A Lesson From Zimbabwe

Let us direct your attention to a website dedicated to a woman who is a true patriot for her homeland of Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia. She is Cathy Buckle, who has written weekly letters on the chaos in that southern African nation to the controversial news website Rense.com.

The website, who's address is called "African Tears", details the misery, hunger and violence that plagues this country at the hands of the Marxist-Leninist tyrant Robert Mugabe. True, what is happening there is happening in so many other nations. But there are lessons to be learned by those willing to be taught.

Like never to centralize power - economic and political - into the hands of the few, whether in big government, big business or both. Three years ago, elections were rigged to keep the ZANU-PF Party in power, which has been continuous since 1980. Violence by thugs - trained by the government - continues against any and all rivals to power.

Like protecting domestic agriculture, which has been withering away thanks to the Communist policies of state ownership of land and such. Three years ago, 93% of Zimbabwe's farmers were ordered to leave their farms in the hands of government supporters...the majority not knowing how to farm at all, or not enough to make money.

Like always stocking up with batteries, bottled water and canned goods for use in emergencies. (For our American readers, this should be done starting TODAY, especially in these days of the current "war on terror".) Zimbabweans can't even get adequate supplies of milk, bread, flour, sugar, cooking oil and such for their families. Long lines form for such necessities, just like in the old Soviet Union and Red China.

If this poor country is ever to be freed from the Communist tyranny of Mugabe and his ilk, they must NOT allow their country to be bought up and bought out by the multinationals who are wrecking the economies and governments of other countries. Let them know of Distributism, and the insights of Belloc, Chesterton and their legitimate successors. Then they will have a better chance of survival and sanity than what they're undergoing right now.

And, as always, pray God have mercy on Zimbabwe. And that He protect Ms. Buckle and her family.