrorists.'
Ah well, it is simple enough to take joy in killing when your enemies are "terrorists". I suppose a few American soldiers could empathise with that particular sentiment. Nevertheless, Mugabe's plans for the future do raise some concern:
Asked whether he planned to stand in the next presidential election, expected in 2008, Mugabe replied: "I don't think so, I also want to rest and do a bit of writing." [Emphasis added]
God help us.