sergepesic Robert Mugabe, the post-colonial leader of Zimbabwe, was in the very beginning praised and lavishly awarded with honorary doctorates. He wasn't a communist and that was the only important thing for the Western powers. Hence, the enthusiastic support of all the murderers in the Latin America. Unfortunately, but quite commonly, the liberator of Zimbabwe became its dictator and tormentor. Even now at 88, he desperately clings to power. This is a story of the horrible plight of the family of white African farmers, who despite of the hopeless situation fight for their bare existence. The movie is powerful and its shaken camera work due to dangerous circumstances, just adds to this horrific story, the heartbreaking urgency.

wolfhorse Mugabe , a BRUTAL DICTATOR, decides to take farmland from white farmers. He intimidates, beats them and drives them out. One family decides to fight in an international court. Idiots! did they not look up the word DICTATOR? So they win the case in court because the mugabe lawyers walk out when they cant get a postponement. then 4 months later mugabe burns the farm to the ground. What the F did they think he was gonna do? Morons!interesting part was the reviews that said it was one sided documentary. LMAO, well there are people showing their true colors. No matter what Europe did there does not excuse a brutal dictator. So I guess with their logic if their grandfather beat up my grandfather then its OK for me to show up at their doorstep and kick the crap out of them. either they are black and don't want to see themselves (or their race) doing the same thing they blame the whites for in the US or they are whining liberal idiots.look, that was then this is now. merchants bought slaves from black African tribes who had made slaves of tribes they had conquered or captured. we learned slavery from the African (black) tribes. It was wrong but in the day it was the norm. People didn't know any better. Now we do. Get over it.Whether mugabe was black and the farmers white or vice versa it is still wrong and mugabe is a brutal dictator that no civilized country would tolerate but because it is blacks abusing whites , well that's OK because they deserve it cuz their great granpa was bad. If Mugabe was white and the farmers black the world would be in an uproar about it. That's the truth no matter how you try to spin it and everyone knows it , some just won't say it.

rggreaves It was a refreshing change to see such an accurate and vivid portrayal of life under Robert Mugabe. The almost comic dialog between Campbell and the son of a Government Minister who felt entitled so simply take the farm showed how ridiculous the whole situation in Zimbabwe has become. A once prosperous and thriving country now gripped by terror, sickness and starvation. Bravo to Mike Cambell for his lonely stand for what is right. There are millions of bitterly oppressed Africans in Zimbabwe who can only benefit from the stand of Mike Campbell and the widespread showing of this masterpiece documentary. Robin Greaves California

miles-tendi The documentary Mugabe and the White African, directed by Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson, is an account of Michael Campbell, one of the few white farmers left in Zimbabwe after Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF began a violent land seizure programme in 2000. It portrays the 75-year-old Campbell's struggle to resist the unlawful seizure of his Mt Carmel Farm by Nathan Shamuyarira, a senior Zanu-PF politician.In 2008 Campbell, assisted by his son-in-law Ben Freeth, successfully challenged Mugabe before the South African Development Community international court, charging his government with human rights violations and racial discrimination. The documentary is an emotionally charged depiction of the court case, and does not spare the viewer bloody footage and violence. "It resonates internationally because it is about big issues of human rights. It is about humanity and you do not have to understand Africa to get it", Bailey has explained.But it is precisely Bailey's belief that "you do not have to understand Africa", from which the documentary's main shortcomings emanate. Zimbabwe is not Africa, and Africa is not Zimbabwe. The documentary lacks historical and political context. Land and race are important themes, but not once is the Lancaster House independence agreement of 1979, which perpetuated racially biased land distribution in independent Zimbabwe, mentioned. We are exposed to the emotional anguish of Ben's British parents in Kent as they agonise over their son's safety – but Britain's role in Zimbabwe's land problem is never mentioned. The documentary shows us that Mugabe implemented a racist land reform programme in 2000, but we are not told why, and how he gradually became racist. The documentary should have at least mentioned the challenging nature of racial reconciliation since independence – because it is the unravelling of reconciliation that informs the anti-white behaviour it depicts.Bailey and Thompson go out of their way to demonise Mugabe. When the documentary's title first appears on screen it is all in white. Then the word Mugabe begins to drip with what appears to be blood and slowly turns red, in the style of a horror movie. Mugabe's statement that if redistributing land from whites to blacks makes him a Hitler in western eyes then let it be – often quoted out of context – follows soon afterwards. We are even shown a newspaper headline that reads "we are like Jews in Nazi Germany" – words presumably uttered by a besieged white farmer. Mugabe and Zanu-PF are guilty of horrendous human rights violations, but they are not Hitlers, and nor is Zimbabwe remotely like Nazi Germany.The voice of someone spewing anti-white rhetoric reverberates in the background at opportune moments. The voice is unmistakably Mugabe's. In contrast, the Campbell and Freeth families are presented as God-fearing, forgiving and compassionate. Mugabe is a failed leader, guilty of misgovernance; but crude juxtapositions with the "good" white farmer inhibit nuanced popular debate.Black farm workers are constantly in the background. When they do come to the fore they are mute. "If I lose (the farm) we all suffer. We are in this together", Ben remarks to a black farm worker who mostly nods his head and smiles. "Pray for me. I will bring you blankets", Ben tells a group of black farm workers before he leaves for the SADC court in Namibia. Again the black farm workers do not speak. They smile, nod their heads and walk away under the rising Zimbabwean sun. Whenever black farm workers and white landowners are filmed together in moments of compassion there is a palpable unease between them, a contrived empathy, and the fact that power relations are skewed in favour of whites is apparent.Mugabe and the White African Male would be a more appropriate title for this documentary, because the voices of women are secondary. They have no agency. This is a documentary about white male courage in the face of Zanu-PF's violent black males. For instance, there is little on the contributions of Angela, wife to Michael, and her daughter Laura, wife to Ben, to the resistance. And yet women are heroines too because when the brave men are away in Namibia fighting court battles with Mugabe's lawyers, Laura and Angela courageously hold the fort against Shamuyarira's pugnacious and ever-lurking farm invaders. As for black female farm workers, these do not even nod their heads and smile – they are simply invisible.In the documentary Ben asks why, if you can be white and American or white and Australian, you cannot be white and African? Part of establishing white American and white Australian identities in America and Australia involved nearly exterminating the non-white Native Americans and Aborigines respectively; it meant claiming indigenous peoples' land and forging white identity over many generations by subjugating and writing non-whites out of the history of those countries. America and Australia are the worst examples Ben could have cited.In a separate documentary by Hopewell Chinono called A Violent Response, which is about violence in Zimbabwe's 2008 elections, Michael Campbell comments on the Mt Carmel Farm violence: "My faith in the African as a ruler in Africa has been shaken. I do not believe that any of them are capable of ruling themselves. Democracy is a joke". Angela nods her head as he opines. Did Bailey and Thompson fall for Michael's "I am a white African" pretensions, or did they choose to omit the unpalatable reality that colonial attitudes endured in independent Zimbabwe? What makes Mugabe and the White African dangerous is not so much its content, but Bailey and Thompson's belief that they are actually "helping" the people of Zimbabwe by having made the documentary.