Not so this time!
What happened is that, last week, an African lady in Tsim Sha Tsui, over in Kowloon, burst into a sudden mega-rage temper-tantrum and began beating up people around her. She also got her goons to beat up a few more. Naturally, these Africans were all arrested and hauled off to the police station where it turns out that the lady - or is lady the wrong term here? - was none other than Grace Mugabe, wife of hideous Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.
She is here, she says, to visit her daughter Bona Mugabe who, it now turns out, has been a student at Hong Kong University for a couple of years, under a false name naturally.
OK, for everyone else the big question, now that she's been exposed, is whether Bona Mugabe should be allowed to stay. Some people are saying "Hey, she's just a kid. Leave her alone." while others say "This is injustice. Her father destroyed all education in Zimbabwe. No one else can afford to sent their children abroad, so why should he be allowed to." Me? Without proof she's the full measure of her father, as culpable and horrible, I think she should be left alone.
But, you know, coming from that gene pool, she's undoubtedly as awful as the pair of them, so I'm probably being naive here.
However, for me, the real worry is what Grace Mugabe is really up to. Seems she has started a company in Hong Kong that is spending zillions - undoubtedly Zimbabwe's money - to buy up land here. Why? It seems really odd ... unless ... well, unless the Mugabes are planning to do a runner. Do you think so too?
Which means the real question now is "Do we really want That Hideous Man living among us?"
Or maybe that isn't an issue. We didn't let Thaksin Singawat move here after the Thai coup, and we turned Garry Glitter away at the airport, so I think HK will see that it doesn't happen!
Although ...
... Africans, specifically Zimbabwean Africans, are beating up people over on Tai Po Island.
Us on Tai Poseveral years ago.
Not an African in sight.
This blog has already talked about Tai Po, a little island out there in the South China Sea, and you'll recall how I promised to drop by again to photograph several very odd rock formations and other "nerd-heaven" features, to share the strangeness of it all with you, which I still haven't done. And maybe I now can't! Zimbabweans maybe won't let me.
So what are Zimbabweans doing on Tai Po? British tabloids are already taking an interest in all this and journalists are turning up in numbers to follow this story, so I should stop being coy. Yes, Grace Mugabe has brought up a significant chunk of Tai Po Island and has already begun to dominate the place.
Grace Mugabe? As culpable and hideous as her husband? Should we be stopping her from living here as well?
I first took an interest in Grace Mugabe back in the 90s when she was still a teenager; when she very assuredly and with great aplomb married the President.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that, back then, Robert Mugabe was a good man and a great leader. Fiji has always taken a great interest in Great Black Leaders, so there were always lots of stories about Mugabe in the Fiji Times and other newspapers and, collectively, we all liked what was happening, first over gaining their independence in 1980 and then in post-Independence Zimbabwe.
We weren't wrong either. Remember how the country post-Independence immediately went from strength to strength? How they set up that so-impressive education system? How their new health system was so exactly right? And how, after 10 years of Independence, in 1990, the World Bank gave them full marks for everything they'd done in turning the place from a sleepy backwater into a strong and healthy country with a thriving agricultural system and booming economy.
Me? Mmmm! Although I thought it was all great, Mugabe always worried me. I used to look at his photo and think "He looks weak. He looks like he's someone's puppet." So, being me, and even then unable to resist a mystery, I went all out to find out who it was behind the scenes pulling this puppet's strings?
I eventually decided it was his wife Sally who was puppet-master. She was a political activist with a strong interest in small-holder agriculture and seemed so strong and good; so clever and well-educated and with such a strong moral compass. I used to look at her photograph and think "You're the real leader of Zimbabwe and the country couldn't be in better hands."
But then she died suddenly in 1992 and no body seemed to care very much. There was no real mourning for her and it seemed so wrong.
Too quickly afterwards I thought, Robert married Grace and I must confess I found the whole situation very odd. I started to wonder how long she'd actually been on the scene, this jumped-up teenage girl with too much aplomb and a self-assurance that didn't seem warranted. She wasn't clever. She had no education. There was no visible signs of why she thought so highly of herself. But no one could doubt she was strong!
I thought at the time of the marriage "We will now find out the true measure of Robert Mugabe!" but I was surprised that it all happened so quickly. It was less than two weeks, from memory!
You'll recall that Grace, during her honeymoon, jaunted off to Italy at public expense to buy shoes. I recall Fiji was vaguely amused and decided that Grace Mugabe was "an Imelda Marcos-type" who was very interested in luxury. Didn't augur well, did it! But no one seemed to pick up on it. For a country ruled by a weak man, used to being a puppet for a strong woman, it wasn't something to be laughed off. And I will offer my opinion was at that exact point that everything started to disintegrate. Corruption began in Zimbabwe on the day Robert married Grace and it was that jaunt to Italy set up the entire nation for this current fall!
So, Grace Mugabe? As culpable and hideous as her husband? You betcha! I would venture to offer my strong opinion that this heinous woman is the reason for everything bad that's happened in Zimbabwe!
Get her out of HK, I say! Confiscate her land. Wait until Robert Mugabe falls, sell off what she's bought on this latest spending jaunt and return the money to Zimbabwe for reconstruction! And then create a museum for Grace Mugabe's shoes, just like they've done with Imelda Marcos'.
So that's my choice for this week:
So what are Zimbabweans doing on Tai Po? British tabloids are already taking an interest in all this and journalists are turning up in numbers to follow this story, so I should stop being coy. Yes, Grace Mugabe has brought up a significant chunk of Tai Po Island and has already begun to dominate the place.
Grace Mugabe? As culpable and hideous as her husband? Should we be stopping her from living here as well?
I first took an interest in Grace Mugabe back in the 90s when she was still a teenager; when she very assuredly and with great aplomb married the President.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that, back then, Robert Mugabe was a good man and a great leader. Fiji has always taken a great interest in Great Black Leaders, so there were always lots of stories about Mugabe in the Fiji Times and other newspapers and, collectively, we all liked what was happening, first over gaining their independence in 1980 and then in post-Independence Zimbabwe.
We weren't wrong either. Remember how the country post-Independence immediately went from strength to strength? How they set up that so-impressive education system? How their new health system was so exactly right? And how, after 10 years of Independence, in 1990, the World Bank gave them full marks for everything they'd done in turning the place from a sleepy backwater into a strong and healthy country with a thriving agricultural system and booming economy.
Me? Mmmm! Although I thought it was all great, Mugabe always worried me. I used to look at his photo and think "He looks weak. He looks like he's someone's puppet." So, being me, and even then unable to resist a mystery, I went all out to find out who it was behind the scenes pulling this puppet's strings?
I eventually decided it was his wife Sally who was puppet-master. She was a political activist with a strong interest in small-holder agriculture and seemed so strong and good; so clever and well-educated and with such a strong moral compass. I used to look at her photograph and think "You're the real leader of Zimbabwe and the country couldn't be in better hands."
But then she died suddenly in 1992 and no body seemed to care very much. There was no real mourning for her and it seemed so wrong.
Too quickly afterwards I thought, Robert married Grace and I must confess I found the whole situation very odd. I started to wonder how long she'd actually been on the scene, this jumped-up teenage girl with too much aplomb and a self-assurance that didn't seem warranted. She wasn't clever. She had no education. There was no visible signs of why she thought so highly of herself. But no one could doubt she was strong!
I thought at the time of the marriage "We will now find out the true measure of Robert Mugabe!" but I was surprised that it all happened so quickly. It was less than two weeks, from memory!
You'll recall that Grace, during her honeymoon, jaunted off to Italy at public expense to buy shoes. I recall Fiji was vaguely amused and decided that Grace Mugabe was "an Imelda Marcos-type" who was very interested in luxury. Didn't augur well, did it! But no one seemed to pick up on it. For a country ruled by a weak man, used to being a puppet for a strong woman, it wasn't something to be laughed off. And I will offer my opinion was at that exact point that everything started to disintegrate. Corruption began in Zimbabwe on the day Robert married Grace and it was that jaunt to Italy set up the entire nation for this current fall!
So, Grace Mugabe? As culpable and hideous as her husband? You betcha! I would venture to offer my strong opinion that this heinous woman is the reason for everything bad that's happened in Zimbabwe!
Get her out of HK, I say! Confiscate her land. Wait until Robert Mugabe falls, sell off what she's bought on this latest spending jaunt and return the money to Zimbabwe for reconstruction! And then create a museum for Grace Mugabe's shoes, just like they've done with Imelda Marcos'.
So that's my choice for this week:
THREATDOWN
Hideous shoe-loving women who use their husbands
as the front for their venal and self-serving activities!
Hideous shoe-loving women who use their husbands
as the front for their venal and self-serving activities!
Posts
2 comments:
Bula vinaka Denise .... good to see you are still going strong ... great piece on Grace ..... by the strangest quirk of fate (not), Grace Mugabe is of the same ilk as Mary want-to-be-marama, wife of the not so great want-to-be-cici of Fiji.
And something that appeals to my Fijian humour, BONA means STINK in Fijian . LOL. Very apt !
Oi, Emele, sa levu na bula, sa levu na vinaka!
Love it! Stink!!! Good name for her!
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