Basildon Peta: A pen without a brain

There is nothing as uninspiring as reading through an article from African journalist who has NEVER attempted to put the brain before the pen. I was however thrilled by a comment made against an article written by one of these thoughtless journalists (Basildon Peta) by one Izinduna on newzimbabwe.com discussion forum. This forumite managed to clearly psycho-analyze the inherent flaws in Basildon's waffle.

Its bad for a low IQ person like Peta to write something that is read world-wide. Below is Peta's article, and following it a comment by Izinduna that i nicked from Newzimbabwe.com.

Basildon Peta: Our fellow Africans will do nothing for us in our hour of need
Published: 20 September 2007

My heart bleeds when I go to a Johannesburg restaurant these days and find all the waiters are my compatriots, Zimbabweans. These menial workers are nurses, lecturers, accountants, engineers and other professionals forced to flee their once prosperous homeland by Robert Mugabe's political and economic Pol Potism. Professionals I used to spot in BMWs in Harare are now cleaning lavatories.

Imagine what goes through me seeing a friend who was once a high flyer in a bank running a brothel in Hillbrow, a suburb of Johannesburg. Zimbabwe, my country, once made me proud of my heritage. It was the breadbasket of Africa and an exporter of tobacco, gold and platinum. Now it is reduced to a being net exporter of prostitutes.

I speak for many Zimbabweans when I welcome Gordon Brown's apparent move to adopt an energised new stance against Mugabe's fossilised regime.

Sceptics will not easily embrace the shift. They will say it plays into Mr Mugabe's claim that he is a victim of neocolonialism. They will say it plays into Mugabe's rhetoric that he is being victimised for empowering his black countrymen by redistributing white farmland. They will repeat the same tired mantra, that Africans should take the lead in reining in Mr Mugabe.

But the philosophy that African states should take the lead on Zimbabwe is bankrupt. Most of these African countries remain a collection of mismanaged entities that would not survive without Western subsidies. What leverage do Mozambique, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and many others, whose national budgets are half funded by donors, have over Zimbabwe?

How can one expect Angola's Jose Dos Santos, who has overseen the economic stagnation of his country, despite billions of mismanaged income from oil revenues, to sit with Mugabe and discuss good economic governance? How can Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, who has relinquished power in a flawed election, have been expected to counsel Mugabe on the virtues of democracy as the Commonwealth once naively mandated him to do? How can Equatorial Guinea's Theodoro Nguema, reputed to have eaten the testicles of opponents and bankrupted his oil-rich country, bring counsel on Mugabe?

We Zimbabweans have reconciled ourselves to the fact that our fellow Africans will do nothing for us in our hour of need. In desperation, we have to look to our former colonisers for help.

If the EU sanctions imposed on Mugabe's circle of cronies were extended to children and relatives, the men and women who make up Mugabe's edifice would be forced to rethink. And maybe then, things could start getting better for all of us.

Basildon Peta is at it again! Seeing prostitutes and corporate pimps where none exist!

However, it is his abuse of other Africans that stand out! He feels Africans are too poor, too corrupt, too undemocratic to help Zimbabwe!

He naively points out all the bad things about Africa, but forgets to ask himself, if the rest of the continent is so bad, how come its JUST Zimbabwe he wishes Brown to sort out?

If the rest of Africa can be allowed to remain poor, corrupt and undemocratic, why does Brown and Europe have to make Zimbabwe different than its African brothers?....Izinduna, Newzimbabwe.com Forum.