AS I WAS SAYING
It is ever thus. Mandela and his Girondins have been replaced by Mugabe and his Jacobins
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
My late father lost a fortune as a Bulawayo tobacco-farmer-cum-racehorse- owner in the late 1920s and early 1930s as well as founding and leading the Rhodesian Labour party of that period, in spite of hav- ing stood for the parliament as a staunch Conservative in Britain's 'khaki' election after the first world war. So I have a more than an average interest in what is happen- ing to his white successors in today's Zim- babwe, some of whom could well be my blood brothers, as, come to think of it, could some of their black killers.
Not that my father would have been at all surprised by what is happening since he never believed that granting universal fran- chise to white and black alike could con- ceivably satisfy the latter's social and eco- nomic expectations. After all, he would point out, the masses in Britain have enjoyed 100 years of universal franchise, and more than 200 years of a partial fran- chise, and still their social and economic aspirations for equality are unsatisfied, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, if not for ever.
But at least in Britain, my father would continue, there had always been a measure of upward social mobility, very slow at first but gradually gathering speed — he never lived to see the extreme acceleration under Mrs Thatcher — and this was because, from the very beginning, a bright lad with his wits about him, like Tom Jones, could always try, with some chance of success, to pass himself off as a gentleman, as could a pretty lass hope to pass herself off, rather more easily, as a lady.
. At the time I recall having these conversa- tions with my father, Nancy Mitford had just published her famous article on U and non- Li, giving detailed illustrations of how cun- ningly the British upper class had succeeded In keeping ahead of the game. For no soon- er did social climbers learn the existing cor- rect code of behaviour — not to say 'par- don', for example, or never to have soup at luncheon — than it would be superseded by a new one, very often the exact opposite of the old one — i.e. to say 'pardon' all the time and always to eat soup at luncheon. As a result, all but the quickest-witted of aspir- ers would always be wrong-footed. But in the case of the blacks, my father Pointed out, the problems of assimilation into the upper reaches were 100 times com- pounded, since however properly they Spoke, dressed, and behaved etc. they would always stand out by reason of the colour of their skin. So to all the barriers to upward mobility raised in Britain by class had to be added, in Rhodesia, those of colour, which would make progress by the masses towards social and economic equali- ty there quite unbearably slow and arduous, more like what happened in caste-ridden pre-revolutionary France, where there was no safety valve, than the much more fluid, upwardly mobile situation prevailing at the same time in Britain. In short, whereas peaceful evolution towards a classless soci- ety had just been possible in Britain — in spite of some very tricky moments — there was not a chance in hell of moving in that direction, without bloodshed, in multiracial Rhodesia. At the very best, therefore, the privileged whites under majority rule might expect to be allowed to remain on suffer- ance but, like the Jews in central Europe, they would always be in danger of the occa- sional pogrom or worse.
Did this make my father a racist? I sup- pose it did, if by racist is meant someone who believes that blacks — even in multi- racial black majority countries, let alone multiracial white majority ones — are always going to find it more provokingly difficult in a modem world created by whites in their own image to win anything like an acceptable number of places in the sun. Yet he was the gentlest and most gen- erous of men, much loved by his black workers, the pampering of whom (and of his horses) had helped to eat away his for- tune. Indeed, to this day, I am told that the Worsthome Cup at the Harare racecourse is one of the highlights of the season, even better attended by blacks than by whites. In no way, therefore, was his racism indicative of a cruel or bullying character. For him it was, if you like, not so much an article of faith as of common sense.
Being my father's son, these became my views too, colouring many years of writing about southern Africa in the Daily and Sun- day Telegraphs. Indeed, as a cocky young man, I once thought about writing an African equivalent of Tocqueville's Democ- racy in America but gave up the idea for lack of material, for it had become so obvi- ous to me that a transference of political power to a black majority would not be enough by itself to bring about any equiva- lent voluntary transference of economic and social power. Surely that should have been obvious. For the head start in property ownership etc. enjoyed by the white minori- ty was so great that it was bound to take generations for the black majority, except for the small section of privileged politi- cians and civil servants, to catch up. Even- tually, therefore, democratic pressure was bound to build up pushing for unconstitu- tional actions, such as Mugabe has adopt- ed, to close the gap, which in turn would put off further foreign investment. So what should really cause surprise is not that Mugabe — a former Marxist, after all — has adopted them now but that he waited 20 years before doing so.
Realistically speaking, therefore, the southern African whites always had only one choice: to dominate, if need be illegally — as Ian Smith, after his Unilateral Dec- laration of Independence tried to do — or be dominated, in their turn, by force, how- ever many constitutional paper promises blacks might have sworn to the contrary. That British socialists, who believe in utopias, and liberals, who can't abide too much reality, might suppose otherwise always seemed to me par for the course. But for British Conservatives, who don't, such wishful thinking just had to be little more than hand-washing, face-saving political Machiavellianism. But then, like a deus ex machina, along came Nelson Man- dela who seemed able to work miracles. Under his spell it did seem that the south- ern African black masses, having won the vote and put their representatives in posi- tions of political power, might indeed be prepared to leave white economic and social privileges intact, rather in the same way that the British masses were prepared to leave the privileges of their upper class intact. Robert Mugabe, however, is now emerging as the spectre at the feast. It is ever thus with revolutions: first Mirabeau and the moderate Girondins, and then Robespierre and the murderous Jacobins; first Kerensky and the moderate Menshe- viks, and then Lenin and the murderous Bolsheviks; and now angelic Mandela fol- lowed by monstrous Mugabe. In other words, my father was right and his succes- sors, at least in Zimbabwe, should flee for their lives before the going gets even rougher, as it most probably will.
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