- Short attention spans are responsible for a great many
evils. Not long ago, our newspapers were full of gruesome stories about
the suffering of black and white Zimbabweans. Yet it seems that we can
only think about horrible deeds for so long before our minds wander back
to the cosy world of domestic politics.
-
- How Lilliputian that world must seem to women like Gisela
Honeywill, tied up and raped while her husband pleaded with her attackers,
and then left to speed to Harare in search of anti-retroviral drugs. Her
story, and others which we carry today, reveal what has been happening
in Zimbabwe while we have been transfixed by the Hutton inquiry. The country
is descending into a kind of primal savagery. Whereas most states pass
from barbarism through dictatorship to democracy, Zimbabwe has gone in
the opposite direction.
-
- Five years ago, it was a happy enough place, with food
surpluses, property rights, a free press, an elected parliament and an
independent judiciary. One by one, those things have been destroyed by
Robert Mugabe's regime. Now, order itself is giving way to a Hobbesian
state of nature. If a man wants another's property, he seizes it. If he
wants a woman, he takes her. If he resents those whose skins are different
from his, he drives them out.
-
- Were we to measure the importance of news by its net
effect on human happiness, the destruction of Zimbabwe would be regularly
on our front pages. When there was mass rape and ethnic cleansing in the
Balkans, it dominated the political agenda of the Western world. Why, then,
is Zimbabwe different? It is further away, of course. Yet the United Kingdom
has a far greater responsibility there, both as the colonial power and
as the mother country of many of the planters.
-
- There was a time when white Zimbabweans could expect
little sympathy from the British Left, but the enormity of Mugabe's crimes
has brought even the most determined anti-colonialists to their senses.
No, the real problem seems to be that people feel powerless to help, and
therefore push the atrocities from their minds. Yet there are things which
we could do, such as actively sponsoring pro-democracy activists, and seizing
assets from leading figures in the regime pending compensation claims from
their victims. It is too late to avert the catastrophe; but at least we
can salvage some honour.
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/02/07/dl0702
.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/02/07/ixopinion.html
|
