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The Latest from Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe is under house arrest by the Zimbabwe military, according to this article from the Guardian. Zimbabwe has been a mess of a country since Mugabe went about confiscating lands and inflating the currency in the early 2000s, taking it from what was once a sort of second South Africa, in terms of its economy and agriculture, into an absolute wreck of a nation.
When Zimbabwe was formed from the wreck of Rhodesia, it held the promise of an amicable, or at least uneasy racial peace between whites and blacks, and for the first 20 years of its existence it remained, while a dictatorship, at least a reasonably benevolent one. I remember, in reading Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs of her term as Prime Minister, the high hopes she held out for the peace and prosperity of the former British colony. In the last 20 years, though, Mugabe has essentially destroyed that nation, turning it into a net importer of food, and having a worthless currency, all in pursuit of a delayed racial reparations that was coupled to tribal cronyism and oppression.
We should now all hope and pray that Zimbabwe will eventually stabilize and transition back to the prosperous country it once was, and could well be again.
Published in Foreign PolicyZimbabwe remained in political limbo a day and a half after the military takeover that appears to have put an end to Robert Mugabe’s 37-year grip on power.
Talks between the president, who has been confined to his residence in Harare by the army, and senior military officers continued on Thursday morning, with senior church leaders and envoys sent from neighbouring South Africa involved in mediation efforts.
The Zimbabwean capital remained tense but calm amid the political uncertainty. Troops have secured the airport, government offices, parliament and other key sites.
The rest of the country has remained peaceful. The takeover has been cautiously welcomed by many Zimbabweans.
The military declared on national television in the early hours of Wednesday morning that it had temporarily taken control of the country to “target criminals” around the 93-year-old president. It now seems likely that the ruthless rule of the world’s oldest leader will be definitively over within days.
I’ve worked with mentally handicapped and gifted. My experience/education is that EQ is increasingly a more important success indicator than IQ. I get your technology point, though I think some of the affect is generational as well. I’m more tech savvy than my parents, but the younger generation in my family has left us all in the dust.
I’ll end with this. Not long ago I saw the story of a young Downs Syndrome man who has a gift for making beautiful, simple pottery. He supports himself and helps his family through the sale of his art. That young man is a success.
I should probably read it, too.
I don’t have any research or evidence to back this up, but it seems intuitive that people of higher IQ would be more likely to flee a country in turmoil than would people of a low IQ, meaning that turmoil in a system over generations is likely to breed a populace of increasingly lower IQ, having nothing to do with race or nationality but simple ability and self-determinism.
Commercial (trading?) societies are more prosperous, and which makes a difference to diet, which in turn impacts on intelligence.
One reason cohorts of migrants to countries like the US see IQ rise in the second and third generation is that finally people are getting enough good food to eat.
I have long believed that there are not enough above average intelligence people to spread the American/Western way of life around the world. As a species, we are not yet smart enough. America already has to import really smart people just to keep up. There is a real brain drain.
I am sorry if people don’t like the IQ=Success model, but all studies show it does. EQ is a nice thing to talk about, but being smart is always better than being stupid. Always.
I think this may have something to do with it. IQ in America has gone up over time. We have been well fed since before the revolution.
I don’t know about France, but there was very little migration to Britain from the Empire (especially the non-white Empire) before WWII. That’s why it was so traumatic for Britain when it did occur – they weren’t used to it.
Again – wrt Britain, one reason that there was so much migration from the poorer portions of the Empire to Britain (and Canada) after WWII was that the Empire was basically replaced by the Commonwealth – which, until about 1962, included freedom of movement for its citizens to the UK (and theoretically to each Commonwealth country, though that was eroded almost immediately).
It’s not a one way trip – China, and now India, both benefit from their diaspora.
John,
This was the way it was for my father’s graduate students back in the 1950s & 1960s. He had graduate students from all over the world. Many when they first came had plans to go back. However, after a while, they liked the freedom and the general prosperity of the US and they became aware of the quality opportunities that they would have here. They didn’t go back but found an excellent job here and stayed becoming citizens.
One of the things that make things different now is the emergent economy phenomena. There are strong opportunities and a sense of rising standards of living in places that never had them before. Zimbabwe may have been so traumatized by its own obsessions that it still hasn’t started to look outward for opportunities. Of course, many of the emergent countries have a good basic school system and reasonable government controls. Their populations are reliable workers if not brilliant or aggressive. That’s enough now to get into the emergent action. Zimbabwe may be lagging way behind and Mugabe may have been a symptom, not the cause. I don’t claim any expertise but it’s worth looking at it objectively and not falling for some Marxist colonial diatribe that will only exacerbate the real problems.
Regards,
Jim