Okay, so this is a situation that, as with most situations in Africa, has been ignored/overlooked. At least it hasn't received the attention it should. Zimbabwe's currency has been spiraling out of control for a while, news agencies are largely unable to report and yet we know that diseases controlled by modern medicine are out of control, like cholera (wouldn't normally put up an al jazeera article, but you take what you can get) and HIV/AIDS-related deaths all of which obviously began with Mugabe's ill-fated decision to throw the white colonial-left-over farmers off their land and out of the country. Obviously, one can follow his logic and motives. Here are the remnants of the oppressors, who effectively still control the land and thus the economics of the country so it makes sense to want to get that land back. It's been done in other places. Here was the rub with Zimbabwe.
Let's go back a couple months and look at the bizarre take of an IHT article. (disclaimer: I am a huge fan the IHT but, very rarely, it belies the troubling European ethos that states that all Europeans must feel guilt for the sins of their ancestors and anything that even looks like that - of course, OF COURSE, ignoring anything that happened to the jewish people, but hey, that's europe) Clearly, that level of inflation has nothing to do with aid from foreign countries. The use of foreign currency in lieu of using the country's own currency has been relatively common throughout the world and is no cause for concern, and really, quite prudent given a level of inflation that is literally, impossible for Westerners to comprehend.
But back to my point, the current country of Zimbabwe has a recent past. And the past of the land before it is quite tumultuous. As a result, whites managed to hold onto more land here than in other countries that had been emancipated from British rule. And that was basically Zimbabwe's story: Agriculture. So here's the scenario - you take the people who are driving the economy, throw them out of the country unceremoniously, redistribute their land in a way that is questionable even to the people it is meant to help, fail to engage in a comprehensive program to teach the new owners of the land about how to produce agriculture (and perhaps give the land to people who have no particular interest in or need for engaging in this activity), agriculture production and thus exports drop dramatically. And the economy plunges into disaster. See wikipedia for a broader overview.
Here's what sums it up, from above cite: "Life expectancy at birth for males in Zimbabwe has dramatically declined since 1990 from 60 to 37, among the lowest in the world. Life expectancy for females is even lower at 34 years."
My point is that we can't really ignore this stuff as it ultimately becomes a problem for the whole world but at the same time, nobody can really blame the West for this. This was Mugabe and the failure of an organized group of rational people to take over the government. Every country has to take over its government at some point to set it straight.
What fascinates me most about this is that circa 1998 I planned to engage in a semester-long homestay in what appeared to be a hut in Zimbabwe. I snapped myself out of that plan, but I wish I'd done it, even though my department wasn't really going to let me do and I don't know what would have happened on that end, but it would be nice to know someone on the inside and ask where the rebels are and why they don't have enough power. This again is another situation that may beg for international intervention, but not in the lame UN/European form. Perhaps we need to help Zimbabwe by sending in/aiding rebels. I KNOW this hasn't worked in the past, but it also has worked. I think it's the only bone we can really throw this difficult situation.
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