Sunshine and cheap beef in Shangri-la
Robert Blake
RHODESIANS NEVER DIE: THE IMPACT OF WAR AND POLITICAL CHANGE ON WHITE RHODESIA, 1970-1980 by Peter Goodwin and Ian Hancock OUP, £45, pp. 416 From 1968 to 1973 inclusive I spent some half dozen periods of a month or so based on Harare (then Salisbury) in order to work on the Rhodesian Archives and to interview prominent figures for my history of Rhodesia (1977). I did not experience the escalation of war which forms a large part of the book. But the authors' account of the early years of this strange introvert- ed white republic seem to me exactly right. It really was just like that — an extraordi- nary mixture of blinkered complacency and racial prejudice on the one hand and a basic decency and friendliness on the other. White Rhodesians were not the fascist monsters conjured up by the Liberal/Left, but neither were they the heroes of a battle for civilised values against communism as seen by many Conservatives and of course by themselves.
As the authors well show, what the whites stood for was their own material comfort in what seemed to be an agreeable Shangri-La. It was a world of sunshine, cheap beef and equable climate. One could plan a picnic with total certainty years in advance, and rely on plenty of black servants to organise and look after it. The trouble was that the black world of which the whites knew very little apart from their servants was beginning from the 1950s onwards to be swayed by the wind of
change. The other trouble was that Rhodesia was a crown colony — of a pecu- liar status, it is true, but one for which the British government had ultimate responsi- bility. Unlike Zambia and Malawi it was largely 'self-governing' but the 'self' was a small white minority island in a sea of blacks. No British government, even a Con- servative one, could concede total autono- my to such a regime; there had to be some guarantee of progress toward majority rule. This was just what the white 'rebels' led by Ian Smith were determined not to concede. Hence UDI and the gradual decline of white rule culminating in a guerrilla war which neither side could win in military terms but which the whites could not sur- vive economically.
It would be easy to make fun of this alienated British (also Greek and Afrikaans) world which lingered on for 14 years. It was not a monolithic society. The authors, a BBC journalist and an Aus- tralian academic, who write admirably and have done much personal and archival research, give a sympathetic and perceptive analysis of the complicated cross-currents which flowed and of the doubts and misgiv- ings which existed among the whites. There was always a minority who believed that black rule was inevitable and hoped for peaceful transition, but the majority kept their heads in the sand and believed they could go on for ever as they were. 'Rhodesians never die' is the last line of an informal national anthem composed by Ian Smith's son-in-law. But the difficulty was that they did die in ever increasing num- bers — few, perhaps, in absolute terms, but the losses were more than a tiny white pop- ulation could sustain. The turning point in the guerrilla war was the Lisbon coup of April 1974. This led to black rule in Mozambique and opened a vast new frontier for insurgent penetration. It also decided Pretoria, seeking better relations With independent black Africa, that white Rhodesia was dispensable.
No one can say how long the Smith regime would have lasted if Mozambique had remained a Portuguese colony. Longer but not indefinitely, for the situa- tion had been deteriorating well before the Portuguese revolution and its repercussions convinced Smith that he had to concede 'majority rule' in some form. The tragedy was that he only did so after two years and then in such an ambiguous and half- hearted way that the war continued for four more, causing an entirely futile and unnecessary sacrifice of black and white lives.
One can say much against the regime Which succeeded him — a corrupt and Stifling bureaucracy, but it is to the credit Of Mugabe that Smith is still a MP, still lives in Zimbabwe and can still speak his mind without fear of persecution. Magna- nimity in politics is rare enough to deserve a mention on the few occasions when it occurs.
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