Of course I support the liberation of Tibet. There can be no justification for Chinese repression there. However, it was making the two situations sound equal that I was objecting to. After Mao, China was desperate and starving! When Mugabe took over Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of the area.

My points are simple.

The charge of hypocrisy against those who attack Mugabe plainly does nothing to address (much less exculpate) his actions and therefore looks like a piece of hypocrisy itself.

It is the standard evasion of Mugabe and those who support him or wish to cover for him, like Mbeki and SADC. In using their argument, you appear to shake hands with them, whether you choose to or not.

More important is that it is not possible to see how Mugabe would have been exposed and weakened to the extent he has been without the west’s efforts, hypocritical as Mugabe and his supporters claim they are, or they may be represented. Many concerned for the human rights you mention will be thankful for small mercies. Mugabe has for very long enjoyed a full balancing measure of hypocrisy in the supportive silence about his regime of his friends and allies in southern Africa.

Politics and ethics are strangers to each other in this world. It is worth considering that from every effort to bring the two together, the bad guys invariably walk free.

Paul: I would not mention “the brutal kleptocracy of Robert Mugabe” if I was an apologist for that regime! My point is that Brown’s & Miliband’s simultaneous condemnation of Zimbabwe and obsequious flattering of China reveals that the former is not based on any commitment to principle but on posturing instead. Why does this matter you ask? Simply: When human rights are subject to a self-serving calculation of their costs and benefits they can longer be foundational principles but merely propagandistic means to an end. As such I would argue that the hypocrisy of power (note: and not just the West) does not help to transform the “depredation” that you speak of. I agree with the more exacting life-philosophy of Simon Jenkins, quoted above by Luca, “Let us practice it ourselves and, if we must preach, preach by example”.

We could argue that it is because of the rest of (particularly Southern) Africa’s complicity in his rule that this is so, but this is only part of the case. Fortunately I know the limitations of my own knowledge of behind-closed-doors deals, so I can’t comment on whether it is a large or small part.

It is also true that a myriad of Western businesses continue to do business both within the borders of Zimbabwe and directly with the Mugabe regime.

This might be why many of us think we are permitted to speak on the hypocritical nature of a sporting embargo. Ultimately it is a tool so small as to be a mere toothpick, while a few of the jackhammers may still be employed to prop up the regime. Megaphone diplomacy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either though unfortunately (see Burma).

The day that we aren’t permitted to have opinions on these matters is when we can be arrested for thought crimes. Believing that Western nations can be hypocritical isn’t a thought crime that I’m aware of (see Samina Malik). Neither does it automatically mean that anyone believes that the UK government is as bad or worse than the Zimbabwean government. I mean, come on already.

But for the knee-jerk detractors of this article: you’re criticising in the blog the same kind of attitude you are praising in the UK government. They pick their battles, they pick the people they want to criticise. I’d assume that as individuals we get the same courtesy.

As for population control in China – Africa does not have it, which is one of the reasons Africa is starving. Mbeki can’t even discuss sex (ref: his AIDS denialism ). When China realised its population had doubled to 1.5 billion in 15 years it started its one child policy – otherwise the population would have doubled again in another 15 years – as is happening in Africa and Palestine. But Chinese who wish to emograte (where they can have more children) are actively assisted by the state.

A fact about Zimbabwe that everyone conveniently forgets, is that by the year 2000 Britain had bought back 30% of the land for Zimbabwean citizens from white farmers. When they found out that Mugabe was giving this land to his cronies and not to the landless, they stopped buying more. Also, as part of the agreement at Independence in 1980, the law became that the state had to be offered ANY land for sale before it could be sold to anyone else. When Mugabe started his land grabs, abut 70% of the remaining 70% was owned by owners who had bought AFTER independence with active permission from Mugabe’s government, and with encouragement for them to invest.

This is well known in Britain. We look like idiots when we spout opinions based on agnorance!

I fear a discussion around Mugabe’s diet might be unproductive.

Seriously, though, my approach is to query why anyone should be more exercised by the west’s hypocrisy over Mugabe than by his depredations.

Since abstract moral problems do not as a rule much concern people, 3 everyday answers seem likely: a)they support or side with Mugbe – or put another way – b)are anti-west and its claimed values; or – c)do not see any special misgovernment or cause for concern in the regime’s performance. (One might also just want to post a ‘controversial’ TL, but let us ignore that.)

Whichever is the case – a)and b)or c)- it chooses to hide behind the charges that the west is hypocritical and provides only one more instance of the hypocrisy with which the world is replete.

We should consider also that for a regime to fall it must first appear to lose all claim to legitimacy. This is why the Mbeki administration, key supporters of the Mugabe regime, have always feared and condemned the west’s ‘megaphone’ diplomacy and said it did not work.

They knew, slowly and surely, that it did.

The problem that China sits with is the growing disparity in income earning between the workers in commerce and those in agriculture. Personally I think it’s a tinder box waiting to explode.

But your article asks a question and as uncomfortable as it sits with us the conclusion is spot on.

“What a wicked web they weave as they try to deceive.”

I don’t see Uncle R.G. eating leaf soup for lunch every day and maybe a small bowl of sadza every other evening.