Rhodesia: Time to Change Direction
By ENOCH POWELL, MP
iFVEN if the recent visit of ministers to Rhodesia proves abortive, as is feared, it does at least afford the nation a pause. as it were, for reflection. An important ingredient in that reflection ought to be self-knowledge.
A nation's policy can never be sound unless based on a true and realistic appreciation of its own power and capabilities. Whether a nation is large or small, a policy so founded can bring it not only material success but that sense of justified national pride. which no healthy nation can long dispense with. On the other hand a policy founded on delusion and upon mis- calculation of possibilities and realities will end only in failure and disgrace, and the road thither is likely to be marked with broken promises and shifty words.
We have experienced the truth of this since last November, as the Government's policy to- wards Rhodesia has lurched from one stage to the next. The delusion which underlies that policy is the idea that this country can dictate the course of events in Central Africa. We can- not. During the fifty or sixty years which fol- lowed the partition of Africa between the Euro- pean powers, time was when the government in Whitehall administered, and administered pretty well, great stretches of territory in Central Africa--though as a matter of fact that govern- ment never at any time administered Southern Rhodesia. But that time is past: our writ no longer runs. It is possible to like, or not to like, this fact; what is impossible is to wish it out of existence.
We have indeed power over our own statute book at Westminster: we can decide what con- stitutions for those distant territories we choose to inscribe upon its pages. But the course of events there does not lie in our power or con- trol. If we tried to exert force in Rhodesia to- day, we should exert it only in dependence upon the adjacent African countries, and consequently in accordance with their policies, not ours. Even so, the issue would be doubtful. All that we have, or had till yesterday, is a certain de- gree of influence such as a kindred country with an imperial past and some economic present might exercise at so vast a distance and across obstacles so severe.
These are the facts of which any rational policy must take account. But the Government have not been rational. They embarked on the course of attempting to overpower by sanctions a government in the heart of another continent. It is not an operation for which even Lord North and George III can be appealed to for such a precedent. In consequence they have led the nation down a cul-de-sac, from one contradic- tion and breach of faith to another, with a prospect at the end of appalling confusion and tragedy.
They declared that Rhodesia was a wholly British responsibility, and then called on other nations to assist in terminating a rebellion. They said that an oil embargo 'bristled with difficul- ties; and then they tried to apply it. The Prime Minister undertook solemnly and repeatedly to the House of Commons that this country would not seek a United Nations resolution to enforce the embargo; and then he went back on his undertaking and did exactly what he said we should not.
The Government put the RAF into Zambia; and then they took the RAF out of Zambia. The Government talked about a period of direct rule in Rhodesia from Whitehall; and then they said it might last only 'for minutes.' The Government told the Commonwealth conference at Lagos in January, 'on expert advice,' that it would be a matter of weeks rather than months before their measures terminated the rebellion; and now in September, at the Commonwealth conference in London, they asked for another three months to see how things go on. under a time limit after which this country would join in going to the United Nations for mandatory
sanctions. Then, on top of this, they had the impudence to tell Mr Heath that there was no change of policy.
The Government have been playing the role of the sorcerer's apprentice. We do not par- ticularly mind if what happens to him happens to them. What does matter is that, through delu- sion and miscalculation, this country, in a situation fraught in any case with dangers for others whom we cannot protect, will have failed to use that limited power and influence which it did possess in the manner best calculated to diminish the dangers rather than increase them.
A reasonable person, when he finds that he is walking down a cul-de-sac, turns round and comes out again. The same applies to a nation. It needs courage to admit a mistake; but nations, like people, do need courage.
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