Acting White: One Lesson Of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe

No single factor of development is more influential than the status of the 'rule of law' in a given society. Africa, as a region, continues it's lock on last place among humanity, when it comes to employing this evolutionary requirement of advancement. Robert Mugabe's terrorist reign over Zimbabwe is the best example of continued tragedy under the weight of near-contagious tribalism.

Despite the common rhetoric that Africa suffers its current plight due to the exploits of colonialism, the entrenched nature of the continent's problems simply does not bear this out. In fact, it was slowed development, in the thousands of years before whites ever returned, that made Africans vulnerable to takeover. Once the white captors were expelled, Africans simply returned to tribal ways, now cloaked in the left-over trappings of democracy. White people may be faulted for taking advantage, but the original slower progress resides with the place and it's inhabitants, and today's tyrants can point at no one but themselves.

Only through placing responsibility where it rightfully belongs, and in the right amounts, will outsiders ever be able to truly help Africa. Regardless of who is exploiting them, they are victims of themselves. The democratic leaders of Africa, especially southern Africa, must part company with liberators-turned-thugs, like Mugabe. He has replaced one form of tyranny with another, his own, and the people are worse-off.

James C. Collier

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