Fathomless stupidity in today’s Times

Only very rarely do I read something of such fathomless stupidity that it is worth re quoting, but Matthew Parris’s comment on Robert Mugabe in today’s Times is such an occasion. I’ll quote just one sentence: “… for his tremendous ambition, his long fight against overwhelming odds, and his deliverance of his people from submission to another race, he (Mugabe) deserves both the name of warrior and leader, and I would call his a great life.”

I won’t bore you with Mugabe’s life story; but here are a couple of simple facts:

In 1982 sent his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade into the ZAPU stronghold of Matabeleland to smash dissent. Over five years, 20,000 Ndebele civilians were murdered as part of a campaign of deliberate political genocide.

Life expectancy at birth for males in Zimbabwe has declined since 1990 from 60 to 42 years, among the lowest in the world. The amount of time a Zimbabwean citizen was expected to live in good health from birth was 39 years in 2010. Concurrently, the infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births in the same period. As of 2009, 1.2 million Zimbabweans live with HIV.

Wake up Matthew!