It’s heart wrenching. Gut wrenching, soul destroying stuff that pains me and upsets me. This post is not about South Africa. This post is about Zimbabwe.
Within minutes of arriving home last night at 9pm or so I read Mark Forrester’s post and received an email. here are excerpts from both.
From Mark’s post:
At 3.30pm today a lorry load of so called Mugabe brain washed “war-vets” arrived at our gate to take over our land, equipment and pedigree cattle. This crazy action is occurring in a country where there is v little food being produced !
It is now 6 pm and they have been singing their war songs at our gate for three hours, the atmosphere is violent and more and more of them have arrived.
We managed to get our daughter Alison and her young son “Little John” into town and for now it is just John and myself, plus our dogs remaining in the house on the farm.
From the email:
Hi
Just to let you know that Chris was invaded yesterday afternoon by war vets. I just happened to be visiting Charmaine and Chris when a bakkie load of about 23 drove up the road singing war songs. Chris went out to them and they told him to leave the farm immediately. The police arrived about 45 minutes after the war vets and spent a long time talking to them with Chris remaining calm and reasoning with the chaps. The whole episode took about 2.5 hours with Charmaine, Laura and I watching anxiously from Charmaine’s house. I was so worried that they might beat Chris up as is so ! often their style. They left the property and have vowed to return today to “sort things out”.
Now we all know that Zim is in dire straights. We all know that Zim is on the verge of self-destruction and massive civil war that will lead to much blood shed. But what can we do?
Well let me angle the situation in this way:
Tibet was covered on blogs, Facebook, mobile and all round, why are the 600 000 South Africans on Facebook not making more noise about this? Yes, I know that Zim is not our country and we have problems of our own, but it’s a simple group making noise, taking a stand. Let the world know what the problems are. There are enough Zimbaweans, even if South Africans aren’t willing to join in spreading of the word, in SA and around the world to make the issues known to the world. There has been uproar around the world about China and Tibet and Zim has been overshadowed due to this. The worst thing that happened to Zim recently, in media terms, is Tibet. Zim is nothing in the eyes of the world. But people are still dying and travesties are still being committed and will only get worse.
A search on Facebook yielded some results and here are some groups you can join to spread the word about the situation in Zim:
Fight Mugabe : Unite against an oppressive Tyrant & save Zimbabwe VIVA MDC
solutions and strategies for saving zimbabwe
All that I am saying is this: We can to our bit and simply join a group, tell your friends in media, bloggers, people abroad and start the wave of change.
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April 18th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Don’t like to be a naysayer but I don’t have much faith in the power of Facebook groups to do anything – but maybe that’s because I’m not on Facebook
I think every single South African blogger should have some reminder of the Zim situation displayed prominently near the top of their site. Many of us have an international audience and I feel we have a responsibility to spread the word. If you don’t keep the issue in people’s faces, it’s easy to ignore it if you live in, say, the UK or USA. I link every day to three current posts from the This is Zimbabwe blog, right at the top of my sidebar – even above my own bio!
April 30th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I have some friends who used to live in Zim. They moved to SA when they decided that life there was not worth fighting for. They are a really nice couple and have a little girl. They both love their country as I love SA (my country).
They came here to become part of productive society and they have done so pretty well. They have joined a church and in doing so, become part of many other South African’s lives.
I have to say that these friends of mine are two of the nicest people who I know. They are really friendly and are able to contribute to the lives of the people in their lives.
I also used to work for a company that used to be based in Zim. The company owners owned a few farms that were just taken from them when the farm invasions began. These guys are really able people who are very hard workers and they apply themselves to the problems facing them every day. They don’t give up easily, but when they were forced to leave, they did!
Why am I telling you this? Because these friends of mine don’t deserve the kind of rubbish (replace with more colourful words if you like) being shoveled onto their front lawns by Mugabe.
No one does.
Why do they come to South Africa? Because it is a wonderful country, full of amazing people and things.
I agree that we as South Africans need to do more to help the people of Zimbabwe. The question is what can the average person on the street do? Personally, I’m not totaly sure that there is a lot that an individual can do, but if you get enough individuals together (especially South Africans), anything can be achieved.
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