Film

User reviews of this film

• Christian Allard said...

  Posted on Sep 03 2010 17:44 Nimo, those reviews are more or less all the same, this is why my responses are more or less all the same.
  "if they want to eat, then they need white farmers" , this is what Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth are broadcasting around the world. As for Rhodesia, it never was the breadbasket of the world, it was cheap products sold by South Africans to Europe because they had their hands on cheap labour.
  I get all the support I need, news are coming out that Africa can do without those white large landowners in Zimbabwe like everywhere else on the continent. After all Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth were not doing the farming, 500 Zimbabweans were farming the land that they could not own.

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• Nimo said...

  Posted on Sep 03 2010 16:13 Christian, I'm getting a little tired of reading your "cut and paste" response, which you've made your personal mission to post on any review of this documentary that exists on the internet. "if they want to eat, then they need white farmers" - once the breadbasket of the world, now almost entriely reliant on international aid - I think the proof is in the pudding. Don't you? I always laugh when I see how little support your well rehearsed rant receives.

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• Christian Allard said...

  Posted on Aug 16 2010 07:39 I am certainly no sympathizer of the Mugabe regime, not like some of Ben Freeth's family members who have been accused to financially support Mugabe.
  I did not say that the land would be given to the poor, read again.
  It does matter how and when the South African army captain acquired the land, it is at the core of the issue of land redistribution.
  He is trying to get back his land in any court of law that would hear him. As for being peaceful, I don't think we are talking about the same Mike Campbell, here is what he said:
  "If anybody comes to take my farm away it is over my dead body"
  "A part from me going into a coffin, a lot of you are going to go into a coffin as well"

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• Alibaba said...

  Posted on Aug 16 2010 04:14 I don't think Christian Allard is your real name; I believe you are a sympathizer of the Mugabe regime. There are many signs. What are you talking about when you say that the land would be given to the poor?!! It is obvious that the land was not to be given to the "poor" but to Mugabe friends and family. And it doesn't matter how and when Mr. Campbell"s land was acquired - he was trying to settle the dispute in a court of law, peacefully and in a civil way. It was up to the court to decide, not "thugs".

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• Christian Allard said...

  Posted on Aug 04 2010 07:44 Bill, thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer your points one by one.
  Nobody is playing the "white supremist" card here, I am just exposing the fact that Mike Campbell purchased his estate with all its farms and its 500 workers in 1974 when a self declared white supremacist regime ruled the land. You spoke about some claptrap about taking the land back from the "colonials" who "stole" it all from poor blacks as complete rubbish, unfortunately for you Bill, Mike Campbell purchased the estate when none of the 500 people farming the land could.
  Then you speak about "war veterans", not in this article Bill read “a minister’s son”. Mike Campbell is no farmer but a military man, this is how he came to Rhodesia from South Africa, same for Ben’s father making your assumption that only people who have a clue to run a farm should own the land just wrong.
  I believe that Mike Campbell’s story and this “documentary” are not helping the white African farmers but exposing all what his wrong with large estate owners refusing to share the land with the people who have been working it for many decades and never been giving a chance to own it.

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• Bill Gibbons said...

  Posted on Aug 04 2010 02:01 Christian Allard - Playing the "white supremist" card is getting a bit thin now. Mike Campbell purchased the land legally and built his farm from the ground up. Mugabe and his so-called "war veterans," many who were mere infants during the Rhodesian Bush War, have absolutely no right to the land that Campbell and his family tilled to grow food to feed the nation. By the way, what exactly does Campbell's previous military service, or his father's military service to Britain have to do with this situation? Absolutely nothing. In closing, I challenge anyone here to show me just five black farmers in Africa - anywhere in Africa, that can do just as well as the white farmers. Mugabe has given all the confiscated farms to his cronies - people who do not have a clue how to run a farm. Thus, the land goes fallow, farm equipment rusts out, and so far over 500,000 black farm woprkers have been made homeless and destitute. No wonder Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia and even Congo-Brazzaville are now inviting white farmers from Zimbabwe and South Africa to develop their agricultural saector.

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• Christian Allard said...

  Posted on Jul 27 2010 00:38 Mike Campbell acquired the large estate with all its farms and its 500 workers back in 1974 when a brutal white supremacist regime was running the country they called Rhodesia.
  I feel no sympathy for the South African army captain Mike Campbell and his British son in law Ben Freeth because I watched Freeth interviewing Campbell on youtube.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbfhrr2NyH4
  Have a look and watch Campbell telling the world "if they want to eat they need to have white farmers".
  I watched the "documentary" they call "Mugabe and the White African" and after watching the work of Ben Freeth on youtube I come to the conclusion that the directors of the "documentary" are Ben Freeth and Mike Campbell and not Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson.

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• Christian Allard said...

  Posted on Jul 26 2010 08:37 “Mugabe and the White African” is more than just about a “farming” family in Zimbabwe.
  I doubt very much if viewers would still sympathise with this family, Mike Campbell and his son-in-law, Ben Freeth after watching them online.
  Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth show they real colours in their own series on youtube particularly the “interview” of Mike Campbell where he tells it like he sees it “if they want to eat they need to have white farmers”:
  Zimbabwe White farmers (Pt 4&5)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbfhrr2NyH4
  The land was grabbed by Mike Campbell, a South African army captain, who came to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1974, in the middle of the guerrilla war against the black majority, just four years before the infamous white supremacist Ian Smith unilaterally yielded to international pressure to end white minority rule. Original Rhodesian white farmers have now all left or have complied with the land reform, Mike Campbell won’t.
  Ben Freeth portrays himself as a victim of racial attacks but do not say where he and his family really comes from. Ben Freeth is the son of a British Empire military officer, both are men from the past, from another century, when people like Ben and his father came straight from the British establishment to rule the world.
  Did the two directors Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey knew they were being directed by Ben Freeth and Mike Campbell, I can’t believe they are that naive.

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• Anopa said...

  Posted on May 19 2010 15:36 I was very moved by this film.
  There are issues with land use and land rights in Zimbabwe that result from the years of Colonialism but those issues are complex and to be adressed at a national and legislative level. They are not the responsibility of the very brave farmers (Shona, Ndebele and White) victimised in this film as well as in separate incidents.
  The legacy of Colonial rule, longstanding inequalities not to mention a brutal civil war need to be addressed but cannot be addressed until Zimbabwe has a free and fair political process. As opposed to the thuggery and irresponsible greed it currently labours under.
  The majority of Black Zimbabweans are not so stupid as to be deceived by political posturing: be it our very own 'Takeaway Bob' or your 'right-on' Time Out.
  The overwhelming inequality between some White and some Black Africans is well known.
  That Dave Calhoun should have chosen to devote over a fifth of his review to stating the obvious about an extremely brave and dignified set of people is as predictable as it is disappointing.

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• Bob said...

  Posted on May 19 2010 08:07 Bill Gibbons words are chosen very carefully and truthfully to Chongolola. May I add that when Ian Smith lost his premiership to Mugabe Rhodesia was then a country to be proud of and the infrastructure he endowed to not only the farmers but also to the people was a very worthwhile and profitable country, what with tobacco and produce where they were self sufficient in many ways and exporting goods that produced a very welcome income. Since his coming into power it has gradually deteriorated into a country of poverty, yet not for him or his war veterans who plunder, kill, and rape what does not belong to them. The extremely unfortunate roll on of all of this leads me to the MDC who should now be in power when Mugabe was comprehensively defeated in the last election yet somehow managed to retain power through a collection of fixed ballots etc. He has raped the country of millions of US Dollars which he has stashed in his Swiss bank account for his retirement. The other downside to this is the tragic road that neighbours South Africa are now going down, they will not go against Mugabe because he's black, yet they know and realise that what he is doing to his citizens is totally wrong and in another 10 or 15 years they are also going to find themselves in the same sinking ship until the Dutchmen decide they've had enough and again resort to civil war. I'd have loved to have seen Chabanda being shot dead along with the other henchmen and his leader but we all know that this would only turn them into martyr's, but what can the people do to rid themselves of this tyrant, I'd say death by firing squad for all the people that have lost their lives due to this dictator. Chongolola, answer me one question, show me one African country who have made a success of majority rule and I'll show you a dictatorship where the people who put these so called leaders into power end up worse off than they ever were under colonialism.

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• John said...

  Posted on Mar 17 2010 02:52 While it is certainly true that the land was taken over by white arrivals multiple decades ago, not all of the current white farmers are the descendants of racist colonialists. Some of those properties were LEGALLY purchased AFTER the war of independence and AFTER Mugabe became president. None of this matters to the Zanu-PF thugs who snatch everything that they can get their hands on. Mugabe and his Zanu henchmen are responsible for thrusting Zimbabwe into the depths into which it now finds itself. While Mugabe has no place in his heart for white people, I do not consider him to be a racist due to the fact that poor, un-connected black Zimbabweans have faced even more dire circumstances than white farmers. The bulldozing of the Harare ghetto is a prime example. Yes, it was a shanty-town but it was home to over 50,000 people who suddenly found themselves homeless. The plight of the now jobless and homeless farm workers is another tragedy. Perhaps sometime in the future when fairness, civility and prosperity returns, Zimbabwe can follow the example of Uganda and offer reparations to those who have been wronged.

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• oLA said...

  Posted on Mar 10 2010 10:27 guys you can fight and fight about this whole thing but ultimately nothing is being done to those murderers, thugs, rapists, fraudesters, corrupt and sick people within the hierachy of politics. All politicians are the same. They back each other though they show the world that they hate each other. We just suffer because we have eyes yet we cant see that we are blinded by these so-called leaders.
  African leaders are just a mess and they wanna rule, rule, rule and rule , loot, loot and loot till they cant carry the loot. Similarly to the European leaders who are stirring wars and creating situations to their favours. Ultimately if you were to look at ourselves in the mirror no-one has reached perfection level. We are the devils because we have allowed such culture in the system, therefore we have to live with it.

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• Bill Gibbons said...

  Posted on Mar 09 2010 14:47 Chongololo, quit talking bollocks. The land was vast, open and empty when the whites arrived. Most tribes in Southgern Africa were migratory groups and did not arrive in what is now Harare long after the whites settled the area. The same with the Western Cape of South Africa. The whites got there first. Furthermore, all the cattle that the farmers have today were from Britain and Europe, not Africa. African bovids are entirely unsuitable for the large scale commercial farming that was established there. 83% of the white owned farms in Zimbabwe were purchased from the Mugabe regime, so all this claptrap about taking the land back from the "colonials" who "stole" it all from poor blacks is complete rubbish. Mugabe has destroyed the second most powerful economy in Africa, murdered thousands of blacks (far more than was killed during the Rhodesian bush war) and has driven over four million Zimbabweans into exile.
  So go ahead and punch the air and shout "uhuru," because every time Africans vote for their so called "liberators", they end up living under black regimes far more incompetent, cruel and bloodthirsty than their former white rulers. Muagbe has proven to the world what he was from the beginning, a bastarb puppet of the North Koreans and Lybians who only ever wanted to be president for life in his own Shona dominated Marxist Empire, regardless of the consequence to his own people.

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• chongololo said...

  Posted on Mar 09 2010 09:44 Surely the whites colonised Zimbabwe. Have you heard how they came and took cattle from Zimbabweans, drove them to poor soils of Shangaani and Gwaai? What was the armed strugg;le for? Is it not because some foreigner had come to drive us out of our own land? Were they not terrorising the black Zims? The capital city was a no go area for the blacks...we were not entitled to good life...all the good was for the whites...Mugabe is just doing what they did to us earlier. The only bad side, if I can say, is that he has lost the meaning of democracy and so is terrorising anyone against him, including some Zimbabweans. If you really want Mugabe to be sorry of his ways the colonialists have to be sorry first and be able to pay for all the suffering they caused Zimbabweans when they insituted the colonial rule in Zimbabwe. Magareth Thatcher (if am not wrong) said she will not pay Zim as was the Lancaster House agreement. Why did she do that? Is that not racism and deep hatred of the blacks because we did not dance according to their drumbeat? Yes, I want Mugabe to be more human, but seizing land is purely out of frustrations caused by the whites. These guys are racists if I can tell you. You need to see how they relate with us here in Zim. They are bad, and would have been worse if Mugabe was afraid of them. Thanks he stood his ground. There are gains that Zim enjoys as far as his way of ruling is concerned. We now want him to be a good old man and treat everyone with respect

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• oLA said...

  Posted on Mar 03 2010 09:31 havent watched the movie but honestly Mugabe and all the presidents are linked to satanism. Some are mansons, jesuits etc, nothing much you can do about it. You can talk, cry out loud but these fat cats know each other. Saddam Hussein killed maybe fewer guys than Mugabe yet this man lives and walks freely and utters nonsense to the same people without a problem. Who is clean on earth these days, yes, we can sympathise with each other yet we are the same people causing or not liking one another. People on earth will never love one another, because we are the last church age that is lukewarm, we dont have love anymore yet we think we have. Only issue between ourselves is one choice to make, be rulled by these satanist and suffer on earth and lose the heavens again or you decide to be faithful and ignore earthly riches and enter the kingdom of heaven........your choice

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