Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Seeing the trees, missing the forest
Seeing the trees, missing the forest
May 7, 2025 7:22 AM

The United Nations has released a report on the ongoing upheavals in Zimbabwe, where tyrant Robert Mugabe has been punishing his political opponents under the guise of “cleaning up” the country’s cities. The effect of Operation Murambatsvina (meaning either “Operation Restore Order” or “Operation Drive Out Trash,” depending on who’s translation you believe) has been to leave some 700,000 people homeless, jobless, or both. A downloadable copy of the UN report is available here.

While the report does illuminate the brutality that has been going on for the last two months or so in the African nation, Claudia Rosett notes in today’s Wall Street Journal that the UN offers only one solution to the problem: more international aid:

With a delicacy over-zealously inappropriate in itself to dealings with the tyrant whose regime has been responsible for wreck of Zimbabwe, the report starts by thanking Mr. Mugabe for his “warm e” to the U.N. delegation, which visited the country from June 26 to July 8. The report, issued by the secretary-general’s special envoy Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, then proceeds to the usual U.N. prescription that what Zimbabwe needs is more aid, and a es the UN lingo–“to ensure the sustainability of humanitarian response.” While the report also calls for the “culprits” to be called to justice under Zimbabwe laws, Mugabe himself is somehow excused from direct responsibility.

Instead, the report faults wealthy nations for not providing more aid already, and notes that “With respect to the funding issue, some in the Zimbabwe political elite and intelligentsia, as well as others of similar persuasion around the continent, believe the munity is concerned more with ‘regime change’ and that there is no real and genuine concern for the welfare of ordinary people.”

Somehow it doesn’t seem to occur to the UN and ‘others of similar persuasion’ that the desire for ‘regime change’ in Zimbabwe is directly related to a genuine concern for the welfare of ordinary people. In fact, those ordinary people that the UN professes so much concern for have themselves expressed a desire for ‘regime change’ in two consecutive elections, only to see their votes nullified by the rampant corruption of the Mugabe government.

The situation seems ripe for another UN failure. In fact, today’s Boston Globe notes that Mugabe is continuing his disastrous “clean-up” operation:

Government authorities demolished huts and evicted people west of the capital yesterday, witnesses said, defying UN demands to halt the much condemned urban renewal program that the world body says has left 700,000 people homeless or without a job…

…The government authorities came at night, beat people, and burned huts at Porta Farm, a settlement the government set up in 1991 to house 3,000 squatters so that they would not be seen by visiting Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, a witness said. The number of inhabitants has grown to 30,000 in the past 14 years.

Thousands of people were told they have to move to rural areas, said the witness, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.

For more insights on the current state of affairs, visit This is Zimbabwe.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Study: How do millennial Christians approach faith, work, and calling?
Millennials recently surpassed Baby Boomers and Generation Xers to e the largest generation in the American workforce—a development that has likely led many to recall mon stereotypes about millennials as dreamy-eyed idealists or lazy, plainers. But if we look past our various cultural prejudices, what does the evidence actually indicate? If the attitudes and priorities of Generation Y are, in fact, so strikingly distinct from their counterparts, what might it tell us about the future shape of economic order? In...
How to think like a Christian
Photo Credit: Michael Matheson Miller Here is a podcast interview I did recently with my friend Matt Leonard, host of The Art of Catholic and Next Level Catholic Academy. Matt and I talked about some of the foundational ideas of Christian thinking in contrast with the dominant secular way of seeing the world. As you can see from the title of Matt’s show, The Art of Catholic, this podcast is directed to a Catholic audience, but many of the ideas...
Many Americans see religious discrimination in U.S.
Americans say some religious groups continue to be discriminated against and disadvantaged, according to recent surveys by Pew Research Center. The surveys asked Americans which of three religious groups face discrimination: Jews, Muslims, and evangelical Christians. More than three-in-four Americans (82 percent) say Muslims are subject to at least some discrimination, and a majority says Muslims are discriminated against a lot. These results have not changed since the question was asked in 2016. Roughly two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) also...
10 facts about Theresa May’s resignation as prime minister
After surviving a no confidence vote last December, and suffering two of the largest legislative defeats in modern parliamentary history, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced this morning that she will step down as prime minister. Barely suppressing tears, “the second female prime minister but certainly not the last” said she was leaving office “with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.” Here are the facts you need to know: 1. Theresa...
Can intellectuals actually win elections?
The European Parliament in Brussels In my previous Letter from Rome, I asked whether populists have the capacity to govern, given the failings of the Italian coalition made up of left-wing and right-wing populists and their apparent disdain for ideology. In the wake of the recent elections for the European Parliament, the corollary question is whether non-populists can actually win elections. It’s a bit of a trick question, since elections are popular by nature, even if they are not always...
LBJ’s Great Society lives on
Forget Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton as well. And do the same regarding Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. The most consequential American president since the end of World War II was Lyndon Baines Johnson. The man — who possessed a bination of savvy, lack of character and progressive faith — created the Great Society and helped to shape the modern-day United States. Whether you like him or not, we all live under the shadow...
An introduction to fiscal policy
Note: This is post #124 in a weekly video series on basic economics. What is fiscal policy? As economist Tyler Cowen explains, the simple answer is that it’s a government’s policies on taxes, spending, and borrowing. But how it’s practiced is a little plicated. Fiscal policy can be used in an effort to mitigate fluctuations in the business cycle—to soften the effects of those booms and busts. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching...
Video: Cory Booker makes the case for school choice in Grand Rapids (October 2000)
Sen. Cory Booker, then a Newark city councilman, made the case for school vouchers at an Acton sponsored October 2000 event at the Wealthy Theater in Grand Rapids saying, “The cost of not doing the program is having continuing generations of kids chained to failing schools when they could be easily liberated if the parents were given the right to choose where they go with their money.” School vouchers were then a hot topic in Michigan as Michiganders were debating...
Robbing Pietro to pay Paolo? The zero-sum game in Italy’s welfare state
Robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is an idiomatic expression about bad – or at least disappointing – economics. Curiously, it was born within the context of the Church’s supposedly poor financial administration of its properties. While there are many sources to the origin of the idiom, there is a famous story from 17th C. England when a bishop was said to have ordered funds transferred from one old church (St. Peter’s Abbey) to another in disrepair (St. Paul’s Cathedral)....
5 takeaways from the European Union last election
Rubber Wall? Although populists have won in many countries — Salvini in Italy, Le Pen in France, Farage in the United Kingdom, Nationalists in Belgium, Law and Justice in Poland, and Orban in Hungary — everything points out that little will change in the distribution of power and in the political dynamics within the European Union. The European unification project is authoritarian, and the European Parliament is a decorative body, practically irrelevant. The Eurocrat establishment is a rubber wall, no...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved