The truth about Rhodesia - a warning to liberals of the AABC countries

Rhodesia’s story isn't what you've been told! Today, it's barely mentioned at all. You would be hard-pressed to find, in the AABC countries (America, Australia, Britain and Canada), anyone under the age of 60 who could tell you what or where Rhodesia was. 

For 15 years (1965-1980), the world poured its energy into erasing Rhodesia from the map. But once it was gone, silence! Zimbabwe, like so many "decolonised" African nations, soon collapsed into chaos. Under Comrade Robert Mugabe, the dictator who ruled from independence in 1980 until he was deposted in a coup in 2017, and his successor Emmerson "E.D." Mnangagwa, the country was brought to ruin. Watch this video and ask whether the Rhodesians were really the villains history says they were, and what happens if people of that stripe come to power. FAFO!

Walt first visited Rhodesia, as it then was, some 57 years ago. As the narrator of this video says, the handwriting was on the wall, even then. When I returned to live in Zimbabwe (as Rhodesia had been renamed) in the 1990s, there were still many Africans (as black people like to be called) who said that things were better in the days of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith. 

After independence, Zimbabwe quickly became a basket case, destroyed by the corruption, ignorance and incompetence of the Marxist government of Comrade Mugabe. One of Walt's agents, who left the sinking ship at about the same time, and now resides in the Disunited Kingdom, returned in January to attend to some legal matters. She reports that things have not got any better in the quarter-century since we left. It is not wrong, she says, to regard Zimbabwe as a failed state, which has hit bottom and can never rise again. What a pity.

Reparations? President Trump does the math

Walt guesses you've never heard of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. [Indeed we haven't. Lifetime pct .990. Ed.] Well sir, the UNPFPAD is yet another anti-white, anti-American agency of the Disunited Nations, created to advocate for a "global reparations agenda" to "compensate Africa and the African diaspora for the enduring legacies of colonialism, enslavement, apartheid and genocide between the 16th and the 19th centuries."

Need we add that it has tied itself to the currently fashionable causes espoused by the anti-white left, claiming that "efforts to advance climate action" must be grounded in “racial equity", because "climate justice cannot succeed without addressing historical and structural forms of injustice." Isn't that obvious?

But wait (as Vince Offer used to say) there's more! The UNPFPAD's delusional advocacy has also branched into emerging technology fields like artificial intelligence, where the forum declared only "reparatory justice" could halt "technology-enabled racism." We'll pause here so you can stop ROFL.

Readers whose tax dollars would be spent on reparations if politicians like California Governor Gavin Newsom [Isn't he the that used to lead the Tonight Show band? Ed.] get their way will be glad to know that President Trump has called BS on this anti-white nonsense. 

Yesterday, POTUS signed an executive order to pull the US of A out of UNPFPAD. According to Trump administration officials, the racial grievances and "victim based social policies" promoted by the oranization are contrary to the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

Tommy Pigott, principal spokesthingy for the State Department, said "America will no longer lend its credibility to racist organizations. Radical activists who embrace DEI ideology and seek to compel the United States to adopt policies mandating race-based wealth redistribution, in organizations such as the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent will no longer be entertained." He added, "The United States is proudly withdrawing from racist organizations such as this forum."

Thanks to BCF for the tip to this under-reported story. Ed.

"Land defence + dog sanctuary" - the ultimate in woke intersectionaity

You can't make this stuff up. A report in Canada's National Post reveals that, in a display of wokeness bizarre even by Canadian standars, the Vancouver Foundation gave C$300,000 ($216.000 in real money) to "decolonization activists seeking to block oil and gas pipelines with stray dogs. 

The "Decolonial Dog Sanctuary" -- consisting of a series of makeshift wooden structures and a converted bus in the forests outside Hazelton BC -- is the brain(?)child of  Teresa Brown, who lives on site and is described in the Vancouver Foundation grant documents as a "Wilp Matriarch and Hereditary Representative of the territory" [and not a Pretendian. Ed.]

The grant documents say the project is "a form of land-based re-occupation... deeply embedded in cultural, legal, and territorial frameworks maintained through relational, hereditary authority rather than external or colonial agreements."

Unmentioned is that the sanctuary was very explicitly established as an illegal forest blockade intended to hinder the construction of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline. The sanctuary carries the motto "puppies not pipelines". In a November 2024 profile published on the Indiginews website, which made clear the sanctuary's anti-pipeline mission, Ms Brown declared, "They’re not getting in here. Over my dead body!"

In recent posts to the sanctuary’s official Facebook page, Ms Brown has admitted she had limited knowledge of dog care before starting the sanctuary, but believed that aggressive dogs could "evolve into versions of themselves that thirst again for love." In a post last week, she said the project has been helpful in allowing her to reduce her dependence on pain meds and other prescription medications. That there is about all ye need to know.

This week, everything happened at once, Part 1

Finding topics for WWW is like waiting for the streetcar. [They have streetcards in Fort Mudge? Ed.] You wait for hours, then three of them come along at once. In August there was nothing, but in this first week of September I couldn't keep up with reading, let alone writing.

Farewell Liz. We hardly knew ye.

On Thursday, Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and all her other realms and territories, "passed". It's a symptom of the sickness of our society, of our fear of death and the afterlife, that we no longer say someone "passed away", let alone "died". People just "pass", like ships in the night.

It's hard to be snarky about Elizabeth. I am old enough to remember the death of her father, King George VI, and her coronation in 1953. Since then, she was just... there.

She was a rock, keeping calm and carrying on, with that British stiff upper lip, in spite of the turmoil caused by her dysfunctional children and grandchildren, and the problems of not-so-great Britain and the moribund Commonwealth.

The leftist press in the UK and Canada have trotted out a rainbow parade of oppressed indigenous peoples -- Jamaicans in Britain, First Nations in Canada -- to complain of the evils of slavery and colonialism. Never mind that slavery was abolished in the British empire before Queen Victoria (Elizabeth's grandmother) ascended to the throne, or that most of the colonies became more or less independent at least six decades ago. The POCs are still victims, demanding compensation for the abuse of their ancestors.

The one colony which has yet to gain its independence, whose people are still suffering under the yoke of the British, is Northern Ireland. Irish patriots killed Elizabeth's uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, but the stubborn English persist in trying to prevent the reunion of Ulster with the Republic. Sinn Féin say they will "work with" the new king, Charles III, to resolve the impasse, but I say, don't stay tuned.

Footnote: The Queen's last official act, on Tuesday, was to swear in Liz (no relation) Truss as the new prime minister of the Disunited Kingdom. By all accounts, Ms Truss is as woke as they come, a champion of diversity, inclusion, the European Union and the New World Order. She will get along very well with Charles, king of the tree-huggers, who is actually a member of the WEF and a regular attender at Davos. Don't looks for either of them to try to Make Britain Great Again. 

Worth viewing: "Africa is not poor because of colonization" - Dr. Jordan B Peterson and Magatte Wade discuss how economic freedom dictates the success potential of countries, and how Africa's fixation on colonialism, rather than incompetence and corruption, being the cause of their modern day struggles, locks the continent into abject poverty.

VIDEO: Wm. F. Buckley talks with Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Regular readers of WWW will know that I have an abiding interest in Zimbabwe, a dictatorship in southern Africa which went from being the second-most prosperous on the Dark Continent to what Still-President Trump would now call a "shithole".

I lived and worked in Zimbabwe in the 90s, and could see the handwriting on the wall after the former Big Man, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, decided to pay all his "war veterans" gratuities of Z$50,000 each after they had staged a series of protests, claiming that they had not received the "benefits" of their revolt against the "white settler regime", viz: white cars, white houses and white women.

The unbudgeted payouts saw the Zimbabwe dollar lose its value by 70% in one day -- I remember it well -- and analysts say the move signalled Zimbabwe's well-documented economic collapse. Banknotes were issued in denominations of billions and even trillions of dollars and were literally not worth the paper they were printed on.

The Mugabe government abandoned the "Zimkwacha" because of hyperinflation in 2009 -- 1 US dollar was worth around Z$35 quadrillion at the time -- and started using American dollars and South African rand. 

But I digress. I was about to tell you that when I first went to Africa, there was no Zimbabwe. The country was then known as Rhodesia, a former British colony which declared its independence from No-longer-great Britain on 11 November 1965. I went there about four years later, over five years before William F. Buckley Jr. went there to record this interview with Prime Minister Ian Smith. 

I went to Rhodesia on a fact-finding mission, to see for myself whether the Africans (by which was meant "blacks") were so badly off under white minority rule as was argued by the "progressives" at the United Nations, the World Council of Churches and elsewhere. I concluded that it would be a mistake -- detrimental to the well-being of the Africans -- to overthrow the "white settler government" and impose "majority rule". But it was clear even then, in 1969, that the mistake was going to be made, in the name of "freedom and equality, yada yada yada. The mistake was made, and the result is the shithole that is Zimbabwe today. 

In this interview, recorded in April of 1974, Ian Smith makes the case for the continuation of minority rule until the majority population should be ready to govern themselves. Mr Smith was right, but of course that doesn't matter now, does it. 

One thing to note, at about the 38-minute mark, is that Mr Smith asserts that the black revolutionaries were financed and trained by Communist China. Of course today's China would never do that kind of thing.

Further viewing: Thames Television documentary visit to Rhodesia, June 1975. Includes interview with Ian Smith.  

VIDEOS: "I'm going to Nigloland!"

Yes, folks, there really is a "Nigloland", a theme park in Dolancourt, in northeastern France. In the official video, which invites you to "Vivez des sensations fortes à Nigloland!" it looks pretty much like your average amusement park.



You got your roller coaster, your runaway train ride (like Indiana Jones), your flume ride and many others designed to make you scream and throw up, if that's your idea of a good time. It also had a quieter ride -- the kind I like -- an African river cruise, like they used to have in Disney's Adventureland (if my memory serves).

The Nigloland (got the name figured out yet?) cruise is a little more realistic... or less politically correct... than the Disney version. Here's a clip.



For those who don't speak French, the character with the red tarboosh, carrying a bunch of bananas, is an African. The one about to get his nether orifice reamed out, is a European colonialist. He's yelling, "Stop talking, Bounama, and help me climb onto this branch before my trousers start looking like a sieve!" The black character replies in a heavy African accent and calls the white character "boss" several times.

For some reason, this scene enraged some visitors to Nigloland -- admirers of Rousseau's "noble savage" ideal, perhaps -- who started a Twitterstorm accusing the park operators of colonialism, racism, yada yada yada -- the usual stuff. The theme park was quick to post an apology on social media, saying "We apologize to the people we were able to encounter with one of the scenes of the Africa Cruise. We are listening to our customers and sensitive to the quality of our park, we change the scene in question this weekend. Thank you for your understanding."

That's OK then. Forget about it. And for our readers who were planning on visiting Nigloland, forget about that too. No "sensations fortes" there any more.

University to pull down statue of historical figure now deemed racist

You thought it was going to be another statue of Robert E. Lee, destroyed by another southern city or school eager to prove how politically correct they are by denying public space to one of the great heroes of American -- yes, American! -- history. Noooo... This time the beloved historical figure who is to be insulted and dethroned [There must be a better word, but I can't think of it. Ed.] is none other than Mohandas Gandhi, one of the 20th century's greatest fighters against colonialism and racism.

Or so it was thought. After all, didn't the Mahatma (Great Soul) lead the non-violent revolution that succeeded in driving the evil white British out of India? Was his campaign not just against the Brits, but against racism? Didn't he believe that all men [and women. Ed.] are created equal? Errr, maybe not.

This statue of the Indian independence leader was erected two years ago at the University of Ghana, in Accra, the shithole country's capital, but was removed in the middle of this past Tuesday night, after professors at the university began a petition against the statue, which has since gained over 2000 signatures. The petition claims Mr Gandhi was a racist, citing his writings over the years in which he said Indians were "infinitely superior" to Africans, whom he called "kaffirs", a racist slur at the time.

In 1896, the Mahatma wrote: "Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

Mr Gandhi was in South Africa at the time. Perhaps there was some truth to what he said in 1896, but certainly there is no truth whatever to it 122 years later. Right? Anyway, his statue is gone now. It has not been replaced by a statue of an African hero [or heroine. Ed.] because [Unfortunately, considerations of space prevent us from posting the rest of Walt's comment. Ed.]

South African politico in trouble for mentioning benefits of colonialism

Otta Helene Maree (née Zille), known as Helen Zille, is an open-minded, liberal, progressive (etc etc) South African politician. She served as leader of the Democratic Alliance, the country's official opposition party, from 2007 to 2015 and as Mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009. She is a member of the Western Cape parliament and Premier of that province. As you can see, Ms Zille is (surprisingly) white.

Back in the bad old days of apartheid, Ms Zille was a "freedom fighter" -- journalist and anti-apartheid activist. Under cover of a job with the Rand Daily Mail, she worked with the Black Sash and other "pro-democracy" (read "terrorist") groups during the 1980s. Now, according to a report from BuzzSouthAfrica, the former champion of black rule faces suspension from party activities on Saturday following tweets in which she said... wait for it... colonialism had some positive results.

Helen Zille, who is white [You already said that. Ed.], tweeted in March that the colonial legacy was not only negative, citing "our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water etc."

Imagine the shock and horror! Mmusi Maimane, a person of colour who replaced Ms Zille as party leader, said her comments "damaged the party and undermined reconciliation efforts in South Africa." Race relations remain a sensitive topic in South Africa, which held its first all-race elections after the end of white minority rule in 1994. The country has been ruled by the incompetent kleptocracy of the black-only African National Congress ever since.

In a statement worthy of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Mr Maimane said, "We live in a fragile democracy, which means our public representatives must, at all times, be sensitive to the legitimate anger that people still feel about our past and its legacy." Party leaders have therefore decided that Ms Zille should be "suspended from all party-related activities until such time as her disciplinary hearing is concluded."

In reply, Ms Zille tweeted, "I cannot be bullied into resigning or incriminating myself." She also disputed Mr Maimane's comment that she had declined to give the obligatory white liberal apology, saying she had done so publicly.

African woman axes and eats passerby

Every now and then we get a bizarre tale from the southern African country of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe itself is rather bizarre, a case study in what happens when the wicked white colonists are forced to hand over to the black majority.

This was the case in what was then Rhodesia, which was betrayed by the UK government and in 1980 was handed over to Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who is still in power (at least nominally) over 34 years later. Under Mugabe's kleptocracy, Zimbabwe has regressed, by every measure, in every aspect of human development, to pre-independence, even pre-colonial levels.

As a case in point, Walt offers the following story, as it appears in today's online edition of Zimbabwe NewsDay.

In a bizarre incident that occurred in Gutu yesterday, a mentally challenged woman allegedly wrestled a male villager, and fatally axed him before devouring part of his flesh.

Acting Masvingo provincial police spokesperson, Assistant Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa confirmed the spine-chilling incident and identified both the suspect as Esther Katandawa (27) and the deceased as Simon Muzenda (29). The incident occurred yesterday morning at Mupandawana village under headman Gadzingo. "We have indeed heard about the incident, and we can confirm that the accused, who is mentally challenged, has since been arrested and is in custody," he said.

He said Katandawa met the deceased in the same village in the morning and disarmed him of the axe, before chasing after him and turning the axe on him. "The now deceased was limping as his leg was aching,” Dhewa said. "After the axe was taken away from him, he tried to flee, but could not go further as he could not run due to his leg that was troubling him. Unfortunately, he was struck with the axe and died on the spot. The accused then started eating his flesh."

Other villagers who were passing by were said to have heard his cries, before they apprehended Katandawa and made a police report, leading to her arrest.

It could not be established if Muzenda is related to the late Vice-President, Simon Muzenda, who also hailed from the same district.

Walt wonders if the "mentally challenged" lady thought that perhaps her victim was the late Muzenda, risen from the dead. Such beliefs are not uncommon in bizarre Zimbabwe. Nothing that a little civilization wouldn't cure, but, as the locals say, "this is Zimbabwe".

You think I'm kidding about the persistence of the African belief in sorcery and witchcraft? From the same source comes a report that Comrade Bob yesterday claimed that discredited Vice-President Joice Mujuru, working in cahoots with members of her cabal, secretly consulted n’angas (with doctors) seeking juju (magic potions or spells) to kill him in a bid to wrest power from him.

Addressing a Zanu PF Central Committee meeting in the capital yesterday ahead of today’s 6th national people’s congress, Mugabe said Mujuru and her co-plotters also clandestinely plotted to assassinate him before their plans were exposed. 

Comrade Bob is 90, and is widely believed to have the necessary juju to live and rule Zimbabwe forever. Forever, do you hear? Bwuhahahahaha....

Dark continent celebrates half-century of corruption and misrule

Africans from Casablanca to Cape Town are looking forward -- or maybe not -- to Sunday, when many of Africa's states will celebrate the 50th anniversary -- more or less -- of the "liberation" of the Dark Continent -- or much of it -- from the white settlers. If this sentence seems a little vague, that's because things in Africa are always vague.

A couple of African writers have noted that in throwing off the shackles of the European colonialists, the Africans (in the lands below the Sahara, at least) seem to have liberated themselves from the bonds of peace, order and good government -- indeed, of civilization itself. Vince Musewe (Zimbabwean) writes that "Africa remains in the economic backwoods and torn apart by civil wars, coups and counter-coups."

In Malawi (formerly known as Nyasaland, and before that British Central Africa) violence erupted during Tuesday's presidential elections. No-one was killed though, so that's considered a peaceful election by African standards.

In northern Africa, Al-Qaeda terrorises the Sahel region and is fomenting jihad against Christians in the Central African Republic and Mali south of the Sahara. That there hasn't (yet) been mass genocide is due mainly to the presence of armed forces from France, which happens to be, errr, the former colonial power.

A bit farther south, civil strife in the diamond-rich Congo (Kinshasa -- not to be confused with Congo Brazzaville) never seems to end. The UN has a token force in the Congo's far east, but local people seem to fear them as much as any of the other gangs of marauders.

In western Africa, Boko Haram continues to wreak havoc in Nigeria. #BringBackOurGirls slacktivism doesn't seem to have had much impact on them. Just yesterday, suicide bombers killed scores of people in marketplaces in two northern towns. The Disunited Nations is threatening to impose sanctions. US assistance in searching for the missing schoolgirls has been delayed by "technical problems".

Want more? In Zimbabwe, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, once touted to by western liberals as a great freedom fighter and another Mandela, clings to power at age 90-odd, crushing opposition and establishing a de facto one-party state, while turning the former Rhodesia into an economic basket case.

Like Zimbabwe, most of the states of central Africa have failed, collapsed or are weak. South Sudan -- the world's newest nation! -- has collapsed into tribal war. Guinea, Niger, Mauritania, and Guinea Bissau are failing as a result of coups and civil uprisings. Walt's agent in Madagascar reports that water and power outages, banditry and looting are daily occurrences.

Corruption is out of control in every African state, with one or two possible exceptions. African society laughs at honest and accountable leaders and cherishes "big men" like Mugabe and South Africa's Zuma.

In Liberia, from whence Ibrahim Al-bakri Nyei writes, about 75 people of Afro-American descent have held power for over 40 years, circulating the leadership amongst them to keep up appearances. The rest of the population still lives in poverty and hopelessness. Corruption is at its peak, casting doubts on the credibility of the regime and eroding public confidence in the state as a whole.

Conclusion: "Uhuru" (freedom/independence) remains an empty event for the majority of Africans. Why so? Could it be that the fact that blacks look like human beings and act like human beings, does not necessarily make them sensible human beings? This the theme of "Are we beast or man?", by Vince Musewe, an economist and author based in Harare.

Musewe quotes (with sorrow) from a speech made by former South African President P.W. Botha, speech made in that country's Parliament in 1987.

“We are not obliged even the least to prove to anybody and to the blacks that we [whites] are superior people. We have demonstrated that to the blacks 1001 ways. The Republic of South Africa that we know of today has not been created by wishful thinking. We have created it at the expense of intelligence, sweat and blood. We do not pretend like other whites that we like blacks.

"The fact that blacks look like human beings and act like human beings does not necessarily make them sensible human beings. If God had wanted us to be equal to blacks, He would have created all of a uniform colour and intellect. By now every one of us has seen it practically that blacks cannot rule themselves. Give them guns and they will kill each other.

"They are good at nothing else, but making noise, dancing, marrying many wives and indulging in sex. Let us all accept that the black man is a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence."

President Botha was a co-winner, with Nelson Mandela, of the Nobel Peace Prize, not because he changed his views on the fitness of blacks to run a modern nation-state, but because he worked with Mandela to ensure that the transition to "majority rule" in 1994 was as smooth and peaceful as possible, in the circumstances. Since then, South Africa has sliding the slippery slope downward, much like Zimbabwe, only not as quickly. It could take another 20 years or so under ANC rule before it hits bottom.

In his article, Musewe asks his fellow Zimbabweans: "What have we to show as a country since our independence in 1980?

"Horrifying corruption and outright theft, a leadership with an inexplicable obsession with luxury cars and sexual encounters, the destruction of prodigious value in all sectors of our economy, the use of arms of war against our Ndebele brothers and sisters, the decimation of agriculture and the dogfight over diamonds, the deliberate extermination of a national indigenous bourgeoisie, the destruction of our environment that is now happening particularly by small-scale tobacco growers and small-scale miners all under the name of indigenisation.

"In addition, just look at the dirt in our cities and townships, the noise that goes on daily, the potholes and sewage all over, the overcrowding and the common face of poverty, hopelessness and serious deterioration of our living standards. Look at our values and morals as a society and what we have become; the greed and selfishness all around us; all this, despite having the highest literacy rate in Africa!"

Can it there be said that Botha was fundamentally wrong or blinded by racism? Corruption, autocratic leadership, mismanagement, incompetence and misrule are the norms in today's Africa. Such is the fruit of the "liberation struggle" of the 60s which will be celebrated on Sunday.

Zimbabweans wishing to run whites back INTO town?

Tomorrow will mark the 34th anniversary of Zimbabwe's deliverance from the rule of the "white settlers". At the time when the reins of government -- and the keys to the bank vault and printing presses -- were handed over to Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Rhodesia (as it then was) enjoyed a standard of living second in southern Africa only to that of South Africa.

Rhodesia was a net exporter of food, the infrastructure (including a railway and an airline) worked, life expectancy was rising and it took two American dollars to buy a Rhodesian dollar. Now, having been looted six ways from Sunday by Mugabe's kleptocracy, Zimbabwe is an economic basket case. Millions of Zimbabweans are dying, not just from HIV/AIDS but from hunger. 1/12th of its citizens, including all but a handful of whites, are living overseas.

Celebrations of independence and "majority rule" will thus be a little muted. Some older people even dare to suggest that perhaps things were better in the days when the country was run by people who knew how, even if those people were, errr, a whiter shade of pale. Here are some thoughts along those lines from Walt's old friend CZ, writing in this week's Financial Gazette.

Patriotic as Dr CZ would love to be seen to be, if he is going to be allowed the freedom to be honest, he would confess that he is divided as to which event to celebrate tomorrow… that is if he has an option to choose between independence and Easter Friday.

There are, however, many reasons CZ would rather celebrate Easter than independence because independence is there, yes, but a lot of things are quite amiss… so amiss as to tempt some like Yours Truly to think Ian Smith could have been right after all when he told the then newly-sworn in Prime Minister Robert Mugabe at his new official residence in 1980 that the success of the new nation depended largely on the size of the white component of the population that new government was able to retain.

What the political hooligan called Smith was simply doing was wantonly casting aspersions at the leadership qualities of black people, which naturally was an insult to any patriot. Sadly, Dr CZ now feels that the collective behaviour of many of our leaders over the years — be they political, business, religious et al — seem to be totally divorced from anything remotely suggestive of even a fleeting hint towards debunking this “stereotypical nonsense”. Dr CZ regrets it if he has failed to properly articulate his point as to sound racist!

Chaos in the CAR: an African mess gets messier

Sub-Saharan Africa is a mess. Don't let articles written by lamestream journalists wearing rose-coloured specs fool you. Walt's agents are everywhere (especially in southern Africa) and they send us the real news. With the exception of one or two countries, Africa and its people are in worse shape today than during the much-reviled colonial era.

One of the countries which is not an exception to the rule that Africans are demonstrably unfit to govern themselves is the Central African Republic. Walt has written about it before: "
"Pray for Syria" (has a map) and ""Christians attacked every day in Mid-East, Africa and Asia

The CAR used to be a French colony, called Ubangi-Chari, later part of French Equatorial Africa.

Some of the people used to wear huge lip plates as ornaments, to the delight of such as P.T. Barnum who brought them to America to exhibit as freaks. (Before you laugh, check your mirror for tattoos and piercings!)

We'll skip over the post-colonial episode of the Central African Empire, ruled by the Emperor Bokassa 1st who used to keep chunks of his enemies' bodies in the palace freezer so he could eat them later. Bokassa was overthrown with the connivance of the French -- because he was an embarrassment -- and the CAR hasn't had a stable government since.

One of the reasons for the CAR's instability is that it is one of those countries which is torn between the Musilm north and the Christian/animist south, like Mali, Nigeria and the Sudan. As I write, Islamic extremists, supported by invaders from Chad (another basket case), Mali and Libya, are invading the CAR's capital, Bangui. The customary raping, looting and pillage has ensued. Chaos reigns.

The French (embarrassed again) have put 1500 pairs of military boots (and counting) on the ground to combat the Muslim terrorists, but are far from clearing the area. Meanwhile, more than 100,000 refugees are thronging the cathedral and the airport, clamouring for protection from the savages.

Speaking of "savages", here's a quote from Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, by Max Hastings (William Collins 2013):

Lucien Laby was in charge of an escort taking fourteen German prisoners to the rear, when their little column was suddenly beset by Senegalese troops determined to cut off the Germans' ears. After a violent scuffle, the colonial soldiers were driven back.

One big Senegalese saluted Laby and said wistfully, "O my lieutenant, you might have let me cut off two ears -- just two ears!"

A French army chaplain, while applauding the terror that such colonial infantry inspired among the Germans, deplored the difficulties of dealing with their wounded patients at his hospital: "The blacks from North Africa are almost as civilised as their Berber or Arab compatriots...[but] there are others from West Africa and the French Congo...who are very primitive indeed".

That was 99 years ago. As the French say, plus ça change...

What happens, now that the black "redeemer" has died?

Nelson Mandela died today, at the age of 95. RIP. Now that he's gone to his reward, you can expect an outpouring of breast beating and maudlin sentiment such as has not been seen since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Mandela would be a candidate for instant sainthood, if only he were Catholic. [In today's Church, do you really have to be Catholic? Ed.]

Mixed in with all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth will be a large dose of anti-colonial, anti-white rhetoric. Comparisons will be made with the plight of the Jews in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. The Afrikaners will be cast in the role of the evil oppressors, while Mandela is portrayed as the Holy Moses who led his people out of bondage and into... well... into what? Into the promised land of black empowerment, equal rights for all (even queers), and all the blessings a "rainbow nation" can bestow.

Conveniently overlooked will be the fact that, for the vast majority of its people, South Africa is no better -- and in some respects worse -- than it was in the days of apartheid. The education system is in freefall, corruption is rife, and violent crime threatens virtually everyone. In other words, South Africa has become like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa under black rule.

Walt hopes that in the last couple of years of his life, Mr. Mandela's faculties were so dimmed by illness and old age that he was unaware of what a shambles his people have made of his beloved country.

Here's a quote from an early work by V.S. Naipaul, an ethnic Indian native of Trinidad, with some experience of Africa and the failings of countries, including his own, in the post-colonial era. This is from "Michael X and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad", which appeared in a fine little collection entitled The Return of Eva Peron, with the Killings in Trinidad (André Deutsch, 1980).

Black Power -- away from its United States source -- is jargon...a sentimental hoax. In a place like Trinidad, racial redemption is as irrelevant for the Negro as for everybody else. It obscures the problems of a small independent country with a lopsided economy, the problems of a fully "consumer" society that is yet technologically untrained and without the intellectual means to comprehend the deficiency. ] [Emphasis mine. Walt]

It perpetuates the negative, colonial politics of protest. It is, in the end, a deep corruption: a wish to be granted a dispensation from the pains of development, an almost religious conviction that oppression can be turned into an asset, race into money.

While the dream of redemption lasts, Negroes will continue to exist only that someone might be their leader. Redemption requires a redeemer; and a redeemer, in these circumstances, cannot but end like the Emperor Jones: contemptuous of the people he leads, and no less a victim, seeking an illustory personal emancipation.

In Trinidad, as in every black West Indian island, the too easily awakened sense of oppression and the theory of the enemy point to the desert of Haiti.

Hmmm. Haiti. Yes. And Mr. Naipaul wrote that in the mid-70s [when you could still use the word "Negro". Ed.]. Look at Haiti today -- more of a "desert" than it was 40 years ago. Look too at Zimbabwe, whose "redeemer", Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, is only 90, but determined to hang onto power until the desertification of his country is complete. Mr. Mandela, at least, was spared that.

Teenaged African rapist to be "canned"

Walt's agent in Zimbabwe -- who refuses to take a number and thus must be referred to only as SeeZee -- sends the following report from the online edition of NewsDay, which we republish verbatim.

A HARARE teenager yesterday was lucky to escape a prison sentence for raping a six-year-old girl after the court ordered that he be canned for the crime.

Regional magistrate Fadzai Mtombeni convicted the teenager for contravening the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. The 13–year–old boy from Waterfalls had denied the allegations of rape, but was convicted due to overwhelming evidence.

“The accused to receive a moderate corporal punishment of six strokes with a rattan cane to be administered in private at Harare Remand Prison by a designated prison officer,” ruled Mtombeni.

Allegations against the boy were that he had sexual intercourse with a neighbour’s daughter without her consent. It was the State’s case that on March 8 this year, the complainant was playing with two friends. It is alleged that one of the friend’s sisters then called the two and they went away leaving the complainant alone.

The accused then called the complainant who responded and they went into a nearby maize field where he laid her down under a tree surrounded by maize stalks. He then removed the girl’s panties and had intercourse with her.

When the complainant went back home, she asked her father for some water to bathe and the father referred her to the mother. When the mother was just about to bathe her, she discovered that she was bleeding. When she asked her what had transpired, the complainant refused to speak. She then took her to the police where the girl finally opened up and disclosed what had happened, leading to the arrest of the accused person.

Such is the state of "journalism" in a country which once had one of the highest literacy rates in the Dark Continent. Of course that was in the bad old days of colonialism.

Benefits of colonialism lost to Kenyan hookers

Kenya was one of the first colonies of British Africa to be granted its independence. That was about three years after Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his famous -- or infamous -- "Winds of Change" speech, which betokened the Brits' loss of will to govern.

Since then, under the misrule of the Kenyattas, the Mois and the Odingas [Those are African "big men", not tribal names. Ed.], Kenya has descended into the incompetence and  corruption typical of sub-Saharan Africa. See "Meanwhile, elsewhere in Africa..." posted here over three years ago.

The British quit trying to govern the ungovernable half a century ago, but they are still there. British troops are "in station", as the saying goes, doing good works and standing by in case of an outbreak of Maumau terrorism or other disorder. Walt wouldn't kid you about that. The result of last week's "free and fair" elections is still in dispute, and blood may yet be shed, as is the custom.

Earlier this year, the officer commanding British forces in Kenya imposed curfews on  his officers and men following a series of unpleasant incidents. Sadly, he recked not the law of unintended consequences. Without the patronage of British soldies, the Kenyan sex-for-hire business has suffered a sharp downturn, to the point where local hookers are being driven out of business.

Margaret Wambui, of the Kenyan Union of Commercial Sex Workers, told the International Business Times that the working girls in the garrison town of Nanyuki prefer British men -- especially the officers -- because they pay more for less.

"For normal sex the British pay you 4,000Ksh [£30], but the Kenyans pay 200Ksh or 300Ksh," she said. "Kenyan people take a long time but the British only take a few seconds, so you can go and find another customer."

For more on Kenya after independence, Walt recommends any or all of three books by British journalist and author Michela Wrong: In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (2000); I Didn't Do It For You (2005); and It's Our Turn to Eat (2009).

More on (race + poverty = Africa)

A few days ago, in "Race and poverty by the numbers", Walt posted statistics from the United Nations Human Development Index (as listed in The Economist's Pocket World in Figures, 2013 edition) confirming that the poorest, least developed countries on earth are for the most part in sub-Saharan -- i.e. black -- Africa.

There are other ways of measuring poverty and general hopelessness. One Arthur Okum devised The Misery Index, which looks at two basic things -- rates of unemployment and inflation. The idea is simple. If you haven't got a job, and the price of the necessities of life is soaring, you're going to be miserable. So, the higher the sum of these rates, the more miserable the country.

Yahoo!'s Business Insider looked at 197 countries and territories, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, to compile its Misery Index for 2013.

You may be surprised, gentle reader, to learn that the 10 most miserable countries are not all in sub-Saharan Africa. And they're not all black. Here, with Walt's comments, are numbers 10 through 7.

10. Syria - Not really a surprise that a country torn apart by a civil war should be miserable.

9. Kosovo - In the Balkans. Mostly Muslim.

8. Nepal - Small, landlocked, backward. Chief export: prostitutes sent to India.

7. Namibia - Another lately independent southern African country, formerly run by South Africa. Unemployment rate around 85%.

6. Djibouti - Check your atlas. On the horn of Africa. People chew qat all day and all night. That's all you need to know.

5. Turkmenistan - Part of formerly Soviet central Asia. Muslim.

4. Belarus - An unreconstructed Communist dictatorship between Poland and Russia. Chief export: see Nepal, but the chief importer is Turkey.

And now we come to the Most Miserable Three.

3. Burkina Faso, a.k.a. The Land of Upright Men. Formerly part of French West Africa. Large population (mostly Muslim) and very limited natural resources. Still reeling from the after-effects of a severe drought in 2011. Unemployment rampant. Chief export: nothing.

Even so, things are better than they used to be. According to CIA Factbook used by Yahoo! for this project, "The risk of a mass exodus of the 3 to 4 million Burkinabe who live and work in Côte D'Ivoire has dissipated and trade, power, and transport links are being restored."

2. Liberia. In the 19th century well-meaning American liberals tried to solve the "black problem" by sending freed slaves "back home" to a small chunk of west Africa which they called "Liberia". The capital is "Freetown". The flag has red and white stripes, like the US flag, but, like Freetown's best hotel, only one star.

Like many other sub-Saharan African countries, Liberia is heavily reliant on foreign aid. Its economy was destroyed by civil war, government mismanagement and corruption. 85% of the country's labour force cannot find steady employment. Maybe they should have stayed in the USA?

The worst of the worst, the most miserable country of all, is... Wait for it...

1. Zimbabwe

It's the same old African story -- sloth, ignorance, incompetence and corruption -- writ large by the kleptocracy of Comrade Bob Mugable, which denies Zimbabweans basic rights like freedom of assembly and the protection of the law.

Zimbabwe's economy is actually shrinking (source: Pocket World in Figures). So is the population with literally millions having fled to the UK, Canada, the USA, Australia, or any other non-black country. Or even South Africa which sends them back as fast as they can but still can't stem the tide of refugees.

After the Zimbabwe dollar (a.k.a. "Zimkwacha") reached exchange rates of billions for one US dollar in 2009, Comrade Bob was forced to abandon his worthless currency and adopt the US dollar, which reduced inflation to "normal" levels. However, the Zimbabwean unemployment rate is estimated to be 95%, and the CIA Factbook warns that the true rate is "unknowable" under current conditions.

Those who accused Walt of distorting reality and "blaming the victim" in "Blaming the white settlers for the plight of black Africa" don't need to take my word for it. Read the Misery Index! Better yet, go to Zimbabwe. If you can find any old-timers -- the few still alive who can remember what their country was like before "majority rule" -- ask them if they're better off now than they were in the days of "the racist white settler regime".

Blaming the white settlers for the plight of black Africa

In yesterday's post about the correlation between race and poverty -- the poorest countries on earth being overwhelmingly in black (sub-Saharan) Africa -- I anticipated the hoary left liberal argument that it's all the fault of the colonists.

Here's what the revisionist historians and lamestream media keep telling us.
The British, French and others took all the resources and left nothing behind.
They drew "national boundaries" without regard to linguistic, cultural and, errr, tribal differences.
They imposed on Africa systems of social organization and government which are "unsuitable" to Africans. Like democracy.

Let me just relate my own personal observations of southern Africa.

I first visited Zimbabwe in the days when it was still Rhodesia. The status of the country, in 1968-9 when I was there, was disputed. Its white government  -- called "the white settler regime" by the Western (and Communist) media -- declared independence from Britain on 11 November 1965. We can run our own affairs, they told the Brits. There was a precedent for this course of action, set back in... wait for it... 1776, by a country which has gone on to achieve considerable stature in the world.

Why would the rest of the world not recognize Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence? The problem was race. Of course. The founding fathers of the USA were white. And they kept black slaves, or at least some of them did. But the white folks were in the majority of the Thirteen Colonies, so everything was OK, except perhaps with George III and Lord North.

The government of Ian Smith  was similarly composed of white men. They (or their families) came to their country from Britain and did what they could to develop the land and the people they found there. Unlike Washington and Jefferson, though, they did not keep slaves.

Unfortunately for the white Rhodesians, they comprised only about 1% of the population at the time of UDI. Thus the Smith government was inevitably and always referred to as "the white minority regime".

"Africa for Africans" was the slogan shouted incessantly following Harold Macmillan's "Winds of Change" speech, which signalled Britain's loss of will to govern its colonies. "We're tired," said the Brits. "Let the Africans look after themselves."

What was wrong with "Africa for Africans"? The "white tribes" of Rhodesia and South Africa were quick to point out that they were Africans too -- not just by adoption or settlement, but by birth, with family histories in Africa going back in some cases to the 17th century.

So, the liberals and those bent on the destruction of the West changed the party line to "Africa for the real Africans", meaning the blacks. Well, OK, coloureds too. And maybe Asians. Everyone except the honkies.

Rhodesia was the second-last of the white dominoes to fall. The Portuguese  gave up on Moçambique and Angola in the 70s. South Africa finally succumbed to "majority rule" in 1994. The British betrayed their kith and kin and Rhodesia, effectively selling out to Comrade Robert Mugabe and his terrorist buddies in 1980.

When I visited Rhodesia in 1968-9, there was a small but healthy economy, growing in spite of illegal international sanctions. The country was more than self-sufficient in food, a net exporter to the rest of the continent. The Rhodesian dollar was worth around two US dollars. The major cities (Salisbury, Bulawayo and Umtali) had electricity and clean water, and were connected by well-maintained paved highways. There was a small but reliable airline. Schools and hospitals provided all Rhodesians -- black and white -- with education and health care unmatched in any of the "black countries" to the north.

All this -- the thriving economy, the modern infrastructure, the lot -- was the work of the "evil white settlers". This was the legacy the "racist colonialists" handed over to Mugabe and his henchmen.

By the time I returned to Zimbabwe, as Rhodesia was renamed, in 1992, the capital city (now called "Harare") was in a state of decay. It has got worse still in the 20 years since. You can't drink the water now. Electricity is intermittent. Air Zimbabwe exists only to fly Comrade Bob to hospitals and shopping malls in other parts of the world. The roads are crumbling. Traffic lights have been stolen for the scrap value of the metal frames.

Hospitals are short-staffed and virtually without equipment or even medicines. The educational system is a shambles. The economy, which all but collapsed with the Zimbabwe dollar, is actually shrinking, and has never matched its pre-independence levels. And as land seized from white farmers lies idle, hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are starving.

Who is responsible for the plight of today's Zimbabwe? The government has been in the hands of "the majority" -- actually a "majority" of just one man -- for nearly 33 years. A perusal of The Economist's Pocket World in Figures reveals the country as a basket case. It is going back to bush, and that's a fact! It's also a fact that it wasn't the "evil white settlers" -- most of whom are gone now -- who built the basket.

Zimbabwe's wounds are, like those of the rest of Africa, self-inflicted. The "real Africans" got their hands on the "white houses and white cars" they coveted, and they have made their country "really African".

Picture credit: The image of Ian Smith is taken from a cover of Time magazine. Mr. Smith died in 2007.

Race and poverty by the numbers

Pocket World in Figures comes with Walt's subscription to the Economist. It's a great little fact book, very appealing to the kind of people who enjoy reading dictionaries and telephone books. [Do telephone books even exist any more? Ed.]

You might think tables of "the world's biggest", "the world's worst", "the world's and so on" would be boring, but the trick is to read between the lines. At the same time, keep asking yourself questions that begin with "why". Look for correlations.

Here are some stone truths that "progressive thinkers" in the West don't like to talk about, except of course when they're laying that old liberal guilt trip on the rest of us.

Rich and poor in black and white. One of the most common ways to measure a nation's wealth is in GDP (Gross Domestic Product). The 19 countries with the highest GDP are all (ahem) "white", if we count the Arabs in Qatar (#5) as honorary whites. Japan is #20, Canada #14, the USA #12 and Australia #9. Luxembourg is on top of the league table.

The other end of the list -- the countries with the lowest GDP per head -- begins with Somalia. No prizes for guessing that one. You go on through another 13 African countries until you get to Afghanistan and North Korea, tied for #15. Could a liberal intellectual please explain to us the link between race and poverty/prosperity? Or does it all come down to colonialism?

Where's a good place to live? There's more to life than money, right? [Really? Ed.] GDP and the quality of life aren't necessarily the same. To measure the latter, you use the Disunited Nations Human Development Index (HDI), which combines stats on income, life expectancy, education and all the things we include when we say "Have a nice life."

Let's see now... Isn't this amazing... The top 10 countries on the HDI are all, errr, white. Norway is #1, beating out Australia (#2), the USA (tied with the Netherlands for #3) and Canada (tied with Eire and New Zealand for #5). First Asian countries on the list are Japan (#11) and Hong Kong (tied with Iceland for #12).

At the very bottom of the HDI is Congo (the bigger one, formerly known as Zaire, formerly known as the Congo, etc), followed by Niger, Burundi, Mozambique and so on. All black African states right through to Walt's old stomping ground, Zimbabwe, in 15th place. Afghanistan comes in at #16. Then it's all black Africa again through #23 (Djibouti tied with Zambia), which is where the fecal roster ends.

Wow, Walt is only up to page 28 of the 2013 edition of the Economist's Pocket World in Figures. This should be good for another two posts, minimum. More anon.

Foreign aid, then and now - part I

Walt's blog is about 13 months old, and we've visited the subject of foreign aid 14 times -- slightly over once per month.

It might be said that Walt rarely has anything good to say about the concept. That's because there isn't much good to be said.

It's not too sweeping a generalization to say that the majority of foreign aid projects are designed and run by western governments, funded by western taxpayers, with the main (although rarely stated) objective of making white people feel less guilty about their self-perceived neglect or mistreatment of darker people back in the bad old days of imperialism.

Walt has just finished Travels in Nepal: the Sequestered Kingdom, by Charlie Pye-Smith.* Although based on observations made a quarter-century ago, Mr. Pye-Smith's disturbing questions and comments are just as valid now as then.

A point the author makes in the final chapter, "Help and Hindrance", is that grandiose aid projects which are neither necessary nor helpful are not always imposed on the aid-receiving countries because westerners think "They need this." Quite often the aid which is given is a response to a request for help in dealing with some disaster or crisis, which is all too often made out to be greater than it really is.

"Among those keenest to promote the idea of imminent disaster have been the Nepalese government and various aid agencies.... As far as [the government] is concerned, the more gloomy the prognosis for the country, the greater the amount of money which flows in in the form of aid.

"A big problem requires a big solution, which requires big money. Even if a project fails to solve the perceived problem, those whose duty it is to see it through will benefit financially from it."

That, according to Mr. Pye-Smith, was the syndrome prevailing in Nepal in the 80s. In our next post, we'll look at Haiti today.

* Penguin, 1990

Is China building an empire in Africa?

In past posts I recommended books pointing out the adverse and counter-productive effects of western aid to Africa. Having seen how Europe and America have failed to save the Dark Continent from itself, we should start now to look at what the Chinese are doing there.

The Chinese have been coming to Africa as travellers, traders, coolies, or entrepreneurs since at least the 14th century. Now they are undertaking to build on that continent an economic empire which will command a network of allies in China's quest for political dominance of the world.

If you want to rule the world, first you must colonize it. So thought the French and British in the 18th and 19th centuries. They succeeded, to a degree, before losing the political will to hold onto their rebellious colonies.

The Chinese have evidently learned from the mistakes of the guilou. If you own a country, you don't have to rule it directly. (They could have learned this from the position of Canada vis-a-vis the USA.) And if you want to own some countries, buy the cheapest ones first.

And so the Chinese are stealthily but surely buying their way into Africa. While the west looks at Africa's humanitarian crisis, and gives aid in the form of cash, food and medicine, China looks at the economic crisis, and quietly builds infrastructure and develops large and small businesses. Some might call it exploitation. The Chinese call it good business.

Walt recommends China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa (2009, Nation Books, New York), by French journalists Serge Michel and Michel Beuret. More on this new book tomorrow.