White Rhodesian Society ca.1950s–1980s

Kenrick, David

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-32698-2_2

White Rhodesian Society ca.1950s–1980s

David Kenrick⁵

Chapter
First Online: 03 November 2019

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Part of the book series: Britain and the World ((BAW))

Abstract

Kenrick provides an historical overview of white Rhodesian society from initial colonisation in the late nineteenth century to Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 and beyond, to Zimbabwean independence in 1980. The chapter focuses on major demographic changes that took place in Rhodesian society following the Second World War and how immigration policy reflected the priorities of the settler administration. It also considers the political economy of Rhodesia, outlining the essential context in which attempts to build a nation and a white Rhodesian identity unfolded in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Notes

1.
B. Ogot, ‘Mau Mau & Nationhood: The Untold Story’, in E.S. Atieno Odhiambo & J. Lonsdale (eds.), Mau Mau and Nationhood: Arms, Authority & Narration (Oxford, Nairobi & Athens, OH, James Currey, 2003), pp. 8–36; C. Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (London, Penguin, 2013); I. Kabongo. ‘The Catastrophe of Belgian Decolonization’, in P. Gifford & Wm Roger Louis (eds.), Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power, 1960–1980 (New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 381–400.
2.
L. Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia: White Power in an African State (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 13.
3.
Ibid.
4.
Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia, p. 13; D. Lowry, ‘Rhodesia, 1890–1980 “The Lost Dominion”’, in R. Bickers (ed.), Settlers and Expatriates: Britons Overseas (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 122.
5.
P. Godwin & I. Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia 1970–1980 (Northlands SA, Pan Macmillan South Africa, 2007), p. 28.
6.
Rhodesia Central Statistical Office, 1969 Population Census (Interim Report) Volume I: The European, Asian and Coloured Population (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1971). These places are now known as Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Gweru, Kwekwe, Masvingo and Marondera, respectively.
7.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, p. 145.
8.
Figures from Mlambo, White Immigration, p. 5. Table 5: Net Balance of Migration of Europeans, 1921–1964. It is possible that these figures are taken from Federal statistics, which would also include immigration to and from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Nevertheless, the bulk of European immigrants went to Southern rather than Northern Rhodesia, where the settler population was small, or Nyasaland, where it was almost non-existent.
9.
J. Brownell, The Collapse of Rhodesia: Population Demographics and the Politics of Race (London, I.B. Tauris, 2011); Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die.
10.
A.S. Mlambo, White Immigration into Rhodesia; From Occupation to Federation (Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2000); Brownell, The Collapse of Rhodesia, p. 1.
11.
See, for example, J. Brownell, ‘Out of Time: Global Settlerism, Nostalgia, and the Selling of the Rhodesian Rebellion Overseas’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 4 (2017), pp. 805–824.
12.
B.M. Schutz, ‘European Population Patterns, Cultural Persistence, and Political Change in Rhodesia’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7, 1 (1973), p. 20.
13.
Mlambo, White Immigration, p. 40.
14.
B. Tavuyanago, T. Muguti, & J. Hlongwana, ‘Victims of the Rhodesian Immigration Policy: Polish Refugees from the Second World War’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 38, 4 (2012), p. 953.
15.
Mlambo, White Immigration, pp. 70–71.
16.
A.K. Shutt, Manners Make a Nation: Racial Etiquette in Southern Rhodesia, 1910–1963 (Rochester, NY, Rochester University Press, 2015).
17.
J. Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World System (Oxford, 2012), p. 403.
18.
Komittee Zuidelijk Afrika et al., White Migration to Southern Africa (Geneva, 1975).
19.
Ibid., pp. 69, 93, 226.
20.
Ibid., p. 127.
21.
International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (hereafter IDAF), Southern Africa: Immigration from Britain—A Fact Paper by the International Defence and Aid Fund (London, The Fund, 1975); 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. 328.
22.
This has led to commentators such as Donal Lowry and Barry Schutz describing Rhodesian settler society as an English-speaking South African derived, rather than a British derived, settler society. B.M. Schutz & D. Scott, Natives and Settlers: A Comparative Analysis of the Politics of Opposition and Mobilization in Northern Ireland and Rhodesia (Denver, Social Science Foundation, 1975); D. Lowry to author, personal communication. For demographic data on Britain as the main source of migrants see IDAF, Southern Africa: Immigration from Britain, p. 17.
23.
Shutt, Manners Maketh a Nation.
24.
F. Clements, Rhodesia; The Course to Collision (London, Pall Mall Press, 1969), pp. 84–93.
25.
Ibid, p. 20.
26.
D. Lessing, The Grass Is Singing (London, Flamingo, 1994), p. 17; idem, Going Home (London, 1968).
27.
Quote from A.R. King, ‘Identity and Decolonisation: The Policy of Partnership in Southern Rhodesia, 1945–62’ (Oxford University, D.Phil Thesis, 2001), p. 97.
28.
See D. Kennedy, Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1939 (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1987) for an exploration of these tensions in Rhodesia’s early colonial society.
29.
Shutt, Manners Make a Nation, p. 81.
30.
J. McCulloch, Black Peril, White Virtue: Sexual Crime in Southern Rhodesia, 1902–1935 (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2000).
31.
P. McEwan, ‘European Assimilation in a Non-European Context’, International Magazine, 2, 2 (1964), p. 125.
32.
E. Msindo, ‘“Winning Hearts and Minds”: Crisis and Propaganda in Colonial Zimbabwe 1962–1970’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 3 (2009), p. 667.
33.
B. Schutz, ‘Homeward Bound? A Survey Study of the Limits of White Rhodesian Nationalism and Permanence’, Ufahamnu, 5, 3 (1973), p. 86; P. Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781–1997 (London, Vintage, 2008), pp. 589–598.
34.
McEwan, ‘European Assimilation’, p. 121.
35.
Lowry, ‘Shame on Little England’, p. 328.
36.
J. Francis, ‘The Formation and Nature of Identity in Rhodesian Settler Society from Colonisation to UDI’ (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Ph.D. Thesis, 2012), pp. 99–153.
37.
J. Brownell, ‘The Hole in Rhodesia’s Bucket: White Emigration and the End of Settler Rule’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 34, 3 (2008), pp. 591–610.
38.
Data from 1961 Census, pp. 10–11 and 1969 Population Census, p. 19.
39.
McEwan, ‘European Assimilation’, p. 110.
40.
S. Jacobs, ‘Gender Divisions and the Formation of Ethnicities in Zimbabwe’, in D. Stasiulis & N. Yuval Davis (eds.), Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class (London, 1995), p. 252; Clements, Rhodesia, p. 73.
41.
C.J. Lee, Unreasonable Histories: Nativism, Multiracial Lives, and the Genealogical Imagination in British Africa (Durham & London, 2014), p. 205.
42.
R. Hodder-Williams, White Farmers in Rhodesia 1890–1965; A History of the Marandellas District (London, 1983); A. Letcher, ‘“You Expected Racialism and You Found It?” A Case Study of the Enkeldoorn and Schools Commission of Enquiry and Its Framing of Juvenile Delinquency, 1944–1945’ (Oxford University, MSc Thesis, 2014). These places are now known as Marondera and Chivhu, respectively.
43.
In his book on South African special forces operations in the ‘Border War’, Peter Stiff suggests that memories of 1923 also conditioned the attitude of top Nationalist politicians towards Rhodesians—claiming that they had never forgiven the Rhodesians for voting against joining the Union in 1922. P. Stiff, The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969–1994 (Alberton, SA, Galago, 1999), p. 258.
44.
In contrast, John Lambert has suggested that the Second World War represented a high point of ‘South Africanism’ for English-speaking South Africans, who contributed significantly to the war in spite of strident Afrikaner opposition. See J. Lambert, ‘Their Finest Hour? English-speaking South Africans and World War II’, South African Historical Journal, 60, 1 (2008), pp. 60–84.
45.
See this chapter.
46.
J. Pape, ‘Black and White: The “Perils of Sex” in Colonial Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 16, 4 (1990), p. 701.
47.
Rhodesian Scene, 1968, pp. 9–11.
48.
C. Hall, ‘Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century’, in P. Levine (ed.), Gender and Empire (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 70; K. Law, Gendering the Settler State, p. 35; S. Jacobs, ‘Gender Divisions and the Formation of Ethnicities in Zimbabwe’, in D. Stasiulis & N. Yuval-Davies (eds.), Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class (London, Sage, 1995), p. 249.
49.
Rhodesia Central Statistical Office, 1961 Census of the European, Asian and Coloured Population (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1962), p. 36.
50.
Law, Gendering the Settler State, p. 56.
51.
Lessing, The Grass Is Singing; McCulloch, Black Peril, White Virtue; J. Pape, ‘Black and White’, pp. 699–720.
52.
Law, Gendering the Settler State, p. 110.
53.
Rhodesian Commentary, 3, 1, 13 January 1969, p. 6.
54.
Cory Library, Rhodes University, Grahamstown (hereafter CL) (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda, RC(S) (67), 70, ‘Immigration Policy’, 5 April 1967.
55.
Ibid.
56.
(CL) (Smith Papers). Cabinet Minutes, RC(S) (71) Thirty-First Meeting, 24 August 1971.
57.
(CL) (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda, RC(S) (71) 24, ‘Miscegenation and Allied Problems’, 12 February 1971.
58.
Jeanne Marie Pevenne, ‘Settling Against the Tide: The Layered Contradictions of Twentieth Century Portuguese Settlement in Mozambique’, in C. Elkins & S. Pedersen (eds.), Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century (New York & Abingdon, Routledge, 2005), pp. 79–94.
59.
Ibid., p. 85.
60.
RC(S) (71), Thirty-First Meeting.
61.
(CL) (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda, RC (S) (71) 118, ‘Miscegenation, Prostitution and Allied Problems’, 15 August 1971.
62.
P. Duara, ‘Between Empire and Nation: Settler Colonialism in Manchukuo’, in C. Elkins & S. Pedersen (eds.), Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century (New York & Abingdon, Routledge, 2005), p. 71.
63.
RC(S) (71), Thirty-First Meeting. Despite what the Rhodesians thought Jean Marie Pevenne has demonstrated that this policy, also known as Lustotropicalism, was in fact warily received in metropolitan Portugal and its colonial possessions outside Brazil. Pevenne, ‘Settling Against the Tide’, pp. 88–91.
64.
RC(S) (71), Thirty-First Meeting.
65.
G. Arrighi, The Political Economy of Rhodesia (The Hague, Mouton, 1967), p. 34. This racialised approach to labour rights was common across South Africa, see J. Hyslop, ‘The British and Australian Leaders of the South African Labour Movement, 1902–1914’, in K. Darian-Smith, P. Grimshaw & S. Macintyre (eds.), Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2007), pp. 90–108. In contrast, African organised labour allowed for the development of a proto-nationalism seen in actions such as the 1945 railway workers strike and the revival of the Rhodesian Industrial and Commercial Union by Charles Mzingele in 1946. For more on African organised labour, see B. Raftopolous & I. Phimister, Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe 1900–97 (Harare, Baobab Books, 1997).
66.
(CL) (Smith Papers), RC(S) (75), Thirty-Sixth Meeting, 2 September 1975.
67.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, p. 149.
68.
Ibid.
69.
L. White, ‘Civic Virtue, Young Men, and the Family: Conscription in Rhodesia, 1974–1980’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 37, 4 (2004), pp. 103–121.
70.
Ibid., p. 105.
71.
D. Pitman, You Must Be New Around Here (Bulawayo, Books of Rhodesia 1979), p. 38; C. Mears, Goodbye Rhodesia (Sussex, Antony Rowe Publishing Services, 2005), p. 222.
72.
J. Barber, Rhodesia: The Road to Rebellion (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 305.
73.
Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia.
74.
C. Leys, European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1959); G. Arrighi, The Political Economy of Rhodesia (The Hague, Mouton, 1967); R. Hodder-Williams, ‘Party Allegiance Among Europeans in Rural Rhodesia: A Research Note’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 1 (1971), p. 135.
75.
As illustrated by Ian Henderson and Donal Lowry, who both noted that the RF appealed to a long-standing tradition of ‘populism’ in Rhodesian politics, especially among farmers. I. Henderson, ‘White Populism in Southern Rhodesia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14, 4 (1972), pp. 387–399; D. Lowry, ‘“White Woman’s Country”: Ethel Tawsie Jollie and the Making of White Rhodesia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23, 2 (1997), pp. 259–281.
76.
A. Lemon, ‘Electoral Machinery and Voting Patterns in Rhodesia, 1962–1977’, African Affairs, 77, 309 (1978), p. 513.
77.
For a detailed exploration of Rhodesia’s implicitly racialised franchises, see White, Unpopular Sovereignty; Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia; Lemon, ‘Electoral Machinery’, pp. 511–530.
78.
White, Unpopular Sovereignty, pp. 159–164.
79.
T. Bull (ed.), Rhodesian Perspective (London, Michael Joseph, 1967), p. 13.
80.
These struggles are demonstrated in some detail in D.J. Murray, The Governmental System in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970).
81.
Ibid.
82.
The author thanks Duncan Money for making him aware of this point.
83.
A.S. Mlambo, ‘From the Second World War to UDI, 1940–1965’, in B. Raftopoulos & A. Mlambo (eds.), Becoming Zimbabwe (Harare, Weaver Press, 2009), p. 77.
84.
Leys, European Politics, pp. 272–273.
85.
A. Cohen ‘Settler power, African Nationalism, and British Interests in the Central African Federation 1957–1963’ (University of Sheffield, Ph.D. Thesis, 2008), p. 284.
86.
Winston Field Papers, Rhodes House Library, Oxford University, Box 13, Dominion Party Summary of Policy August 1958 (place of publication unknown, 1958), MSS Afr.s.2344.
87.
For a first-hand account of Todd’s fall, see H. Holderness, Lost Chance: Southern Rhodesia 1945–1958 (Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1985).
88.
King, ‘Identity and Decolonisation’, p. 221; J. Fraenkel, ‘“Equality of Rights for Every Civilised Man South of the Zambezi”: Electoral Engineering in Southern Rhodesia, 1957–65’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 6 (2015), pp. 1167–1180.
89.
Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, Cmnd. 814 (London, HMSO, 1959), pp. 4, 126.
90.
Ibid., p. 2. The full quote reads: ‘Nyasaland is—no doubt only temporarily—a police state where it is not safe for anyone to express approval of the policies of the Congress party, to which before 3rd March, 1959 the vast majority of politically-minded Africans belonged, and where it is unwise to express any but the most restrained criticism of government policy…’.
91.
J. Darwin, ‘The Central African Emergency, 1959’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21, 3 (1993), p. 219.
92.
See J. Alexander, The Unsettled Land: State Making and the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe 1893–2003 (Oxford, James Currey, 2006) for an account of African resistance to the NLHA and its consequences for Rhodesian policy.
93.
The activities and aims of the ‘Build-a-Nation’ campaign are well documented in Whitehead’s Papers at Rhodes House Library, Oxford. See in particular Box 1, File P2/A.14 ‘United Federal Party “Build a Nation” Tour January 1962 (General & Follow-Up Enquiries) (27th January, 1962 onwards), MSS Afr.s.1482/1 and File P2/A3—United Federal Party “Build a Nation Campaign” Press Cuttings (General), MSS Afr.s.1482/1.
94.
Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia, p. 68.
95.
These arrangements are explored in more detail in Chapter 7.
96.
Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia; Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, p. 59.
97.
T. Kirk & C. Sherwell, ‘The Rhodesian General Election of 1974’, The Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 13, 1 (1975), p. 17.
98.
Ibid., p. 17.
99.
(CL) (Smith Papers), Cabinet Memoranda, RC(S) (78) 19, ‘Citizenship of Rhodesia Act (Chapter 23): Renunciation of Rhodesian Citizenship’, 17 March 1978.
100.
Ibid.
101.
Bowman, Politics in Rhodesia, pp. 98–99.
102.
Ibid., pp. 100–103.
103.
Lemon, ‘Electoral Machinery’, p. 520.
104.
A. Selby, ‘Differentiating Commercial Farmers: Land Reform in Zimbabwe’ (Oxford University, MPhil Thesis, 2002); R. Pilossof, The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Farmers Voices’ from Zimbabwe (Harare, 2012), p. 24.
105.
C. Legum in ‘Rhodesian UDI’, seminar held 6 September 2000 (Institute of Contemporary British History, 2002), p. 69.
106.
P.A. Hardwick, Aspects of Recreation Amongst Salisbury’s Non-African Population (Salisbury, University of Rhodesia, 1978), p. 18.
107.
Barber, Rhodesia, p. 162.
108.
See Parker’s account of this in J. Parker, Rhodesia: Little White Island (London, 1972).
109.
Lemon, ‘Electoral Machinery’, p. 526.
110.
I. Hancock, White Liberals, Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia 1953–1980 (London & Sydney, 1984). Law, Gendering the Settler State.
111.
Lemon, ‘Electoral Machinery’, p. 526.
112.
The Centre Party, Blueprint for Rhodesia (Salisbury, 1969), p. 2, 4.
113.
Clements, Rhodesia, p. 206.
114.
Msindo, ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’, pp. 677–681. For the accounts Msindo criticises, see E. Windrich, The Mass Media in the Struggle for Zimbabwe (Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1981); J. Frederikse, None But Ourselves: Masses Versus the Media in the Making of Zimbabwe (Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1982).
115.
Rhodesia Party, “If You’re Planning to Stay”: A Guide to Some of the Important Principles and Policies of the Rhodesia Party and a Contrast with RF Attitudes (Salisbury, Rhodesia Party, 1974).
116.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, pp. 53–84.
117.
Ibid., p. 59.
118.
Ibid., pp. 60–61.
119.
Ibid.
120.
Ibid., pp. 193–198.
121.
Godwin & Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, p. 204; Lemon, ‘Electoral Machinery’, p. 529. The RAP contested forty-six of the fifty white seats, winning 9.7% of the vote.
122.
H. Ellert, ‘The Rhodesian Security and Intelligence Community 1960–1980: A Brief Overview of the Structure and Operational Role of the Military, Civilian, and Police Security and Intelligence Organizations Which Served the Rhodesian Government During the Zimbabwean Liberation War’, in N. Bhebe & T. Ranger (eds.), Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (London, James Currey, 1991), p. 91.
123.
‘A Political Analyst’, The Rhodesian Patriot, 4 (November 1977), p. 7. Italics in original.
124.
Henderson, ‘White Populism’, p. 389.

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Kenrick, D. (2019). White Rhodesian Society ca.1950s–1980s. 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_2

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Published: 03 November 2019
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