Zimbawabae and Democracy(sp)

During Bush election debacle, Zimbabwe publicly offered to send advisers and observers over to America, to see that fair play triumphed. The offer was spurned w.scorn.

So says modern received wisdom. The more I think about it, the more I'm not sure this stands up. This is the crux of so many post- colonial matters and the more I think about it the more my head hurts.

Mark: how exactly are white farmers "punished" for the misdeeds of their ancestors in land reclamation? They lose land they inherited in the first place? It seems to me that they're still, in sum, benefitting from the "misdeeds" -- they lose the land but they're still sitting on years and years of wealth generated by it, which is a damn sight better than they'd have had their families never owned the land in the first place. Is it fair to "punish" them for their ancestors' actions -- surely it's as fair as it is for them to actively benefit from them? Surely it's as fair as it is for Africans to be "punished" for the military losses of their ancestors?

As for who "deserves" the land it's not entirely a "who was there first" argument -- more that it's radically unworkable to have a country where almost all the productive arable land is owned by a miniscule post-colonial minority, a structure that basically maintins the colonial structure of siphoning all generated wealth out of the hands of the nation's populous. Even if we imagine the landowners being native to the Zimbabwe it's an unworkable model -- the fact that it's still essentially colonial ownership only highlights the problems with it.