The View From Abroad - Zimbabwe

A reader writes:

About three weeks ago, I was in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe, having dinner with about a dozen Zimbabweans, all black, and they were fully informed about Obama and their excitement was incredible.  These were educated people -- some of the few professionals left in that part of Zim in the wake of the Mugabe-induced economic and political meltdown -- and they were grilling me on how it could be that a man of African ancestry could be elected in Zim. 

When I told them that to almost all Americans under 40, a candidate's race wasn't of any consequence, they nodded in agreement -- "what a great country," one said "that can ignore such things as race and prosper."   These were all people, though, who have learned the bitter lesson of the consequences of reverse racism -- Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms and businesses that has led to Zim's collapse, and to widespread hunger in the  formerly most prosperous African country.  One thing Mugabe has done in Zim- he has made whites and blacks all brothers, united in hatred of bad government.