The left may have fun with Ian Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, having died on November 20th – the same day as Franco in 1975, and Primo de Rivera back in 1936.
There was a BBC Radio Four discussion on Mr Smith today, but I do not know whether any mention was made of the date of his death – I turned the show off after it became clear that all the participants in the discussion hated Ian Smith and, more importantly, had no interest in truth.
The obituary of Ian Smith in today’s Economist did not make any joke about the date of his death, it just contented itself with accusing him of ‘tyranny’ and saying the government he headed, and the whole of the Rhodesian effort, was “rather squalid”.
However, both the BBC show and the Economist obituary said that Ian Smith had delayed black majority rule for “fifteen years” (1965 to 1980) – this is false.
Some background:
Under the 1923 Constitution of Southern Rhodesia there were educational and property qualifications on voting – which meant that the vast majority of voters (although not all of them) were white. Even under the Constitution drawn up under Ian Smith in 1969 only eight of the members of House of Assembly were to be directly elected by blacks who do not meet the educational and property qualifications (although another eight were to be chosen by tribal chiefs) – whereas the mainly white voters who did meet the qualifications got to elect fifty members. It is true that the Senate was more balanced – with a minimum of ten Senators (out of 23) being elected by the tribal chiefs. But the Senate only had delaying powers.
However, Ian Smith accepted the 1971 deal proposed by the British government headed by Edward Heath – a deal that would have speeded up the process by which more blacks got the vote on an equal basis with whites. But after widespread protests about how it was wrong to link voting with property ownership at all (oh silly Aristotle for thinking that majority rule can only work when the majority are property owners) this proposal was withdrawn – which Mr Smith regarded as a betrayal (one of many). Ian Smith said many times that he would never accept “majority rule” if this meant the rule of non property owners, i.e. the tribal masses, but in the end he did accept it – and his acceptance was not in 1980…so the “fifteen years” is false.
In March 1978 Ian Smith accepted majority rule in a deal with some of the black leaders, including Ndabaningi Sithole, the founder of African nationalism in Rhodesia, and Bishop Abel Muzorewa – who had played a leading role in sinking the 1971 deal. It is true that under the 1978 deal the new ‘Zimbabwe Rhodesia’ would reserve a third of the seats in Parliament for the mainly white property owners, and it is also true that there were other constitutional protections.
Ian Smith also hoped to be Minister of Defence under a black Prime Minister, but after the elections of 1979 he had to make do with being Minister without Portfolio – a white Defence Minister yes – but not old burnt face, seems to have been the position of the new government.
However, the British government, in spite of the Conservatives having said during the British elections of May 1979 that they would support the internal settlement) undermined the deal and demanded, at the Lancaster House talks, that Prime Minister Muzorewa and the whole government be removed and the country be placed under British control for new elections. Thus Bishop Muzorewa was humiliated in the eyes of his tribe, who made up the majority of the population, and with the British in charge there was nothing to prevent intimidation winning the elections for the most radical elements – as Ian Smith predicted would happen.
So the new Prime Minister in 1980 was the Marxist terrorist Comrade Bob – on the grounds that he was from the majority tribe, unlike the rival terrorist leader, and had the best organized intimidation.
Both the BBC and the Economist choose to date majority rule from this date.
As for the picture presented of Ian Smith as being unwilling to compromise and as having learnt nothing from his experiences in World War II, the Economist obituary makes the latter claim, I do not know whether the BBC show claimed it as well – I do not know for the reason I explained above, well I think what I have already explained casts doubt on this picture.
The unholy alliance of the leftist do-gooders, UN scum and “unaligned” riffraff, which Britain disgracefully joined, got what they asked for: the current disaster in Rhodesia.
We must have democracy at all costs, unless it’s a black thug who rules, which is just fine…
If you think the radio show was bad, check this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7105176.stm
In summary: ‘Mugabe is better than Ian Smith, says Zanu-PF member who happens to have a 4×4, three bedroom house, satellite tv and internet, despite living in one of the poorest countries in the world.’
Nicely done…
Just as the Marxists in Whitehall intended.oddly they never seem to apologise for the disastrous consequences of their actions,but then being a socialist means never having to say “I’m sorry”.
The effort of the left now is directed to blaming Ian Smith for the present state of the country.
According the legend spread by the B.B.C. (and the rest of the usual suspects in the media and academia), if Mr Smith had just handed over power back in 1965 all would have been well (as it was in the Congo and so on).
Hence the spreading the myth that Ian Smith was unwilling to compromise and just sat there for “fifteen years”.
My first roomate, when I went to university was a Rhodesian. Well it seemed like a good idea to Admin I’m sure- we were both law students you see…
But I was a long haired hipster (or so I thought!! youth eh?) who had marched against Apartaied and the Springboks tour with Peter Hain.
He was a very polite withdrawn an confused individual, who had seemingly slipped back in time by 40 years.
Do any of you remember when the Falklands War broke out and you heard Falkland Islanders talk?
He talked like that. No “Well it was like this” and “Ya know what I mean?” punctuating a sentence.
He was devoid of all the cultural nuances (degenerations?) that I was.
He spoke in whole sentences. With no hesitation.
I was conditioned to hate him (Such was the climate of the Wilsonian times). But I quickly got to like him. We spoke in the wee small hours, as students do, of many things. Race being one of them.
He didn’t appear to be a racist in any way. Said he and his farm workers children would play happily and equally up to about the age of five or so. But after that, the segregation came from the Black side not the White.
He didn’t understand it himself. He came from a farming community north of Salisbury and often said that you just couldn’t rely on them for any kind of consistancy unless you supervised everything all the time.
He was a liberal of all things.
We made a mistake when we handed back the Empire.
Not in giving it back to those it rightfully belonged, but to the wrong people at the wrong time.
The infrastructure just wasn’t there to support it. Or the leaders either. I could start with Idi and move onto Mugabe etc. Does anyone know an African success story post Colonialism?
See ideology is a wonderful thing as long as it stays an idea and gets gradually implimented with common sense.But not all in one fell swoop.
Marxism also looked good on paper. We know the reality well enough now.
I am not a leftie, but i take exception of this defense of smith from a libertarian website. WTF?
Indian and black friends of mine were treated like second class citizens for Christ’s sake. Anyway this can not be entirely Smith’s fault, I realise. But he was a figurehead for the disgraceful segregationalist movement which the British sanctioned so foolishly way back in the 20s.
He was a fucking dick, end of.
Defence? Suggest you re-read the article. All Paul is doing is pointing out how poor the reportage is and the only ‘praise’ he gives to Smith is indicating that his predictions were proved all too correct and I dare you to say otherwise.
The fact is the British government made things a damn sight worse than if Smith and Muzorewa had been left to sort out a settlement. It does not make Smith a ‘good man’ but then Paul was not claiming he was.
I could say to brian something like the following:
When you have faught against the Nazis, had a lot of your face (including one of your eyes) burned – and come back to fight again. And then be shot down and spend five months fighting with the partisans in Italy – and then come back to fight again……
Well then you can call someone else a “fucking dick” and complain that they were unofficial racists (using property qualifications and the like to cover it) – much as Winston Churchill (and almost everyone else before the last few decades) was such a racist.
However, actually I AGREE with what I think is brian’s basic point.
Even as a child I thought the stand in Rhodesia was mad, and the adults I knew (some of whom were a lot more racist than Ian Smith was ever claimed to be) thought it was mad as well. I remember at the British Legion, in Lancing Sussex, old fighting men taking bets on when the Europeans in Rhodesia would be wiped out (it was taken for granted that the Africans would turn on each other after this).
Although, in the later years, most of the Rhodesian army (including some of the elite units) was black (the assumption that all black people were the same, and that therefore none would fight against the collectivists, was something that made those British Legion men rather more racist than Ian Smith), there was still an element of 3% of the population trying to stand against 97% of the population (and with almost the whole rest of the world backing the 97%). This was madness.
Of course it almost worked (it should not have done, but it almost did) – had the British government accepted the internal settlement in 1979 some sort of civil society might have emerged.
But, logically, the thing to do in 1965 was an orderly pull out. In fact Europeans should never have gone to the country in the first place (even leaving aside moral considerations, it just made no practical long term sense).
It was as much a romantic unrealistic dream as Mr Rhodes’ plan to bring the United States back into the British Empire.
People can have vast courage and work, day in day out, for decade after decade – and still be taking part in an undertaking that, in the cold light of reason, does not make sense.
RAB asked for an African success story:
Botswana.
Not a perfect country – but the United States and Britain are hardly perfect either.
Brian, I don’t think many will disagree that Smith was a dick, and a pretty bad leader all told. But compared to Robert Mugabe, he was a fucking saint.
Africa hasn’t had the luxury of having many good leaders to compare against in the post-colonial era, and thus the white-rule racists actually manage to look good in comparison most of the time. Not because their racial policies are good – they’re indefensible – but because they managed to run competent governments most of the time, and the rule of law is more important than political rights to giving people a decent society to live in. That doesn’t excuse them in any way, of course, but I prefer to be accurate and offensive than inaccurate and inoffensive.
The Times’ obituary is more favourable to Smith.
See also the comments section and this article.
“Indian and black friends of mine were treated like second class citizens for Christ’s sake. Anyway this can not be entirely Smith’s fault, I realise. But he was a figurehead for the disgraceful segregationalist movement which the British sanctioned so foolishly way back in the 20s.
He was a fucking dick, end of.”
..and now?
I don’t often comment without trying to contribute something, but this seems worth making an exception for. Great post, Paul. Thank you. If Libertarians and others on the fringe don’t demand that the attacks on bad people and people declared to be anathema be limited to honest attacks then no one will. Slander against the devil himself should not be respected.