Monday, August 3, 2015

While the world is wringing its hands over a Zimbabwean lion. . .

the horror of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe goes on largely without notice.

This story broke while I was away from the news for an extended time (which I have come to more and more appreciate).  So, I return to the news with the story in full swing.  Many are in a frothy righteous indignation over the shooting of "Cecil the Lion".

I haven't followed the story that closely, but it does appear that the stalking of this lion was out of bounds.  He appears to have been tagged and if what little I know about the story is correct, it was an illegal hunt.  But the real news broke because the lion was known and so it's a convenient foil for the "animal rights" movement, a deeply unnatural, indeed anti natural, movement that despises people, and animals as they really are.

But the really amazing aspect of this is that people are seriously stating that the alleged law breaker should be extradited to Zimbabwe.  Seriously? People didn't work themselves into a lather about Amanda Knox, who is accused of killing a human being, in such a fashion and demand that she be extradited to democratic Italy, and they're arguing somebody should be extradited to the madness of Zimbabwe?

If anyone should be extradited in association with Zimbabwe, it's the president of that failed pathetic state, Robert Mugabe.  Mugabe took over the leadership of the country when Rhodesia surrendered itself to the inevitable, and the country looked to be full of democratic promise.  He took a prosperous land, with multiple ethnicities, and has presided over a government that has used violence against its political opponents (including his movements former brothers in arms), and which has engaged in the expropriation of land. He's destroyed the economy and made life miserable for its inhabitants, so that a person can truly say that, unlike South Africa, the country was truly better off before the revolution.

Africa has progressed enormously over the past 30 years.  Zimbabwe, however, has regressed and is a joke.  Extradite?  Yes, do so, but extradite Robert Mugabe to the Hague.

How is that people can care so much for one animal, while ignoring so much about their fellow human animals?  And how is it that people can stand, at least in theory, for the bringing of democratic rule to a nation, and then care so pathetically little when it fails to take root?  Africa is full of hope, Zimbabwe full of despair, and we should be full of shame over our misdirected priorities.

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