A view of Rhodesia from the inside

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 18

A view of Rhodesia from the inside

The Rt Rev. Paul Burrough, Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland, was one of the defence witnesses at the trial of Bishop Donal Lamont, in Salisbury last month. In this article Bishop Burrough gives his own views on the dilemma of priests in Rhodesia, and on the aspirations of the Africans among whom he works in eastern Rhodesia south of Salisbury.

Having emerged temporarily from a hard trek through Anglican missions in the dusty Rhodesian tribal trust lands, I listened to Mr Smith’s historic speech in response to the so-called “Kissinger proposals.” A group of us sat in a hotel 90 miles from Salisbury, and, while the television flickered in occasional uncertaintv, Mr Smith spoke carefully but confidently, and the excellent local red wine (made necessary by the deprivations of sanctions) remained untouched in the glasses in our hands. What was he saying? Undoubtedly that he had carried his Government with him into the acceptance of “majority rule” within two years, but on the conditions that fighting on the long borders of the country be called off and that sanctions be removed once an interim Government is set up. Why, then, the perplexities which have surrounded the situation in the days since then? Mr Smith was making terms, very difficult terms, with Britain and America and with the six million black people of Rhodesia. But by the following day, the world Press was more concerned about the views of the “Presidents of the five front-line States,” and was listening anxiously for a reaction from Moscow or Peking. There was a sombre awareness in the nag-over following euphoria that Mr Robert Mugabe, militarily the most powerful black Rhodesian, was totally uninterested in anything but a fight to the finish with a black take-over. There was further shaking of heads over the deep division of

loyalty, if not of fundamental political opinion, in the several entrenched groups of African Zimbabwe leaders.

On the night of Mr Smith’s speech, many Africans and Europeans were together toasting a hopeful future — as they did when the Lord Home and Smith proposals were first known in 1972.

But, as then, the amazingly rapid “group thinking” of Africans set many of them to wondering whether one more hard push would not land them with power long before the short two years have past. Rhodesian Africans are great gamblers, and it soon became tempting to throw back all that they seemed to have won and try again. . .

There is no shadow of doubt but that millions of people in this land stand to gain immeasureably if the accepted proposals go forward, and if the Government that finally emerges proves to be a just and reasonable one.

By Western standards it will be a black minority Government, for nowhere in Africa does the concept of one man as an unpressurised individual casting his vote ever become possible. Africans want to follow the group rather than to exercise individual rights: they are too ■ decently humble-minded to place much confidence in their own private opinions, and, at worst, they are normally exposed to powerful intimidation.

But still the millions stand to gain. All along our hundreds of miles of border lands are countless small

kraals where families live in dreadful fear as they are caught be twee, the opposing forces of a war that thrives on hatred and contempt and breeds horror stories on both sfties. Thousands of African parents are stricken with grief because their children, both boys and girls, some not even into their teens, have fled over the Mozambique border to lose their identity under new names and to have a very poor survival chance unless the fighting ceases soon. Mostly they have gone with a real sincerity, but into a frightening darkness. The worst dilemmas and tensions occur for those who have to make agonising decisions to reveal — or not to reveal — the presence of terrorists. How does a man decide which course offers the greater safety for his wife and children? In the recent triul of Bishop Donal Lamont only two defence witnesses were called; both of us were Anglican bishops who know the grievous dilemmas which face our priests and medical staffs and our own selves in exercising a caring ministry amid the conflicts of wild anger which characterise this war.

All Africa needs a just

settlement. Zambia, for example, has suffered more than Rhodesia because of sanctions. Whereas in 1965 she could export some foodstuffs, it has been estimated that this year she may require to import food to the value of SSOM. Rhodesia remains able to export enormous quantities of food and minerals, and all of these are needed in a continent where probably a million died of starvation last year. But, when the shouting and argument die away, what is the fundamental cause of the “Rhodesian situation” which has so incensed the world against her?

Travelling and staying among rural African people with their innate hospitality, their gaiety and thoughtfulness for others, it is impossible for a white bishop to feel that he is hated as a member of a dominant and oppressive race which is abhorrent to the majority people.

Nor, in a country with perhaps the best medical and educational services in Africa, can it be said that sheer want is the motivating force.

Where, then, must the account be charged? Cer-

tainly there is a grievance in African minds that the system of the country makes them "second-class citizens.” This was the grievance I heard again and again in Britain when for nine years I was chaplain to immigrants there. Indeed, I find white Rhodesians and white English only a hand’s breadth apart in attitudes towards race, for 30 per cent in both countries are admirable in their attitude, and another 30 per cent are vile. The floating 40 per cent in the middle are the great problem.

But even this matter of attitudes is partly superficial. Far more deep and powerful is the disenchantment of the whole of Africa with Western ways, if not for Western material success. This is an ecological problem. Africa, like much of the world, is in grave imbalance in its eco-system and, although the idea can rarely be explicit, hidden in folkawareness is the knowledge that you cannot raise a continent like this one to the level of material success of the West. Even if it could be done, it would so savagely drain the irreplaceable mineral wealth of the world and so ravage the balance of nature that the twenty-first century would be irrevocably doomed. It is for this reason that Communist propaganda makes an appeal in Africa, although Africans have no desire for a communist system in its totality. Russia and China have never been colonisers of Africa, and therefore it is pathetically believed that they might be altruistic in

offering help. What has happened in Angola and Mozambique has not caused Rhodesian Africans to see through turmoil to harsh reality. But what does capitalism do? The investments by “multi-national corporations” in Africa in 1970 (sometimes ironically called aid), amounted to S27GM, but the profits returning to those corporations was $996M. The figures for Asia were even more staggering, but over all is the picture that the West, which for Africans is symbolised by the white minority in Rhodesia, is widening and not narrowing the appalling gap between the “haves" and “have-nots." At least, let it be noted, white Rhodesians are trying to build up wealth within the continent instead of taking it out as the multi-nat-ional corporations are doing. It is this which acts as a hidden irritant to the conscience of the West, and makes Rhodesia the butt of the West’s own hidden sense of guilt. This, in 30 years, has turned the “white man’s burden” from being an honest sense of noblesse oblige into being the obscenity which excites the protesters even more angrily than the “bomb” did in the 19505. Rhodesia is the microcosm of the world’s guilt. It forms at this moment a test case as to whether the gulf of race can be bridged. Many of the black and white security forces of Rhodesia are dying because they believe that a bridge could be built, but only by harsh force. The other side believes that the bridge is impossible and that it is their turn to exercise total control. The outcome remains very open.