This is War Jim, but not as we know it.

This is War Jim, but not as we know it.

This is used to describe the present situation in Zimbabwe and is a total misquote by Spock from Star Trek. Star Trek attempted in the original series, and greatly improved on in future spin-offs, to teach lessons in the humanities. One of these was philosophy. Gene Roddenberry, who created Star Trek, thought up the creation of the Vulkan race, the ultimate philosophers, who were trained to avoid emotion and see everything logically. The fictional character of Spock (and other Vulkan characters, although Spock will always remain the most well known), was given the argumentative sophistication of history’s greatest philosophers.

I have just started learning about philosophy as part of my present OU course and find it fascinating and extremely uplifting. I will direct you to an extremely important and well written piece from today’s Zimbabwe Situation, but before that I want to make a rather odd observation.

I often come across in my cyber travels and conversations with people terminology that is considered derogative by me and other like minded causeless right and left wing liberals, of descriptions of certain indigenous people of Africa. One of them is monkeys.

Encephalon is a brainless name for brain, something a monkey would find difficulty getting his head around.

Recently Jeremy Clarkson, on the first class BBC series Top Gear, called the French ‘a bunch of surrender monkeys’, which I thought was hilarious, knowing full well it was a comment of satirical wit, not a racist slur.

Now, calling the upper echelons of Zimbabwe’s political hierarchy or for that matter any well positioned governmental representatives of an African nation - monkeys; is rather stupid. In fact, all it does is emphasize that the person who made the comparison or observation that, for example, Mugabe and let’s say Mbeki are monkeys have

A) very little knowledge about monkeys and

B) uses the comparison as a rather clumsy attempt at a derogative slur of little logical consequence.

(Oddly enough, Mugabe fell into the same trap when he pronounced that his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, was nothing more than a ‘Western organ grinder monkey’.)

When it comes to the primates, monkeys are rather on the bottom end of the cleverness scale. Mugabe and Mbeki therefore cannot be compared to monkeys, as no matter how you look at it up until now they preside and quasi-control populations of millions and land almost the size of Western Europe (give or take a few square kilometers). AND, this position of power was undisputedly taken back from minority white controlled regimes.

How this process came about is not the theme here. I merely wish to point out that Mugabe and Mbeki can’t be compared to stupid monkeys for the simple reason it would be a paradox. Clarkson could imply the same terminology by also calling the whites of Southern Africa ‘surrender monkeys’. (Although unlike the French, it could land him up getting skinned alive.) Never in the history of the animal world have there been examples of monkeys surrendering to each other. (I am not talking about simple territorial monkey business here.)

Why? – because they are too stupid.

(I hope you are getting a laugh out of this, because I am. Remember, this is just a piece of satirical, ludicrous piece of amateur philosophy.)

If you insist on wanting to call the likes of Mugabe and Mbeki some form of primate that can –

A) satisfy your perverse desire to liken homo-sapiens with other animals, and

B) show your intellectual prowess by using a logical comparison -

then you must use SBC.

Vote ZANU (PF) or else !

SBC? What the fuck is SBC, you might say. Well, it is an abbreviation for South Bank Chimp. (Chimp, is of course, an abbreviation of Chimpanzee.) But why SBC?

The South bank Chimp is exactly what it is. It lives on the south bank of the Congo River. There are NBCs as well (North Bank Chimps), but they are a completely different bunch. Laid back, hassle free and spend most of their time shagging. In fact, the various tribes of NBC are usually run by the females and, if the males are all shagged out, the females are quite happy to play with each other. In other words, if you believe in reincarnation and can opt to coming back as an animal – pick a NBC. Not a rabbit - you might land up in my oven.

I am not making this up by the way. NBCs are known as Bonobos, and you can check out all this at –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee

BUT, it’s the SBC who are the real mother-fuckers of the chimp world. Controlled by a totalitarian Alpha male, backed up by a compliant politburo (till the alpha male shows weakness and is summarily dispatched), a SBC gang will plan attacks on other groups with the utmost horrific, intentional cruelty. Murder, rape, enslave and torture - they do it all! Some for good measure, suffering from superstition and angst from AIDS, are quite happy to eat certain body parts of their victims. Although not proved, some large Alpha males may even have a quick dip in the Congo River after a good rape to wash away the AIDs virus and mull over the idea of becoming the next President of South Africa.

We don't need no bridge over troubled waters.

Why are the Mugabes and Mbekis of this world just the same as the SBCs? What have they got for a problem? Why are they not like the happy shaggers on the other side? (Thank God that neither group ever got around to building any bridges. The shaggers would have been annihilated very quickly, even with UN intervention.)

The answer may be what was proposed by philosopher Roger Scruton in a brilliant essay, "The Totalitarian Temptation", delivered in an address in 2003 to a conference on totalitarianism organised by the University of Krakow in Poland. (To a bunch of plumbers thinking of emigrating to Zimbabwe.)

And that takes me full circle – so please take time to read the short article mentioned at the beginning of this blog posting. You must scroll down a bit till you find

The “Totalitarian Temptation” in Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Times

By Paul Trewhela

At -

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/apr30b_2008.html