The Young Lions

Posted by Jew from Jersey
19 January 2023

Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence and the subsequent conflict between the white-led government and the black nationalist organizations ZAPU and ZANU was not just a struggle between black and white, but between older and younger generations.

ZAPU and ZANU and their respective armed wings ZIPRA and ZANLA were arrayed not only against the Rhodesian government, but against the tribal system that had been the primary authority in African society from prehistory until the 1950s. From before the beginning and until after the end of the war, most of the victims of ZAPU and ZANU were black people. Not surprisingly, the tribal chiefs supported the government. The violence was often directed at the chiefs and served to further destabilize traditional society. A Rhodesian government report of 1961 summarized:

Some Chiefs and Headmen took to not wearing their badges of office for fear of being molested and found the performance of their duties deliberately made impossible by unknown youngsters of such a defiant, truculent and hostile manner that old people lamented that they were possessed by an evil spirit.

The view of the Chiefs as antiquated and inauthentic was shared by the British. Her Majesty’s Government refused to accept the validity of the indaba of chiefs representing all the country’s tribes held in 1964 that unanimously supported Rhodesian independence based on the 1961 constitution. The British wouldn’t even send observers. British Secretary for Commonwealth Relations Arthur Bottomley had instead insisted on meeting with Joshua Nkomo and Ndabaningi Sithole, the respective leaders of ZAPU and ZANU. These organizations had escalated violence in the weeks preceding the indaba and had even murdered one of the chiefs. In his book Rhodesia and Independence, Kenneth Young recounts the chiefs’ deliberations. One of them:

... had come to believe that it was the British Government itself who were saying to the young African thugs ‘Go and kill your fathers’. Why, if it were not so, had the representative of the British Government [i.e. Bottomley] who was close by in Northern Rhodesia not come to take part in their indaba?

More pertinently, one Chief asked: ‘Is it right that these young people [i.e. the extremist representatives] should go over and be received with honour by the British Government? When the Europeans first came to the country they discussed matters with the African Chiefs. So is it right that the Europeans should accept things that are spoken by these young thugs and politicians? ... Children are being killed. Mothers and babies are being killed. This has never been done before. That is entirely because the British Government does not understand the position here. So therefore let these strings be cut and we can then possibly talk and discuss matters with the Government which is here in the country with us.’

The chiefs knew the country would be controlled by black men soon enough and they wanted to make sure they were still in the driver’s seat when that day arrived. Their younger rivals did not yet possess the means to gain the power they wanted, and so relied on the British and other foreign countries to do much of the work for them.

A young Joshua Nkomo charms the liberals. These unusual fur hats were an integral part of his brand in the early years.

White people, too, were in the midst of a generational upheaval. The Rhodesian Front party was a populist reaction to the older establishment that had governed the country since its inception. For the previous forty years, Rhodesian prime ministers tended to be British-born and British-educated. They had governed for the benefit of the empire and could expect knighthoods after a certain number of years of service. The world they inhabited was also rather insular. They were all members of the same social class who dined at the clubs of Salisbury and Bulawayo.

During the federal period, both the governing United Party and the opposition Dominion Party advocated independence, but the leadership of neither appeared willing to confront the British about it. The RF was hastily cobbled together in the early 1960s by renegade elements of both parties precisely over this issue. Their mode of operation was distinctly populist. Robert Blake described the RF as:

...a new phenomenon in the colony’s politics. Hitherto Rhodesian parties operated from the top downwards... The Front operated from the bottom upwards. The initiative over policy came from small local meetings and opinions were conveyed to the leadership which took care to listen to them... Most of its money came from a multitude of small donations, and the very process of raising these made for a strong local machine...

The older generation of political leaders viewed the RF as riffraff and were quick to denounce them to foreigners. Godfrey Huggins, the longest serving Rhodesian prime minister and the only one to be made a lord, met with Robert Blake, himself a lord, at the Salisbury Club in the late 1960s while Blake was conducting research for A History of Rhodesia. Both lords abhorred UDI, the RF, and prime minister at the time Ian Smith, whom Huggins described to Blake as “a farm boy from Selukwe.”

Media and policy establishments around the world already viewed ZAPU and ZANU as noble freedom fighters and the true voice of black Africa. Now the old white Rhodesian establishment, the friends and colleagues of these international elites, were assuring them that this new party that had just taken over the country were indeed dangerous wackos. This caricatured perception of lunatic racists who would surely visit untold atrocities on the black populace as soon as Britain’s back was turned became entrenched. It became impossible for Britain to treat with good faith any rationales or assurances offered by RF-led Rhodesian governments.

Starting in 1962 and ending in 1979, the RF consistently won elections by far larger margins than any party in Rhodesia before them. The old establishment was pushed aside. Soon little remained of their former influence but the legacy print media in Salisbury, who opposed the RF till the very end in unison with their international counterparts.