‘Rhodesians Never Die’

Abstract

This book tells the story of how White Rhodesians, three-quarters of whom were ill-prepared for revolutionary change, reacted to the ‘terrorist’ war and the onset of Black rule in the 1970s. It shows how internal divisions — both old and new — undermined the supposed unity of White Rhodesia, how most Rhodesians begrudgingly accepted the inevitability of Black majority rule without adjusting to its implications, and how the self-appointed defenders of Western civilization sometimes adopted uncivilized methods of protecting the ‘Rhodesian way of life’. This account is based on archival research and personal interviews. It sets out to tell the story from the inside and to incorporate the diverse dimensions of the Rhodesian experience. The book suggests that the Rhodesians were more differentiated than has often been assumed and that perhaps their greatest fault was a capacity for self-delusion.

Sport and Racial Discrimination in Colonial Zimbabwe: A Reanalysis

“…2 However, racial discrimination in sport still did take place in Rhodesian sport in less overt ways, as sport was a sphere of contested control for much of the colonial period of Southern Rhodesia and then the period of unilateral independence after the white settler minority seceded from the British Empire in 1965. The development of sport in majority-ruled Zimbabwe after 1980 bore a strong imprint of the racialisation of sport in colonial Rhodesia.…”

“…Rhodesian society was also very transient; the yearly turnover of the white population was among the highest in Western societies. 6 The transience and underlying heterogeneity of the white population provided strong motive for the manufacture of a Rhodesian identity. The social distance between white and black Rhodesians insulated the white community from the realities of the black African existence.…”

“…While less prestigious, the domestic Logan Cup competition in cricket was instrumental in conditioning Rhodesian cricketers. 33 While cricket and rugby remained important in wartime Rhodesia, the sports suffered as universal white male conscription depleted sporting ranks in the 1970s. 33 This is not to say that Rhodesia has no tradition of black African cricket or rugby at all: the flamboyant future head of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, Peter Chingoka, played cricket for St. George's Boy's School in 1972, the first black African to compete.…”

“…33 While cricket and rugby remained important in wartime Rhodesia, the sports suffered as universal white male conscription depleted sporting ranks in the 1970s. 33 This is not to say that Rhodesia has no tradition of black African cricket or rugby at all: the flamboyant future head of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, Peter Chingoka, played cricket for St. George's Boy's School in 1972, the first black African to compete. 34 This exception notwithstanding, the decline of Zimbabwean cricket has continued to the present, in part because of economic decline and political turmoil, and in part because colonial Zimbabwe's historically black African cricket and rugby culture was much weaker than, for instance, South Africa's.…”

‘Winning Hearts and Minds’: Crisis and Propaganda in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1962–1970

“…97 Such diversity and the persistence of divisions such as those mentioned above can help explain why some white people refused to accept government propaganda and military call-ups in the early 1970s. 98 We must however examine the role played by Rhodesian patriots.…”