RHODESIA WHY THE REBELLION MUST NOT SUCCEED

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30919, 27 November 1965, Page 14

RHODESIA WHY THE REBELLION MUST NOT SUCCEED

IB V

MICHAEL GARDNER

of the "Economiit"!

I From the ''Economist" Intelligence Unit.]

If historv was not bunk, there should presumably be great sympathy in the United States, at least, for Mr lan Smith’s rebel government in Rhodesia. The last time that Britain faced a unilateral declaration of independence from a refractory colony was the American proud declaration of independence in 1776—held up as a symbol of human emancipation.

It could be argued that if Lord North and King George 111 had followed the dictates

of moral rectitude, they should have said in 1776 that

General Washington's white settlers could have their independence, but only provided they freed their slaves and agreed to give them and the native Red Indians a fair and equal vote in independent America’s affairs. Had Lord North done this, he would still have had a Boston Tea Party thrown back in his face. The white settlers in 1776 seized their independence anyway. The result in the Succeeding two centuries has (been extremely good for the i human race. American dough:boys have saved the free world three times by their military exertions (in the Kaiser’s war, Hitler's war and the Korean war). And during the last fifty years General Washington’s heirs have led the rest of us on towards unimagined heights of prosperity by their industrial example. History is Bunk This is the most attractive argument on the right wing romanticists’ side in the present Rhodesian mess. Unfortunately for romanticists, history is bunk; and intelligent forward diplomatic analysis is the only sober truth that matters. The plain conclusion from this sort of analysis is that within the next 20 years, probably sooner, the whole of Africa is going to be governed by black Africans: that includes Dr. Verwoerd's Union of South Africa. I do not think that they are going to be very good black African governments. The anti-libertarian attitudes of the men who have taken power in black Africa offend my moral instincts nearly as much as the arrogant racialist attitudes of the minority governments that have maintained power in the rump of white Africa. And in the management of their economic affairs, most of the black African governments seem likely to be horribly inefficient. Even more inefficient, for example, than the silliest of Latin American governments has been during Latin America’s lost century since Bolivar. But the march of history is on black Africa's side; and, because of this, those of us in the rich, white one third of the world have

one single overwhelming interest in the development of I Africa’s destiny.

Reasons for Concern

This overwhelming interest is that the transition to black governments all over Africa should take place peacefully. There are two reasons why we must bend all energies to achieving this. One is humanitarian and does not need dwelling on. The other is practical. If the day ever came when the white population of South Africa was being cut to pieces with angry African machetes, the rich white, one third of the world would be bound to express its disapproval. Communist China, which by then will probably have taken over the left-wing leadership of the supposedly oppressed peoples of the world, will not express disapproval: it will express hearty encouragement. If Mao Tse-tung’s successors ever become the external heroes of Africa’s revolution, and if North America and Europe become about as unpopular there as Israel is with the Arabs, then this world which is two-thirds inhabited by coloured people is going to be a frantically dangerous place for our children to live in. To put things no higher—and of course on moral issues one should put some things much higher this thought alone should dictate our atti-

itudes to what has happened in Rhodesia. The most important last task in the great rearguard action of unscrambling the old British colonial empire has been to try to turn Rhodesia into what might be called a peaceably self-trans-forming buffer state between black Africa and the white Union of South Africa. Lesson for S. Africa “Peaceably self-transform-ing" means that it was important to try to get the pace of advance to black African government there sufficiently quick to avert an armed African rebellion, and yet sufficiently gradual and pacific and unshocking to make white South Africans feel that they would not be losing all they hold dear if they started to move down the same road. The prospect of achieving this was always appallingly difficult. If Mr Smith is allowed to get away with his rebellion, the prospect of achieving it is now going to be nil. The Smith government has therefore got to be overthrown. By all means short of one. That one, avoidable, self-defeating means is war itself; because that could precipitate the white versus coloured bloodbath which it should be the whole purpose of diplomacy to avert in the African continent.

This may not sound a very glorious rallying call to send out; but it is the cold, realistic call of common sense.