On 11 November 1965, Ian Smith, prime minister of the British
colony of Rhodesia, signed his country’s unilateral declaration of
independence, giving birth to a new nation that would, rather
heroically, seek to maintain its way of life for the next fifteen
years. That way of life was not — as critics will be quick to
allege — based on racism, but on freedom, the freedom that was
vouchsafed Rhodesia by the British Empire. It was the freedom that
was lost by Rhodesia’s transformation into Robert Mugabe’s
Zimbabwe. It’s a transformation from which even we, as American,
have something to learn.
The Rhodesians, in fact, based their declaration of
independence on our own, though they charmingly reaffirmed their
allegiance to the queen. Thinking themselves “more British than the
British,” they announced their independence on Remembrance Day,
marking the end of World War I (what we mark as Veterans’ Day), to
remind Britain that when she fought at great cost to defend
freedom, the rule of law, and the rights of small nations, Rhodesia
had been at her side. In the Second World War, indeed, Ian Smith
himself had flown Hawker Hurricanes and Spitfires for the RAF. A
flight accident had smashed up his face (which required extensive
plastic surgery) and left him with numerous serious injuries that
took months to heal. He returned to duty, was shot down over Italy,
and eventually made his escape back to Allied lines.
More than that, though, the Rhodesians had done what is
the measure of a man — they had gone into the wilderness and been
able to re-create their civilization. While they had a reputation
as outdoorsy, beer-swilling hearties, the great Rhodesian writer
(and liberal) Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock estimated in their
classic study of Rhodesia, ‘Rhodesians Never Die,’ “that
probably no other transplanted English-speakers had done more —
with similar resources — to reproduce and practice the parent
culture.”
It is a question worth asking ourselves: how many of us
could hack our way into the jungle and re-create the United States?
The more culturally pessimistic, or multiculturally inclined, might
even wonder whether that would be a good thing anyway.
The Rhodesians had no doubts — or few. They were so
confident in their civilization that they were willing to endure
international ostracism. They were so certain they were on the
right side of history, and certain of their martial valor, that
they volunteered to send troops to Vietnam (an offer that the
embarrassed Lyndon Johnson administration declined to accept). They
were so certain that they stood athwart tyranny, that they
sacrificed their sons and fortified their farms in an African bush
war that thrilled the armchair adventurers among the readers of
Soldier of Fortune magazine, which sold “Be A Man Among
Men, Rhodesian Army” t-shirts, based on a Rhodesian recruiting
poster.
Smith believed that one-man, one-vote in Africa meant free
elections once. He was loath to submit his country to the chaos,
socialism, violence, and dictatorship that he was certain would
follow elections based on a universal franchise (which, as he
pointed out, had difficulties that Western critics were not likely
to consider: for instance, how to accurately register voters when
most rural-born black Africans had no birth certificates). Smith
was careful to gain the support of the country’s tribal chiefs, he
stated that his goal was evolution not revolution on the way to
expanding the franchise (which was tied to income and property
qualifications), and he affirmed that he would not risk Rhodesia’s
multi-party elections, free press, independent judiciary, and free
economy with a mass electorate that might be inclined to do away
with them.
In the end, of course, the British brokered a deal. Lord
Carrington and almost all the other delegates to the so-called
Lancaster House Agreement of 1979 were convinced that Robert
Mugabe, regarded as the most radical of the Communist-backed
insurgents, would be defeated in the elections arranged for 1980.
Ian Smith thought otherwise. He was certain Mugabe would win
because he belonged to the Shona tribe, which represented eighty
percent of Rhodesia’s population, and because Mugabe would be the
most effective at voter intimidation. Smith was proved right, as he
usually was — though he got no credit for it.
Smith lived to see all his worst predictions come true;
had he been able to read his obituaries he would have seen that
liberal opinion blamed him for it. Smith’s solace in his declining
years was the popularity he had among black Zimbabweans who saw him
as a symbol of unbreakable resistance to Mugabe. If you want to see
the Rhodesia Smith defended, you can watch a video or two on
YouTube and see black soldiers (most of the Rhodesian army was
black) marching on parade past mostly white civilians, including an
official dressed like an 18th-century town crier; you can see the
sons of productive farmers and businessmen, who made Rhodesia an
economic success, shouldering rifles to defend their homes and
their liberties.
And if you want to see the tribute that vice pays to
virtue — or that Zimbabwe pays to Rhodesia and the British Empire
— just note how Zimbabwe’s judges still wear white wigs, how
Mugabe’s henchmen make a show of owning farms (taken from white
farmers who once produced plenty, and whose fields now lie barren
while Zimbabweans starve), and how Mugabe still goes thorough the
formality of having elections (as long as his goons ensure that he
wins). Zimbabweans think of British institutions as having
legitimacy, even if they are deployed as part of Robert Mugabe’s
charades.
So what can America learn from gallant Rhodesia? For one
thing, we can learn to judge nations by the values they uphold, not
the electoral processes they observe. We can see why Western
“colonialism” was oftentimes better than the alternative. And most
of all, perhaps, we might learn not to take our own liberties for
granted. In every generation, they are only a demagogue away from
being taken from us.
