Responsibilities
Not long after the war Keynes said to Chaim Weizmann (to the latter's dis- quiet) that there was no answer to the Palestine conundrum, no peace which could be imposed to the satisfaction of Weizmann and the Zionists, or of anyone else, come to that; England was simply too poor and too tired to continue carrying the burden of incompatible promises made to Jews and Arabs. What Keynes said was not only true, it was the motto, even the epitaph, for a whole age in British history. The story of Great Britain and her empire since the war has been the story of failure to recognise and face up to this fact. So many of our misfortunes stem from that failure. Not long after the war Keynes said to Chaim Weizmann (to the latter's dis- quiet) that there was no answer to the Palestine conundrum, no peace which could be imposed to the satisfaction of Weizmann and the Zionists, or of anyone else, come to that; England was simply too poor and too tired to continue carrying the burden of incompatible promises made to Jews and Arabs. What Keynes said was not only true, it was the motto, even the epitaph, for a whole age in British history. The story of Great Britain and her empire since the war has been the story of failure to recognise and face up to this fact. So many of our misfortunes stem from that failure.
The last act of the tragi-comic drama was played out in Rhodesia, When Mr Smith declared UD1 in 1965 there were several courses which the British government could have taken. The Smith regime could have been recognised de facto, or it could have been deposed by force, or Great Britain could simply have washed her hands of Rhodesia and handed the problem over to the United Nations or some other suitably derisory body. In the event it did none of these but kept up for 15 years a pretence of authority — responsibility without power, the prerogative of the madman throughout the ages. Rhodesia was in any case a ques- tion without an answer, a truly insoluble problem. White supremacy was morally in- defensible, and physically indefensible also in the long run. But it was a gigantic fallacy to suppose that 'black majority rule' would bring instant joy.
Majority rule — interpreted in the modern African sense of rule by a black oligarchy rather than a white one, the rule having been validated as cynics say be 'one man, one vote, one time' — was doubtless inevitable. It was almost, not quite, as in- evitable that majority rule would degenerate as elsewhere throughout Africa into a mixture of sanguinary lawlessness on the one hand and despotism tempered by corruption on the other. So it has proved, and the end of the airforce officers' trial in Harare last week was only one example of the failure of the rule of law to take root in independent Zimbabwe.
Nothing can be said in extenuation of the Harare government's action in rearresting the officers after their acquittal, although some observations are in order as press and politicians here wax wrathful. Great in- dignation has been expressed about the 'treatment of these six white men. Little or no indignation was expressed in London at the comparable treatment of Mr Nkomo's old comrades in arms, Mr Dumiso Dabengwa and Mr Lookout Masuku, also tried, also acquitted, also rearrested, still in prison and with no powerful voice to plead for them. Although half of the white Rhodesian poulation at its peak has now ,left, there are still whites prospering in Zim- babwe, and it is fair to say that it is not the whites who are, or who will be, the prin- cipal victims of Mr Mugabe's ZANU- Shona triumphalism; it is the Matabele. And even our horror at the use of torture which was revealed during the course of the trial should be set alongside the remembrance that Mr Smith's security forces used torture during the bush war.
If Mr Mugabe deserves severe censure it is maybe not of the kind he has received. Characteristically, Mr Mugabe has got himself into a cleft stick over the case of the airforce officers. He now worries that he will appear weak if he releases them. To the initial charge of unscrupulousness, a fur- ther charge of incompetence will be added, and rightly. No one knows even now who took the decision to rearrest the officers. Was it the Central Committee? And was it, as is generally believed in Harare, far from a premeditated decision but one taken at the last moment? All these questions are baleful, and in themselves symptomatic of the Zimbabewean situation.
For in truth — and it is not a truth which appeals either to African nationalists or to British conservatives — Mr Mugabe is not a monster or even in any serious sense a Marxist. He is simply a man who does not know what he is doing, who is quite unable to control events as he would wish. And that in turn leads to the final fallacy. Along with the pretence that England still had the resources and the will, first of all, to govern her old empire and then subsequently to divest herself of it gracefully, went a linked and still more irrational belief: that the former colonies could step forth from the chrysalis of colonialism as fully-fledged nation-states operating successfully on the European model. Along with their delu- sions of responsibility, successive British governments deluded themselves that a set- tlement could be arranged whereby Rhodesia could be granted official in- dependence with happy results. Lord Carr- ington succeeded in persuading the world that such was the case, that his Rhodesian settlement was a great act of statesmanship which could lead to a golden future. We can now see how fantastic that belief was.
It is right that, in the immediate context, the British Government should take an in- terest in the fate of the British officers, part- ly because four of them have dual British citizenship and partly because Great Britain is guarantor of the Lancaster House Agree- ment. It is right that we should express shock at injustices done whether to white or black in Zimbabwe — and right also that we should express admiration for Mr Justice Dumbutshena, a credit to Gray's Inn and a man of considerable courage. But beyond that it is right that we should rid ourselves of the last post-imperial delusion: there is nothing in future we can do to help Zim- babwe. She must help herself.
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