<Mugabe has totally failed to understand the benefits of being colonized by the right people. Colonization as practised by the Japanese in Nanking isn't good. But colonization as practised by the British wasn't too bad and made a lot of locals well off [Hong Kong for example].>
Jay, A node of sadness in the worldwide web of human circumstance, and something to ponder in that regard:
A couple of days ago, an 84 year old [approx] man died in his sleep in Auckland. His son was killed in a head-on collision a couple of years ago while driving from Auckland to his takeaways shop in Kerikeri [north end of NZ].
The son had escaped from China by swimming to Hong Kong 30 years ago. He was recaptured several times, but finally succeeded in escaping to the Hong Kong British colony. He then made his way to New Zealand, where people are British subjects although I think we are now merely subjects of the Queen, rather than Britain, though the British Privy Council remains the highest court of appeal.
So it is apparent that colonies are sometimes more attractive than motherlands, nationalism and patriotism - usually because the rascals who rule the motherland are evil incarnate. I think Mugabe's prisoner population were much better off as a British colony. Smith took independence from Britain for Rhodesia and that might not have been the smartest thing to do - though it did delay Mugabe's takeover and autocracy.
The British also colonized New Zealand - the Maoris doing a very good deal with the British. Thousands of Chinese have escaped their "free" motherland to come to NZ. China was freed from colonisation of the British [my Grandfather], then freed from colonisation of the Japanese [thanks to nukes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - developed by German Jews in the USA]. Mao and China itself took over in the end but a lot of Chinese preferred to be ruled by NZ than China - escaping at great risk to life; I believe many died in the swimming attempts.
The 84 year old couldn't speak English [being too old when his sons eventually brought him and his wife from China]. The son married a young woman who grew up in Mangere [my home village in Auckland], a descendant of many Chinese who fled China in the earlier 20th century to be colonized directly by NZ and indirectly by Britain.
They had 4 children, the oldest of whom we now learn was at my old school in Mangere Bridge, standing directly in front of our oldest daughter in a class photograph [aged then about 6 - attending only for a couple of weeks when we visited Auckland in 1984 when my mother was dying - aged 69].
Anyway, said pupil of Mangere Bridge is now 23 and in Wellington with our second daughter [21]; in the modern way, they are not actually married.
Colonisation is a complex business. Patriotism means what? The world is a small village. Who has colonized whom? I don't think it's simple to figure out and in fact, while people operate in voluntary association, I don't think anyone can be said to be colonized in a detrimental sense.
It remains to be seen whether the Americans, who whined like a fleet of Koreans over CDMA royalties, when the British were taxing tea in Boston and presuming to lay down the law in the American colonies, will be colonists like the Japanese in Nanking or the British in New Zealand [and Hong Kong].
Since Maoris became British subjects with full British rights and so have the escapees from Mao's Great Leap Backwards, but Americans don't seem disposed to grant equal human rights to those that take captive in their War Against Terror [which is causing some terror in itself!].
Americans seem inclined to dispose of suspected foreigners at best by way of 2:1 majority decision by a triad of USA soldiers and at worst by covert murder.
It's ironic that the USA, which was born on the 4 July a couple of hundred years ago 1776 [okay, that's 226 years ago] odur.let.rug.nl is now moving to form a super-empire to make the British Empire look trivial. It's also ironic that 'freedom', the catchy byword of the USA, is not necessarily going to be given to their global subjects, who will NOT be given full human rights as real people, Americans, will be, despite lecturing China about the importance of human rights.
I expect we won't see much American cant about China and human rights from now on. Then again, maybe we will and human rights will be the catch-cry for the construction of the American Empire.
This quote from the American Declaration of Independence is germane to the rest of us under the USA Empire - we can quote it back to them if they become too onerous
<We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.[Edit: unless you aren't American of course] That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -- >
Anyway, I hereby report the end of another era in the web of life. I'm proud that people preferred to come to live their lives among my relatives than remain in their uncolonized countries. I think we would get some takers if we invited Zimbabweans to come and live here. It seems that some people will have to escape as refugees from Mugabe [if they are lucky - Mugabe might not be as forgiving of attempted escapes as Mao's guards obviously were].
Unfortunately, we cannot take everyone. Another solution would be for NZ to colonize them. Perhaps that is what we should do: "Colonisation Services for Sale". But the USA, like McDonalds and QUALCOMM, is probably in a better position to offer colonisation services than we are.
It's a very complex world.
Mqurice |
