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Blood and Referendums: Nationalist History and the Case for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence

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Decolonisation, Identity and Nation in Rhodesia, 1964-1979

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Abstract

Kenrick considers the importance of historical narratives and military service to white settler identities in Rhodesia. Kenrick explores the narratives that emerged around sovereignty during a series of referendums in the 1960s, particularly ideas of governance which allowed white settlers to justify their rule during colonialism, and to compare white-minority rule to the independence granted to black majority governments during the 1960s. The chapter then moves to consider the place of military service and sacrifice during the twentieth century, and how war service—particularly in the Second World War—was turned into a ‘blood price’ that white settlers had paid for their domination and also used to inspire the settler population to acts of patriotism and self-sacrifice after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence was declared.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See J. Miller, An African Volk: The Apartheid Regime and Its Search for Survival (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016), for an exploration of how Johannes Vorster’s South African government was pursuing a similar approach around the same time.

  2. 2.

    L. Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia; White Power in an African State (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 7.

  3. 3.

    J.A. Mutambirwa, The Rise of Settler Power in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 1898–1923 (London, Associated University Presses, 1980), pp. 202–203, 206.

  4. 4.

    For biographical information on Tawse Jollie, see D. Lowry, ‘“White Woman’s Country”: Ethel Tawse Jollie and the Making of White Rhodesia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23, 2 (1997), pp. 259–281; D. Lowry ‘Making Fresh Britains Across the Seas: Imperial Authority and Anti-Feminism and Rhodesia’, in I.C. Fletcher, L.E.N. Mayall, & P. Levine (eds.), Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire; Citizenship, Nation and Race (London, Routledge, 2000), pp. 175–190.

  5. 5.

    Lowry, ‘White Woman’s Country’, p. 264; B. Schutz, ‘European Population Patterns, Cultural Persistence, and Political Change in Rhodesia’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7, 1 (1973), pp. 3–25.

  6. 6.

    Mutambirwa, The Rise of Settler Power, pp. 201, 206.

  7. 7.

    See D. Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid, and the Afrikaner Civil Religion (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975); H. Saker, The South African Flag Controversy 1925–1928 (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1980).

  8. 8.

    Lowry, ‘White Woman’s Country’, p. 268, quote p. 271.

  9. 9.

    Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia, p. 7.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., p. 8

  11. 11.

    Quoted in Lowry, ‘White Woman’s Country’, p. 271.

  12. 12.

    See A. Cohen, The Politics and Economics of Decolonization: The Failed Experiment of the Central African Federation (London, I.B. Tauris, 2017) for a succinct analysis of the collapse of the Federation.

  13. 13.

    A. Stewart, Empire Lost: Britain, the Dominions and the Second World War (London, Continuum, 2008). Douglas Cole complicated this story by positing that nationalist demands for greater autonomy and imperial loyalty in settler societies were not dichotomous in British settler societies and showed how the two positions could be held simultaneously. D. Cole, ‘The Problem of “Nationalism” and “Imperialism” in British Settlement Colonies’, The Journal of British Studies, 10, 2 (1971), pp. 160–182.

  14. 14.

    T. Brabazon, Tracking the Jack: A Retracing of the Antipodes (Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 2000).

  15. 15.

    C. Palley, The Constitutional History and Law of Southern Rhodesia: 1888–1965 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 248

  16. 16.

    Quoted in J. Barber, Rhodesia: The Road to Rebellion (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 94; Ibid., p. 95.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., p. 95.

  18. 18.

    R. Welensky, Welensky’s 4000 Days: The Life and Death of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (London, Collins, 1964); B. Schwarz, The White Man’s World (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 341–393; Barber, Rhodesia, p. 86.

  19. 19.

    As a broad coalition of interests, there were always differences among RF politicians. See P. Godwin & I. Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia c.1970–1980 (Northlands SA, Pan Macmillan South Africa, 2007) for more on these divisions during the UDI era.

  20. 20.

    Cory Library, Rhodes University, Grahamstown (hereafter CL) (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda S.R.C. (S) (64) 329—‘Committees on Independence: Committee “A”’, 9 November 1964; (CL) (Smith Papers), S.R.C. (S) (64) 330—‘Committees on Independence: Committee “B”’, 9 November 1964.

  21. 21.

    S.R.C. (S) (64) 329—‘Committees on Independence’.

  22. 22.

    S.R.C. (S) (64) 330—‘Committees on Independence’.

  23. 23.

    J.R.T. Wood, So Far and No Further!: Rhodesia’s Bid for Independence During the Retreat from Empire 1959–1965 (Victoria, BC, Trafford, 2005), p. 249.

  24. 24.

    Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 59, 1964–1965, 1512.

  25. 25.

    Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly Debates, 58, 1964, 1589–1590.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 1609.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 1610.

  28. 28.

    T.O. Ranger, ‘The Reception of Mau Mau in Southern Rhodesia, 1952–61’, in P. Konings, W. van Binsbergen, & G. Hesseling (eds.), trajectories de liberation en Afrique contemporaine: homage a Robert Buijtenhuijs (Paris, Karthala, 2000), pp. 49–68.

  29. 29.

    Schwarz, The White Man’s World, pp. 350–351.

  30. 30.

    J. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1988), p. 249.

  31. 31.

    Rhodesian Ministry of Information, Immigration and Tourism, A People’s Progress (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1969), p. 1.

  32. 32.

    See J. Alexander, The Unsettled Land: State Making and the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe (Oxford, James Currey, 2006), p. 75 for an explanation of the role of chiefs, and J. Alexander, ‘“Hooligans, Spivs and Loafers?”: The Politics of Vagrancy in 1960s Southern Rhodesia’, The Journal of African History, 53 (2012), pp. 345–366 on the restriction and detention of the black nationalist leadership.

  33. 33.

    Wood, So Far and No Further!, p. 249. The referendum had a 61% turnout.

  34. 34.

    J. Todd, Rhodesia (London, MacGibbon & Kee, 1966), p. 133; Alexander, The Unsettled Land; A.K.H. Weinrich, Chiefs and Councils in Rhodesia—Transition from Patriarchal to Bureaucratic Power (London, Heinemann, 1971).

  35. 35.

    (CL) (Smith Papers), S.R.C. (S) (64) 360, ‘Draft White Paper: Consultation with Tribal and Traditional Leaders: Chiefs and Headmen’, 30 November 1964, p. 15.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., p. 27.

  37. 37.

    Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates, 59, 421.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 421.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 498.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 59, 636.

  41. 41.

    See S. Ward (ed.), British Culture and the End of Empire (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2001), for the myriad ways in which these fears were expressed in Britain including through playwriting and the rise of satirical comedy.

  42. 42.

    D. Lardner-Burke, Rhodesia: The Story of the Crisis (London, Oldbourne, 1966), p. 2.

  43. 43.

    See Moodie, The Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism, for the South African example.

  44. 44.

    W. Jackson, ‘White Man’s Country: Kenya Colony and the Making of a Myth’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 5, 2 (2011), p. 347.

  45. 45.

    J. Lambert, ‘“Tell England, Ye Who Pass This Monument”: English-Speaking South Africans, Memory and War Remembrance Until the Eve of the Second World War’, South African Historical Journal, 66, 4 (2014), p. 683; J. Lonsdale, ‘Kenya—Home Country and African Frontier’, in R. Bickers (ed.), Settlers and Expatriates: Britons Over the Seas (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 94.

  46. 46.

    Stewart, Empire Lost.

  47. 47.

    R. Blake, A History of Rhodesia (London, Methuen, 1977), p. 168.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., p. 168.

  49. 49.

    Popular histories often eulogise these blood sacrifices as the birth of the nation, a notable example is Canadian historian Pierre Berton’s Vimy (Barnsley, Pen & Sword Press, 2012). For academic analysis of Delville Wood see Bill Nasson’s Springboks on the Somme: South Africa in the Great War 1914–1918 (Johannesburg, Penguin, 2007). For Gallipoli see M. Hearn, ‘Writing the Nation in Australia: Australian Historians and the Narrative Myths of Nation’, in S. Berger (ed.) Writing the Nation: A Global Perspective (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 105.

  50. 50.

    P. McLaughlin, Ragtime Soldiers: The Rhodesian Experience in the First World War (Bulawayo, Books of Zimbabwe, 1980), preface. It is notable that McLaughlin’s book remains the only dedicated treatment of Rhodesian society in the First World War. Even more remarkable, given its centrality to white nationalism and identity, is the fact that there are no dedicated studies of the ‘Rhodesian Experience’ of the Second World War at all.

  51. 51.

    Blake, A History of Rhodesia, p. 235.

  52. 52.

    C. Schofield, Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 19–22.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., p. 235.

  54. 54.

    A.S. Mlambo, White Immigration into Rhodesian: From Occupation to Federation (Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2000), p. 3.

  55. 55.

    F.R. Metrowich, Rhodesia: Birth of a Nation (Pretoria, Africa Institute, 1969), p. 141.

  56. 56.

    P. Berlyn, The Quiet Man: A Biography of the Hon. Ian Douglas Smith, I.D., Prime Minister of Rhodesia (Salisbury, M.O. Collins, 1978), pp. 53–66.

  57. 57.

    M. Francis, The Flyer: British Culture and the Royal Air Force 1939–1945 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 192.

  58. 58.

    R. Conyers Nesbit & D. Cowderoy with A. Thomas, Britain’s Rebel Air Force: The War from the Air in Rhodesia 1965–1980 (London, Grub Street, 1998), pp. 7–11.

  59. 59.

    I.E. Johnston, ‘The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and the Shaping of National Identities in the Second World War’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 43, 5 (2015), p. 918.

  60. 60.

    A.R. King, ‘Identity and Decolonisation: The Policy of Partnership in Southern Rhodesia 1945–62’ (Oxford University, DPhil Thesis, 2001), pp. 94–97.

  61. 61.

    T. Stapleton, African Police and Soldiers in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1923–1980 (Rochester, NY, University of Rochester Press, 2011), p. 8.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., p. 8.

  63. 63.

    P. McLaughlin, ‘Victims as Defenders: African Troops in the Rhodesian Defence System 1890–1980’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2, 2 (1991), pp. 247, 259.

  64. 64.

    D. Lowry, ‘Shame Upon “Little England” While “Greater England” Stands! Southern Rhodesia and the Imperial Idea’, in A. Bosco & A. May (eds.), The Round Table, The Empire/Commonwealth and British Foreign Policy (London, Lothian Foundation Press, 1997), p. 327.

  65. 65.

    Lardner-Burke, Rhodesia, p. 11.

  66. 66.

    I.D. Smith, ‘Southern Rhodesian and Its Future’, African Affairs, 63, 250 (1964), pp. 13–22.

  67. 67.

    J. Lambert, ‘“Their Finest Hour?” English-Speaking South Africans and World War II’, South African Historical Journal, 60, 1 (2008), pp. 69–72.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., p. 74.

  69. 69.

    Both of these terms were the ones Rhodesians themselves would have used.

  70. 70.

    Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates 63, 1966, iv–v.

  71. 71.

    Francis, The Flyer, p. 193.

  72. 72.

    Rhodesian Ministry of Information, Immigration and Tourism, Rhodesia’s Case for Independence (Salisbury, 1965), p. 2.

  73. 73.

    Report of the Secretary for Information, Immigration and Tourism for the Year 1965 (Salisbury, 1966), p. 10.

  74. 74.

    Anon., Rhodesia’s Finest Hour (Salisbury, 1965).

  75. 75.

    Lardner-Burke, Rhodesia, p. 65.

  76. 76.

    Lacking formal diplomatic recognition from even its closest allies—Portugal and South Africa—Rhodesia had to resort to Accredited Diplomatic Representatives, who acted as unofficial ambassadors of the illegal regime in Lisbon and Pretoria. ‘Rhodesians Ill-Rewarded, Says Gaunt’, The Rhodesia Herald, 15 November 1965, p. 1.

  77. 77.

    W.H. Roberts, ‘Rhodesia Might Become a New “Mother-Country”’, The Rhodesia Herald, 15 November 1965, p. 7.

  78. 78.

    Eleanor Laurie, ‘They Died for England’, The Rhodesia Herald, 24 November 1965, p. 9.

  79. 79.

    Mrs. J.F. Johnson, ‘Tired of Reading About Those Who Fought’, The Rhodesia Herald, 30 November 1965, p. 9.

  80. 80.

    See C. Watts ‘Killing Kith and Kin: The Viability of British Military Intervention in Rhodesia, 1964–65’, Twentieth Century British History, 16, 4 (2005), pp. 382–415; P. Murphy, ‘“An Intricate and Distasteful Subject”: British Planning for the Use of Force Against the European Settlers of Central Africa, 1952–65’, Twentieth Century British History, 141, 492 (2006), pp. 746–777 for a more detailed discussion of early British responses to UDI.

  81. 81.

    Carl Watts has questioned this interpretation, noting that the RAF was much stronger than the RRAF. Watts, ‘Killing Kith and Kin’, p. 399.

  82. 82.

    See Chapter 4.

  83. 83.

    Murphy, ‘An Intricate and Distasteful Subject’.

  84. 84.

    William J. Fanning, ‘Crushing Blow Against the Forces of Evil’, The Rhodesia Herald, 19 November 1965, p. 10.

  85. 85.

    Mrs. A. Whatling, ‘Let Us Show the World the True Meaning of Being an Englishman’, The Rhodesia Herald, 22 November 1965, p. 9.

  86. 86.

    (CL) (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda, R.C. (S) (66) 223, ‘Independence Celebrations: 11th November 1966’, 25 August 1966.

  87. 87.

    See Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, for a deconstruction of this concept.

  88. 88.

    E. Windrich, The Mass Media in the Struggle for Zimbabwe (Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1981), p. 17.

  89. 89.

    See Chapter 6.

  90. 90.

    (CL), (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda, R.C. (S) (67) 103—‘Tangible Help in the Struggle Against Communism in Vietnam’, 12 May 1967.

  91. 91.

    Ibid.

  92. 92.

    K. Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right: Global Anticommunism and Paramilitary Warfare (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2018), p. 107.

  93. 93.

    Ranger was deported from the country in 1964. T. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia: A Study in African Resistance (London, Heinemann, 1967). Ranger’s own later work would explore the legacies of this sort of history-writing, particularly through ZANU PF’s ‘patriotic history’, see T. Ranger, ‘Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: The Struggle Over the Past in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 30, 4 (2004), pp. 215–234.

  94. 94.

    See R. Charumbira, Imagining a Nation: History and Memory in the Making of Zimbabwe (Charlottesville & London, University of Virginia Press, 2015) for a nuanced exploration of black historical traditions in the colonial period.

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    David Kenrick

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Kenrick, D. (2019). Blood and Referendums: Nationalist History and the Case for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. In: Decolonisation, Identity and Nation in Rhodesia, 1964-1979. Britain and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32698-2_3

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