Africa and Rhodesia - A short history lesson

At the end of the Second World War the West European colonial powers were bankrupt and the Americans lent them the money to survive. Three things then happened that became inextricably intertwined that spelt catastrophic doom for the average black peasant in Africa.

Some of the educated blacks spotted a chance to make a few bucks and under the pretence of ‘Nationalism’ started to make a lot of squawking noises aimed primarily at any –

‘Make Love Not War’ sixties counter-culture ‘liberals’ that thought whitey was still whipping the ‘coons’ everyday on their million acre plantations –

and the Yanks, now flexing some serious muscle, both financially and militarily, decided that as the new kids on the block, the Brits can forget the whole empire nonsense, free the peasants and they could hopefully outspend the damn Russkies in gaining influence in Africa.

All with predicable results - Anarchy.

The squawkers, proclaiming to be Christian to the core, not having a bone through their noses and promising on their ancestor’s grave that the ideology of democracy, free speech, a neutral civil service, judiciary, police and army would be upheld; were given their chance. Hurrah to Independence, Hurrah to Democracy, Hurrah to the greatest get rich quick scam since Charles Ponzi.

So in the sixties it started to happen. One after another the colonies held ‘free and fair elections’. The average European in the liberalised West didn’t give a monkeys’ nuts on the outcome; they had enough problems of their own. So as soon as the loudest squawker had power and realised he had just been handed a cheque book and all it needed was an ‘X’ (His Mark) on the dotted line, he could live like a king! There was the pesky problem that some of his ‘subjects’ may not like the civil service being taken over by illiterate tribal mates (who happily soon spotted ways to have a jolly thieving time), and replacing the judiciary, police and army with only ‘loyal’ mates, and the press was used just to press out their protesting brains, tried to be ‘democratic’ in their protest. (Give a take a butchering or two.)

This problem was soon solved by teaching the moaners some manners. Usually this was very painful and involved severe dismemberment that generally led to the democratic moaner wondering how he lost his legs in the last knife edge election. But at least the new nation was free of the accursed whitey hey! Still, all this soon brought problems. It didn’t take long before these happy free nations saw the economy collapse along with the infrastructure through corruption and incompetence. But – luckily there is a solution. It is all whiteys fault.

Oddly, it is. The political boundaries of Africa are a total farce. Before Whiteman arrived preaching that deranged idiot Scotsman’s load of crap of the three ‘C’s -Christianity, Commerce and Civilization, even the Romans had decided it was better to leave the place well alone. Things ticked along quite nicely, thank you very much. Tribes came, slaughtered, got complacent and were in turn slaughtered and along with some very nasty diseases hanging around the place, the native population muddled along quite ecologically efficiently. There were no ‘borders’, but just constantly moving boundaries of tribal influence.

So for centuries the jolly Golly was quite capable of sticking a spear up a rear to keep any status que, until whitey turns up with what is now Africa’s bane – the powered projectile. The top squawkers soon cottoned on to this fact after they had been sorted out into packets of land drawn on maps by whitey and his magic of Maxim machine guns. They patiently observed, watched and waited till they had lots and lots of boys’ toys that go bang, of their own; and a lot easier to use than your average assegai.

As the colonies disappeared to be replaced by countries that would struggle to find the definition in a dictionary, and with the reserve banks plundered – the money ran out and the boys with the toys got all excited and went mad and hacked up their former bosses and then they find that that this hasn’t quite solved the lack of purchasing power. What do you do in such a situation? Of course, you turn to the Whiteman because it is his fault they are in the mess they find themselves.

So, being very smart, they ask whitey, who has several centuries of bloody warfare, along with scientific advancement experience; to come back and sort the rotting, stinking, corpse laden shit holes out. Restore law and order and kick start the economy etc. Hah, who am I kidding…

Because, and this will shock, between 1960 and 1965, 26 African former colonies were given ‘Independence’. Most collapsed into anarchy almost immediately. Happily, the ones with guns could control the only thing left – their natural resources. Available to the highest bidder (don’t forget to chuck in a few weapons), the situation hasn’t really changed much. Bob Geldorf and Bono may tell you otherwise; but they are - quite frankly - hypocritical idiots.

So…one little place, still run by nasty whitey, has been keeping an eye on all this amazing liberalism and thinks – We don’t think this a good idea. By 1965 the British, under the leadership of some complete brain dead tosser called Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of a broken, chaotic, penniless nation called ‘Great Britain’, told the Rhodesians that they should hand over an immaculately run, almost crime free, corruptless civil service and judiciary and a generally rather well organised economy; to a bunch of squawking ‘Nationalists’ – and they told them to - ‘Fuck Off’.

It was like -this was the jewel of Africa.  No other colony had created in such a short time a nice paradise. Well, it did help if you were white, but saying that, they were paying the taxes that went towards better black enlightenment and surely one day it would reach equilibrium?

This answer didn’t go down toooo well with the rest of the world. Still, Rhodesia under Captain Ian Smith guided his ship straight onto the rocks. It just took a while to sink.

So the squawkers understood something dumb Rhodesian whitey had neglected to understand – the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and whilst the blacks were quite happy to chop each other to bits to make a few bob, kicking whitey out of Africa took precedence. For a very simple reason – it distracts the world from their own atrocities and makes sure dumb ass liberal whitey keeps pumping money into their Swiss bank accounts.

And so Smithy and the boys decide to fight. Sadly, after a bit of a false start, the future Zimbabwean nationalist squawkers, loosing the plot, pop a few assegais up a few arses and two triumphant Western/Eastern orientated orators emerge by the mid 1970s. One was called Joshua Nkomo. He led the group that was 100% Ndebele. They were on a loser from the bloody start. Due to whitey and his map, his Zulu ancestral rape and pillagers, whilst being far superior to the peasants up north (the Shona), find themselves making up only about 25% of the ‘country’. He opts to stop in Zambia ( a collapsed cess pit north of Rhodesia, that just coincidently happens to have some of the planet’s largest copper resources), and asks for help to overcome nasty whitey from…er, white skinned Russians.

Meanwhile, by the time poor Portugal gives up the ghost on Mozambique in 1974, the local intelligent intellectuals take over the country and whilst turning the place into the Guinness Book of Records as being the worst place to make a buck on the planet, and starving to death was a rather a happier way to go than being butchered as a ‘sell-out’; they let Mugabe (who has meantime brilliantly decided he is really a Chinaman, but has the support of 75% of the population called the Shona tribe), and his politically corrected nutters, to set up camp and start to cross into Rhodesia and kill people in the name of liberation. This was the end for the peace loving, black friendly, whites of Rhodesia.

Eventually, the nice, happy, liberated blacks took over – though it did take about 50,000 people to die first, and they all jumped up and down and celebrated freedom from white suppression in February 1980. Since then, the land has gone from strength to strength (not).

Who cares?

So, whilst the battle raged in 1976 – the Gokwe Kid arrives on the scene…