@ BlackMatta

Your question...

Do you think Zimbabwe should be left alone to erase or exorcise this shadow, and if not, why not?
Shadows are illusory things,children fear them.Stains are character,like age lines an an elderly man.The fact is the european presence has changed the whole character and lifestyle of their colonies.And that is my point....pre-colonial times cannot be restored as if the intervening years had not happened.All that can be done,and should be done,is the injustices that resulted from colonialism be resolved.These injustices are personified by the white farming "elite".The events that have unfolded are akin to cutting the baby in half,everybody should be happy,so why aren't they? I suggested on another thread that Mugabe should have "phased in" over several decades the take over of the farms,used the european's knowledge of the intricacies of their particular farms for the countries benifit.Framed laws to accomodate a transfer of land over time,made them take on black managers,in such a way the Farmers would have had an option to stay and work with the new system or relinguish the land.While mantaining economic stability.

What has happened is that a delayed knee jerk against the oppressive shadows of thecolonial past,has wrecked the whole country.Meanwhile the shadow of the judiciary lurks in the background arguing that the new measures are illegal,the shadow of the electoral system means removing peoples back to the Tribal Trust Lands where their vote can be "monitored" to advantage.

I can understand the need to be independant of White dominance, you are in your own house, do as you want,what you believe to be fair and just and for the benifit of the country as a whole.One hand washes the other,can you loose the benifits that the so called elite gave to the economy?

Of course the Zimbabweans should be left to sort out their shadows,it is a soveriegn country.I would hope they could see the shadow for what it is,the whites for what they are,the descendants of thieves and chancers,not super humans,just people with a melonin deficiency and attitude.....

My second question is -

A way of likening the events recently in the UK to the african's experience of an alien culture imposing itself by force.

And my answer is that you have your own Shadows that haunt you also.Someone attacks the western way of life,and you waiver in your condemnation of it,because the "enemy" is your enemy.There is a strange irony here ,for I agree somewhat with some of their aims.I dont want my daughter to wear a Veil,but I would prefer the magazines she reads didn't tell her about alternative sexual positions,I would prefer advertisements for Fried Chicken not to be so explicitly sexual.The bombers may bomb the west into submission,and replace the Bible with the Koran,but as with the colonialists they will never "win" And I suppose in a hundred years time I or more likely my descendants would havetheir own shadows......How do we break this circle of events?

Quick enough this time?

Geoff