Mugabe as an Anti-Gentrification Symbol in New York

Sickening as it might sound, I saw Robert Mugabe used for the second time as a symbol in New York today. This photo of 2008 election photos and the "fist of empowerment" (sic) is from the window of the "African Peoples Farmers Market" on Nostrand Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. I walked past it on my way to thanksgiving with friends. The older photo was taken on Sep 16 2007 at the African American Day Parade in Harlem.













The organization behind this is called "Friends of Zimbabwe" and is based in Brooklyn. Among other things, they are protesting gentrification (the "colonisation of the black areas in New York by real estate companies to extract maximum profit" as Kai put it). Here is an article on the movement in the Workers World, and this media advisory from the group from 2004 talks about Mugabe's 'strong leadership example'. This would almost be funny if it wasn't so nauseating and misguided. Can these people really ignore the catastrophe Mugabe has boxed his country and people into because they want to use him as a symbol for their local issues?