Robert Mugabe has died

It may surprise you that some people genuinely believe that Hitler had some good parts. I don't agree with that, but some people do. For Mugabe, I don't think he was completely bad.

Everyone has good and bad parts. We each have the potential to be evil or good. So no that doesn't surprise me. It's just that the bad in Hitler and Mugabe massively outweighed any good they did.

You have to still recognise the good.

Not really. If I give a fiver to a homeless person but then I decide to rob the bank of England then I'm still a pretty terrible person. Nobody is going to remember that I once gave money to a homeless person.I'm curious as to what good you think Robert Mugabe actually did?

It depends on what the homeless man did with the fiver. If he took part of it to play the lottery and won. Then used his winning to start a research institute that found the cure for cancer, Parkinson’s and other ailments. Then credited his success to you, I think you may have done good, even though you robbed a bank.

Mugabe was regarded as a decent politician as the PM after he helped to secure independence. His policies then were internationally supported and investment flowed in.

When he became President, some of the domestic policies changed and he got internationally isolated. He was refused international loans or issued loans with crippling rates, western countries and companies refused to trade with his nation and this affected their economy. The further he went with his policies, the stronger were the punishments.

To me, Mugabe is a man if two tales; the freedom fighter and Prime Minister and then the President who refused to budge.

He became isolated internationally because he was a tyrant who committed many human rights abuses. He might have campaigned against colonialism but he also killed more black Africans than the apartheid government ever did. I won't weep for him.

As i had previously qualified it with acknowledging there were serious social problems with it im not sure what your specific issue is? I mean it is, whether we like it or not, a cast iron fact that )again despite the racism etc.) the states were much more economically successful. Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa and South Africa was effectively a western state before the ANC destroyed it from within.
As for the remark itself, it could possibly have done with some polishing however the general point stands.

I don't think it's as simple as saying despite "unsavoury characteristics" - which was your actual phrase, not serious social problems that you then used later. You have a point on economics but maybe make that clear in your first post because I would not describe any country that enforces in law an apartheid system of racial discrimination to be functional at all.

It depends on what the homeless man did with the fiver. If he took part of it to play the lottery and won. Then used his winning to start a research institute that found the cure for cancer, Parkinson’s and other ailments. Then credited his success to you, I think you may have done good, even though you robbed a bank.

Mugabe was regarded as a decent politician as the PM after he helped to secure independence. His policies then were internationally supported and investment flowed in.

When he became President, some of the domestic policies changed and he got internationally isolated. He was refused international loans or issued loans with crippling rates, western countries and companies refused to trade with his nation and this affected their economy. The further he went with his policies, the stronger were the punishments.

To me, Mugabe is a man if two tales; the freedom fighter and Prime Minister and then the President who refused to budge.

It's unseemly to speak ill of the recently deceased, but I hope that Zimbabwe has a brighter future than its past has set.

He is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, untold numbers of rapes and tortures...

Again, good and bad parts.

I have yet to hear of the good.. let along the 'good' that outweighs a life time of evil.

I have already stated the good parts he did during their independence and first few years in Government. Also, it was not ‘a life time of evil’. He died at 95 and spent 30 years as President. Before that he spent his life campaigning and fighting for independence and then as PM. When he was PM, he was internationally regarded as one of the world’s best leaders. I doubt 30 years outweighs the more than 50 years he spent on the other side.