RHODESIAN BUSH WAR (1965 – 1979) THE LIBERATION WAR

The Unilaterally Declared of Independence creating a Country of Rhodesia’s (1965 – 1979) white minority under the leadership of Ian Smith refused to make significant changes to the constitution to advance universal suffrage (White’s had 95% of the voting power in 1961). He was hesitant to make concessions to internal pressures for constitutional, political rights which was sorely needed. Universal suffrage would have massive political repercussions for the white Europeans since a majority of the population was African black, disadvantaged, exploited, and psychologically subordinated. Ian Smith felt that their European civilization and culture (economic, infrastructure, political, legal, religious) would be destroyed without administrative control by a competent white government. In characteristic rhetoric, Ian Smith wanted blacks and whites to work together but desired white control for at least “1,000 years”. Whites widely held that Blacks were not capable in the short to medium term to build a prosperous country without paternal support. Smith’s justification for opposing African majority rule was that blacks were not capable of self-rule. Blacks were opposed to socioeconomic backwardness, which the whites actively perpetuated through economic exploitation, through racially motivated institutional discrimination: denying education, opportunities for advancement, protection of white interests (or the White Nation of Rhodesia). On either side then, justifications for positions are cloaked in ideology (Communist, Capitalist, Social Democratic, Christian) that suits their ultimate objectives. The austerity and violence in Rhodesia is a product of the insecurity of white settlers who had lived their entire lives in Rhodesia.