Zimbabwean hero

Zimbabwean hero (TR: the birth of a multinational)

by R. Eric Swanepoel

It was simple. Bloody obvious really. The Unilateral Declaration of
Independence and a white minority taking over an African country? They
were bound to fall, the pea-brained cretins. So... how to make some
money out of the predictability of it all?

Some of the best cattle country in the world was to be found in
Rhodesia, and still is to be found in Zimbabwe. You can print money
with the sleek fat beasts the land yields. But first you need the land,
and the land is expensive. So you club together with some friends.
Borrow here, beg there. And you buy the land. Everyone has a share. But
you want it all.

They come at night, cutting the fences and carrying knives. Back into
their land, the land the white men have stolen. Cattle are easy
meat.

(Sever the Achilles tendons, and then you can slash away as you like.
Hear the bellowing. Let the white bastards find them in the
morning.)

Your business partners are worried. The fences are destroyed and the
cattle are being killed. Are people the next targets? Time to get out.
TR, a courageous man, it seems (or maybe a bit crazy?) offers to buy
out the shares, admittedly for much less than they were originally
worth. Nonetheless it seems a generous offer when the land is quite
clearly now worthless.

Again they come at night. This time to TR's house. There are smiles,
flashing white teeth in the dark, and no knives now. TR grins too, and
pays them more than he had promised, a generous man. All friends.

TR, a hero of the freedom struggle. His cattle graze in peace, and
money flows in, like blood from a slashed jugular.