White Rhodesia Research Articles

‘A Strange World of Fantasy’: The Radio Propaganda of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation, 1964–1970. 1

This article uses transcripts of Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation radio programmes to investigate the development of political attitudes in Rhodesia during the UDI era. In order to do this it engages with a number of key themes relating to both the international position of the rebel colony and the domestic situation. It argues that Rhodesian radio played an important role in developing the key myths of the UDI era, providing (white) listeners with comforting narratives which downplayed the crisis in which they found themselves. It shows that there were several central tenets to this. The first argument was that key Western powers, namely Britain and the USA were led by naive fools who, unlike the Rhodesians, had little understanding of Africa, and lacked the conviction to challenge communism. The second was that, as part of this, Rhodesia was being victimised. This led onto the third key theme: That the Rhodesians, supported by the public in Britain and America, were taking up the mantle that Western politicians had discarded. By reconstructing these ideas this article is able to show the diet of political thought that white Rhodesians were imbibing during this period, a process which enhanced their motivation and sense of identity.

LEGACY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN EUROPEAN AND INDIGENOUS AFRICAN LEGAL CONSTRUCTS OF LAND TENURE IN CONTEMPORARY ZIMBABWE

The study focuses on the undeniable significance of the European legal traditions, brought to former Southern Rhodesia/Rhodesia by European settlers, for the legal status of land tenure in the country, the legacy of which traditions still deeply impacts the situation in present-day Zimbabwe. There are two main aspects of this influence: the aftermath of imposed land division and the prevalence of Western legal traditions in contemporary law. Numerous laws enacted unilaterally by white Rhodesians, most notably the 1930 Land Apportionment Act and the 1951 Native Land Husbandry Act, impacted the land tenure in the region. The indigenous African population was undoubtedly discriminated against by these legal actions: numerous acres of the land were taken by European conquerors and those left were of much lesser value in terms of farming and pasture. After the end of minority rule in Rhodesia in 1980, when Robert Mugabe rose to power, new land policies were imposed and numerous land allocations were awarded to the supporters of his regime in the name of removing racial injustices. The consequence was disastrous: the policy led to the demise of once world-famous agriculture and Zimbabwe became ceaselessly endangered by famine. Furthermore, laws concerning the land tenure and husbandry were (and still are) based on European legal constructs, alien to the native population of Zimbabwe. Indigenous traditions were subsequently ousted by the European law and are significantly absent in Zimbabwe today. Nowadays, after the fall of Mugabe in 2017, the country finds itself in the defining point of its history. The question persists: Can Zimbabweans derive useful values from their past in order to shape a new land policy in their homeland that would be just for all its citizenry?

From Federation to ‘White Redoubt’: Africa and the Global Radical-Right in the Geographical Imagination of UDI-Era Rhodesian Propaganda, 1962–1970

ABSTRACT This article argues that, in the wake of decolonisation across most of Sub-Saharan Africa, white Rhodesia's rulers shifted their political allegiances to a new Southern African bloc, allied to right-radical actors across the Cold War world. It examines the discourses emanating from Rhodesia's Department of Information, identifying the new mental map of affinity and identity that was forged throughout the 1960s. After briefly explaining information policy under the Central African Federation, it illustrates how an influx of radical right-wing actors, embedded in transnational white supremacist networks, used the Department to transform the rebel colony's global orientation. Taking control of the formerly independent media, the Rhodesian Front embarked on a project to remould white political culture in the years surrounding UDI in 1965. In the discourses they produced, Rhodesia's geographical identification with a British-controlled Central Africa was replaced with the avowedly white-supremacist Southern Africa. This study is at the heart of important innovations in the transformative study of Africa's Cold War and late-colonial ideology. It hopes to facilitate the growing, transnational study of settler resistance in Southern Africa, the counter-revolution against the wave of decolonisation that broke on the Zambezi in the mid-1960s.

‘Bogey Bogey Stuff’: Gold Coastism, federation, and white backlash in Southern Rhodesia, 1951-56

ABSTRACT This article explores the apprehension white Rhodesians evinced towards the transformation of the Commonwealth and initial signs of African decolonisation, especially in colonial Ghana. Whites informally dubbed these undesired changes ‘Gold Coastism’. Rhodesia’s ruling party weaponised these fears and argued that a Central African Federation would preserve British influence and forestall African nationalism on Southern Rhodesia’s borders. As it became clear this Federation would not significantly obstruct black African political activity, white fears of Gold Coastism accelerated. This resulted in a concerted push for independence and anti-British sentiment in Southern Rhodesia earlier than existing scholarship generally acknowledges.

Robert Mugabe, Sue Onslow and Martin Plaut

Reviewed by: Robert Mugabe by Sue Onslow and Martin Plaut Brooks Marmon BOOK REVIEW of Onslow, Sue, and Martin Plaut. 2018. Robert Mugabe. Athens: Ohio University Press. 208 pp. $14.95 (paper). In Robert Mugabe, Sue Onslow and Martin Plaut deliver a timely work, encapsulating the former Zimbabwean leader's thirty-seven years in power alongside his contributions to the country's liberation struggle. The authors occasionally downplay his eminence, but they are aware that his lengthy career was epochal. Their introduction observes that, because of his "extraordinary longevity in office, . . . [his] personal history is woven through that of his country" (18). Accordingly, this slim, nine-chapter publication, part of the Ohio Short Histories of Africa series, is more than a Mugabe biography, as it traces the unfolding of key political events in Zimbabwe. Beyond Mugabe, the primary actor in this account is the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Given Mugabe's durability and prominence, this accessible work will be appreciated by students and generalist scholars of Africa alike; however, those looking for a deeper dive into Zimbabwean politics may desire a companion "Long History." Onslow and Plaut are reluctant to typecast Mugabe, one of Africa's most divisive figures. Their views of Mugabe are overwhelmingly critical, but they praise his political cunning and acknowledge the "real achievements" of his early years in office (1). They further stress that "Zimbabwe's fortunes since independence cannot be distilled down to the attitude and actions of just one man" (13–14). The contemporary aspects of Robert Mugabe offer incisive insights, but the historical components are more uneven. A nonagenarian when he was deposed in 2017, Mugabe had played a prominent role in ZANU-PF since cofounding it in 1963. The emphasis (and strength) of the work centers around his leadership of Zimbabwe from the late 1990s, when his policies [End Page 114] became the subject of international controversy and, for many African intellectuals, a litmus test for the authenticity of radical pan-African thought. Compact explorations of Mugabe's evolving relationship with South Africa and China offer insights on the strategies and dynamics that enabled his long reign. Those who have highlighted positive aspects of land reform, the signature aspect of Mugabe's radical agenda, are largely portrayed as overreaching (106). The authors identify Mugabe's decision to intervene in the Second Congo War as a critical turning point, which facilitated corruption and massively strained the public purse. It is in the telling of the developments following this intervention, when Mugabe's generally positive relationship with the West soured, where the book gathers strength. The exploration of Mugabe's leadership in the period before the 1987 Unity Accord and during the de facto consolidation of a one-party state over the following decade is less developed. In the light of Zimbabwe's political polarization, the brief discussion of the Gukurahundi atrocities of the 1980s, which according to the authors resulted in at least 20,000 deaths (81), is, even for a short history, conspicuous. The treatment of the 1979 Lancaster House Conference, which guided the transformation to genuine majority rule, constitutes the richest pre-independence component of the book, undoubtedly a product of Onslow's detailed research on this critical diplomatic event. Close followers of Zimbabwean history will also appreciate the authors' decisive (albeit contested) claim that Rhodesian security forces killed ZANU leader Herbert Chitepo (53), while Mugabe is fingered as being "most likely" responsible for the death of ZANU military leader Josiah Tongogara (166). The authors succinctly highlight an array of domestic actors shaping Zimbabwean politics following the resurgence of the opposition from 1999. This is perhaps a reflection of their source material; the narrative relies heavily on published works. In the later chapters, Onslow and Plaut profitably draw on online media accounts and technical reports, which diversify the heavy dose of academic tomes and memoirs that inform earlier chapters. A byproduct of limited archival research is a muted consideration of the local forces at play during Mugabe's years of struggle. British diplomacy receives as much attention as the white Rhodesian interests that Mugabe was struggling against. Aside from Prime Minister Ian Smith, the archetypal Rhodesian...

Left Behind: White Rhodesian Women and War in Nancy Partridge’s To Breathe and Wait

The article invites conversation on white Rhodesian women’s experiences of war. White female voices have been conspicuous by their absence from the war discourse and a paucity of fictional narratives entirely dedicated to this experience exists. For these reasons, discourse on the war is predominantly about white men and black people in general. While mainstream accounts of the war gloss over white women’s experiences and cast them as “left behind” from the war, so much was going on in these spaces. Fleeting references to white female experiences do not demonstrate what it meant for most white women to be “left behind” during the war. The article examines Nancy Partridge’s To Breathe and Wait’s depiction of a white woman whose experience of war consists of illness, stories from external sources and intersubjective relations forged with family and women across the racial divide.

Settler Soul-Searching and Sovereign Independence: The Monarchy in Rhodesia, 1965–1970

In the aftermath of Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965, Queen Elizabeth II became a contested icon in a struggle to define Rhodesian nationhood and identity. After UDI, rebel Rhodesians were forced to reconcile an act of treason against the Crown with a monarchism that permeated white settler society. This article moves beyond existing studies that focus upon the Queen as a diplomatic bargaining chip in the negotiations between the British and Rhodesian governments to consider her symbolic position within white settler society in the years after UDI. It argues that debates about the Monarchy were an important aspect of white Rhodesian attempts to define themselves and their nation in a decolonising world. The article also shows how the Rhodesian Front’s changing position on the Monarchy reveals its nationalist project to be essentially reactionary in character, and how the shift over time from settler colonial discourses of ‘loyal rebellion’ to discourses of independent nationhood demonstrates the wider comparative potential of the Rhodesian case study resulting from its peculiar post-UDI position between settler and non-settler colonies.

Allison K. Shutt. Manners Make a Nation: Racial Etiquette in Southern Rhodesia, 1910–1963.

Bridging the gap between the history of respectability politics and the growing field of the history of emotions, Allison K. Shutt’s Manners Make a Nation: Racial Etiquette in Southern Rhodesia, 1910–1963 carves out a new path. She mined colonial archives, personal correspondences, and newspaper articles to identify key moments when government officials, settlers, African elites, and nationalists in Southern Rhodesia employed the concept of what Shutt calls “racial etiquette” to negotiate the terms of colonialism between 1910 and 1963. While racial etiquette more often than not implied the racist, paternalist, and masculinist ethos of white settler society, Shutt reveals the ever-expanding cracks in its façade. The book consists of six main chapters and an introduction. Chapter 1 provides the historical framework for legal debates over “insolence” and establishes the book’s central narrative: that prevailing ideas about racial etiquette shifted with the rise of nationalism after World War II. In chapter 2, Shutt closely analyzes two cases of minor disputes over manners from the 1930s: one that arose when a government official knocked the hat off an African urban elite man, the other when the wife of an officer interfered with the work of a junior official to cull African-owned cattle herds. The two cases provide a rich and nuanced glimpse into colonial society and the role of hats, gestures, glances, and interpersonal space in shaping racial etiquette. This chapter vividly illustrates that racial etiquette in Southern Rhodesia was a “work in progress” involving arbitrations over race, gender, class, and dignity. Chapter 3 offers a unique look at the tensions that arose when older white settlers sought to induct “newcomers” into local rules of racial etiquette, sometimes unsuccessfully. This chapter offers a brief but important look at cleavages in Southern Rhodesia’s white society during the 1940s and 1950s. Debates about racial etiquette moved into a more public and political space during the 1950s, the focus of chapters 4 and 5. Here, Shutt argues that the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953 sparked new debates in which African nationalists demanded more respect from whites. Ultimately, Africans and their allies launched a formal “courtesy campaign” during the early 1960s that highlighted the tensions around desegregation of public places. Shutt’s discussion of conflicts over integration at municipal swimming pools in chapter 5 is particularly rich in identifying the racialized and sexualized undertones of white fears about desegregation. Chapter 6, which serves as a sort of epilogue in lieu of a conclusion, briefly addresses the impact of these debates about manners in the early 1960s prior to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) by the white Rhodesian government in 1965.

Free and Fair? Rhodesians Reflect on the Elections of 1979 and 1980

ABSTRACTThe elections of April 1979 and February 1980 were the first in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe's history to permit universal adult suffrage, allowing for black majority rule. In the first election, Bishop Abel Muzorewa's United African National Council (UANC) won an overwhelming victory, while in the second, British-supervised election, Muzorewa's party was soundly defeated and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) won over 60% of the vote. By interviewing present and former white Rhodesians, located via Facebook and the print magazine Rhodesians Worldwide, who were witnesses to these two critical elections, this study aims to shed light on which of them was more representative of the will of the people of Zimbabwe, at least in the eyes of the country's white minority.

War and Migration in the White African Tropics: Lauren St John’s Rainbow’s End

This paper explores voyage and migration in tropical Africa through Lauren St John’s Rainbow’s End, a memoir contributing to debates of white African identity that now include more contemporary renditions of identity in female self-reflective accounts differing markedly from masculine perspectives. In her coming-of-age memoir, St John chronicles her experiences of a privileged 1970s white Rhodesian society at war, and her gradual awareness of racial inequalities that transformed her into a white Zimbabwean. For her parents, voyage and migration take different paths. Her father migrated (with his family) to fight for a white Rhodesia, driven by masculine concerns. In contrast, St John’s mother was an avid traveller who journeyed from the mundane world of tropical farm life to exotic locations in Europe and beyond, escaping both her deteriorating marriage and the dull world of the club, small town gossip and a narrow minded semi-colonial rural environment. St John’s account of white settler identity and racial difference gives us insights into a day in the African tropics, and furthermore speaks to those in other settler countries such as Australia who are debating colonial history and identity, and who are often uncomfortable with aspects of their own settler past.

The Simultaneity of Past and Present in Ian Douglas Smith's The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith (1997)

ABSTRACTThis article proposes a reading of white Zimbabwean narratives that takes cognisance of how the Rhodesian past and the Zimbabwean present inhabit shared time and place. This reading suggests that white Zimbabwean narratives are characterised by simultaneity. In these texts it can be seen that the (Rhodesian) past and the (Zimbabwean) present appear incommensurate but nevertheless coeval. Using Ian Smith's The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith (hereafter referred to as The Great Betrayal), I argue that in Zimbabwe, like in other former colonies, the colonial past exists alongside the post-colonial present despite persistent calls by the new post-colonial governments for former colonisers to forget. In Smith's The Great Betrayal, the past inhabits the present in three forms: as an endurance of the founding principles of British Empire; as an indictment of the Zimbabwean present; and as a strategic emplacement of white Rhodesians within a new Zimbabwe.

The Strange Death of ‘Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’: The Question of British Recognition of the Muzorewa Regime in Rhodesian Public Opinion, 1979

In April/May 1979, following an “internal settlement” in Rhodesia, elections were held for a Parliament with an African majority. On June 1st, Bishop Abel Muzorewa took office as Prime Minister of ‘Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.’ Having conceded power to an African majority government, white Rhodesians expected Britain to recognize the Muzorewa regime and end crippling sanctions. However, contrary to her election promises, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withheld recognition and maneuvered the Muzorewa government into accepting new elections inclusive of Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, who led the ‘Patriotic Front,’ against which Rhodesian security forces had been fighting for years. Thatcher's refusal to recognize the Muzorewa government ultimately allowed Mugabe to take power, an outcome highly unsatisfactory to most whites. My paper will examine primary source evidence, especially newspapers and Parliamentary records, to gauge white Rhodesian opinion from April to August 1979, when the question of British recognition hung in the balance. In particular, I will ask: How did white Rhodesians perceive their circumstances in this intriguing period? How likely did they believe recognition and an end to sanctions really were? And, lastly, how did they react when the deliverance they had hoped for, courtesy of Mrs. Thatcher, failed to arrive?

‘Unhappily, we are afraid of it’: modernism as deracination on the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean stage

Culturally, white theatre in what was known as Rhodesia replicated the bourgeois theatre of London's West End. The many theatre companies that mushroomed at various forts, towns and cities churned out farces, comedies, musicals and pantomimes. Occasionally (white) Rhodesians appropriated Greek plays and Shakespeare as well as other Western genres. Rhodesians seem to have become fossilised in this tradition, which played out the values and tastes of the metropolitan bourgeois class. Modernist theatre, however, encountered a conservative spectatorship unwilling to embrace it in colonial Zimbabwe. Defenders of the Rhodesian way of life saw themselves as the last bastion preserving the values which other Western societies had forsaken or neglected. Rhodesians associated modernist plays with the atheism and permissiveness of Europe. This kind of conservatism was carried over into Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 and modernist playwrights like Dambudzo Marechera were ostracised for what was perceived as writing against the grain.

Liberal Women in Rhodesia: A Report on the Mitchell Papers, University of Cape Town

The Mitchell collection at the Manuscripts and Archives Department of The University of Cape Town (UCT) consists of the papers of Diana Mary Mitchell, a leading white Rhodesian liberal in the 1960s and 1970s as well as private papers of some other politically active Rhodesians, such as Morris Hirsch, Pat Bashford and Allan Savory. This report presents the Mitchell collection as an instrument to investigate issues of agency by liberal White Rhodesian women in the period 1950-1980, thus aiming to counter some dominant trends in the historiography of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.Diana Mitchell was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1932. Her father was a merchant marine officer and her mother was originally from Australia. She attended Eveline High School in Bulawayo and with financial help from her mother she completed a BA in History at Cape Town University in 1953. Before entering formal party politics, Mitchell ran a “backyard school” which provided schooling for African children who otherwise would have had no access to education. After the announcement of the illegal Declaration of Independence (UDI), in 1965 the Rhodesian Front (RF) closed such schools and Mitchell charges this move as being “the key to my activism.” While Mitchell acknowledges that she “worked voluntarily because I could afford to, my husband was the breadwinner […] so I could afford to be this so called ‘liberal’ because of my standard of living,” she became heavily involved in parliamentary politics and was one of the founding members of the Centre Party (CP).

How did Europe Rule Africa? Dialectics of Colonialism and African Political Consciousness in the Matabeleland Region of Zimbabwe

The question of how Europe ruled Africa relates to the crucial issues of settlernative identity as constructions of colonialism as well as political consciousness formation and development among the colonized as well as the colonizers. Because colonialism operated ambiguously throughout its life to the extent of hiding its adverse contours of epistemological and mental invasion that have come to haunt during the post-colonial era, it deserve to be subjected to systematic theorization and historicization. This article deploys various conceptual tools culled from post-colonial theories to delve deeper into the dialectics and ontology of colonial governance in Zimbabwe and it simultaneously historicize the phenomenon of colonial governance on the basis of how white Rhodesians inscribed themselves in Matabeleland in the early twentieth century. It also systematically interrogates the development of Ndebele political consciousness under the alienating influences of settler colonialism up to the mid-twentieth century. The article contributes to the broader debates on colonial encounters and colonial governance that have left an indelible mark on ex-colonies across the world. Colonialism was not just a footnote in African history. It had long term pervasive impact of altering everyone and everything that it found in Africa.LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 5 2008: pp. 85-102

The Rhetoric of Sir Garfield Todd: Christian Imagination and the Dream of an African Democracy (review)

Reviewed by: The Rhetoric of Sir Garfield Todd: Christian Imagination and the Dream of an African Democracy Jairos Kangira The Rhetoric of Sir Garfield Todd: Christian Imagination and the Dream of an African Democracy. By Michael W. Casey. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007; pp xii + 389. $49.95 cloth. Michael Casey's latest book, The Rhetoric of Sir Garfield Todd: Christian Imagination and the Dream of an African Democracy, is a timely publication. It has come out at a time when Zimbabwe, called Southern Rhodesia or simply Rhodesia before the attainment of independence in 1980, is reeling in a political and economic crisis mainly due to the undemocratic principles of the ruling regime. Thus the current situation is more or less the same as the one Sir Garfield Todd's prophetic rhetoric so fiercely attacked when he became a radical advocate of African democracy. Juxtaposing Todd's heroic fight for African rights through his rhetoric and actions with the current situation in Zimbabwe, one can come to the conclusion that surely history repeats itself, with the main difference between the two epochs being the dramatis personae in the violation of human rights. One also gets the feeling that had whites swallowed their pride and given majority rule to Africans at an earlier stage as Todd advocated, the civil war that claimed thousands of lives in Rhodesia could have been avoided. In this book, Casey explores the legacy of Alexander Campbell's teachings to Todd's oratory. The Campbellian tradition was grounded upon beliefs that included "the priesthood of all believers, the right of an individual to think for oneself, the importance of education and reason, and the impulse to reform society or the spreading of liberty and liberation across all society" (16). We see Todd's ethos as growing out of the democratic rhetorical tradition of the Disciples of Christ, thus as providing an example of "how religion can serve as a basis for political rhetoric" (121). Casey also corrects the view that Todd's democratic ethos was grounded in the British liberal political tradition. The author provides undisputed evidence that plainly shows that Todd's democratic ethos emanated from his religious heritage within the Churches of Christ. The author also illustrates how early training in public speaking established the foundation of Todd's future oratorical success as both preacher and politician. Casey does not shower Todd with praises for being the champion of the African cause throughout the book. The writer identifies Todd as a limited democrat who "did not want universal franchise in the 1940s and 1950s, believing that it would lead to universal chaos" (49). But the reader's disillusionment at this realization changes as Casey traces Todd's gradual transformation into a radical fighter for democracy, leading to the chagrin of the white Rhodesians who felt betrayed by Todd's actions and his rhetoric. We see a Todd whose "rhetorical trajectory . . . naturally led him away from paternalism as Africans saw him as a Moses and a Savior who was crucified by whites on a cross of racism" (40). Sowing the seeds of [End Page 350] African nationalism was unacceptable to the whites who believed in segregationist policies, denying the Africans basic rights in their native land. This led to the whites' ouster of Todd as prime minister, making him a sacrificial lamb in their quest to perpetuate white supremacy in Southern Rhodesia. Casey expertly documents Todd's spellbinding oratory. As a preacher of democratic values, Todd condemned the discriminatory laws of the white government by attacking them as anachronistic. We are shown Todd's radical democratic ethos through his sermon texts, political speeches, and prophetic speeches. For instance, after becoming the first missionary prime minister, Todd "cultivated a rhetorical premiership paralleling the American rhetorical presidency and an eloquence paralleling American presidential rhetoric" (118). As a preacher, former MP, and prime minister, Todd's prophetic rhetoric about the situation in Rhodesia was so compelling that, in 1962 and 1964, the UN Committee on Colonialism supported Todd's proposal "to give majority rule to Southern Rhodesian Africans and to restrain the white extremists" (82). Such addresses in local and international venues attracted the wrath of Ian Smith...

The Impact of Anti-communism on White Rhodesian Political Culture, ca.1920s–1980

Anti-communism has often been seen as a marginal aspect of white Rhodesian political ideology, designed to manipulate eccentric metropolitan and American opinion. However, it was neither shallow nor peripheral, but integral to it and essential to an understanding of the politics and ideological resilience of White Rhodesia in its closing decades. Many white Rhodesians regarded African disaffection as externally fomented and international, so that there appeared to be no need to address any grievances. The Cold War crucially sealed Rhodesia's political fate, since the successful encouragement of anti-communist sentiment made it difficult for a Rhodesian government to advocate compromise of any kind.

Military Hierarchy, Race and Ethnicity in the German East Africa Campaign: The Case of the Rhodesia Native Regiment (1916-1918)

Historically,military hierarchy is often informed by a number of factors that originate from abroader social context. In the colonial society of early twentieth century Africa, race and ethnicity represented defining factors in shaping military hierarchy and culture. However, when commanders and soldiers were faced with the tensions and hardships of actual warfare, other issues such as merit could arise and become important in determining authority. The Rhodesia Native Regiment's participation in the German East Africa campaign of the First World War illustrates how racial and ethnic stereotypes could be challenged by the experience of armed conflict.However, it also shows that since colonial society was seen at the time as essentially permanent, the temporary impact ofwartime urgency could not seriously challenge its influence. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914,Southern Rhodesia's small white settler population of just 30,000was eager to participate in the conflict. They were extremely patriotic toward Britain but also saw wartime military service as a way to earn self-government and nationhood in the future. Many white Rhodesian men, frustrated by the delay in forming local units, rushed off to Britain to enlist there or to rejoin their old regiments. Elements of the British South Africa Police, the permanent security force of the colon)!,took part in engagements in German South WestAfrica and EastAfrica in the early days of the conflict. Eventually, two battalions of white soldiers were formed to fight in the war's African campaigns. In 1915, the First Rhodesia Regiment helped subdue rebellious Afrikaners in South Africa, participated in the invasion of German South WestAfrica and was disbanded within a year. Later in 1915,the Second Rhodesia Regiment was formed and fought in the gruelling bush war of the German EastAfrica campaign. In 1914,officialsof the Native Affairs Department had informed the African majority that this was a 'white man's war' and they would not be involved. Memories of African resistance to colonial conquest in the 1890swere still strong and local white administrators and settlers were afraid that the war would encourage rebellion. Also, if wartime sacrifice was meant to earn whites future political rights in a colonial context then similar service by Africans would not be appropriate. However, these concerns were overshadowed by the fact that the whites ofSouthern Rhodesia, despite the highest enlistment rate in the empire, quickly began to run out of manpower. In 1917 the Second Rhodesia Regiment had to be pulled from the field and demobilised as there were not enough replacements for the many men lost to tropical disease. The idea of forming the

Imperial Rhodesians: The 1953 Rhodes Centenary Exhibition in Southern Rhodesia

Reviewing the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition (RCE) of 1953, this article focuses on three interrelated themes in post-war Southern Rhodesia. First, significant post-war immigration challenged the state to educate new white Rhodesians on the founding myths of the colony, especially that of Cecil John Rhodes. Secondly, Southern Rhodesians were anxious to emphasise their status as British subjects in contrast to Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa. And finally, a rising and vocal black middle class challenged the state to adjust its national narrative to include blacks in the social process. The RCE spoke to all of these concerns by highlighting Rhodes and the British Royal family as central to a Southern Rhodesian identity that all races could share. Importantly, the black middle class had long embraced Rhodes's notion of ‘equal rights for all civilised men’ as their entryway into colonial society. At the RCE itself, the ‘African Village’ showcased African achievement in the arts as a noble contribution to the country. Taken together, the RCE's emphasis on Rhodes and royalty, as well as the focus on African contributions to culture, marked Southern Rhodesia as distinct from apartheid South Africa.

Manipulating the Market: Understanding Economic Sanctions, Institutional Change and the Political Unity of White Rhodesia. By David M. Rowe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 256p. $52.50.

One of the big questions concerning economic sanctions is why they so often fail. A widely accepted answer to this question argues that economic sanctions increase the political solidarity within the target nation because the targeted public rallies behind its leader in the face of external pressure (Johann Galtung, “On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions, with Examples from the Case of Rhodesia,” World Politics 19 [1967]: 378–416). David M. Rowe calls this explanation into question and shows that the unity behind the white regime in Rhodesia was politically constructed by the government and not a spontaneous rally effect generated by nationalism or racial unity.