Mbeki supports Mugabe

The BBC reports Mbeki as saying that 'a lack of international support for Zimbabwe made forcible land seizures "perhaps inevitable".' Since I presume Mbeki is already familiar with the history (Mugabe's cronies stole the money Britain gave to buy out the white farmers, and the biggest drop in international support has come since, not before, Mugabe started the violent seizures by fake war veterans) I have to conclude that Mbeki is a liar. And why lie? Because he gets popular support in South Africa when he makes racist claims about the villainy of white "imperialists."

I wish this sort of evil were less common, but 'the yellow peril' sells newspapers. Real enemies exist, and it is a piece of cake for politicians to fan up minor grudges into bit hatreds in the name of defense. I'm a bit more familiar with American history (waving the bloody flag, anyone?), but I see the same story everywhere. And I do mean everywhere, fantasies about peaceful pre-Columbian Indians to the contrary.

Of course around the University I find people hypersensitive to bloody-flag-waving by Americans, to the point of denying that there are real enemies; and inattentive to the same thing by foreign leaders, to the point of serious dishonesty.