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| 7 March 2002 | E-Mail this page to a friend |
About a year ago, I wrote about Tony Blair's strange project to Canadianize Britain -- transforming the House of Lords into an Ottawa-style Senate of cronies and pliant deadbeats, introducing "asymmetrical federalism" to the Celtic provinces, etc. The curling fever that has gripped the United Kingdom since they trounced Kelley Law in Utah suggests that even Mr. Blair's electors are getting with the program.
And now, as further evidence, we have the Commonwealth Conference in Queensland, in which the traditionally Canadian role was played by the British Prime Minister. The issue this time was Zimbabwe, "the jewel of Africa," as Robert Mugabe told Ian Smith, his notorious white racist predecessor at independence 20 years ago. After two decades of Mr. Mugabe's stewardship, per capita income has fallen
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Back in 1980, Robert Mugabe was a cold but courtly Afro-Marxist. He liked cricket for its "civilizing" influence, he had English hunting scenes on the place mats at Government House, and he spoke in the elegant vowels of a post-war London drawing room, not the flatted tones of the veldt settler. He was always an economic illiterate, and a vicious killer as required, but he was not, as he now appears to be, stark staring nuts. Many have speculated on the reasons for this. In Zimbabwe, it is widely believed he's been driven insane by tertiary syphilis. Reliable sources claim Mr. Mugabe's manhood has crumbled away to nothing. Last year, George Potgieter, the manager of a Harare engineering company, wound up in court after telling his workers that (according to court records) "they had no brains because they were being led by a President who had a rubber penis made in China". The workers immediately seized Mr. Potgieter and took him to the nearest police station for breaking the Law and Order Maintenance Act, which forbids exposing the President to "hatred, contempt or ridicule".
I'm not sure what extradition arrangements we have with Harare, so let me hasten to add that neither I nor the editors of the National Post are for one minute suggesting Mr. Mugabe has a rubber penis -- or, if he has, we're sure it's very impressive and top of the range, certainly not some factory-made Chinese thing. I'm no shrink, but it seems to me that if one's twig and berries crumble away to nothing it could conceivably lead one to an unusually intense animus against certain
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With his country crumbling away faster than his penis, there's now something for everyone to complain about. On the British right, Mugabe's assaults on the white farmers vindicate everything they always said about him. On the British left, the rampant homophobia cost him the support of all those champagne socialists who cheered his rise to power 20 years earlier. Mr. Blair arrived in Queensland determined that the Commonwealth "do the right thing". He took the moral high ground, the position traditionally held in Her Majesty's realms by Canada. Don't take my word for it. Michael Valpy wrote an excellent column on the subject in yesterday's Globe and Mail. Things have come to a pretty pass when a right-wing madman like me is saying some NDP squish is bang on target, but I honestly don't think I can improve on Valpy's summary:
"The issue was human rights, morality, a state that kills political opponents, corrupts elections, undermines judicial independence and restricts freedom of press and of assembly.
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair unequivocally wanted an immediate suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. 'What is happening there is completely unacceptable, an outrage in terms of democracy,' he said.
"Jean Chrétien undermined him, and Canadian officials boasted of his success. 'This was Canada's day,' said one."
And what was done in Canada's name on Canada's day? A "compromise" was crafted postponing any action or ultimatum by the
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"Everybody has agreed that nothing will be done before the elections," said M. Chrétien. But everybody didn't stay agreed for long, and some of our Prime Minister's colleagues were at pains to distance themselves from "Canada's day." "The communique reads a little like everyone is responsible for the violence and intimidation. That is not the case," said New Zealand's Labour Prime Minister, Helen Clark, adding that the Commonwealth's failure to do anything makes it look "slightly silly." "We should have provided a far stronger statement and backed it up with action," said Tony Blair.
"Everybody has agreed that nothing will be done." There is Lloyd Axworthy's "soft power" doctrine in a nutshell: Consensus in the cause of inertia is no vice. Back in Harare, meanwhile, Robert Mugabe is busier than ever. Stunned by the Commonwealth's Chrétien-authored statement of "deep concern," he waited all of 20 minutes before reinstituting the draconian new election laws Zimbabwe's Supreme Court had slung out a week earlier. These laws permit Mr. Mugabe's Zanu-PF "supervisors" and their gangs to decide at the polling station who is eligible to vote. The "fairness" of the poll is no longer in doubt, only the result.
It's possible to rig everything in your favour and still lose (the last Quebec referendum comes to mind), and Mugabe himself seems slightly nervous as to whether he's done enough to steal victory. There are indications he's been looting the Treasury and making provisions for exile. But of his intent to steal
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Sometimes we conservatives spend so much time mourning the loss of the old Dominion of Canada that we don't notice that the principled lefties have lost their Canada, too. After Vimy, Juno and the Red Ensign came the new Canada, the "honest broker" that 40 years ago insisted a racist South Africa could not remain in the Commonwealth, that apartheid was incompatible with membership in the international community. As Michael Valpy put it, "if any so-called white Commonwealth government does not have to defend its bona fides, it is Canada's." But the "honest broker" has decayed into a "soft power", and Lester B. Pearson's successor takes the view that "da Canadian values" are best expressed by a multilateral agreement to turn a blind eye. If it really is Canada's day, it's a day of which we should all be ashamed. In Queensland, da Canadian values were expressed by Tony Blair and Helen Clark.
Robert Mugabe is a pipsqueak, but, six months after Sept. 11, M. Chrétien is still in Durban mode, appeasing the world's freaks and failures. Whether or not Mr. Mugabe has no penis, M. Chrétien certainly has no balls.
The original was published in the National Post.
Last 25 Visitor Comments |
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| Name | Subject | Date | |
| Ross Mckay | morfinybooks_at_yahoo.ca | Zimbabwe | 10/17/2006 |
| Even the country's name was changed, from Rhodesia to the current usage, in honur of a ruin, appropriately. Perhaps having rippied off our flag, the Trudea legatees will change Canada's name too,to something more multicult. Why not Amerasia? | |||
| boy | Anonymous | cool | 5/14/2003 |
| france should do the right thing in this situation! | |||
| not available | Anonymous | rat | 5/14/2003 |
| i hope to hear from the international progress report this wednesday. i am awaiting the cconclusion made by the council if the fact of the departure of the persecution remorce. | |||
| not available | Anonymous | rat | 5/14/2003 |
| i hope to hear from the international progress report this wednesday. i am awaiting the cconclusion made by the council if the fact of the departure of the persecution remorce. | |||
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