Colonialism a poor excuse for medieval African robber barons and continent-wide mining veniality

If ever there was a reason to stay away from Africa and its mines, the disgusting spectacle of the welcome accorded to Mugabe in Egypt is it. 

Now we will never have to remain polite when somebody tells us the problems of Africa are a legacy of colonialism.  Mugabe’s actions and his welcoming by the rest of Africa are not colonialism.  This is simply a case of a bunch of vicious bullies who have grabbed power and care not a whit for those they bully. 

We may feel for those who are bullied, but there is little we can do to help them when the whole continent is gripped in bully-worship and the perpetration of one horror after another. 

We can applaud efforts by the United States and the United Kingdom to bring pressure to bear on a whole continent in the grip of medieval robber barons.  But once the barons band together to congratulate one another on their venality, decency does not stand a chance.

Clearly for mining the repercussions are significant.  Hale and hearty Brits can no longer go to make a pound and swill away the sunset over gin and tonic.  London-based journalists may still travel in small planes to savage bush camps and write glowing reports of mining successes, but we need give them no credence nor admiration.  They too are simply hangers-on in this ghastly macabre dance of spoliation.

We can barely stand to read the effusions of sober reporting on mining activities coming out of Africa these days.  It is almost as though the writers are head-buried in sand and the toes are the text tappers.  Their ability to ignore the nastiness around them while singing the praises of mines border on the comical if it did not border on the obscene.

So my advice is this:  if you have mines or shares in mines in Africa, sell them before the local robber baron takes them.   For this is clearly not a nice place, a transparent place, a decent place.  Leave it to the Chinese, for they may just have a constitution that we do not or should not have. 

Live on the spirit of the King of Belgium.