South Africa

I have deliberately not blogged on the issue of Zimbabwe for three reasons a) there are much better bloggers on this subject than me, b) because thinking about what happens in Zim can lead to dangerous mental instability and c) I enjoy using logic to solve problems and analyse particular situations - what is happening in Zimbabwe has zero logic attached to it. However today I will make an exception because this issue of SA lending Mugabe $1bn is just too much for me to stomach.

Lets look at it this way, because after all we are neighbors - Bob had a house that for a long time was pretty respectable and admired by neighbors on the street. However one day inexplicably and bizarrely Bob began abusing the members of his family, he would beat them and verbally abuse them in the crudest way - even more disturbing was the fact that he would take morbid pleasure in tearing the house apart. A stone through a window here, a kicked in door there, soon people on the street began to talk - although none dared confront Bob because he had been on the block for an extremely long time and helped most of his neighbors in one way or another in the past. Soon the house looked like a dump and many of the children had to be given shelter by the neighbours because Bob beat them and no longer fed them. Strangely enough Bob had treehouse in a corner of the property that was immaculately kept and had all the comforts of modern living, there were even a pack of dogs underneath it to make sure none of the other members of the family came near it. The beatings and starvings carried on unabated.

Now next door to Bob was a relatively new neighbor, however this neighbour (let's call him Thabo) although new was the richest and most powerful man on the block. He used to love nothing better than sitting on his stoep smoking his pipe drinking fine whiskey while doling out advice in a patronising manner to his children. Although Thabo was quick to scold his own children he was loathe to confront his neighbour Bob (nobody ever could quite understand why). Thabo would sit on his stoep in the evening musing about his block Renaissance while the sounds of beatings and screams could clearly be heard from next door, he would sigh to himself, refill his pipe and carry on day-dreaming.

Finally one day he decided to say something - "Umm Bob" he said over the wall. "WHAT?" Bob screamed "CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BUSY!". Peering over the wall Thabo could see Bob was beating one his kids with a garden-hose. "Ummm...nothing..." was all Thabo said before returning to his rocking chair on the stoep. "That should make him keep quiet", Thabo proudly told anyone who would listen, but it didn't. In fact Bob only got worse...

Unhappy with one of his son's for disobeying him, Bob burnt down an entire section of the house. "That should teach him", was all he said afterwards. Thabo again tried to have a word with Bob. "It'll be fine", Bob assured him with his biggest smile, "just doing some house remodelling". "Aah I see..." - Thabo felt much better! But again, things just got worse...

These regular "meetings" between Bob and Thabo went on for years, with Bob always assuring Thabo things were okay and Thabo always taking his word for it. By this stage the Bob's house was virtually completely destroyed, it was so bad the rest of the neighborhood was beginning to suffer and the values of the neighbours properties declined. Bob didn't care, even with the gentle "suggestions" of his neighbours he continued the wholesale destruction of his house, always preserving "his" treehouse of course!

One day things changed. See Bob owed money to the Bank and one day the Bank came looking for its cash. "You have no collateral to offer us as your house is destroyed, so we want our money back NOW." Bob panicked, he'd been having so much fun the last few years doing his own thing that he'd completely forgotten about the Bank. "Dammit, dammit, dammit" he cried, "those capitalist swine are trying to take my house from me. What the hell am I going to do?. OF COURSE - I'll borrow from my good friend Thabo, he always helps me out when I'm in a bind." So off he went to Thabo's house to ask for ONE BILLION DOLLARS!