Yes I'm aware of the actual history, which is why I'm bringing up an alternative.
Africa Why the West Betrayed Rhodesia
- Thread starter Captain X
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Yes I'm aware of the actual history, which is why I'm bringing up an alternative.
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
Pretty much.
If I remember correctly Mugabe was accepted because he was pro-Chicom but no pro-Soviet commie. Which, if you ask me, is like choosing to get punched or kicked. Still hurts.
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
Just democratize. That will take the wind out of Mugabe's sails.
They did it in South Africa.And state now is on road to become second Zimbwabwe.
Yep.
Thing is, the Black majority in South Africa voted for all this... And the pro-Black anti-White government is now giving farmland, equipment, and property away to people who literally used to just sit on their arses, just because they're X Tribe or Y Tribe. They don't know how to farm, use the land, or maintain infrastructure, and we're seeing the destruction of the country in real-time.
This isn't even going onto the widespread racism against Whites going on now, which include murders mind, now that "Blacky has the upper-handy".
Give it another ten, fifteen years, and South Africa will be another Third-World shithole begging for handouts from the West and Asia, ironically filled with the types of people they murdered, persecuted, and forced away.
A thought that has come to mind recently, is that Rhodesia didn’t seem to understand what it was.
Looking at its demography and how it was spread across the country, how power was centralised in the core white regions, etc, it strikes me that this wasn’t a nation state: it was an empire.
And as an empire trying to be a nation state it damned itself.
You can give political redress to imperial subjects, but not the vote to disenfranchised and abused “children” whom you know you’ve engendered such bad blood with that if they get a taste of power they may use it against you.
Looking at its demography and how it was spread across the country, how power was centralised in the core white regions, etc, it strikes me that this wasn’t a nation state: it was an empire.
And as an empire trying to be a nation state it damned itself.
You can give political redress to imperial subjects, but not the vote to disenfranchised and abused “children” whom you know you’ve engendered such bad blood with that if they get a taste of power they may use it against you.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
My view is that while Rhodesia was a product of imperialism, it wasn't an empire unto itself. For starters, empires move wealth from the periphery to the core. Rhodesia was bringing in wealth (investments) to actualise the much greater potential wealth (resources) of a completely undeveloped outer periphery-- thereby vastly increasing the wealth of the inhabitants (native and settler alike). This is the nature of a moderate settler colony; a marcher state.
The identity crisis was very much there, but not in Rhodisia. It was the British Empire that suffered an identity crisis, brought on by internal causes (leftist bullshit) and external ones (two devastating world wars). Britain suffered (to use Toynbee's phrasing) "a loss of nerve". And that's when national empires go down.
Britain misunderstood what Rhodesia was. The West as a whole misunderstood. Warped by leftism and weakened by war... and moreover confronted with the horrors of Germany's own brand of "colonialism"... a whole generation came to the mistaken belief that all colonialism is inherently evil and purely exploitative. The West was consumed by misplaced guilt. The native youth from the colonies, inflamed by leftism, and having been called on during the wars, demanded independence and forgot how much the Europeans had actually done for them. (NB -- when you read pro-independence tracts from the colonies, you will immediately note that it's not the voice of any native populace that you hear, but that of left-wing academics from Europe. Practically all "independence leaders" were educated in Paris etc. ...on the dime of the "evil" Europeans, by the way!)
The fact is: you can give vote to the natives, and -- as has been stated before -- Rhodesia was doing this. But gradually. The idea was to educate the (initially LITERALLY stone age) natives, and slowly expand the franchise to those who had been civilised. This was going to take generations, but it was going to work. It's pretty much how any empire conveys citizenship to the frontier vassals. It's what the British Empire should have grasped, but (due to the reasons outlined) failed to understand here.
In conclusion, the basic assumption of "abused" children "engendered with bad blood" is just a false one. And sure... not always false, or not entirely: there must surely have been transgressions and abuses and mistakes... humans being human... but ultimately, my dear @Lord Sovereign, your thesis here is still based on that incorrect leftist reading of how things supposedly were. But that's not how things really were. Colonialism was, by and large, fine. Leftism was the poison. For "us" and for "them" alike. It spun its tale of oppressors and oppressed, it categorised humans into mutually hostile groups, it fostered dissent and resentment and misguided guilt, and then -- as so often in the last century -- the world fell for the scam.
Rhodesia died for it. It died for a falsehood.
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
Oh God, that one again?
That's why the US rejected the idea. Even back then, Americans knew that nobody ever conquers and subjugates others "for their own good". Not even a single person ever tried to hide that it was all about money.
Especially not the many, many "Trading Companies" that pioneered imperialism. Imagine some EIC official trying to tell an increasingly unamused investor that they're doing this "for the good of the natives"!
.......Once you're done laughing, on to the next point:
...wait, why go that far? After all, Ireland was also a colonial subject. The very first, actually. And I'd love to see someone on this site tell an Irishman to be grateful to the British.
If (and only if) they manage to do that and survive, next point:
More to the point, I'm sure you can think of a reason for why people that think overthrowing tyrants in the name of liberty would be educated in Paris. And why people that think liberal democracy is great would be educated in London.
Can you think of any?
Rhodesia died because it couldn't fight to save it's own life. Simple as that. And I have no sympathy for sore losers.
Vae Victis
Yes, because that's how it was sold to them by the pro-imperialists. Not even a single colonizer ever pretended they were there for charity. It was always some trade dispute, blind oppurtunism, prestige projects (especially with Japan and Germany), or just not wanting the other European power to have it.
That's why the US rejected the idea. Even back then, Americans knew that nobody ever conquers and subjugates others "for their own good". Not even a single person ever tried to hide that it was all about money.
Especially not the many, many "Trading Companies" that pioneered imperialism. Imagine some EIC official trying to tell an increasingly unamused investor that they're doing this "for the good of the natives"!
.......Once you're done laughing, on to the next point:
Imagine telling striking African laborers that they should be grateful for being badly paid and badly treated because of how much the Europeans have done for them.
...wait, why go that far? After all, Ireland was also a colonial subject. The very first, actually. And I'd love to see someone on this site tell an Irishman to be grateful to the British.
If (and only if) they manage to do that and survive, next point:
Pictured: Skallagrim being surprised that literati are writing literature, not famished and uneducated workers.
Their parents would be surprised to hear that was an option. /s
More to the point, I'm sure you can think of a reason for why people that think overthrowing tyrants in the name of liberty would be educated in Paris. And why people that think liberal democracy is great would be educated in London.
Can you think of any?
So do you, quite loudly at that.
Rhodesia died because it couldn't fight to save it's own life. Simple as that. And I have no sympathy for sore losers.
Vae Victis
Maybe Skallgrim should thank the Arabs coming to the Netherlands to collonize and "enrich" his home.lol
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
He never will. As you may have noticed, he's not debating from a rational perspective.
As far as I'm concerned, losers don't get to complain. The only imperialists a rational person can side with are the ones that won. Rhodesia is obviously not one of them.
You are trying to steal the "mission civilisatrice" argument from the French but due to reality of the situation it's a laughably inept application of it.
If Muslim migrants had technology straight out of Starcraft or Battletech and an insanely prosperous society built on it, you could make an argument for it. I think there are even some sci-fi shows and books based on similar concept with aliens.
But it's the other way around in reality in terms of "development level" of civilizations.
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
That just changes the details of the defeat, not the fact. I'm sure the Jihadists will have their own narratives over how their faith and virtue overcame the technological advantage of the infidel West.
Win first, and write about how you deserved to win later. Whether it's technology or faith.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Vatnik
As solil already said they can say that if they win their culture will improve the condition of the European natives. Western society would be free of wokeism, lgbt craziness would be gone. So would feminism western men could have good wives again. The birth rate will even improve saving white westerners from extinction.
Improving a people doesn’t just have to be tech. Making them have a less self destructive culture also helps. Just like Indian sati being stopped was the British empires best service to India not the railroads or anything else.
Obviously the Muslims are being self serving when they spread their religion any benefit to others is incidental and not the true motivation just like Europeans colonialism.
Reading your festival of lies always brightens my day, keep up the good work.
What did he say that’s false? Colonialism was motivated by profit, you and past Europeans don’t actually care about other races unless they benefit you. Otherwise you would be campaigning to go to poor shitholes to spread your way of life to even those that don’t benefit you places like the uncontacted sentineliese where there are no worthwhile resources for us to exploit and there are too few people who are literal stone age so they can’t even be a captive market for our economy.
North Korea also says with absolute confidence that the Dear Leader's glorious leadership most certainly improved the condition of North Koreans.
Is that true? They can delude themselves as much as they want, but that has no bearing on the reality that his leadership sucks dog balls.
So it's an argument only an absolute NPC would give any value to.
Nuclear fire would get rid of all that *and* also islamist retardation, but that doesn't make it a good thing either.
This is islamophilic version of "antifascist" logic, who want to fight "fascism" real or imagined, by themselves being something that's no better at all, if not worse.
If their wives are so great, why do so many of them come to Europe without any? Why aren't rich westerners and easterners buying them either (even though it's a thing there)?
If Muslims want to play authority on fixing birth rates, they can show us their example in Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
Fuck off with the islamophilic retardation, we have enough of that from leftists, read some facts instead.
For it to be a remotely objective argument it has to be pretty much, the rest is prone to boil down to cultural disagreements.
It also goes back around, if your culture is so great, why can't it make better tech than the culture you claim is worse?
Then it's not even the same "people" anymore, and a different culture.
"We destroyed their culture so that they have a less self destructive culture - ours".
That's just retarded troll logic.
Excuse moi, if we want a new culture we will make one ourselves, fuck off back to Arabia.
I think as far as India is concerned the rail is helping their economy much more.
Yet the latter incidentally advanced whole regions to industrial age, when many didn't get there even until now, while for Muslims you have to stick with troll logic, downright fiction and islamist self-backpats.
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Circle of Willis
Well-known member
I don't know how anyone can possibly argue that Zimbabwe is better than Rhodesia or that Mugabe was better than Ian Smith with a straight face. Setting aside how much worse off Zimbabwe is compared to Rhodesia in basically every measurement of living standards down to the most basic one (food security or lack thereof, as has been memed to death, like many a starving Zimbabwean), almost immediately after winning, Mugabe embarked on a genocide of the Ndebele & Kalanga peoples who supported the rival ZAPU faction (which had also opposed the Rhodesian gov't but was more ethnically diverse than Mugabe's own ZANU, a primarily Shona-based and increasingly obviously Shona-supremacist group). In just four years Mugabe managed to kill 20-40,000 people, mostly civilians who were just unfortunate enough to have been born to the wrong tribe, while the entire Bush War saw a maximum of 20,000 casualties (black and white both) over 15 years and slightly more than half of those were combatants (of said combatants, the ratio was a lopsided 10:1 in favor of the Rhodesian military).
There's literally no reason whatsoever that one should consider the Rhodesians worse than the Zimbabweans who toppled them. Even in racism they were objectively far outdone by Mugabe and his horde of all-destroying thugs, Smith never stooped to actively genociding his enemies despite arguably having a far better reason to do so than Mugabe (the Rhodesian whites, as a minority, would have benefited more from engaging in 'population reduction' of the blacks - regardless of tribe - than the Shona did from genociding the Ndebele, as the Shona already comprised a supermajority of Rhodesia's population). Rhodesia didn't have apartheid (its restrictions on black political life were milder than those of South Africa) but even if they had it still would've been better than pulling a proto-Rwanda on rival ethnicities as Mugabe and ZANU did.
The worst thing about the whole debacle, I'd say, is that there really was a middle road within reach that would have tamped down on the worst aspects of the old Rhodesian state; significantly expanded black political power; and empowered moderate figures in the black movements while marginalizing the likes of Mugabe. Said moderates, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa (basically Rhodesia/Zimbabwe's Wish.com Desmond Tutu), had negotiated the 'Internal Settlement' with Smith's government to turn Rhodesia into Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and hold elections with an expanded black franchise that were considered free & fair by neutral outside observers, which Muzorewa won. Unfortunately that wasn't good enough for the UN and Afrocentrist leaders in the old British Empire like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, who insisted on absolute majority rule with no stake whatsoever for the old white elite and no constraints on the militant ZANU & ZAPU; Carter, braindead dove on foreign policy that he was, was of course on board with their demands and Thatcher in turn proved in this case to be less of an iron lady & more of a jellyfish, to catastrophic consequences for Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and even one half of the guys who had rejected the Settlement's terms (the aforementioned ZAPU).
It must be understood that in the context of Rhodesian/Zimbabwean politics, 'majority rule' was going to translate to 'tyranny of the majority' and the massacre or expulsion of everyone in the way of said (Shona) majority. Mugabe made that inevitable and it's not at all likely that getting rid of him was going to also translate into getting rid of that Shona-supremacist majoritarianism at the heart of ZANU (it didn't even now BTW, Emmerson 'the Crocodile' Mnangagwa has just been treading water instead of meaningfully improving anything ever since he got rid of Mugabe, though he did also at least do the country a solid by preventing Mugabe's even worse wife Grace from taking over and shitting the place up further still). The Internal Settlement was the best realistic path forward for Zimbabwe and it's a crying shame that it was stillborn, as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia could have had the best of both worlds: a black government with white advisors who could have kept the infrastructure & farms going and actually wound down the race war instead of further escalating it into driving the white Rhodesians out of the country and decimating non-Shona black peoples, thus avoiding the famine & genocide Mugabe's reign of terror was best known for.
There's literally no reason whatsoever that one should consider the Rhodesians worse than the Zimbabweans who toppled them. Even in racism they were objectively far outdone by Mugabe and his horde of all-destroying thugs, Smith never stooped to actively genociding his enemies despite arguably having a far better reason to do so than Mugabe (the Rhodesian whites, as a minority, would have benefited more from engaging in 'population reduction' of the blacks - regardless of tribe - than the Shona did from genociding the Ndebele, as the Shona already comprised a supermajority of Rhodesia's population). Rhodesia didn't have apartheid (its restrictions on black political life were milder than those of South Africa) but even if they had it still would've been better than pulling a proto-Rwanda on rival ethnicities as Mugabe and ZANU did.
The worst thing about the whole debacle, I'd say, is that there really was a middle road within reach that would have tamped down on the worst aspects of the old Rhodesian state; significantly expanded black political power; and empowered moderate figures in the black movements while marginalizing the likes of Mugabe. Said moderates, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa (basically Rhodesia/Zimbabwe's Wish.com Desmond Tutu), had negotiated the 'Internal Settlement' with Smith's government to turn Rhodesia into Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and hold elections with an expanded black franchise that were considered free & fair by neutral outside observers, which Muzorewa won. Unfortunately that wasn't good enough for the UN and Afrocentrist leaders in the old British Empire like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, who insisted on absolute majority rule with no stake whatsoever for the old white elite and no constraints on the militant ZANU & ZAPU; Carter, braindead dove on foreign policy that he was, was of course on board with their demands and Thatcher in turn proved in this case to be less of an iron lady & more of a jellyfish, to catastrophic consequences for Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and even one half of the guys who had rejected the Settlement's terms (the aforementioned ZAPU).
It must be understood that in the context of Rhodesian/Zimbabwean politics, 'majority rule' was going to translate to 'tyranny of the majority' and the massacre or expulsion of everyone in the way of said (Shona) majority. Mugabe made that inevitable and it's not at all likely that getting rid of him was going to also translate into getting rid of that Shona-supremacist majoritarianism at the heart of ZANU (it didn't even now BTW, Emmerson 'the Crocodile' Mnangagwa has just been treading water instead of meaningfully improving anything ever since he got rid of Mugabe, though he did also at least do the country a solid by preventing Mugabe's even worse wife Grace from taking over and shitting the place up further still). The Internal Settlement was the best realistic path forward for Zimbabwe and it's a crying shame that it was stillborn, as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia could have had the best of both worlds: a black government with white advisors who could have kept the infrastructure & farms going and actually wound down the race war instead of further escalating it into driving the white Rhodesians out of the country and decimating non-Shona black peoples, thus avoiding the famine & genocide Mugabe's reign of terror was best known for.
Plz don’t strawman. Where did ANYONE say that Zimbabwe was better than Rhodesia? Me and solid were calling out skallgrims dumb arguments about how the European colonists did not do anything to oppress the natives and were only interested in the benefit of the natives.
No the colonists were interested in their own benefit any benefit the natives had was incidental. Even sending the natives to schools or universities was for them to study and be more effective middle managers.
People here don’t want to hear the truth you can have a stable empire, but here is the thing you have to actually be able to assimilate your conquered people and have them be equals with no distinction. Independence movements were done by educated natives like Gandhi and others because they saw that they would still be second class due to racism, so they could not rise up and become part of the upper class of the empire. That is the flaw and weakness of European colonial powers that difference prevents them from copying the Roman model.
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
My own position remains that both of them were idiots, and I can't spare any respect for either of them. Ian Smith was a vainglorious fool who picked a war he never had a chance in, and Mugabe was a low IQ psychopath.
one resulted in far more suffering both intentional and unintentional. the other was working to slowly gradually bring up the natives to the point where they could function in a modern society. there is a clear difference.
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
Not to me. They both failed and lost because of their own stupidity. That's all there is to it.