The Birth of Zimbabwe

Xan Smiley

Salisbury When Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe there will presumably be nepotism, tribalism, bloody factional infighting, hypocrisy, inefficiency and sloth—all the usual trappings of the nascent Black African state. Tribal tension here is as bad as elsewhere in Africa and poisons relations between the Matabele and Shona. But the former are only fifteen per cent of the black populace. It is tribal discord within the Shona-speaking peoples that has already led to torture, kidnapping and well over a hundred deaths since UDI, many of them among the community of Rhodesian political exiles who claim to be creating Zimbabwe together.

Those luxuries of freedom that are treasured in the West—such as a free press—may well be lost. Democracy will probably be on the one-party model. Whites will probably suffer various forms of discrimination. It will all be hard to stomach, and many will not be able to swallow it.

But for most Rhodesians—whatever the shortcomings of Black Africa—freedom and democracy in Rhodesia have been stunted ever since Cecil Rhodes won his charter. They certainly haven't grown since Ian Smith took up the cudgels. Today there is a new excuse for this: 'We're fighting a war'. But there is an awkward confusion. To the average white Rhodesian, the enemy is not just the guerrilla in Rhodesia's eastern borderland, but black nationalist persuasion. Whites who oppose Smith are virtual traitors.

Many of the protestations of freedom within Smith's Rhodesia are hollow. Television viewers are subjected to a daily barrage of crude political propaganda directed by a former Special Branch policeman. There's a current series which specifically warns Rhodesians about the psychological war being waged by the world's communistabetted press, like the Sunday Times. The television news editor scours weightier English newspapers like the Birmingham Post and South Wales Echo in order to produce solemn editorial quotations suggesting that Smithy isn't a bad chap really. Rhodesians are told that their army can handle 'any attack from outside.' The once-independent Rhodesia Herald, the country's main daily, now splutters a froth of sycophantic progovernment drivel.

Yet white Rhodesia has much to be proud of. The courage of the early pioneers has been matched by the industry and creativeness of many later settlers. Their energy and efficiency make present-day England look a sorry sight. These qualities have benefited the Africans. Black wages—paltry though they often are—compare well with the rest of Africa. Black educational standards and medical facilities are as good as anywhere on the continent. There are black millionaires.

Smith argues for 'responsible' government and leadership by merit. There is much to be said for a qualified franchise. But the Rhodesia that Smith defends was designed as a white man's country, and he has done nothing to change it. Blacks are legislated second-class citizens in practically every way. There is widespread apartheid in many fields. The Land Tenure Act (originally designed partly to protect blacks from white exploitation) allocates Africans—ninety per cent of the population — about half the land. They are barred from having shops or businesses in most of the town centres. They cannot buy land or property where they want. They cannot live (let alone own land) where they wish. Servants in European urban households may not generally keep wives or children with them. Good as modern schools and hospitals may be, they are classified according to colour, and blacks come out worst. (Private white schools may distribute up to six per cent of their places to black pupils.) Parliamentary seats are racially distributed: fifty are white (all belong to Smith's own party) and only sixteen are black, eight of them reserved for tribal chiefs whose qualifications to represent today's Africans are debatable.

Above all, Africans face the indignities of 'petty apartheid'—far from 'petty' to those who suffer it. An African can be refused admission to restaurants, he might play golf with a white friend but cannot drink in the clubhouse afterwards. He will get kicked out of any hotel bar in a European area after 7 pm on Saturday.

Smith would paint the African a simple fellow sitting in the sun on his subsistence plot, content to live alone and apart. He dismisses the more politically-minded urban black as an oddity. He grossly underestimates the real extent of nationalism. He has deliberately hoisted the mostly very conservative tribal chiefs into artificial positions of superiority over the African rural people which by tradition they never held. Today, by the admission of many of the chiefs themselves, they no longer accurately mirror the feelings of their people. Even the subsistence farmer is more politicised than Smith would admit. He resents his difficulties in obtaining individual freehold. He resents the disproportionately large sums spent in the rural European areas. He may not wish to risk life and limb assisting the guerrillas, but the nationalists articulate his discontent and channel it into nationalism.

Nationalism qualifies the African meaning of democracy and freedom. But it does

not follow that intimidation is the father of Black Rhodesian nationalism. Nor are the forms of democracy that have evolved, say in Kenya and Tanzania, as undemocratic as Smith may think. He cites Mozambique as a typical Black African disaster—and disaster it is. The Mozambique regime is probably far more reprehensible than Smith's, and only the hypocrisy of the United Nations can make it 'respectable'. But— far more important in the Rhodesian context—very many blacks, self-deluded or not, think Mozambique beautiful because it is black. The obnoxious Machel's warlike threats against Rhodesia were greeted in Salisbury's black townships—and in rural villages too—with jubilation. The fundamental point that Smith will not grasp is that blacks want to be ruled by blacks.

The nationalism that he so badly underestimates he is now containing by force. Already he has detained a member of the black nationalist team with whom he has just been negotiating, while the guerrilla threat grows by the day.

The Rhodesian army is too small to monitor the 700 miles of bush and mountain that mai k the Mozambique border. Now, another 300 miles of Zambia border are likely to become 'operational'. But the regulai army numbers only 5,000 swelling to 10,000 with reservists.

With police reservists, total manpower could be expanded to only 40,000. The Rhodesian air force is efficient but small and out of date, and a few squadrons of Soviet MiGs would spell its end. Neither the US nor South Africa is likely to come to white Rhodesia's aid. The Rhodesian Defence Minister, P. K. Van Der Byl, says there is an almost inexhaustible potential supply of blacks willing to fight for white Rhodesia. The security forces are indeed over half black. But the growth of nationalism is now likely to stifle the flow of coloured volunteers. The government argument that black will fight with white against world communism is not cutting much ice with Africans today.

The scattered white frontier farmers are remarkable dogged, but suburban whites are getting frightened. Last year far more whites left Rhodesia than arrived—if you ignore the influx of Portuguese refugees from Mozambique and Angola. But life in pleasant suburban Salisbury is outwardly unchanged. The foppish eloquence of Mr Van Der Byl still buoys up complacent white spirits while the drab Smith sombrelY claims that 'nothing is wrong'.

Two nightmares could come true, and no white should be left with illusions of safety.

One is an onslaught on Umtali, Rhodesia's third biggest town, which lies five miles from Mozambique, well within range of Soviet 122 mm rockets. The other is urban violence. There is still an extraordinary pool of goodwill between white and black. But Smith's intransigence is sucking it dry. He is leading the Whites to destruction. Western self-interest as well as justice demands that he should bow to Black Nationalism.