Abstract
Kenrick considers the role of race in Rhodesian nationalism, through white responses to black nationalism challenges to the nation in the 1970s. It looks at how white Rhodesians viewed the black rejection of Anglo-Rhodesian settlement proposals in 1972 and later white reactions to the Rhodesian Front’s internal settlement with black nationalists and the approach of majority rule. The chapter uses news media and legislative assembly debates to consider how the settler portrayal of Africans as ‘unchanging’ was often highly contingent and dependent upon circumstance.
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- 1.
L. Witz, Apartheid’s Festival: Contesting South Africa’s National Pasts (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2003).
- 2.
Ibid., p. 15.
- 3.
Ibid., pp. 11, 246.
- 4.
T. King & A. Shutt, ‘Imperial Rhodesians: The 1953 Rhodes Centenary Exhibition in Southern Rhodesia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 31, 2 (2005), pp. 357–379.
- 5.
Ibid., pp. 357–358.
- 6.
Ibid., pp. 366, 369
- 7.
Ibid., pp. 365–368.
- 8.
‘Obituary, H.A. Cripwell and the Founding of the Rhodesiana Society’, Rhodesiana, 22 (July 1970), p. 1.
- 9.
‘List of Members of the Rhodesiana Society, As At 31st March, 1968’, Rhodesiana, 18 (July 1968), pp. 125–131; Rhodesia National Bibliography 1970 (Salisbury, 1971), p. 16.
- 10.
Rhodesiana, 16, p. 86.
- 11.
See D. Kenrick ‘The Past Is Our Country: History and the Rhodesiana Society’, Newcastle University Historical Studies Postgraduate Forum E-Journal, accessed at https://www.societies.ncl.ac.uk/pgfnewcastle/files/2014/11/The-Past-is-Our-Country-History-and-the-Rhodesiana-Society-c.-1953-1970.pdf on 25 February 2019.
- 12.
J.M. MacKenzie, ‘Review of Rhodesiana 29’, Rhodesian History, 2 (1972), p. 121.
- 13.
Report of the Director of National Archives for the Year 1976 (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1977), p. 3.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
E.E. Burke, ‘Archives and Archaeology’, Rhodesiana, 17 (December 1967), pp. 64–70; M.-R. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, Beacon Press, 1995), p. 27.
- 16.
Burke, ‘Archives and Archaeology’, pp. 64–65.
- 17.
‘Notes’, Rhodesiana, 23 (December 1970), p. 70.
- 18.
Ibid., p. 70.
- 19.
Report of the Director, National Archives for the Year 1971 (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1972), p. 3.
- 20.
Report of the Director, National Archives for the Year 1973 (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1974), p. 3.
- 21.
National Federation of Women’s Institutes of Rhodesia, Great Spaces Washed with Sun: Rhodesia (Salisbury, M.O. Collins, 1967), p. 177.
- 22.
A.L. Stoler, ‘Tense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in North American History and (Post) Colonial Studies’, The Journal of American History, 88, 3 (2001), pp. 829–865.
- 23.
Report of the Director of National Archives for the Year 1974 (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1975), p. 4.
- 24.
Report of the Director of National Archives for the Year 1976 (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1977), p. 4.
- 25.
Ibid., p. 12.
- 26.
See J.R.T. Wood, A Matter of Weeks Rather Than Months: The Impasse Between Harold Wilson and Ian Smith: Sanctions, Aborted Settlements and War, 1965–1969 (Victoria, BC, Trafford, 2008).
- 27.
Rhodesia: Proposals for a Settlement (London, 1971).
- 28.
E. Windrich, Britain and the Politics of Rhodesian Independence (London, Croom Helm, 1978), pp. 40–41.
- 29.
Rhodesia—Report of the Commission on Rhodesian Opinion Under the Chairmanship of the Right Honourable the Lord Pearce (London, HMSO, 1972), p. 12.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 11.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 48.
- 32.
Ibid., pp. 79–80.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 2.
- 34.
Ibid., p. 76.
- 35.
The Man and His Ways: An Introduction to the Customs and Beliefs of Rhodesia’s African People (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1969).
- 36.
Ibid., p. 1.
- 37.
Ibid., p. 4.
- 38.
Ibid., p. 32.
- 39.
M.O. West, The Rise of an African Middle Class in Colonial Zimbabwe 1898–1965 (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2002); I. Phimister & B. Raftopoulos (eds.), Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe 1900–97 (Harare, Baobab Books, 1997).
- 40.
See L. White, ‘“Normal Political Activities”: Rhodesia, The Pearce Commission, and the African National Council’, Journal of African History, 52 (2011), pp. 321–340 for an exploration of the peculiarity of this phraseology in the Rhodesian context.
- 41.
‘Little Doubt on Pearce “No” Verdict’, The Rhodesia Herald, 22 May 1972, p. 1.
- 42.
‘Reaction—What They Think’, The Rhodesia Herald, 24 May 1972, p. 1.
- 43.
‘Hard Lessons from the Pearce Debacle’, The Rhodesia Herald, 24 May 1972, p. 14.
- 44.
‘Government Queries Pearce Findings’, The Rhodesia Herald, 24 May 1972, p. 7.
- 45.
Advertisement for UNITE AGAINST MAJORITY RULE Meeting, The Rhodesia Herald, 24 May 1972, p. 14.
- 46.
The Rhodesia Herald, 25 May 1972, p. 2.
- 47.
‘Race Politics Harden—Divisions on Pearce “No”’, The Rhodesia Herald, 27 May 1972, p. 2; see G. Passmore (ed.), H.R.G. Howman on Provincialisation in Rhodesia 1968–1969 and Rational and Irrational Elements (Cambridge, African Studies Centre, 1968) for a detailed explanation of debates within the RF surrounding provincialisation.
- 48.
J. Thompson, ‘Half-Educated Africans “the Real Racialists”’, The Rhodesia Herald, 29 May 1972, p. 12.
- 49.
‘A Pioneer Remembers’, The Rhodesia Herald, 27 January 1972, p. 3.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 81, 1972, 74.
- 53.
Ibid., 133.
- 54.
Ibid., 221.
- 55.
Ibid., 125.
- 56.
Ibid., 118.
- 57.
R.C. Haw, ‘Affronts to Human Dignity Stir-Up Ill Feeling’, The Rhodesia Herald, 4 May 1972, p. 12.
- 58.
H.H.C Holderness, ‘Seems Whites Will Ever [Sic] Learn by Their Mistakes’, The Rhodesia Herald, 19 May 1972. For a more detailed exploration of Holderness’ life, see his autobiography H. Holderness, Lost Chance: Southern Rhodesia 1945–1958 (Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1985).
- 59.
A.L. Stoler, ‘Perceptions of Protest: Defining the Dangerous in Colonial Sumatra’, American Ethnologist, 12, 4 (1985), pp. 642–658.
- 60.
Just some of the many detailed works dedicated to the war include: P. McLaughlin & P. Moorcraft, Chimurenga! The War in Rhodesia 1965–1980 (Marshalltown, Sygma/Collins 1980); H. Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War: Counter-Insurgency and Guerrilla War in Rhodesia 1962–1980 (Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1989); J.K. Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia (London, Croom Helm, 1985) which offer the Rhodesian view. For perspectives which focus more upon the guerrillas, see P. Johnson & D. Martin, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War (Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1981) or N. Bhebe & T. Ranger (eds.), Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (London, James Currey, 1991).
- 61.
Rhodesian Cabinet Minutes, R.C.(S) (75), Thirtieth Meeting, 6 August 1975, p. 5.
- 62.
L. White, ‘Precarious Conditions: A Note on Counter-Insurgency in Africa After 1945’, Gender and History, 16, 3 (2004), pp. 603–625.
- 63.
Ibid., p. 620.
- 64.
It was only in the mid-1970s that the idea of African officers in either the police or military was entertained. Rhodesia Cabinet Minutes, R.C.(S) (75) Thirtieth Meeting, 6 August 1975, pp. 2–4.
- 65.
See J. Miller, An African Volk: The Apartheid Regime and the Search for Survival (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016) on how the rhetoric and policy direction of ‘total onslaught’ developed.
- 66.
Eric Kennes and Miles Larmer show how the spectre of communism cast a long shadow over the region in the 1970s in The Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa: Fighting Their Way Home (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2016).
- 67.
Focus on Rhodesia, 1, 1 (March 1976); Focus on Rhodesia, 1, 2 (April 1976).
- 68.
H. Schmidt, Colonialism and Violence in Zimbabwe: A History of Suffering (Oxford, James Currey, 2013), pp. 169–170.
- 69.
See S. Hall, Familiar Strangers: A Life Between Two Islands (London, Penguin 2017), p. 82 for an exploration of the contact zone in the Jamaican context.
- 70.
Rhodesian Cabinet Memoranda, RC(S) (76) 144, ‘Influx of Africans into European Areas’.
- 71.
RC(S) (77) 90, ‘Influx of Africans into European Areas’, 22 July 1977.
- 72.
The anti-regime Catholic Institute for International Relations and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia did much to publicise the plight of Africans moved into protected villages. See, for instance, M. Bratton, Beyond Community Development: The Political Economy of Rural Administration in Zimbabwe (London, Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1978).
- 73.
See Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, The Man in the Middle: Torture Resettlement and Eviction (London, Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1975); Civil War in Rhodesia (London, Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1976).
- 74.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, pp. 176–179.
- 75.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, p. 262.
- 76.
Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 98, 1978, 2.
- 77.
‘End to White Rule’, The Herald, 22 March 1978, p. 1.
- 78.
T.G. Wood, ‘Guarantees Should Be Supported’, The Herald, 15 March 1978, p. 9.
- 79.
D.B. Odendaal, ‘No Chance to Catch Breath’, The Herald, 10 March 1978, p. 8.
- 80.
J.R. Haw, ‘RAP and Military Service’, The Herald, 15 March 1978, p. 9.
- 81.
Fr. Arthur Lewis, ‘Rhodesia or Zimbabwe? There’s Lots in a Name’, The Herald, 23 March 1978, p. 8. See Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, p. 129 for the ‘high priest’ quote.
- 82.
P. Stiff, The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969–1994 (Alberton, Galago, 1999), p. 9.
- 83.
D. Hills, The Last Days of White Rhodesia (London, Chatto & Windus, 1981), pp. 30, 75.
- 84.
Hills, The Last Days; D. Caute, Under the Skin: The Death of White Rhodesia (London, Allen Lane, 1981).
- 85.
R. Pilossof, The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Farmers’ Voices from Zimbabwe (Harare, Weaver Press, 2013), p. 24.
- 86.
Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 98, 242.
- 87.
Ibid., 221.
- 88.
Ibid., 491.
- 89.
Ibid., 248.
- 90.
See P. McLaughlin, ‘Victims as Defenders: African Troops in the Rhodesian Defence System 1890–1980’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2, 2 (1991), pp. 240–275 for an account of white reservations about calling up African troops.
- 91.
L. White, ‘Civic Virtue, Young Men, and the Family: Conscription in Rhodesia, 1974–1980’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 37, 1 (2004), pp. 103–121.
- 92.
For analysis of the effect of conscription upon white Rhodesians, see White, ‘Civic Virtue’, pp. 103–121; J. Brownell, ‘The Hole in Rhodesia’s Bucket: White Emigration and the End of Settler Rule’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 34, 3 (2008), pp. 591–610.
- 93.
Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 99, 1978–1979, 1582.
- 94.
Ibid., 1603.
- 95.
Ibid., 1612.
- 96.
Ibid., 1623.
- 97.
McLaughlin, ‘Victims as Defenders’, p. 264.
- 98.
Ibid., p. 268.
- 99.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesian Never Die, p. 277.
- 100.
Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 99, 2540, 2490; Quote from 2543.
- 101.
Ibid., 2398.
- 102.
L. White, Unpopular Sovereignty: Rhodesian Independence and African Decolonization (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2015), as White notes, many in the RF saw the election as ‘a procedure that would provide the regime with a figurehead, nothing more’, p. 243.
- 103.
P. Moorcraft & P. McLaughlin, The Rhodesian War: Fifty Years On (Barnsley, Pen & Sword, 2015), pp. 159–160.
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Kenrick, D. (2019). ‘Now as Then’? Race, Remembrance and the Rhodesian Nation in the 1970s. In: Decolonisation, Identity and Nation in Rhodesia, 1964-1979. Britain and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32698-2_7
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