Rhodesia, The Unadulterated Truth

I must ask you a question. And please don’t be offended by it. It is a legitimate inquiry. Do you know who or what is Rhodesia? If you respond with: The Ridgeback? You’re not far off. The Ridgeback is a fierce dog breed, particular, to Rhodesia. It was bred to defend farmsteads from lions and leopards. But most Americans have never heard of Rhodesia. In fact, I met an individual from South Africa recently, and to my surprise, he didn’t know what Rhodesia was. So please allow me, the presumptions attitude to assume, you don’t know, either.

Furthermore, for years now, Western liberal historians, the ruling orthodoxy of history academics, have poured their collective energy into erasing Rhodesia from history or promoting misleading information. And once Rhodesia was gone, its replacement, Zimbabwe, like so many “decolonised” African nations, was propped up as a model of Democracy. Except it isn’t. Rhodesia’s story isn’t exactly what you’ve been told. Maybe, it’s time to take another look and ask, whether the Rhodesians, were really the villains history says they were. Let’s begin.

Rhodesia was one of two independent states on the African continent, governed by a white minority of British descent and culture, in what is now mostly Zimbabwe. If you use the usual internet search engines, the vast majority of the information presented is, what can only be described as, excessively biased towards Rhodesia and its history, which has been written to reflect a justified armed struggle waged by the noble, oppressed, poor blacks of Rhodesia.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Rhodesia carried out a remarkably successful military counterinsurgency campaign, known as the Rhodesian Bush War, against a Communist insurgency from two main groups, ZANLA, the armed wing of ZANU, primarily supported by China, which provided weapons, training, and advisors, fostering a Maoist guerrilla strategy, and ZIPRA, the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), primarily supported by the Soviet Union (USSR), East Germany, and Cuba. I bet you didn’t know that. It’s not your fault. It’s been an intentional omission.

Another major factor ignored by historians is that, the Rhodesian military, had full support from Rhodesia’s black population. In fact, the participation ratio of black soldiers fighting in the Rhodesian army was 10:1. Yes, you heard right. Ten black soldiers for every one white soldier. As a result, Rhodesian security forces were frequently able to infiltrate and destroy guerilla cells from within.

The Rhodesian government also created a vertically integrated security architecture, beginning at the bottom level, with trained Militias providing township and village security, all the way up to the main force of the Rhodesian Army itself, which was considered by many, the best military in the world at the time, albeit a very small one.

The Rhodesians, also made optimal use of their very limited aviation assets through frequent airborne operations. They also invented the V-shaped hull for mine-resistant troop transport vehicles, frequently used today. Their intelligence network successfully gained human intelligence on insurgent safe havens,

which allowed them more conventional military operations.

A Special Forces element of the Rhodesian Army, The “Selous Scouts,” (1973–80), was especially adept at ambushing communist guerrilla units operating in Rhodesia and across the international border with Portuguese Mozambique. The Scouts comprised a mix of white and black commandos, and selection standards were very rigorous, to say the least. Some 68% of guerrillas killed or captured, were neutralized by the Selous Scouts.

Rhodesia won every battle it fought. Its soldiers white or black, were disciplined, motivated, and highly skilled. Rhodesian intelligence operations were second to none. Rhodesia’s economy managed to survive under years of misguided sanctions. It’s farms feeding the entire African region despite them. Cities thrived, Institutions functioned as designed, and yet, Rhodesia ultimately lost the war, not because it was defeated on the battlefield, but because it lost the diplomatic war and the war of public opinion, and ultimately, the support of Western Civilization, which Rhodesia believed was defending against the ever encroaching Communist ideology.

The fall of Rhodesia is not simply the inevitable end to European colonial rule. It was the result of a profound contradiction at the heart of the West’s Liberal elites, who demanded instant majority ruled democracy in a society where the institutions, cultural habits, and civic foundations required to sustain democracy, were still too few and fragile to withstand tribalism.

The liberals of the West helped destroy one of the most functional states in Africa, and delivered its people into the hands of a Marxist inspired, murderous autocracy. Now let me be clear from the start. The lesson of Rhodesia is not that minority white rule was permanently defensible. It wasn’t! But, the lesson here is that civilization is fragile, and institutions matter, and liberal political idealism, detached from reality, is an irresistible destructive force. Let’s go to the beginning.

Rhodesia’s history began with Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate and politician, who had a grand vision of the British Empire stretching from the Cape of South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. He secured a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria, to form the British South Africa Company whose mission was, to explore the land north of the Limpopo River.

Rhodes also obtained approval and passage from the local Tribal Chief, and sent an expeditionary force to asses the mineral wealth of the land, under the command of Major Frank Johnson, who led 250 young British pioneers into uncharted wilderness territory. They traveled in a column of wagons protected by the British South Africa police against both beasts and unfriendly natives. Their task was simple, but enormous in scale. Soon thereafter, the Union Jack was raised in the African interior.

For the daring pioneers, this was not just an economic venture. It wasn’t just about mining, or farming, or settlements. It was the expansion of British civilization. They saw themselves bringing order, structure, commerce, education, medicine, discipline and Christianity, into the wild frontier region and in the book, The Great Betrayal, written by Ian Douglas Smith, Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot, who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia until October 1964, he described the mindset of these pioneers.

Smith wrote that in the center of southern Africa, men of British stock, were carrying the torch of civilization into one of the few frontiers yet to be civilized, and this was no place for faint hearted men either. They had to believe they were serving something greater than themselves, and if they were not in his words, “God sent,” they were at least, sent there by Queen and Country, to spread British civilization.

In time, Rhodesia became known around the world, as being more British than the British, and the fact that Britain, would end up turning its back on Rhodesia, hurt even more, because Rhodesian loyalty to Britain wasn’t just theoretical, they had put their lives on the line to defend the empire when it needed soldiers. In the first World War, a higher proportion of Rhodesia’s white population served more than any other colony.

In the Second World War, Rhodesia once again mobilized at one of the highest rates in the empire. So many wanted to serve that the Rhodesian government, had to introduce conscription to keep men in the country in strategically important jobs, such as mining and farming. Smith, who would go to declare independence from Britain and lead the country through the Bush War against the Afro-communist insurgency, also fought in the second World War. His fighter was shut down over Italy, but he survived, joined the Italian resistance, escaped back to Allied territory, and then returned to Combat. This is why the betrayal to come was so painful. Rhodesians believe they had served Britain faithfully. They had built a functioning British society in Africa. They had fought Britain’s wars, and then, Britain turned on them.

After the second World War, the old European empires were weakened. They didn’t have the resources and in many cases, the will to sustain their colonies, many of which now, were directly threatened by Communist insurgencies. For example, French Indochina, what is now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, was under a massive, well organized, Communist insurgency aided by China. On a side note, 80% of French troops fielded in Indochina post WW2, were German POW’s, but that’s a story for another day.

The United States and the Soviet Union were now the great global competing super powers. And anti-colonial nationalism, was sweeping across Africa. In 1960, the British Prime Minister, Harold McMillan, gave a famous speech where he said that the winds of change were sweeping Africa and that African nationalism, was a political fact that Britain, could no longer resist. In 1960 alone, 17 African countries gained independence, dismantling the critical infrastructure and institutions that had taken Europeans more than one hundred years to build.

Meanwhile, many Western, liberal commentators, tried to draw parallels between Rhodesia and the United States, particularly, South Africa, where discrimination was entrenched in law. But Rhodesia was actually very different from South Africa. Rhodesia did not have the same type of apartheid that South Africa had, which was embedded in a comprehensive legal doctrine of racial separation.

Rhodesia did not have the same formal ideology of racial separation. Anyone could have the right to vote once they met certain education, income, and property owning standards, which gave them a stake in the affairs of their country. But we can’t ignore that the white minority ruled. In the 1965 election, there were roughly 95,000 white Rhodesians registered to vote but only about 14,000 blacks in a country where 95% of the population was black, and only 5% was white.

However, Rhodesia’s white minority government, expected that black participation in Rhodesia’s internal affairs, would gradually expand, as more black Africans became educated, acquired property,  paid taxes, and integrated into institutions of the state. And this was Ian Smith’s vision. A doctrine of “Evolution not Revolution.” Ian Smith did not believe that a stable, self-suntanning Democracy, could be created simply by holding an election where everyone was allowed to vote. He believed Democracy required stability through established cultural foundations, education, and those wanting the privilege to participate, carried the responsibility of learning and upholding the institutions.

To the post World War 2 Western liberal establishments, particularly the leftists in England, which treated universal suffrage like a magic liberal formula, this did not sit very well. Their philosophy of “give everyone the right to vote and liberal democracies will naturally follow,” was the only option. But Ian Smith, looking across post- colonial Africa, saw something very different.

The result was always the same. Once colonial powers withdrew, handed over functioning nations to people who didn’t build them, and whose tribal mentality was still too deeply entrenched in too many African minds, imploded into a one party system, consumed by ineptitude, inefficiency, corruption, tribal conflict, and eventually, economic collapse, causing an unmitigated descent into the Abyss of violence and chaos.

This is exactly what happened in the new Zimbabwe. The lesson was as obvious, as it was clear. If majority rule was imposed before the foundations of constitutional government was secured, before the population could understand the system they were being asked to participate in, and put aside tribal favoritism for the sake of the collective good, the result would not be freedom. It would be destruction.

And this was at the heart of the disagreement between the liberal government of Britain and Rhodesia. Britain said that there could be no Rhodesia unless the black majority ruled, and Smith said that there could be no societal stability without the gradual preparation of the black majority to self-govern without reverting to tribalism, which was still prevalent in too many black Rhodesians. We must point out that Smith, was not defending a perfect society. It certainly wasn’t.

Smith knew the majority of black Africans were still excluded from voting, and that reality cannot be ignored, but Smith’s argument was that the system was not meant to be permanent. It was meant to evolve.  Rhodesia was moving towards broad political participation of blacks at a pace that would preserve order, prosperity, and government institutions. The alternative of handing the government over to a Marxist revolutionary movement that did not have the habits or intentions of preserving western democracy, was national suicide. The choice was obvious. The gradual transfer of governmental power to a black majority prepared to preserve order or allow Rhodesia to spiral out of control.

In November 11, 1965, after failed negotiations with Britain, Smith’s government issued the unilateral declaration of independence to Britain. This wasn’t rebellion against the crown to Smith. It was a desperate attempt to preserve British civilization from a Britain that no longer believed in itself, and that is the paradox of Rhodesia. It declared independence from Britain in the name of Britishness. It rebelled against the Crown to defend the very civilization that the Crown once represented.

And what happened afterwards? After the unilateral declaration of independence, the international community immediately turned against Rhodesia. Diplomatic relations came to an end. Commerce stopped. The privilege Rhodesia had enjoyed as a member of the Commonwealth in the area of financial services with the London capital markets, ended. The leftist influenced United Nations Security Council, passed a resolution calling on member nations not to recognize Rhodesia or give it any assistance. Ian Smith’s government was condemned as an illegal, racist, minority ran state.

Subsequently, Rhodesia became isolated diplomatically and economically, then in 1966, in what seemed a coordinated effort, two African communist inspired movements, launched an armed insurgency against Rhodesia. This became the Rhodesian Bush War. As I previously mentioned, ZANLA, the armed wing of ZANU, was primarily supported by Red China, which provided weapons, training, and advisors, fostering a Maoist guerrilla strategy, and ZIPRA, the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), which was primarily supported by the Soviet Union (USSR), East Germany, and Cuba. Even North Korea ran a training camp, where they taught insurgents how to use military grade explosives. I bet you didn’t know any of this. Of course not! It’s been an intentional omission of history to an already uninterested American audience.

The Rhodesian Bush War, was in fact, part of the Cold War. Rhodesia was fighting Marxist-backed guerrilla movements intent on turning the continent red, but instead of seeing Rhodesia as an anti-Communist ally, much of the West, including the liberals in the United States, saw Rhodesia as a white supremacist state, even thought it was fighting Marxist revolutionaries. But, despite sanctions and isolation,  Rhodesia managed to build a highly effective military. its army was small but extremely professional and competent.

By the late 1970s, Rhodesia’s Special Forces had developed a reputation as the best counterinsurgency units in the world. This is why people say Rhodesia won the battles but they lost the war. Rhodesia could militarily defeat the insurgents, but by 1978 and 1979, it was being strangled politically by the West, particularly, the U.K. and the United States.

The Smith government attempted to reach a settlement, which ended minority rule, and the country was renamed to “Zimbabwe Rhodesia.” Multiracial elections were held, and the country’s first black head of government was elected, but Britain and the international community, still refused to accept the arrangement. They insisted that the Marxist guerrilla leaders, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, be included.

Under relentless pressure from Britain and the United States, the Rhodesian government eventually agreed to the terms. Britain took control of the country and new elections were held. Rhodesia soon discovered that their mother country, no longer saw them as family. It saw them as a problem, a remnant of an empire that Britain, was now ashamed of. Rhodesia had carried British civilization into the frontier, but when Britain lost confidence in that civilization, it condemned Rhodesia for preserving the very inheritance Britain had given it.

Whether you agree with Ian Smith or not? It’s hard to argue that Zimbabweans of any color, were better off under Robert Mugabe’s rule than that of the old Rhodesia. From its creation, the new Zimbabwe had enormous advantages. It had a strong agricultural production, a functioning infrastructure, a treasury, a competent government, and goodwill from Britain and the entire world. In other words, it had every chance to succeed.

Instead, as Smith had predicted, once Mugabe consolidated power, he built a corrupt, tribal, one party state. Then, from 1983 to 1987, the Gukurahundi genocide occurred, where over 20,000 Ndebele people, were killed by the North Korean trained Zimbabwean army's Fifth Brigade under the orders of then Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe. This violence was aimed at suppressing opposition from the Ndebele ethnic group and was characterized by mass killings, human rights abuses and reeducation camps. The violence was rooted in the tribal rivalry between Mugabe’s ZANU and Nkomo's ZAPU, whose support base was largely ethnic Ndebele.

This was not the liberal Democracy envisioned by the Western governments, as promised to Rhodesians. It was complete Marxist revolutionary takeover. Then, as it always follows, came the assault on private property rights. The Mugabe regime, which had initially proposed to purchase land from White farmers and distributed it to black farmers, negated on its promise. Instead, the Mugabe government began to fast track the land reform through violent seizures of white owned farms, and subsequently, commercial agriculture collapsed as productive farms were taken over, often by Mugabe’s henchmen, who had no knowledge of farming.

Western governments enable this injustice when 48 countries and international organizations, endorsed the land program, saying it was essential for poverty reduction, equality, social justice, equity, political stability and economic growth.

But the results were devastating. Agricultural production collapsed, exports of tobacco, one of the countries biggest exports, totally collapsed and Zimbabwe, entered one of the worst episodes of hybrid inflation in history.

in 2008, inflation peaked at an unimaginable 89.7 sextillion percent of GDP.  The living standard for more than half of the population was less than three dollars a day. The white population fled. Black Zimbabweans also left for South Africa, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Life expectancy plummeted by 15 years. Between 1980 and 2000, Zimbabwe became one of the most corrupt countries in the world, losing $1 billion a year to corruption. But the dire economic crisis didn’t affect everyone. Mugabe’s wife, nicknamed Gucci and the “First Shopper of Zimbabwe,” had plenty of money to frivolously spend. While the common people suffered, the ruling black elite became billionaires.

This is why in line of subsequent events, it’s hard not to have sympathy for Smith’s warnings and the plight of Rhodesia, whatever you think of colonialism and white minority rule, Marxism and Tribalism, has been a complete disaster for Zimbabwe, except for Mugabe and his tiny ruling elite of cronies.

I must point this out again. Zimbabwe received independence, a functioning government, societal institutions, industry, infrastructure, Africa’s most productive agriculture and the collective good will of the world. One generation later, Zimbabwe is now synonymous with land seizures, corruption, intimidation, genocide, hyperinflation and economic collapse.

The liberal West believed Rhodesia had to fall, so that social justice could rise, but what rose instead, was not Democracy, it was a racist, anti-white, corrupt, oppressive and murderous Marxist regime. And the questions raised by what happened in Rhodesia have not disappeared. How can western societies survive without maintaining the principles of the foundations that built them in the first place? Can western civilization endure if it no longer believes in itself, but rather, apologize for its past? Is the pursuit of liberalism an unqualified good? Can we allow liberalism to continue to destroy western civilization?

Ian Smith’s Rhodesia may have represented an untenable past, and but Zimbabwe today has an equally untenable future. The collapse of Rhodesia, a once fully functioning society, although not perfect, is what happens when the West embraces liberal idealism, regardless of reality and its consequences.

We will never know if Smith’s vision of a Rhodesia where the black majority ruled over a stable, prosperous nation, would have ever come to reality. But what we do know is that unchecked liberalism is an increasingly existential threat for Europe and America.