This is how the collapse started in Zimbabwe, now described in a report from South Africa:
REUTERS - White South African farmers could have land seizedOh dear. That was exactly how it started in Zimbabwe.
13 August 2006
POLOKWANE: South Africa has warned white farmers it may seize their properties under the land restitution programme if they fail to agree a selling price within six months...
RELATED: Politics-World
5 comments:
Yep, where are John Minto and the rest of the bleeding hearts now? Where's Nelson Mandela's condemnation of such racist, not to mention criminal, policy?
Unprincipled and gutless all of them.
I fail to understand the libertarian view on property rights when the property has been secured using force or other nefarious means. Clearly Mugabe's policy is insupportable, but how do libertarians feel that land owned and tilled by indigenous populations, then clearly nicked by colonial thugs who unceremoniously turfed the original owners off, should be returned to the original owners?
This is far more clear-cut than land ownership issues in NZ - this is the theft of property, using force. Admittedly two wrongs don't make a right, but is it simply tough bikkies to the original owners? Is that how it works?
Why would South Africa turn out differently? A Marxist is a Marxist is a.......
Secret and anonymous, guess you believe that those African tribes who conquered neighboring tribes should hand over the land to the defeated, then? After all, to suggest that whites do so but not black Africans would be..um..racist.
I have noted that most countries in the whole African continent were prosperous during the white-man's rule? Since the white man left and handed over the power (& the land) back to the indigenous people, the continent has been in chaos over the last 50 years. Coup after coup, neighbouring countries were fighting against each other’s, there have been famine, diseases & starvations all the time. All of them blame their poverty state on others (Western countries). They still live in a time warp (law of the jungle). One dictator emerged as he toppled previous dictator. This cycle has been going on and on for the last 50 years or so, since the white man left. The British came to the Pacific Islands over a hundred years ago and brought the concept of written law where it never existed prior to that. Some Islands have constitutions based on the British Systems. Institutions were developed by the white man and of course came the notion of property rights with it. I am happily living in Auckland but knowing that my acres of land back home is secure that the government or anyone else is not going to take it by force from my name even though I don't live there. That property protection has been guaranteed & enforced by law that was drafted by the British settlers (or the Queen's reps to the islands in those days). We settle disputes in courts and not by killing each other as it is happening right now in Africa (tribal war). Even though all Pacific islands are poor, but our rights to our properties are guaranteed, which gives us happiness more than owning nice things that you have no rights to them (prosecution against you for chopping your own tree in your own property in Auckland). We have developed from being a primitive society (pre-white-man era with no written law) to a civilized society (even though 3rd world) over the last 100 years when the white man introduced us to the concept of property rights. When the white man handed back the power to the indigenous Polynesians to run their own, the islanders endorsed that systems, as it is the only way to live & advance in a modern world (society). You don't see famines in the islands, as it is frequently happen in Africa. We don't blame others (West) about the cause of our poverty. We blame ourselves. If the African countries don't start living in modern world by respecting property rights, then the chaos over there will still be around in the next 100 years, that I had long gone.
falafulu fisi--right on!
seems to me that some people are so desperate to attack colonialism (which is now surely a very, very dirty word) that they're utterly blind to the benefits it brought to millions of people.
Sure, there were some serious downsides, but as you point out, the benefits were--and still are--incalculable.
Post a Comment